April 23, 2024 • 23 mins
In this conversation, Amy and Kevin explore playful ways to healthy conflict, identifying the conditions for tension and how play can help keep us engaged with others long enough to help us move to new understanding together.
Some resources mentioned in this episode:
Positive Discipline https://www.positivediscipline.com/
Playful Parenting https://www.playfulparenting.com/
"Let the Playing Commence: A tribute to Bev Boy" (article) by Jennifer Berke (2016) https://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/bev-bos-on-play
Know Your Memes: Defeat Tom Nook https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/defeat-tom-nook
Cadre is a podcast that explores concepts from Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT), a psychological theory that started with Jean Baker Miller, and grew through collaboration and connection in places like the Stone Center at Wellesley College. RCT is built on the idea that people grow through and towards relationships, and that those relationships shape and are shaped by the cultures we co-create. Culture often creates challenges to connection through inequity and hierarchies.
Each year, the Bloomington Center for Connection selects a guiding theme for monthly small-group discussions of RCT concepts.
Amy Makice is the founder of Bloomington Center for Connection and a licensed psychotherapist based in Bloomington, Indiana. Amy offers individual therapy and parent support for people in the Bloomington area, workshops for parents and caregivers, and training on Relational Cultural theory.
Kevin Makice is a user experience designer and enthusiastic gamer who has been steeping in RCT for three decades.
Theme music created by Vlad Gluschenko ("Positive Thinking" and "Serpantine") and downloaded from Soundcloud through Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
https://soundcloud.com/vgl9/positive-thinking https://soundcloud.com/vgl9/serpantine https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Cadre and we're talking healthy conflict.
This is the hard one and I think it's also the one that
(00:22):
people are like, yay, we're going to learn how to do conflict.
And then everything's going to be okay.
Doesn't work that way.
Unfortunately.
Like there's not a way for conflict to not be conflict.
In the gaming world, they often talk about conflict as, you
know, the gaming mechanic as a tension between two emotions.
And they're either two positive emotions or two negative
(00:44):
emotions, because there's no conflict if it's, you know,
Love and fear you're gonna choose love or if you only
have one and there's no conflict It's just one emotion.
You just will take it until you get tired of it There's
nothing that's causing you to go back and forth.
There's no like decision or competing Ideas of what you want
to do The game that I saw in this discussion as an example is
(01:06):
Ticket to Ride because it is a tension between fear and greed.
Greed in that you need to get all the cards because you know
you're going to need to get it, but at what point do you stop doing
that because you're afraid that that track's going to go away.
There's
actually a really good strategy for
that, but I'm not going to tell you.
I have some sort of fallback positions, like
(01:30):
go to's, if we're just talking about conflict.
Like, there's some great graphs, uh, and drawings
and articles from some of the earlier works in
progress about conflict, and they don't involve play.
And we're really trying to talk about how play
interacts with these concepts and how we can use
(01:50):
play and the ideas of RCT to get better at conflict.
Because when we first were like, oh, let's do this.
I'm like, oh, yeah, we'll do this and we'll
do that But those don't really do play.
What does RCT say about conflict?
It has evolved over the years There are some just
gorgeous sections of Toward a New Psychology of
(02:13):
Women where she talks about healthy conflict.
When I would read it, I would imagine like having these conversations
where I would get to both share parts of myself that I might've
been afraid to share before, but I would know that they would
be met with a spaciousness and I might discover that I was.
(02:33):
mistaken or I might shift what I'm thinking because
I'm also trying to meet the other person's viewpoint
with a spaciousness, knowing that we don't have to win.
That was the big piece for me was, you know, you don't have to win.
You can just understand more deeply.
Yes, there are some great things that RCT says about conflict, and
(02:58):
I think some of the ideas would include, um, you know, the model me
and not me, which we've talked about before, and how our ideas of
who we should be, or our ideas of who we could never be, both get
in the way of having authentic conversation and create conflict.
I think our strategies of disconnection.
