It gives parents the chance to reclaim their parenting for families in which this has broken down. Parents are encouraged to embrace a position of ‘legitimate authority’ without becoming harsh disciplinarians or ruining their relationship with their children in the process.
As a family therapist I’m keen to talk to Haim about his work — but interviewing him over Zoom was not easy as he is hard of hearing and his hearing aids were not working during our interview. I typed my questions and sat back as he spoke in insightful and articulate English. He has a typically Israeli air of confidence, tinged with Jewish self-reflection. At 72, he has a wealth of expertise to draw from.
I ask why he thinks NVR has become so popular and relevant to 21st century parents. “I think it is because we are meeting the needs of parents today”, he explains. “There is a major crisis in parenting which is due to kids being bombarded by stimuli and temptations via technology and our consumer society. So risk is augmented.
“At the same time, parents have been enormously weakened because they are more isolated, [there are] many more single parents or parents without a communal support network.
“We, as a society, cannot accept the punishing concept of authority so parents are weakened and children are most under threat. NVR offers a model to help parents to function as anchors for their children through their presence, self-control and support network. Parents stabilise themselves and then they can protect their children against the flood of temptations that beset them”.
He has written extensively about parenting and emphasises the importance of developing a support network for families — of relying on ‘the village’ to help raise your child. In my work with families and adolescents, I can see how difficult this can be when families are often separated and community ties are weak. Many families in the Jewish community have more access to friends and family, which has huge potential to be used as a resource. It is important for parents to let go and rely more on their network, rather than expecting the nuclear family to shoulder the entire burden of child rearing.
Omer’s background is no less remarkable than his work. He grew up in Brazil, the son of Holocaust survivors from Poland. Most of his family were murdered in the horrors of the Treblinka concentration camp in 1942.
But his parents and one uncle were moved to the Skarzysko-Kamienna labour camp where they managed to survive. After the war, his parents moved to Italy and then Brazil where they rebuilt their lives. He lived in São Paulo until he was 18 and moved to Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967.
It is in the context of this turbulent family history that his interest in NVR was born.
“I always identified very strongly with the experience of being a victim… I felt for people who are at the mercy of others and do not have any power or control. This identity led to me developing my work which is about empowering the victim in non-violent but effective ways. Most people don’t think about parents or teachers as victims. Well, sometimes they are. Or, even when they are not victims, they feel helpless in the face of a child’s impulsive, dangerous or anti-social behaviour. NVR gives them a real opportunity of getting out of their helplessness”.
Unusually for a family therapist, his work has stretched beyond the scope of supporting and advising families. He speaks proudly about his consultancy assistance to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. The withdrawal was universally expected to spark violence and bloodshed between settlers, the Israeli police and the IDF. Thanks to Omer and his colleagues who advised Israeli authorities and provided training in NVR, the operation went much more smoothly than expected.
“Although it is impossible to know for sure as we could not have had a control group … we helped reduce violence and prevent escalation… there were no fatalities”.
This extraordinary application of NVR highlights the scope of its core ideas, such as the importance of not being drawn into provocative arguments, as these can never be resolved in the heat of the moment; but rather remaining calm, contained and silent until the intensity subsides.
His Jewish and Israeli identity have not gone unnoticed in his career. “People often ask me how a programme of non-violence can be developed in Israel and I say, ‘because it was!’ ”. In particular, he recalls two displays of prejudice. One was last year in Belgium. When preparing for a lecture, his possessions were ransacked and a swastika was painted on the wall.
Another was when Haim and his colleagues were due to lecture at the American Psychological Association. Prior to the class, Palestinian activists passed a message around saying that his event had been cancelled because the presenters had been called up for IDF reserve duty. When he turned up to present his work, the hall was empty.
When I ask Omer whether he was upset by these incidents, he shrugs and smiles wryly, “I am a product of antisemitism”, he explains.
At that moment I think about how proud his parents must have been to have raised a son who, despite his family’s painful history, calls himself “every inch a Jew” and who has developed a system that has helped so many people all over the world and has also, I believe, undoubtedly saved lives.
In our world today, where views are increasingly polarised and tensions often escalate, I believe we can draw inspiration from Haim’s belief in maintaining our position in a dignified, respectful yet firm way. Parents deserve to reclaim an authority which stems from responsibility, rather than a need for control.
We need to offer mothers and fathers the confidence to re-establish a hierarchical yet caring family structure in which children feel more secure.
After over a year of multiple lockdowns, when family boundaries have become diffused and relationships are strained, the concepts of NVR are even more relevant and useful than ever. We can all learn from the wisdom of Haim Omer.
Courageous Parents: Opposing Bad Behavior, Impulses, and Trends by Haim Omer is published by Msi Press
