The Power of NonViolence

I advocate and teach nonviolence in parenting.  Sr Rosalia Yeo, FDCC, shared a very powerful true story of Dr Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi on the power of nonviolence in parenting in the NVC workshop I attended in 2014.  I encourage you to take some time to read and reflect upon this story between Dr Arun Gandhi and his father. 
 ~  Elizabeth Rutten-Ng,

"Dr Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in his June 9 lecture at the University of Puerto Rico, shared the following story:

I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations.  We were deep in the country and had no neighbours, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for all-day conferences, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father asked me to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced. When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, "I will meet you here at 5:00 p.m, and we will go home together."

After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre.  I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered.  By the time I ran to the garage and got the care and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00.

He anxiously asked me, "Why were you late?"

I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne western movie that I said, "The car wasn't ready, so I had to wait," not realising that he has already called the garage.  When he caught me in the lie, he said, "There's something wrong in the way I brought you up that didn't give you the confidence to tell me the truth.  In order to figure out whee I went wrong with you, I'm going to talk home 18 miles and think about it."

So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads. I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a half hours I drove behind him watching my father go through this agony of a stupid lie that I uttered.  I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again. I often think about the episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all.  I don't think so.  I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the same thing. But this single nonviolent action was so powerful that it is still as if it happened yesterday. 

That is the power of nonviolence."

Embodied Parenting

Supported by numerous photos from her work with parents and infants all over the world, Dr. Tortora explains the concept of "embodied parenting." Drawing from interpersonal neurobiology and dance/movement therapy, she shares why attuned nonverbal communication between parent and child is crucial to infant mental health and how dancing is needed in this world now more than ever.  ~ ADTA

Alternative ways or solutions: Aware Baby, DMT & KMP

Taken from Aware Baby, Aletha Solter, story on how to meet the needs of the child as well as mother.

'As a toddler, my son would sometimes tug at my legs when I was trying to cook dinner, He wanted me to carry him, and was perfectly happy when I did so, but it was impossible for me to cook dinner while holding him. What did he really need? To be near me and to see what I was doing. What were my needs? To be able to cook dinner, Solution: I pulled a chair over to the counter where I was working, and let him to stand on it. He was near me and was able to watch me, yet I was able to get my cooking done. We were both happy with that arrangement.'

I've involved my godson and his sister in cooking and they were eager, excited and more than willing to participate and cook with clear boundaries and structure. Another time, a friend and I were making salad and involved our friends' two sons. They enjoyed every bit and very cooperative. I enjoyed too cooking with the children and they are age 3 , 5 and 7 and 9.

Sometimes, when we are occupied in completing a task or wanting to get something done quickly, we can be overwhelmed by our own feelings of the urgency to get the things done. It doesn't help when we have a child who needs our undivided attention. It is good to take a step back and see if we can find an alternative way or solutions to meet both needs. Above is a good example. Instead of punishment or rewards, but meet both ways in between.

In dance/movement therapy, the intervention comes in to give the child an alternative way. A case on a child's aggression: A child began pulling another child's hair. What will you do? Are we going to punish the child or to give the child another alternative way to help to channel aggression into a similar, but more acceptable, form of movement quality? Aggressive movement qualities are seen as part of normal progression of movement phases and are not prohibited (Loman, 1992).

Intervention: Taken from an article by Susan Loman

'Father told the child to stop pulling but intervention not effective, child still continued to do so. In response, the father continually shadowed his son, and the atmosphere in the group became tense.

Leader gave the children a large box of tissue paper into the room and encouraged children to explore it. The children squeezed it into balls, put it on their heads, tore it, and threw it. At first, the hair-pulling boy was delicate with the tissue paper, but after seeing what the other children were doing, he began to experiment. He especially enjoyed an interaction with the group leader which involved a 'tug of war' with the tissue paper that used the same movement pattern as hair pulling. A little later in the session, when the boy again attempted to pull the younger child's hair, the leader intervened immediately, offering him the tissue paper and saying, "We can't pull the children's hair, but we can pull the tissue paper." The boy was provide with tissue paper after each attempt at hair-pulling. By next week, he had completely stopped pulling the younger child's hair.' (Loman, 1992)

This is to help the boy to release his aggression and it takes time to intervene as well as for the boy to understand that pulling someone's hair hurts.

