Ep 44: Protect Your Peace this Holiday with this Political Messaging Strategy

[INTRODUCTION]

Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. A place where we’re re-imagining parenting to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational. If you’ve been looking for ways to practice social justice in your daily parenting and nurture your child’s development while re-parenting your inner child, I’m so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic abolitionist, and founder of Come Back to Care. A dot connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineages and communities. And we come back to care… together. So come curious and come as you are.

[EPISODE]

Welcome to episode 44 of the Come Back to Care Podcast. It’s that time of the year I lovingly call an introverts’ worst nightmare. Whether you’re taking your child to holiday parties with your chosen families, your colleagues, or your regular family, a part inside of you might already feel worried, weary, or anxious about someone judging your parenting. If your shoulders are up to your ears and you’re holding your breath like you’re bracing for impact, first, I’m sending you so much care right now and, second, this episode might be really nourishing for you.

Imagine this: someone at the party isn’t getting why your child needs to wear noise canceling headphones or they’re not vibing with how you ask your child whether they want to give every guest a hug and kiss. You feel that side eye and there it is…that unsolicited advice “have you tried to be more consistent with your child?” And boom! You compassionately respond with a few sentences. You said what you said to protect your peace and leave it there. Yes, my dear co-struggler, we’re going to get tactical in this episode and craft a statement that you can use to set boundaries and protect your peace this holiday season and beyond.

In this episode, you and I will explore a framework for strategic communications that a political messaging expert and campaign advisor, Anat Shenker-Osorio, teaches. Then, you’ll adapt and apply this three-part framework to craft your own statement that you can use to set boundaries and protect your peace with those who judge or critique your parenting choices. I’ll share various examples of what this framework can look like when the critiques range from “you’re too soft” to “you’re gonna let your child do that?” This way you can experiment with this framework, leave what doesn’t feel right, and as always make it your method.

A quick disclaimer: I’m not a communications strategist by any means. I’m a therapist, an organizer, and an awkward introvert who sings to her squirrel friends. I’m just using Shenker-Osorio’s work as a starting point for our exploration and adapting it to our decolonized, embodied, and intergenerational parenting work. I invite you to apply this communication strategy this holiday season or- hear me out- in 2024 which is going to be the biggest election year in history according to the Economist. You and I will likely be in conversations with those who don’t share our values of liberation, equity, and justice. I hope we do. Please use this episode as a part of your holiday survival guide or as a warmup to strengthen your communication muscles for 2024. If it feels generative to craft a winning message for your decolonized parenting campaign, let’s get started.

Strategic Communications Framework

Shenker-Osorio explains that strategic messaging gets people to feel what you feel and do what you want them to do. And to achieve these two goals, one strategy is to communicate your message in this order. Are you ready? The order is: Value then villain then vision.

Value means sharing what we’re for, not the problem we’re trying to solve. She said that many people default to beginning a conversation with a problem to raise awareness of the issue. And if you’re really passionate about the issue, say climate change, you want to wake people up to the crisis and probably bombard them with statistics and facts like “the sea level on the U.S. coast is likely to rise 1 to 6.6 feet by the year 2100 according to NASA.” Or, you might start your photo slideshow of animals that are going extinct. Shenker-Osorio argues that this fear-based messaging evokes a freeze response in people instead of getting them to fight for the issue. She then adds that it’s not that people think you’re wrong; they just don’t think that solutions to the issue are possible when you hit them with 5011 problems. And by people, I mean people in the middle who aren’t far-left or far-right in their political stance. So, starting the conversation with our shared values can look like this…and this is my own example: “No matter our differences, most of us want our children and grandchildren to grow up and have clean water to drink and clean air to thrive in.”

How did that land for you? Because it felt pretty good to me. It felt like I’m not blaming, shaming, or putting the other person down for not knowing or not caring enough about climate change.

When I was a new organizer, almost 2 decades ago now, I would talk about trans issues by beginning the conversation with the names of trans people whose lives were taken too soon. And this fear-based messaging shut people down real fast. But I didn’t understand trauma responses back then so I thought people didn’t care. And I went into my self-righteous rage and shamed people for being bad. And this cynicism was not a cute look on me.

Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, two organizers and educators, wrote in their book Let This Radicalize You, that activists can sometimes become quote “walking, talking encyclopedias of doom.” They continue “the mere recitation of these facts does not move people into the streets or lead them to join movements…if spitting horrifying facts at people changed minds and built movements, we would have overthrown the capitalist system long ago, because the facts have always been on our side,” end quote.