Those either can accelerate conflict because you're someone who
(03:21):
wants to make sure you get ahead of it, because that feels safer to
you, or they could result in you just completely avoiding conflict.
Jane Nelsen talks about being nice until you can't
stand your kids and then being mean until you can't
stand yourself, like that kind of back and forth.
And so when I think of conflict in RCT, I think of one true thing.
(03:44):
The idea of finding something that is true, is authentic for
you to say, and leaves room for movement in the relationship.
I think of saying to a parent with whom I vehemently disagree
on how to approach taking care of safety in a school, instead
(04:04):
of saying, wow, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard.
I could say, we both really care about safety.
And that's true, and I don't feel like I'm selling out,
and that person doesn't feel like I'm calling them dumb.
And I think for that to work, you have to actually get there, to where
you're really seeing that we both care about safety, otherwise it's
(04:25):
not just a platitude.
It's not just
a platitude.
I don't think, part of RCT is that it's a, it's a way of meaning
making, and if you don't, People come to it wanting steps.
Actually, the conflict piece is something that sometimes irks
me because people come to RCT things saying, Oh, I'm going to
go to this and then I'm going to know how to fix this conflict.
(04:45):
It feels to me, if that's how you're
doing it, then you're not doing it.
And you're not going to get like an authentic reaction, or you're not
going to move into a truly mutually growth fostering relationship.
You're just going to have a pleasant conversation.
That is the one of the distinctions that
RCT brings to this notion of conflict.
(05:08):
It's something that you said before, you know, it's
not about winning And I think a lot of times our
predisposition about conflict is somebody's got to win.
You know, we think of battles or things, wars, that
that's, that's the end of those grand conflicts is
that somebody basically surrenders to the other.
Um, and that's not what RCT is saying.
(05:32):
Conflict has a role in, in not like, uh, creating a dominance
of one over the other, or satisfying some answer to a question,
it's about are both people, or all the parties involved, going to
move to a new place together, so that you can't just do that on
your own, or I guess you can, you can say, Let's go over there.
(05:53):
Um, but usually it's, it's because the place
that you are, there's some discomfort in there.
There's something about it that isn't right.
And conflict, healthy conflict, is about engaging with that
in a way that's going to allow you to both arrive and leave.
someplace new together.
So the one true thing is the way to stay
(06:16):
in conflict, the, the healthy conflict.
It's, it's not a solution to it.
And it's not the disconnection.
It's saying, I'm looking for something to say this is important,
but we've got to find something that is, it's true that we can both
latch onto or something that, um, would allow me to have some footing
(06:36):
again, where I feel like I'm I feel like maybe I'd be losing it.
Yes.
One of the things you said in there is really important
in that when you're saying the one true thing,
you're not, you're not saying it with a solution.
I think a lot of times when we go into conflict, even
if it's nice conflict or whatever, it's persuasive.
It's trying, you already know what you want the person to do.
(06:57):
Like I know that I want my kid to do their homework and I
know that The best practices for homework involve sitting at
a clutter free desk and blah blah blah Whatever it is that I
already know because I'm an adult and I read the letter that the
school sent home or whatever But that means that I'm not really
(07:19):
listening To what is getting in the way of the homework in the
first place and it could have nothing to do with the desk Right?
It could have something to do with, I actually don't understand this
particular approach to solving equations and I need help with that.
Or I'm too hungry or I'm too tired, you know, like who, who knows?
(07:41):
But if you've already got the solution, you're
not going to hear the need that's underneath it.
Seeing conflict as an opportunity to understand more deeply.
Which is really hard because at the same
time, your fight or flight stuff is activated.
You want to protect yourself and you want to either run away or, you
(08:02):
know, punch someone, but you don't, you don't want to be vulnerable.
You don't want to be curious.
For conflict to be growth fostering, it has to involve curiosity.
And so the cards I picked out, I mean, we just talked
about the one true thing, but the other two cards
that I grabbed are Connection and Reconnection.
I was flipping through one of my favorite books on play as we were
(08:25):
getting ready here, which is Playful Parenting by Larry Cohen.