My encounter:

A little girl was crying frantically one day when she came into the centre with her mother after I came out of my session. The owner of the centre carried her and tried to comfort her but she just kept crying. Later, she passed her to me as she needed to attend to the mother who came by to purchase some baby products. I sensed the baby was very upset and kept crying for her mummy. Her mummy didn't know what to do and I heard that the baby had always been crying and it had been a regular episode. While the mother was looking at the products for her baby, I took care of her baby.

I sensed that the baby needed to cry and also to express herself. I just used very gentle swaying rhythm (KMP), supported her by holding her close to my body as I stayed grounded. I gave her the space to cry and express herself. I acknowledged by whispering into her ears that I was listening, I heard her and I understood. I reflected back with my words in a calm and low tone of voice and letting her express her feelings through crying. It came to a point, she actually started to communicate with me. I could hear the change of the cries into a talk as she talked to me about her feelings in sobs. I continued to acknowledge her. After for about 15 to 20 min, she stopped crying and had expressed what she wanted to say, she became so alert and happy. She began to look for her mother with a smile. Her mother was completely amazed that she actually stopped crying and smiled. This was an encounter with the baby whom I had never met. I followed her cues and attuned at that point of time to her needs and it worked. She did not speak a single word yet as she was a very young infant perhaps 6 months or less. It would be great if I had it captured in the video how I had intervened and you get an idea of it.

*This is not the first time I have observed that it worked. Understanding and reading baby's cues and needs can help a parent how to meet baby's needs as well as yours.*

Interested in understanding the developmental movements based on Kestenberg Movement Profile (KMP), check our website Embodied Movement for 'Moving The Rhythm' workshops. Read our participants' sharings who have done the workshops.

Introduction to Sharing Dance with your Child 2010

On Children

No two children are ever the same.

What works for one may not work for another.

Children came from different homes.

Children may come from different cultures.

Children have been raised differently.

Some children are more sensitive than others.

Some children are braver than others.

Some children have things going on in their lives that you will never know about.

 ~ This is shared by a teacher in my school from her many years of experiences in teaching in many countries.

What Children Know (Understand)

Children know laughter
They know tears
Children know peace
They know chaos
Children know acceptance
They know rejection
Children know joy
They know pain
Children know abundance
They know lack
Children know health
They know illness
Children know fulfilment
They know emptiness
Children know hope
They know dismay
Children know love
They know hatred
What they don’t know is WHY!

~ Namie Elisha

Understanding Toddler at 2

"NO!"

(With given permission from parent to share about the parent and child sessions and photo of child. It is not a therapy but a private session where observation and facilitation took place with the parent and child.)


Each year I returned to Singapore, I facilitated mother and toddler private sessions. The toddler has turned 2 and she is in the developmental phase of saying, ‘No’.


Before I shared some aspects of what took place in the sessions, I would like to address about toddlers at 2.


Often than not, I would always hear the two words, ‘Terrible Two’. And many times it carries the negative connotation of the toddler as being ‘naughty’, ‘disobedient’, ‘not listening', 'stubborn'… I clearly understand that parents having to go through this period of time, is not an easy time at all, but by 'labelling' the child as 'Terrible Two', would it actually help in establishing the parent-child relationship? Won’t the labelling bring about more tension between parent and child rather than improving the situation? Or is it going to be the beginning of this tug-of-war going on between parent and child?