Okay let me shake the guilt and embarrassment of “ohhh I used to do that…a lot” off my body. And I believe you already know the importance of leading with values too. Perhaps your child keeps kicking the ball that their grandparents just gifted them in the house…after you asked them several times to stop. Your irritation is rising and you react by yelling “No dessert tonight and no iPad for the week.” Again, no judgment here. You might notice that this fear-based messaging might get your child to stop kicking the ball in the house out of fear or because they’re in that freeze response. But it doesn’t teach your child what to do instead. So leading with values like we discussed in Ep 34: Breaking Cycles of People Pleasing: Attachment Theory Meets Power Analysis can look like this: “I want to keep all of us safe in our house and that includes our furniture and toys too. Kicking the ball inside isn’t safe. You can either go kick the ball outside or roll it on the floor inside.”

The second component of the framework is “villain”. It means we get explicit and specific about who started the problem. Shenker-Osorio shares that when it’s clear that a problem is person-made, it’s clear that it can be person-fixed. For example, instead of being vague and saying “sea levels are rising,” we can be specific and say “corporations make profits off damaging our climate.”

The final component in this three-part framework is vision aka a picture of beautiful tomorrow. A picture of what we can achieve when we act together. And to paint this vision, we shift away from words like “fixing,” “improving,” “reducing,” because these words neither spark curiosity in people from the other side of the political spectrum nor do they help with long-term motivation to stay in the fight for people who already believe in the issue. Instead of saying “Improve wages and working conditions,” we invite people into our vision by saying “People who work for a living, ought to earn a living [with time for a life] or people who work for a living, ought to be paid enough to provide for their family and able to set kids off to a bright future.” And all of Shenker-Osorio’s original work will be in the episode show notes for you.

When I can see the picture or the vision, I don’t know…I’m more motivated to join the cause and put in the work. Does that resonate with you too? Re-imagining a future that’s rooted in liberation and healing instead of punishment, policing, and prison is a key strategy in abolitionist organizing because once you see the vision, you can begin to build it…according to Andrea Ritchie, a Black, lesbian immigrant survivor and organizer and the author of Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies.

Shenker-Osorio also adds quote “A “no” without a “yes” leads listeners to think we’re just playing politics as usual. It sounds like we’re just denouncing whatever the other side puts out to defeat them, not making a sincere attempt to see good policy become law.” End quote.

And as a parent or caregiver, I believe you already know this too. It’s so much easier for your child to wrap up one activity and transition to the next one when they know the vision of what’s coming up next. Most times, children don’t want to transition because they don’t know what’s next. By sharing with them, “first snack, then painting,” it can decrease the power struggle and increase cooperation and collaboration.

I’m toggling back and forth between strategic communication in politics and your parenting communication in your home as my long way of saying that you already know this value-villain-vision framework deep in your bones. We’re simply making it explicit so we can get tactical in our boundary setting when people judge or question your parenting choices.

Alright, I’m going to share one example from Shenker-Osorio’s messaging guide titled: “Words that Work on Immigrant Rights” so you can see how value-villain-and-vision sit together in one message. Then, you and I will discuss briefly how talking to our parents and family members can sometimes be much harder than talking to strangers. And then we’ll explore four scenarios where we can apply this framework to enrich our decolonized parenting.

Let’s see how value-villain-vision works together in action. It goes quote:

“Every child, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, or where they live, deserves to pursue their dreams. [That’s Value]

But certain politicians and their greedy lobbyists are putting our children’s future at risk. They rig the rules to enrich themselves, while they distract us by generating fear based on race or place of origin – undermining our basic belief in treating others the way we want to be treated. [That’s Villain]

Together, we have the power to demand that leaders do right by all children. When we come together across racial differences, we can make this a nation we’re proud to leave our kids, one that honors the courage and commitment of those who would do anything to make life better for those to come. End quote [That’s Vision]

Okay, one more example and this one’s from me about boycotting companies that are benefitting from and complicit in Israel's apartheid. It can go like this:

No matter our differences, most of us want pretty similar things – to set our children off to bright futures where they are safe and thriving. This means all children, no exception.  [That’s Value]

Right now the government is using our tax dollars to fund a war in Gaza that has killed over 5,000 children already. Many companies we’re spending our hard-earned money on this Black Friday are also benefiting from this war and colonial violence too. [That’s Villain]

You and I can take a stand against these companies and institutions. By not buying from these companies, we’re putting our money where our mouth is. We’re sending a message that all children are our children. [That’s Vision]

What does it have to do with parenting?

Phew…that’s a lot of information about strategic communication. Shall we connect the dots back to our parenting work?

Remember the purpose of strategic communication I shared at the top of the episode? We communicate our message in a specific format to get people to take action for social change or in Shenker-Osorio’s words “to uplift our base and to persuade the middle.”

