I am so grateful that NVC entered my life, when our children were still young. Awareness of the difference between protective vs punitive use of force has meant that our children were raised in a respectful way.

Let’s start with punitive use of force… which is based on a power-over-model… in many cases parent vs child, teacher vs pupil, boss vs employee, government agents vs citizens etc. It is using punishment as a way to get needs met for the one with the perceived power. There is no room for hearing people’s needs and values and finding strategies that give mutual satisfaction. It is a one-way street with demands and the threat of punishment when they are not obeyed.
As Marshall Rosenberg described it:

A protective use of force is when someone is sensing a danger of life or health for someone else. It is when they use their physical dominance or their ‘authority’ to protect the person(s) from danger. An example of protective use of force is when I see a 3-year old about to cross the road when a car is approaching at 50km/h. I would grab the arm of the child to pull him/her away towards safety. In that moment, I am not coming from a place of wanting to have power-over this child. I am acting out of genuine care for their well-being. I’m using my ‘force’ purely and solely to protect.

I have awareness that the difference between the two can be a very slippery slope. Let’s stay with the parent vs child relation for a bit more… when our 15 year old son was into computer gaming, he wanted to stay up till 2am and then sleep till noon. As parents we had concerns for his health (e.g. circadian rhythm, lack of Vitamin D, eye-sight) and talked with him about this. It was quite tempting to come from a punitive model (e.g. turn the wifi off, take away his computer etc.) under the disguise of protectiveness but as parents we didn’t want to. We shared our concerns and together we came up with strategies that worked for us all.

To check whether your ‘use of force’ is genuinely from a place of protection I invite myself (or others) to connect with the energy behind it… is there a sense of frustration, anger, annoyance when you’re confronted with a certain behaviour? or is there a sense of concern, care, worry. I want to be totally connected to the latter when using my force.