Toddler coming to the age of 2 or even earlier would start to exert the word, ‘No’. In the Kestenberg movement profile, snapping and biting phase, the infant is beginning to learn to separate from his/her main caregiver, usually the parents. It is also the stage where he/she is going through the teething phase. This takes place much earlier and it is not a nice time for the infant as well as for the parents. Next come the phase where the toddler is seeking one’s self-identity, setting boundary and learning to exercise assertiveness by saying or practising the word, ‘No’. It is an important phase for the toddler to go through by finding their own ability to exert assertiveness, setting boundary, finding their own identity and develop their core centre and self.


If there is an extreme interference by not allowing the toddler to do so, in adulthood, they may not be able to exercise them, needless to say, to understand boundary, assertiveness, and to be able to set limits and boundary in life and not to be ‘lured’ by peer pressure into doing something they do not like. It is understood that parents may feel a sense of rejection from their child when they say, ‘No’. The real fact is the toddler is not attacking a parent personally but trying to seek meaning and understand the world through their senses and at the same time making senses of themselves and the world around them.


I hope in sharing the encounter that I have with the toddler will help parents-to-be and parents who are having young toddlers to have a better insight to the world of the toddlers and in aid of parenthood.


Here is the scenario.
I use T. for toddler, M. for mother


First session


T. has grown up a lot since the last time I saw her. She could not recognise me. Immediately, she showed me her displeasure as a sign of I was someone whom she did not know personally. I gave some space in between as I entered the room and had a conversation with M. At the same time, I observed T, making eye-contact with her. M. introduced me and she would strongly say, ‘No’ (a few times) as saying, “I don’t know you and I’m not ready to accept you, stay away from me.’ I didn’t attempt to go near her but let her be where she was and accepted her ‘No’ to me that she was not ready to let me into her ‘circle’ as yet. T. began her play in her room while M and I would observe. At one point, M. went to pick up a toy for her in another room. I chose at this point of time to move a little nearer to her but at a distance. She immediately would say a loud ‘No’ again with her feet hitting the floor, sitting down, to assert her ‘No’ a few times. I then imitated her actions and mirrored her repeating her ‘No’ at a distance. I repeated them a couple of times as she continued. She looked at me, making eye contacts and her body immediately relaxed as we ‘played’ this game of stamping feet and ‘No’. She softened her body and broke into a smile. It is a sign that she was accepting me and acknowledged my presence to be in the room with her. I let her take the lead to approach me in her own time. In split second, she came towards me (very near) and smiled. Since then, I was given the permission to join M. and T. in the exploration of play.


Note: I won’t go into the details of the whole session as my main focus is to show the intervention of interacting with a toddler at 2.

Second session


T. was still sleeping and awoke after a while I was there. I was having a conversation with M. She came out of her room, woken up and needed some time to orientate herself to awake state. T. was still in a state of what was going on. The evident of her mood was not a happy one and again she would exert her ‘No’ even with more assertiveness. The question is, ‘Do we force the child to immediately have the session?’ Or ‘Do we wait till she is ready on her own to begin?’ Being a therapist, my way of working is to follow the child’s cue and not to force them to do what they do not want to do. What if we do? Naturally, the child will put up a fight and the tension would be amounted and escalated. In fact, M. asked me and I gently asked her in the form of question what would she do about it? (as a form of intervention with M. and T.)


We let T. to settle down and let her be until she was ready. Interestingly, she had her milk and soon enough, she regained her disposition and ready to cooperate without any fuss and with a smile. It didn’t take very long in fact. All we did was let her be, let her decide and all we did was be with her, observing her and picking up her cues. 

Note:  Boundary and structure is important and when to attune and clash depends on the situation and the nature of the moment. What is shared is pertaining to the nature of the process itself.  Normally it is worked on case to case basis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One thing I would very much like to share what struck me in moving with T. and observing her movement. I can feel and sense T.’s core-self and confidence. So far that I have observed children, I have not felt such a core-centre in a toddler of 2. She is grounded and has a core-centre in her body. To be able to feel a toddler with a core-centre in her body and movement is such a wonder to be felt in my body. It is such a beautiful moment and experience I would never forget. I would like to applaud M. for trusting herself, moving in the flow with T. in her developmental phases and reading her cues.