And I jotted down just a few of his little things that
I love, and they included that kids have to disconnect.
They have to fight.
They have to argue in order to learn how to repair.
Like if they don't ever have disconnections in
(08:45):
their play, they won't ever learn how to repair.
Learning how to repair, learning how to have that disconnection
and repair has like sort of this, he didn't say trickle up I'm
sure, but like, that's how I was imagining it as like, it grows.
Then they know that when they were playing house and
they couldn't agree on this thing and they kept at it.
(09:07):
And they got really mad, maybe, but then they came
back together because they both knew that, you know,
their one true thing is that they wanted to play.
That, in turn, could be present when they're in fifth grade
and trying to agree on what panorama they're going to make.
Play allows us to practice disconnection and
(09:28):
reconnection, which is an essential part of RCT.
What I was thinking of is watching people go off to college.
Like inevitably with everybody that I've known, including myself,
there's this moment someplace in those three or four years
where your personality is sort of very different than it was.
(09:50):
And I always likened it to that exercise where
you, you know, lean against the door and then step
away from it and your arm shoots up in the air.
Is that there's
I love that.
The things that kept you on a particular order, your
understanding of the world or yourself, or the people around
you that were guiding or controlling, um, aren't there.
(10:11):
And you've got a new set of people and a new set
of rules and you sort of have to figure things out.
And it, it seems like part of that experience is sort of going
too far and then pulling things back and finding yourself in that.
And I think of Bev Bos.
At some point, you know, the kid will say, well,
(10:33):
five rolls of toilet paper is, is where that's at.
I'm done.
Yeah.
And they have that experience.
They know what it's like to go through five rolls of
toilet paper and, you know, make a huge mess of things.
It's, it's, it's an experience they have.
The limits don't do this.
It's you show me what's, what's too much.
Those moments in emerging adulthood where you, you've
(10:54):
had these, this framework that you've grown up in
and people who reflect certain things back to you.
You've got these relationships that have taught you X,
Y, Z, and now you're either without those relationships
or with your relationships that are teaching you A,
B, C, and you may do too much of a variety of things.
(11:14):
as you're experimenting with that, and through that you learn the
kind of clarity that helps with conflict is the knowing what your.
Worries what your concerns, what your desires and
values are, even as they change, because we are
always changing and being influenced by others.
(11:36):
But if you have an understanding of the wall that
I lean on is that my friendships are valuable, like
really valuable, even if I'm in a whole new situation.
And I'm trying to figure out what to do.
I know that my value is connection and that kind of love.
(12:01):
I can return to that going into the conflict.
And so if my value is, I want my child to develop
curiosity, then it can help me let go of what I think
the solution is because I can say, I don't know.
The knowing what, and being able to name what
you value and then making room for a connection
(12:25):
with what the other person is valuing too.
If I value safety and this other person values safety, we
could still be having this huge argument about how you teach
kids to cross the street because we're not really hearing
and exploring what the value of safety looks like for each
other in a way that helps us co create a way through this.
(12:47):
Where is the play in that?
What you're describing is like the value of the
conflict and some of the attributes in there.
The curiosity is one of the
It's so easy
to get into just the conflict instead of the play.
You sort of need to have the right ingredients or
a way to allow yourself to have that curiosity.
(13:08):
If you are in that flight or fight mode,
you aren't going to be in a place that is
We hear about that, like, people who are just sort of
angry the whole time they're playing unless they win.
Yeah.
To me that sounds just miserable.
And I think it's why that one little meme that went around, uh, after
the first COVID lockdown, when there was the professor asking people
(13:31):
if they had all defeated Tom Nook, because that's not the point,
like, of Animal Crossing, it's, you don't really defeat things.
I'm curious about how to continue to engage in play
when you're wanting to play, like, so you come into
a situation wanting to play and You find yourself not
(13:54):
feeling playful, not having fun, and there's conflict.
How does that work?
Strategies of disconnection is, is a really key thing.
It's, it's like the counter to one true thing.