Our purpose is a little different. Instead of focusing on persuading the critics whether they’re those who raised you, a relative, or a colleague, my hope is for you to use this value-villain-vision framework to say your piece and protect your peace. To say it differently, it’s less about convincing the critics or shutting them down. It’s more about YOU. It’s more about you having something concrete like a script that can anchor you when the critiques make you feel humiliated, misunderstood, unworthy, or judged. It’s more about you staying anchored in your power by sharing the values behind your parenting choices out loud for yourself and for your child. You’re responding to the critics with no expectation that they’ll agree with you, change their behaviors, or do anything else…because it’s about you, not them. It’s about your peace not their comfort.

Oomph, the obedient immigrant child part inside of me did not like that at all. I’m unlearning this people pleasing and healing right next to you. We got this.

In addition to your peace, your safety is important too. If you anticipate that saying your piece to protect your peace might bring out the worst in these critics and it’s not worth your emotional labor, then maybe skip this invitation from me and try it with your colleagues or strangers at the park first. I honor your discernment and agency.

If these critics are those who raised you and you find yourself fumbling through this script or other boundary setting practices, I want to be very clear that most times it’s not a reflection of your commitment to breaking the family cycles, of your healing journey, or of your commitment to being an intentional and decolonized parent. You’re back in the same relationship dynamic you were in when you were a child, so your inner child is more likely to be activated. You’re being reminded of the version of you that had to perform excellence to be loved or the version of you that had to stay small and invisible to be safe or the version of you that had to people please and take care of everybody to earn your self-worth. And it can be painful to be reminded of this version of you because I know if you’re here listening to me, you’ve been doing your healing work and you’ve come so far. Getting stirred up at the thought of seeing your family isn’t about who you are or the kind of parent you are now. Rather, it’s about who you had to be as a child to blend in and belong that’s getting triggered.

Your old survival strategies that you had to overlearn to protect yourself might revisit you to protect you. Perhaps when your parent gives you a look or questions your parenting choice, your old survival strategy of gaslighting yourself and shrinking yourself down might come back. Or you might shut down, be agreeable with the critiques, and people please. Many parents in our In-Out-N-Through program get triggered and revert back to their old coping strategies too. You’re not alone. And because you’ve been doing your healing work, you have other strategies that are more adaptive in your toolkit to protect yourself too.

I hope that the value-villain-vision framework is one concrete tool that you can pull out of your toolkit to interrupt your old survival strategies and try a newly upgraded way to set boundaries and protect your peace. I hope these strategic 5 or 6 sentence templates that you craft can be the anchor you need to stay in your power when others make you feel powerless.

The template:

Now I’d like to adapt Shenker-Osorio’s value-villain-vision framework into a template that we can play with. I’ll share the main template first. Then, I’ll go into different scenarios and examples…not to give you rigid scripts to say. If you’ve been listening to me for a while, you know I don’t do scripts. I hope these different scenarios and examples can be raw materials for you to shape, chisel, add to, or edit to fit with your own method.

I’ve also put this template and examples into a free downloadable PDF guide for you just in case you’re driving, doing laundry, or multitasking and can’t take notes. To download this guide and start writing your own winning decolonized parenting campaign messages, please visit comebacktocare.com/episode-44.

Our version of value-villain-vision is this:

Value: In our family we value A

Villain: Doing B is out of line with the value we hold dear. It’s a choice we don’t have to keep making. (and B is something the critic is saying or wants you to do or try. Plus, hint, hint, wink, wink: the focus is on “choice”…we’re not blaming or shaming the critic.)

Vision: We can help (insert your child’s name) be a kind, compassionate leader right here, right now by doing C. (and C is your intentional parenting choice that’s aligned with your values)

I’ll say all of that together: In our family we value A. Doing B is out of line with the value we hold dear. It’s a choice we don’t have to keep making. We can help Jolene be a kind, compassionate leader right here, right now by doing C.

Alright, let’s play and put our template into action.

Scenario one: no room for feelings. Your child is having a meltdown and you’re right next to them, labeling feelings and moving through these big feelings together. You’re modeling emotional resilience to your child and practicing power-with not power-over. Thirty minutes later, your child feels safe, seen, and ready to carry on with the day.

Then your critic is shaking their head and says to you “you’re too soft with your child. You gotta teach him to be tougher.”

A variation of this scenario is you walk in on your child crying and this critic is repeating the same childhood rules you grew up with to your child…rules like “fix your face now, that wasn’t a big deal.” Or “it’s okay, you’re fine, stop it.”

So when you have a moment with this critic and it feels generative for you to practice setting boundaries, one example of your decolonized parenting campaign message is this.