Attuning To Body & Baby Using Dance/Movement Approaches

"I can feel my baby kicking!" "He is pressing against my belly!" "She is moving at this side of my belly now." When a mother starts to feel her baby's movement in the womb, it is like a magical feeling, to feel and sense the little miracle within. Probably she can't wait to see, carry, feel, hug and communicate with her baby physically. Is it possible to interact with her baby when he/she is still in her womb? With Dance Movement approaches and Fetal Notation using Kestenberg Movement Profile (KMP), a mother is able to experience and learn how to attune to her unborn baby and learn to listen to the changes in her body and prepare for the delivery and coming of her baby.

Every pregnant mother will feel the changes of her body undergoes the moment the embryo is implanted in the womb. One mother's experience differs from another. The growth of the fetus in each trimester brings about not just changes, but the wonder of the day the fetus beginning his/her first movement in the home of the womb. A new phase, a new life, a new experience. A new mother or an experienced mother, usually carries the feelings of joy, excitement, probably some fears and even anxiety. Each pregnancy is often different and unique as each mother and her unborn baby is special.

In Dance Movement approach, mother will move and learn how to listen and attune to her body and her unborn baby in her own space and time with herself and the baby within her. It can be in the form of dance with music where she will dance with her unborn baby or just being still with him/her. Her feelings, sensation and visualization can also be done in drawing and in her journal. The focus and theme often begin with what is the needed for the mother where every mother in the group will share their feelings, encounters and experiences and usually express them in movement.

Mother is also taught the 10 rhythms from KMP and to move in the rhythms. The rhythms are founded by Judith Kestenberg based on the development phase of the baby. Mother will also learn the KMP massage where it will help her to proceed into fetal notation. In fetal notation, she will notate the movement of her baby in her womb and she also learns how to attune and communicate with her hands in return. In this way of attuning, the communication between mother and child has already begun. The continuity of the attunement will follow through in birth and after.

In addition, mother learns how to pay attention and listen to the changes in her body and how to soothe the discomfort such as tension and strain by breathing and doing exercises using lengthening, widening and bulging. These help her to ease the tension and strain which may result as the gestation moves into the later phases.

Isn't it a wonder to be able to communicate with your little ones even in the womb and begin the journey the moment you know you are expecting? To listen and attune not only to yourself but also with your little miracle in the home of your womb. The journey thus begins... You and Your unborn baby!

By Elizabeth Rutten-Ng, dance movement therapist, Article published in Today's Motherhood Online Magazine, January 2010 Issue.

*The sessions for Embody Your Body & Baby  commences on 3 Nov, email dancetherapy.kmp@gmail.com for sessions details outline and registration form.*

Fase en Sociaal Emotioneel Ontwikkelings van een baby tot kind

Fase

• 1 : 0-6 mnd ~ eerste adaptatie
• 2 : 6-18 mnd ~ eerste socilaisatie
• 3: 13-36 mnd ~ eerste individuatie
• 4: 3- 7 jaar  ~ eerste identificatie
• 5: 7-12 jaar ~ realiteitsbewunstwordig

Sociaal Emotioneel Ontwikkeling

Niveau

• Emotionele Ontwikkeling
• Sociale Ontwikkeling
• Ik- Ontwikkeling
• Morale Ontwikkeling
• Psycho-seksuele Ontwikkeling

Bonding with your Baby Session

Bonding with your baby in movement using baby Sling

In close contact with your baby

Using the KMP in movement

Separation Anxiety Part 1

This topic has always intrigued me for a long time. Probably due to personal encounter, having work with young children in the nursery, seeing it happening at my fieldwork and hearing my friends' personal stories.

While reading the book, Attachment and Loss, Vol 2 by John Bowlby, it has confirmed my feelings about separation anxiety on what I have observed and what I have studied.

Why do children then suffer from separation anxiety?

In the book, researches have been carried out with children of different ages and observed how the responses of the children in different settings. I will share more on this after I've completed reading the book. However, I will like to put a few excerpt from the book and my personal encounter.