So if I feel I'm in that situation, if it's building and I don't
feel like I have a release for it, or I don't have the energy because
(14:17):
it's the end of a long day or a long week, I will gravitate towards.
disconnection towards finding something that is just
going to tune myself out so I don't have to deal with it.
And if I do that, if I avoid the conflict that way, there isn't going
to be any of this mutually getting into a different space together.
(14:37):
It's me saying this conflict is not going to happen.
In my mind, and with other people's minds,
it's like that's a way of resolving it.
It's to just avoid the conflict, or to come in so forcefully
that it shuts the other person down, and therefore there is no
conflict, but you're not in the same place at that point, and
(14:58):
they may be doing strategies of disconnection in other ways.
It takes lots of forms.
Is there room to say, is this fun?
Maybe that's a companion to the one true thing.
It's the question you're sort of asking to give
yourself a chance to find that, that thing.
Because the answer could be no, and it doesn't
(15:18):
necessarily mean that just because you say no,
it's not fun, that that's the end of the game.
There's opportunities to be curious and to find out
why it's not working, to change rules around or do
something different momentarily and then come back to it.
When you ask that question, it allows
everybody involved to be part of that answer.
(15:40):
And that answer then can lead to other questions.
I don't know whether it initiates conflict, but being
able to ask that question allows you to see the conflict.
If you just keep pretending that it's fun, hoping
that it'll get fun later, it doesn't give you
an opportunity to grow and to deepen your play.
(16:03):
And I can think of a time that we were
playing a board game with our kiddo.
It clearly wasn't fun anymore.
For the kid, it was confusing.
And I think I was more at a, like a, when you do that
thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs to the side, you were
probably like at thumbs up because you wanted to like,
Try it.
Learn this game and try it and get it.
And kid was at thumbs down and I was at like thumbs sideways.
(16:27):
Like, I would keep playing if people wanted to, but I
was finding the sort of like emotional management that
was required of the moment tiring, and we stopped.
And I think that was okay.
And I assume that at some point, the same
group of people will play that game again.
Maybe, maybe not, maybe as different characters,
because we also learned that it's complicated.
(16:49):
I was sort of proud of that afternoon, even though I know
it didn't end the way probably any of us wanted it to.
We were able to talk about what was happening and then
say, Hey, let's try something different in that way.
We, we disconnected and we reconnected.
We did that dance of naming what was happening and naming the
(17:10):
disconnection because disconnections always happen because
that's just how life is and valuing each other enough to
check in and to connect over what our next steps would be.
I have one more thing to say about play
from the therapeutic powers of play.
The line was, and I've changed it so this isn't a direct
(17:30):
quote, but they were talking about allowing play to
emerge authentically, like not trying to control it.
And true play is co world building.
If you're co creating a world, it has room for everyone.
Kids play doesn't have to be fair because it probably won't
be fair because they're experimenting with fairness and equity
(17:54):
and what they want to give and what they don't want to give.
Your job as a play facilitator is not to make it fair.
It's to address the power imbalances.
So you're not necessarily making it fair, but you're pointing
out, hey, you are three times as big as this other kid.
So Is there something we should do to make the
(18:15):
wrestling a little bit more fun for both of you?
I like the, the look at power with that.
Just to try to summarize a little bit is we have healthy
conflict as something where there's there's a tension that has
surfaced that you're both trying to get to a new space together.
In those moments of tension you could feel yourself pulling
(18:37):
away and using your strategies of disconnection to end it.
Or to disengage from it, but that's not going to allow you to move.
You have these tools, such as the is
it fun question and one true thing.
Will it
still be fun if you don't win?
Yes, yes, it's another uh, Jonathan Liu thing.
To find a way, probably within yourself, or to see
(19:01):
somebody struggling and help them find a way to be
able to ask and answer those questions together.
If you are embroiled or embracing or experiencing that tension
fully, you're not in a situation where you can do that.
The
health of a relationship is, can you reconnect and come back into it?
(19:23):
The reconnection almost demands that
there's going to be a disconnection.
