Your relationships are only as strong as your capacity to have a difficult conversation

Read that again. Let it sink in.

Your relationships are only as strong as your capacity to have a difficult conversation

No matter the relationship.

No matter the context.

If you only have a good relationship when things are good, but you’re unable to talk about the struggles, the upsets, the differences ~ then your relationship isn’t strong, it is conditional. Maybe thats ok?

But it’s important to be clear on what basis we are in a relationships with people on.

In the child protection context, when we have conversations with partner agencies along the lines of “what did the parents say when you asked about this?” Sometimes we hear them say “Oh we didn’t want to say anything, we have a good relationship with the family and didn’t want to jeopardise that”

I am assuming you’ve heard that too? Yes

Difficult conversations are …difficult, uncomfortable, vulnerable, give us early warning signs, make us feel sick. Most people don’t like confrontation and have physical reactions to the thought of it. The ability to say how we feel, ask difficult things, speaking to our experience, being heard is powerful, it’s at the heart of clarity, clarity is at the heart of kindness. It requires every ounce of courage we have.

When we are on the receiving end of a difficult conversation - someone comes to you with something you’ve done or said, an opinion you’ve expressed a behaviour you have displayed…..it can sting, hurt, catch you off guard. Our natural response to this feedback (because thats what it is) is to ‘armour up’ to use the language of Brene Brown. We pull on our armour, line up our defence, sharpen our position and comeback, flip the blame over the other person. We often stop listening, jump into countering their argument with a ‘well this is what you do that I don’t like either’ This kind of (understandable) response, shuts down communication, tells the other person “I’m not able / interested in hearing about your experience” This can be irreparably damaging to relationships.

It something we need to keep leaning into, deepening our capacity for. It’s so important to understand in the arena of child safety and welfare. Both the way we do it and what we might expect from the families we work with.

(challenging feedback to people about their kids is the thing that will cause them to don the most heavy armour in my experience )

If we can’t do this in child protection, how do we be clear about our worries? And if we aren’t all clear about the worries for children (even if we don’t agree) then how do we even think of stepping forward into a safety planning process?