Volunteer Mentors Steve Phillips and Himani Ellis enjoyed Dr. Bavolek's presentation
Founder of the Nurturing Parenting Program, Dr. Steven Bavolek, visited Chaffee County the week of April 6th. During his visit, he presented to various groups, including an open discussion with 18 mentors, parents, and community members held Thursday, April 9th at Bongo Billy’s Salida Cafe. Dr. Bavolek offered valuable insights into the deeper meaning of nurturing. Derived from the Latin, nutritura, meaning “to nourish, nurse, and promote growth,” nurturing can be either positive or negative. When it is negative, it is abusis (Latin meaning harsh, mean, and cruel) or negligere (Latin meaning to not pick up or touch). Dr. Bavolek reviewed the three kinds of touch – hurting, sexual/scary, gentle – and shared his philosophy of zero tolerance of hurting or scary touch. While many adults claim that they were spanked as a kid and turned out fine, Dr. Bavolek reminds us that most people who were hit can remember each and every instance in which that happened during childhood. “Remembering an event 20 years ago like it was yesterday is called trauma,” Bavolek said.
To practice the value of gentle touch and positive nurturing, Bavolek had each of us hold hands with a partner and compliment him or her. The job of the person being complimented was to say, “thank you.” A seemingly simple task is not so easy in a world where many have had childhoods with more negative nurturing than positive. As we held hands, we learned that we are 99.8% genetically the same as all other human beings. Bavolek said, “as you hold another, you are holding yourself.” At the end of this exercise, Bavolek had us all offer a “strength bombardment” to Heather Barron, Chaffee County Mentors Program Coordinator. We should include remember to give our youth regular strength bombardments.
Another way to offer positive nurturing is praise. Dr. Bavolek encouraged us to distinguish between praise “for doing” and praise “for being” and to not give both at the same time. Bavolek continued offering powerful advice for our mentors: “Offer our kids unconditional regard and remember that they are greater than their behavior. Every kid is a basic caring individual, biologically predisposed to form and maintain long-term positive relationships. At the same time, kids have developed behaviors to adapt to their circumstances – they are wearing an adaptive shell. When kids are ‘acting out’, then catch them ‘acting in’. When they seem to be lacking accountability, notice the situations in which they are being accountable.” Notice how our actions (as mentors, parents, etc.) reinforce negative behavior. We need to make sure to include our youth when develop rules and consequences.
We also discussed the power of empathy. All of us have feelings and thoughts. Feelings have energy and energy wants expression. How can we help youth express their feelings? We were encouraged to really listen to our youth and not to squelch their feelings. As an illustration, Dr. Bavolek had us write three feelings, each on a small piece of paper. We then walked around the room and socialized until Dr. Bavolek stopped us. Each time we stopped, Bavolek shared how an adult might ignore a child, and we had to drag one of the feelings under a foot or a hand. Pretty soon, we were hunched over, moving as if we were crippled. Positive adults in the lives of youth have the ability to help them feel heard, stand up straight, and move forward.
Dr. Bavolek is excited about the positive nurturing happening in Chaffee County and wants to continue offering his support of our community. We are looking forward to his next visit.