It isn't a state where it's just always on and you're always
in a good relationship and you're always doing the thing right.
It's going to ebb and flow and we've got to find ways to come back in.
So then when I think of using play to help with real world
conflict, one of the terms that comes up for me is, is resonance.
(19:46):
I'm sure there's some studies somewhere that will
tell you that laughter and humor does something
fabulous to your brain and your nervous system.
If you are having the real world conflict, being able to take a break,
and it might mean that you're taking a break to play separately.
I don't know.
(20:06):
But if you can take a break to do something that you
know makes you laugh together, you know, I think of my,
my YouTube need to laugh list that I can snap myself
out of a pretty deep funk with that particular playlist.
Or sometimes when our geek camp would get like a little bit
too, uh, I don't want to say mean, but like, they really get
(20:30):
into each other and like, be no, I want to be on this one.
I want to be on that one.
And we would just sort of say, okay, this is clearly not working.
The thing that we're doing right now, not working.
We're going to do something else.
And then.
playing that funny elephant giraffe game where you like
motion that you're an elephant or a giraffe and you
pass it around the circle, but just do something to sort
(20:51):
of disrupt that sort of the rigid protections that are
popping up and to to break into the resonance a little bit.
Another real life example of that is when you're just
having such a horrible day and you know, you're sobbing
and suddenly you think of, well, at least it's not.
(21:14):
And then it turns out to be something kind of funny
that you say and probably inappropriate, but you
get to laugh and you usually get that eye contact.
And that response, you get that nonverbal holding
from the other person that helps you start the
reconnection and work through the conflict that way.
(21:37):
It's hard to do that in the moment.
I mean, if you ask somebody in a bad
mood, do they want to play a game?
The answer is going to be no, more often than not.
Right.
So, how do you help somebody and yourself into
intentionally going into a different space?
Those are some things that we can explore when we do our cadre.
And healthy conflict on May 5th, we will be back to hybrid.
(21:59):
So we'll be here at the BCC and we will be online with zoom.
Yes.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah, I'm too.
This episode of Cadre is a production of the Bloomington
(22:20):
Center for Connection, an organization using relational
cultural theory to promote social change through connection.
This conversation between Kevin Makice and Amy Makice, LCSW,
took place on April 16th, 2024 in Bloomington, Indiana.
And was edited for this podcast by Kevin McKeece.
Theme music lovingly sampled from Positive
Thinking and Serpentine by Vlad Glushenko.
(22:43):
Follow Bloomington Center for Connection on
Facebook and other social media platforms.
This is Cadre and we're talking healthy conflict.
This is the hard one and I think it's also the one that
(00:22):
people are like, yay, we're going to learn how to do conflict.
And then everything's going to be okay.
Doesn't work that way.
Unfortunately.
Like there's not a way for conflict to not be conflict.
In the gaming world, they often talk about conflict as, you
know, the gaming mechanic as a tension between two emotions.
And they're either two positive emotions or two negative
(00:44):
emotions, because there's no conflict if it's, you know,
Love and fear you're gonna choose love or if you only
have one and there's no conflict It's just one emotion.
You just will take it until you get tired of it There's
nothing that's causing you to go back and forth.
There's no like decision or competing Ideas of what you want
to do The game that I saw in this discussion as an example is
(01:06):
Ticket to Ride because it is a tension between fear and greed.
Greed in that you need to get all the cards because you know
you're going to need to get it, but at what point do you stop doing
that because you're afraid that that track's going to go away.
There's
actually a really good strategy for
that, but I'm not going to tell you.
I have some sort of fallback positions, like
(01:30):
go to's, if we're just talking about conflict.
Like, there's some great graphs, uh, and drawings
and articles from some of the earlier works in
progress about conflict, and they don't involve play.
And we're really trying to talk about how play
interacts with these concepts and how we can use
(01:50):
play and the ideas of RCT to get better at conflict.
Because when we first were like, oh, let's do this.
