Nicky Perfect, an ex-Metropolitan Police officer, who has more than 30 years experience of working on anti-violence projects. She’s turned her expertise as a crisis negotiator into priceless parenting lessons. After 10 years in the U.K.’s elite New Scotland Yard Hostage and Crisis Negotiation Unit, she’s taking her negotiation skills home. She artfully weaves these techniques into her practice, most notably during tough family meetings.
Recently, Perfect faced a dilemma that many parents can relate to: her stepdaughter wished to spend Christmas Day with her biological father and siblings, who had moved further away. That brought the perfect opportunity for Perfect to flex her negotiation muscles. She needed her stepdaughter to process her emotions without the family structure breaking down.
Perfect encourages all of us to hit the pause button before we react in high-emotion scenarios. Surprise, surprise—I’m just about ready to cry right now. I have to just take a minute and process this. As she recognized, it’s self-regulation in communication that goes a long way. She advises parents to give themselves a pause – about a minute-and-a-half’s worth of time – to recognize their feelings before responding. This approach is a quick way to diffuse potential conflict and get to more productive dialogue.
Children’s expectations and emotions are easier to set and control with proper preparation. With the give-and-take on limited classroom time Perfect encourages parents to start getting their kids in routine as soon as they get home. Strengthening this bedtime routine, all night long, helps foster safety and stability for children. This method smooths transitions, promotes engagement and decreases anxiety.
When tackling problems of power and control, Perfect recommends using the “no choice choice” approach. This approach empowers children to think for themselves, but still nudges them toward a better choice. When parents creatively reframe a situation, they empower children to feel a greater control and agency over their circumstances.
And you can’t just go full speed all the time. At some point, you have to take a breath, hit the pause button. Then picture this heavenly Christmas and truly ponder, “What do I really want?” Perfect explained. This method helps validate the child’s emotions. It builds empathy and widens children’s perceptions to understand that people view situations differently.
Perfect wants people to recognize that understanding how a child is feeling at that particular time is very important. It’s about telling the truth and being extremely transparent with folks. You can see them being better, but people are much, much more open to your plain truth than you expect them to be,” she added. By validating a child’s emotions and creating an open line of communication, parents can foster a supportive environment where children feel heard and valued.
The implications of these negotiation strategies reach far beyond the immediate scope of what it means to be a parent. Perfect’s observations point to a larger truth about how we relate to each other as human beings—honest and clear communication is key in any relationship. She recalls wisdom imparted by an FBI agent: “Your job in life is not to change people… you can’t… the only thing you can choose is how to respond.”
