The Virtues Project

Our church hosted a workshop on The Virtues Project this morning. I have to admit, I went in a bit skeptical. I was worried it would be too teachy or too rigid, or too something, but I was hopeful and open minded at the same time. From looking over the materials in the beginning, I was fairly impressed with the flexibility. I saw a few things I didn't liked, but there were always several options given when they were giving examples of what to say, so it seemed pretty adaptable. There were also a couple corny pages with rhyming sayings on them, but I liked their message. One was Stop Shaming, Start Naming. (I liked this at first, but more on the "naming" later). The other one was Don't Get Furious, Get Curious (basically making a connection with your kids instead of getting angry).

Then there came the Oprah clip.... The woman who created it started talking about consequences and how we need to be firm as parents. She was giving the example of grounding kids for being late, and being strict about the time, so that they got the punishment even if only a few minutes late. So of course I was totally turned off, but I decided not to judge the whole program based on that, especially since the materials our presenter had chosen didn't mention anything like this. Also, the clip was several years old, so I started wondering if maybe she had changed her tune at all, as I know some other authors have recently done regarding consequences.

At the end of class, they want over a technique called Spiritual Companioning, which I really liked. It was basically a form of deep listening, asking about a situation and being present without judgment. But I kept wondering, why use consequences if you do this? In my family, this would be instead of consequences, but I guess in her plan, it is in addition to them. Hrm.

I asked about the consequence thing after class, and the presenter gave me a really current article to read. I will say her ideas about consequences seem to have improved, although they are still not totally in line with my thinking. She is now into what she calls Restorative Justice, a horrid sounding name in my opinion, but not so bad in practice. The quote block said: "Consequences should be restorative rather than retributive." Hmm, tell me more. Here was her example, with my comments in parentheses. Assuming a conflict had just occurred (and this was for a school setting btw), her suggestion was to ask:
I want to hear what happened from your point of view. (OK start)
What virtue could you have used to handle that situation better? (Good potential problem solving here, but really stupid and rigid to box it in with just the virtues IMO)
What do you need to do to make it right and what do you need from the other person? (Hmm, maybe if it was phrased, do you want to do something... OK idea here, but not really if it is mandatory.)

So my bottom line was, there were some things I didn't like, and the things I did like, we are already doing. And yet, I kept processing it. I knew there was something nagging at me that I wanted to put more thought into, and I finally figured out what it was - the whole naming thing. Her first strategy is, Speak the Language of the Virtues. An example might be, "That was really generous of you to share your toys." The idea is to name a specific virtue instead of using a vague word like nice. Some of the examples sounded like praise, but some sounded more like observations, so I thought maybe they were OK. But then I realized what was bugging me. If the whole idea of the program is to increase certain types of behaviors, isn't it manipulative? On the flipside, could it be seen as teaching versus manipulating?

I asked Ron's opinion, and in that simple way of seeing to the heart of the matter he has, he said he thought that would be based on the parents intentions. Duh, the heart of Unconditional Parenting right there. Even so, I thought to myself, do these "virtues" really need to be "taught"? Wouldn't it be better to just model them, as with everything else? I guess I could see using them almost like a vocabulary lesson. Like just trying to work words like compassion or perseverance into your conversation or problem solving so you can talk about what they mean. I think that is about as far as I would take this idea.

As an aside, another unschooling mom at my church has this to say when I asked her opinion: "I felt like the whole thing was one big sales pitch." At least I didn't dislike it that much LOL. They did have a bunch of stuff for sale, but I thought the presenter was very sweet and sincere.