I'm like, oh, yeah, we'll do this and we'll
do that But those don't really do play.
What does RCT say about conflict?
It has evolved over the years There are some just
gorgeous sections of Toward a New Psychology of
(02:13):
Women where she talks about healthy conflict.
When I would read it, I would imagine like having these conversations
where I would get to both share parts of myself that I might've
been afraid to share before, but I would know that they would
be met with a spaciousness and I might discover that I was.
(02:33):
mistaken or I might shift what I'm thinking because
I'm also trying to meet the other person's viewpoint
with a spaciousness, knowing that we don't have to win.
That was the big piece for me was, you know, you don't have to win.
You can just understand more deeply.
Yes, there are some great things that RCT says about conflict, and
(02:58):
I think some of the ideas would include, um, you know, the model me
and not me, which we've talked about before, and how our ideas of
who we should be, or our ideas of who we could never be, both get
in the way of having authentic conversation and create conflict.
I think our strategies of disconnection.
Those either can accelerate conflict because you're someone who
(03:21):
wants to make sure you get ahead of it, because that feels safer to
you, or they could result in you just completely avoiding conflict.
Jane Nelsen talks about being nice until you can't
stand your kids and then being mean until you can't
stand yourself, like that kind of back and forth.
And so when I think of conflict in RCT, I think of one true thing.
(03:44):
The idea of finding something that is true, is authentic for
you to say, and leaves room for movement in the relationship.
I think of saying to a parent with whom I vehemently disagree
on how to approach taking care of safety in a school, instead
(04:04):
of saying, wow, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard.
I could say, we both really care about safety.
And that's true, and I don't feel like I'm selling out,
and that person doesn't feel like I'm calling them dumb.
And I think for that to work, you have to actually get there, to where
you're really seeing that we both care about safety, otherwise it's
(04:25):
not just a platitude.
It's not just
a platitude.
I don't think, part of RCT is that it's a, it's a way of meaning
making, and if you don't, People come to it wanting steps.
Actually, the conflict piece is something that sometimes irks
me because people come to RCT things saying, Oh, I'm going to
go to this and then I'm going to know how to fix this conflict.
(04:45):
It feels to me, if that's how you're
doing it, then you're not doing it.
And you're not going to get like an authentic reaction, or you're not
going to move into a truly mutually growth fostering relationship.
You're just going to have a pleasant conversation.
That is the one of the distinctions that
RCT brings to this notion of conflict.
(05:08):
It's something that you said before, you know, it's
not about winning And I think a lot of times our
predisposition about conflict is somebody's got to win.
You know, we think of battles or things, wars, that
that's, that's the end of those grand conflicts is
that somebody basically surrenders to the other.
Um, and that's not what RCT is saying.
(05:32):
Conflict has a role in, in not like, uh, creating a dominance
of one over the other, or satisfying some answer to a question,
it's about are both people, or all the parties involved, going to
move to a new place together, so that you can't just do that on
your own, or I guess you can, you can say, Let's go over there.
(05:53):
Um, but usually it's, it's because the place
that you are, there's some discomfort in there.
There's something about it that isn't right.
And conflict, healthy conflict, is about engaging with that
in a way that's going to allow you to both arrive and leave.
someplace new together.
So the one true thing is the way to stay
(06:16):
in conflict, the, the healthy conflict.
It's, it's not a solution to it.
And it's not the disconnection.
It's saying, I'm looking for something to say this is important,
but we've got to find something that is, it's true that we can both
latch onto or something that, um, would allow me to have some footing
(06:36):
again, where I feel like I'm I feel like maybe I'd be losing it.
Yes.
One of the things you said in there is really important
in that when you're saying the one true thing,
you're not, you're not saying it with a solution.
I think a lot of times when we go into conflict, even
if it's nice conflict or whatever, it's persuasive.
It's trying, you already know what you want the person to do.
(06:57):
Like I know that I want my kid to do their homework and I
know that The best practices for homework involve sitting at
a clutter free desk and blah blah blah Whatever it is that I
already know because I'm an adult and I read the letter that the
school sent home or whatever But that means that I'm not really
(07:19):
listening To what is getting in the way of the homework in the
first place and it could have nothing to do with the desk Right?
