{"id":86285,"date":"2017-02-27T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=86285"},"modified":"2017-02-20T11:58:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T11:58:12","slug":"expressing-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/02\/expressing-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Expressing Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A father and mother quarreled again, as they did frequently. He had forgotten to take out the garbage, and she whined,<\/p>\n

“You are so irresponsible. You never remember what you promised to do.”<\/p>\n

He: “This is the first time this year that I forgot to take out the garbage, but I had more important things to worry about.”<\/p>\n

She: “That is always your excuse. I can’t stand it!”<\/p>\n

Their nine-year-old daughter said to mother, “Why don’t you simply tell father what you need?”<\/p>\n

Mother said what she wanted, and to her surprise, the father agreed. She asked her daughter in amazement: “Where did you learn that!?”<\/p>\n

“At school.” the daughter replied.<\/p>\n

The daughter had gotten a day of training in “nonviolent communication”. It avoids blame or praise; it only expresses appreciation for help received. It emphasizes saying what we need, and express a request, not a demand. A request is something the other party can say no to without reprisals, whereas if a demand is denied, there can be negative consequences.<\/p>\n

Mother asked her daughter, “Can I learn this, too?”<\/p>\n

The daughter said, “In a month, the same training will be offered to parents.”<\/p>\n

Mother did not want to wait and signed up for a course in a neighboring town where she paid for registration.<\/p>\n

(Freely recounted after Marshall Rosenberg, who developed the techniques of nonviolent communication)<\/em><\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Dietrich Fischer (1941-2015) from M\u00fcnsingen, Switzerland, got a Licentiate in Mathematics from the University of Bern 1968 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University 1976. 1986-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Princeton University. He has taught mathematics, computer science, economics and peace studies at various universities and been a consultant to the United Nations. He was co-founder, with Johan Galtung, of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> in 1993<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Excerpted from Dietrich Fischer’s <\/em>Stories to Inspire You<\/a> – TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A father and mother quarreled again, as they did frequently. He had forgotten to take out the garbage, and she whined, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}