An NVR Review by the S Family
“Our family was referred to PartnershipProjects because we were at a loss to know what to do with our teen son. Because of a severely stressful family problem, he turned from being a generally happy teen to becoming increasingly depressed, anxious and finally violent. He was shutting himself off, stopping going to school, addicted to screens, swearing at us, and wall punching. We were treading on eggshells.
We’d tried so many ways to get help – counselling for him (and us), a parenting programme, getting support from the school and extended family, trying to go through the GP and CAHMS. It felt so disjointed and confusing. We felt like we’d lost our son and didn’t know when we would hit rock bottom or what terrifying thing rock bottom might look like.
We self-referred to PartnershipProjects and were allocated Rachael as our practitioner. She is kind, no-nonsense, and clearly very knowledgeable about the principles of NVR. It was a structured program with concrete steps to follow, and I found that reassuring. First, we had to decide which behaviour we would and wouldn’t tolerate in the home. So, we would not tolerate any violence, and we agreed to cautiously allow bedroom cleaning and school attendance not to be a battleground. We practised how to raise our parental presence and deliver our messages of concern, as well as knowing when to ‘hold the rope’ and allow the storm to pass. I found all of this really challenging because we were locked into the fear that intervening or not intervening could make things worse. It took weeks to get the courage to do the next step, but we were supported along the way.
We were coached to draw in members of the family for support, and this helped because we felt less alone. Finally, we were coached in developing a letter (announcement) outlining what we wouldn’t tolerate any more in our home so we could all live together in peace. We read the letter to him. That was the hardest thing to do. We thought he might wreck the house or harm himself or us if he was confronted too much. But he accepted the letter, and it clearly had a big effect on him. I was shaking for days before and after delivering that letter to him.
We have had ups and downs, but the progress is rapidly upward. It took many weeks of us trying to gather courage to resist harmful behaviour, and we were glad to have Rachael’s support to keep us on the NVR path when we were in the eye of the storm. Having a strong 16-year-old threaten to punch you is a really terrifying thing, especially when all you want to do is hug him and make it all better. I think that’s the hardest part of being a parent of a turbulent teen: having them be threatening and aggressive, but seeing the wounded child inside and confronting your own enabling parenting styles. We found NVR was able to bypass the ‘weaker’ part of our parenting, where we just let things go to keep the peace.
My son has managed to do his GCSEs and is coming out of his isolation. He’s rejoined some of the activities he used to enjoy, so that’s amazing. His screentime is still an issue, and that is the next thing we will address using NVR (it will move from a large basket to a small basket once we are sure that violent behaviour is gone). He still occasionally shouts when he’s frustrated, but it feels more like a ‘normal’ teenage, frustrated reaction rather than a ‘red mist’, and he rapidly swoops out of his mood and apologises. We’ve also learnt that letting go of certain behaviours actually strengthened our relationship.
We would recommend NVR to all parents as a good framework when the whole family feels lost and afraid.”
Kindly written by an NVR Parent
If you or your family needs a little guidance from us, we are happy to help. You can find answers to frequently asked questions here, find out about our referrals here, or contact us anytime for support.
*Image for illustration purposes, this is not a photo of the teenage boy referred to in the blog.
