How Nonviolent Communication can strengthen family bonding?

Celebrating International Day of Families

Today, May 15 is the International Day of Families. This day provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to increase the knowledge of the social, economic and demographic processes affecting families. An important challenge in today’s world is the increasing individualization of societies, rush for materialistic goals and fierce competition to go ahead of others even if it would mean using unethical means. Also whether in families or in institutions, the phenomenon of individualization has been accentuated due to the increasing process of digitalization.

Most of us, in our homes are increasingly spending more times with our digital devices and social media network than with our family members. In many families, parents are unaware of what the children are doing and similarly, children are unaware what their parents are doing. All these are leading to weakening of family bonds.

For families to overcome the challenges of contemporary society wherein most of the members are always on the run to achieve their goals, strengthening of family bonding is very important. We find in many families that undue importance given to achievement of materialistic goals and the pressures to reach out to the next level results in a toxic communication ecosystem.

When toxic or unhealthy communication creeps in family ties, the bonding gets weakened. My experience of having sessions on these issues shows intolerance, trust deficit and unnecessary quarrels leads to toxicity in relationships. For harmonious coexistence and cohesiveness in relationships, strengthening of family bonding is extremely important. We must find spaces and opportunities for family members to come together to discuss their passion, sports, entertainment, music and all those things which creates an environment of bonhomie. It promotes love, solidarity and emotional bridge-building.

A powerful strategy to strengthen family bonding is inculcation of nonviolent communication amongst family members. In one of the sessions on family relationships and nonviolent communication, there was an individual who listed out on the reasons why he ended having a bad fight with his wife. Then we started analyzing the reasons and how he could have handled the situation if would have been adept at using nonviolent communication. Nonviolent communication entails complete lack of violence in our communicative efforts- whether verbal or nonverbal. It helps us to ensure nonviolence in our intrapersonal communication- extremely important for inner peace, helps us to connect with the needs of others, makes us to use altruistic tendencies like kindness, gratitude, compassion and empathy in all our communicative efforts.

After we discussed the different dimensions of nonviolent communication, then we started analyzing on what would be his reactions and how would he have reacted had he used the strategy of nonviolent communication. He felt that his response would have been calmer, nonviolent in all respect, empathetic and with the centrality of love and affection.

In another session on the same theme of relationships and nonviolent communication, we could list out how a healthy communication ecosystem actually can lead to positive vibrations in the family. It can help in promoting prosocial behavior amongst the family members. It was felt that even though there could differences, use of nonviolent communication could help in resolving them constructively. The participants felt that one of the main reasons of relationships getting sour was dysfunctional communication. This needs to change and one of the core point which emerged out of the session was how families could make nonviolent communication an integral part of the communication ecosystem; it should become the norm.

So, as we celebrate international day of families, let us all strive to inculcate the values of using nonviolent communication in all our relationships so that we can strengthened these. Solidifying our family bonding should be the goal of all members of our families.

Here it would be apt to share the explanation of nonviolent communication. Senior Gandhian, Natwar Thakkar gives a comprehensive explanation of what constitutes nonviolent communication (Kundu, 2018 and 2022):

To me nonviolent communication would mean how our communication efforts should be nonviolent; how our ability and capacity to communicate not only with ourselves but with our family and society be nonviolent in all aspects and overall how the entire process of communication whether between individuals, groups, communities and the world at large should be nonviolent in nature. This would entail deep understanding of the art and science of nonviolence and its centrality in all our daily actions. It’s not just verbal and nonverbal communication, nonviolent communication literacy would also include whether our thoughts and ideas are nonviolent or not. This would also mean how we can rid of our preconceived notions of individuals or groups with whom we want to communicate and stop evaluating them to suit our own ideas. More than often we are attuned to think in terms of moralistic judgments which may be our own constructions.

By developing deep understanding of the art and science of nonviolence and integrating it in our communication practices we could get over with biased and moralistic judgments; this in turn could contribute to emotional bridge building.

By being nonviolent communication literate, an individual/group/community will be able to self-introspect whether the message they want to share has elements of violence and whether such a message will hurt others. Nonviolent communication literacy would automatically help in strengthening and deepening relationships. When we are able to emotionally build bridges with others, we will be able to empathize with their views.

Nonviolent communication literacy also includes mastering the art of listening. His Holiness The Dalai Lama has rightly said, “When you talk you are only repeating what you already know; but when you listen you may learn something new.” Essentially, we should learn to listen with a sincere intention to understand, open and focused on what the other person is trying to tell.

The way we use language and words while writing and conversations is an important aspect of nonviolent communication literacy.

So, I firmly believe that by practicing nonviolent communication, there can be amazing opportunities to promote goodness in our world which keeps on getting struck with conflicts. It is an essential part of efforts to evolve a culture of peace and nonviolence not just in our homes but in the entire world. This is also an antidote to all acts of revenge, aggression and retaliation as all these arises from breakdown in communication or our reliance in violence in communication.

1) Kundu, Vedabhyas (2018). Nurturing Emotional Bridge Building: A Dialogue with Nagaland’s Gandhi; Peaceworks; Vol 8, №1; June 2018; Pp 100–109.

2) Kundu, Vedabhyas (2022). Nonviolent Communication for Peaceful Co-existence. In: Kurtz, L.R. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, vol. 4. Elsevier, Academic Press.