When I was in my early 20s, I started to work in a playgroup where I have to attend to children aged 1 year to 3 year. Some of the children always screamed their head off when they departed from their mothers. I can still remember this girl who cried non-stop everyday despite of trying to comfort her. Even her maid was not able to comfort her. She even threw up on me. I was wondering why some children were able to separate from their mothers whereas some were not able to. I can even remember this other girl, would run into class everyday and just ignored her mother and wouldn't even say goodbye to her. she would just give me a hug and then went straight to play. The impression this girl gave me was an image of a tough little girl, no one can bully me. Physically she portrayed this strength and power in her like a little boy. Her body took the image of a tough little boy. What struck me was how the way she stood and carried herself. That set a very strong impression on me until today. I can still picture how they way she talked, looked, her whole body image.

Some of the boys and girls were very sweet and they normally came from different countries. I recalled this sweet little angel boy from Hong Kong, good-looking and a darling boy, always gave me a hug after each class. His mother was a very lovely and sweet-natured lady. Sometimes, his grandfather would come and pick the boy up.

I also taught drama in the same centre at that time during the weekends. In this class, I often ended up with bite marks. This little boy would just attack me and bite me out of the blue. But that didn't stop me from teaching. I still love to interact with them.

All these experiences were the one of the beginning phases that got me very curious about children and trying to understand their make-up in the process.

My whole life has been devoted to being an educator. I began my venture as a relief teacher and took over the classes of a PE & ART HOD. I taught many classes of different levels and even taught the worst class in the school. Boys who belonged to gangs and even sweared vulgar languages at me. Somehow, I was not terrified and my heart just went out to them. I even had individual session where I did counselling. What they needed was someone to believe in them. At the back of my mind, I was pondering why have they become so rebellious and deviant. Inside then, they were very broken and neglected. After the counselling, they were better. But due to the outside influences, they revert to the old self. I could see the struggles in them, battling with themselves and trying to get out of the deep shit hole. A friend who got me this relief teaching job was so afraid that when I was out of the school, I would be attacked by them. I was forward and outspoken with them, sometimes even challenging them. It was funny coming to think of it now. I was fearless at that time. I have no clue what gave me the courage and the guts, to meet these tough boys of age 12 to 14. (This class consisted of only boys) And they were bigger and taller than me. Maybe God gave me the strength. I pray that God will sow the seeds and bear its fruits later.

I continued the journey of being an educator in the main stream as a relief teacher in various schools and also teaching drama to different age groups before I seriously embarked into getting myself trained as a professional teacher.

What intrigued me has already begun when I was 11 year old, when my little baby brother was born. He is 11 years old younger than me and I watch him grow up, having the responsibility to take care of him. At that time, I also lost another younger brother to brain tumour of  age 7. I would not reveal details of my personal story. But I have observed separation anxiety before I actually even worked with any children later.

After leaving teaching and going to another phase of study in a new field, dance therapy, the interest in developmental phases, infants and children were getting more and more prominent, especially after I did the intensive course and an exposure to Kestenberg Movement Profile and in the fieldwork and also working with adults in my internship. I know right away my heart is geared towards early intervention and prevention. The thirst to investigate further is increasing. Those early years experiences have been an added value to what I am doing right now and unfolds the mystery to my questions I have for years.

Excerpt from the book: which I like to bring attention and awareness for personal reflection.

"....Mother physically present but emotionally not present..."

"Mother can use threats to abandon a child as a means of disciplining him. a tactic that probably has an immeasurably greater pathogenic effect than is yet recognized."

"Whether a child/adult is in a state of security, anxiety or distress is determined in large part by the accessibility and responsiveness of his principal attachment figure."

"...phase of protest is found to raise problem of separation anxiety; despair that of grief and mourning; detachment that of defence."

"Anxiety in children is originally nothing other than an expression of the fact that they are feeling the loss of the person they love." Sigmund Freud (1905b)