Value: In our family we want everyone to feel comfortable in their skin and to feel their feelings without shame.

Villain: The rules “boys don’t cry,” “girls need to smile,” or “fix your face” are very old. And telling Jolene to shut their feelings down is a choice we don’t need to keep making in 2023.

Vision: You and I can teach Jolene right here, right now to be comfortable in their own skin and feel no shame in feeling big emotions. Don’t we want the next generations to be future leaders who aren’t afraid of their feelings?

How is that landing for you?

Okay scenario two: disagreement equals disrespect. Your child is pushing back and saying “no.” And you’ve been working on not perceiving your child’s “no” as your child disrespecting you. You’re shifting to getting curious about the “no”…most of the time. But at this gathering, your child says “no” and the critic jumps in with rigid rules like “You need to do what I say and respect your elders,” or “You need to finish everything on your plate.”

So, when you have a moment with the critic and it feels right for you to engage them in a dialogue, here’s one example of what you might say:

Value: You always taught me to be strong, to stand up for myself, and to stand up for others who couldn’t.

Villain…somewhat: I want Jolene to do the same and pass on your wisdom to them as your legacy. And for Jolene to learn to stand up for others, it starts with them standing up for themselves and saying “no.” Saying yes to everything is out of line with a value our family holds dear.

Vision: You and I can teach Jolene to be a kind and strong leader who stands up for themselves and others by leaving room for them to make their own choices and say no.

Scenario three: hovering and swooping in…with love. You’ve been practicing choice and consent with your child. But at this gathering, some family members might get too excited and want to step in to do things for your child, and make decisions for them. It’s mostly done out of love but it leaves no room for choice, consent, agency, or self-determination. When you interrupt this family member and intervene by saying things like “Jolene, why don’t you try using your fork first. I’m right here when you need help.” Or, “Jolene, you can give your uncle a hug when you’re ready or if you want to.” And the critic is giving you the eye roll and a fun “why did you do that?”

So, when you have a moment with this critic and you choose to share your two-cents, here’s one example.

Value: In our country we value freedom, especially freedom to choose and decide what’s best for ourselves. And don’t we feel proud of ourselves, when we struggle but keep trying and keep figuring it out until we get it?

Villain: I know it’s so much faster and more efficient when I just do it for Jolene. But I don’t want to take away their freedom to choose and to try things out just because they’re 2 years old.

Vision: You and I can show Jolene that we got them as they’re fumbling and trying to figure it out. We can show Jolene that we trust them and they got this. We can leave room for Jolene to feel really proud of themselves for trying and not giving up.

Our final scenario: ableism. Your child might need extra support during the gathering because it’s a lot: new routines, new environments, more people, nap times are off, the list goes on. They might use their blankets, stuffies, fidget spinners, or weighted blanket to find security in their body. Similarly, they might flap their hands, rock their body, bounce on the yoga ball to feel grounded in their body. And the critic is minimizing your child’s efforts to honor their body’s needs by saying things like “you’re a big boy now. That stuffed doll is for babies.” Or, “why do you need to flap your hands? Everyone’s sitting still eating together. Stop it.”

So, if you’re not about to break into a fist fight with this critic and you want to say your piece to protect your peace, here’s one way we can go high when they go low.

Value: People are best suited to decide what’s best for themselves and their bodies. And our family believes everyone should be treated equally and with respect. Jolene feels safe in their body with their headphones on while bouncing on the trampoline. I want to respect their choice.

Villain: The idea that every body should sit still or crisscross applesauce all the time is very old. It’s the choice we don’t have to keep making.

Vision: You and I can show Jolene that different bodies have different needs. We’re experts on our bodies and we can respect so many ways people take care of their bodies.

And that’s a wrap for this episode! Wow, Season 4 is also winding down. I have two more episodes for this season for you. My dear co-struggler, thank you so much for trying this strategic communication out with me and stretching beyond our usual decolonized mental health and inner child re-parenting. Whether or not this communication framework suits your style and supports your boundary setting, I hope that it’s an invitation for you to reclaim your power, stand your sacred ground, and alchemize social change at the dinner table.

As Audre Lorde said in her speech at Harvard University quote: “Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses; for instance, it is learning to address each other’s difference with respect.” End quote.

Please visit the episode show notes at comebacktocare.com/episode-44 to download your free PDF guide, access your transcript, and view Shenker-Osorio’s resources. I’ll leave resources to demand a ceasefire in Gaza there too. If this episode fills your cup, I’d be so grateful if you can help me with a rating and review on Apple Podcast and Spotify or by sharing this episode with your loved ones or becoming a Patreon member. Either action helps other families do this liberation work with us and helps me sustain the hard work of making each episode with love.  

As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.