The Butterfly Effect of Nonviolent Resistance in Child-to-Parent Violence: from Anchoring Parenting to Shaping Educational Communities

The contemporary family, characterised by the assumption of parenting as a private matter, the minimisation of conflict, and the emphasis on control and overprotection of the child, who acts as a narcissistic mirror for the parents (Suigo, 2021), promotes the reproduction of black pedagogy (Rutschky & Perticari, 2015), albeit in a more nuanced form. The emotional neglect experienced by children can lead to the repression of emotions, the internalisation of shame and a sense of disconnection from one's true self (Miller, 1987). The erosion of the middle-land of adolescence (Barone & Mantegazza, 1999) has given rise to phenomena such as adultescence (Marescotti, 2020), in which parents strive to maintain youthfulness, and adultization, in which children are prematurely thrust into competitive and performative roles (Miller, 2010). In adolescence, these experiences can emerge in the form of aggressive behaviour towards parents, a phenomenon known as child-to-parent violence (Rutter, 2023), which can be seen as a paradoxical attempt to achieve self-determination. In order to address this problem, Nonviolent Resistance (NVR) has been proposed by psychologist Haim Omer as a transformative approach to child-to-parent violence (Omer, 2021). The NVR approach operates within the family educational dispositif (Massa, 1992; Palma, 2016) and aims to break the secrecy surrounding the experience of violence and the isolation of the family by cultivating a social network of “allies” building an educational community. NVR also aims to support parents in strengthening their parenting role, with actions aimed at consolidating what Omer calls the 'anchoring' role of parents. This is intended to counteract the dehumanisation and passivity induced by the oppressive dispositif (Freire, 2018) created by violence, and to transform the family into a “safe place” (Fontanella, 2024), appreciating vulnerability no longer understood as a symptom of weakness but as a necessary dimension of exposure and acceptance of the otherness.