It could have something to do with, I actually don't understand this
particular approach to solving equations and I need help with that.
Or I'm too hungry or I'm too tired, you know, like who, who knows?
(07:41):
But if you've already got the solution, you're
not going to hear the need that's underneath it.
Seeing conflict as an opportunity to understand more deeply.
Which is really hard because at the same
time, your fight or flight stuff is activated.
You want to protect yourself and you want to either run away or, you
(08:02):
know, punch someone, but you don't, you don't want to be vulnerable.
You don't want to be curious.
For conflict to be growth fostering, it has to involve curiosity.
And so the cards I picked out, I mean, we just talked
about the one true thing, but the other two cards
that I grabbed are Connection and Reconnection.
I was flipping through one of my favorite books on play as we were
(08:25):
getting ready here, which is Playful Parenting by Larry Cohen.
And I jotted down just a few of his little things that
I love, and they included that kids have to disconnect.
They have to fight.
They have to argue in order to learn how to repair.
Like if they don't ever have disconnections in
(08:45):
their play, they won't ever learn how to repair.
Learning how to repair, learning how to have that disconnection
and repair has like sort of this, he didn't say trickle up I'm
sure, but like, that's how I was imagining it as like, it grows.
Then they know that when they were playing house and
they couldn't agree on this thing and they kept at it.
(09:07):
And they got really mad, maybe, but then they came
back together because they both knew that, you know,
their one true thing is that they wanted to play.
That, in turn, could be present when they're in fifth grade
and trying to agree on what panorama they're going to make.
Play allows us to practice disconnection and
(09:28):
reconnection, which is an essential part of RCT.
What I was thinking of is watching people go off to college.
Like inevitably with everybody that I've known, including myself,
there's this moment someplace in those three or four years
where your personality is sort of very different than it was.
(09:50):
And I always likened it to that exercise where
you, you know, lean against the door and then step
away from it and your arm shoots up in the air.
Is that there's
I love that.
The things that kept you on a particular order, your
understanding of the world or yourself, or the people around
you that were guiding or controlling, um, aren't there.
(10:11):
And you've got a new set of people and a new set
of rules and you sort of have to figure things out.
And it, it seems like part of that experience is sort of going
too far and then pulling things back and finding yourself in that.
And I think of Bev Bos.
At some point, you know, the kid will say, well,
(10:33):
five rolls of toilet paper is, is where that's at.
I'm done.
Yeah.
And they have that experience.
They know what it's like to go through five rolls of
toilet paper and, you know, make a huge mess of things.
It's, it's, it's an experience they have.
The limits don't do this.
It's you show me what's, what's too much.
Those moments in emerging adulthood where you, you've
(10:54):
had these, this framework that you've grown up in
and people who reflect certain things back to you.
You've got these relationships that have taught you X,
Y, Z, and now you're either without those relationships
or with your relationships that are teaching you A,
B, C, and you may do too much of a variety of things.
(11:14):
as you're experimenting with that, and through that you learn the
kind of clarity that helps with conflict is the knowing what your.
Worries what your concerns, what your desires and
values are, even as they change, because we are
always changing and being influenced by others.
(11:36):
But if you have an understanding of the wall that
I lean on is that my friendships are valuable, like
really valuable, even if I'm in a whole new situation.
And I'm trying to figure out what to do.
I know that my value is connection and that kind of love.
(12:01):
I can return to that going into the conflict.
And so if my value is, I want my child to develop
curiosity, then it can help me let go of what I think
the solution is because I can say, I don't know.
The knowing what, and being able to name what
you value and then making room for a connection
(12:25):
with what the other person is valuing too.
If I value safety and this other person values safety, we
could still be having this huge argument about how you teach
kids to cross the street because we're not really hearing
and exploring what the value of safety looks like for each
other in a way that helps us co create a way through this.
(12:47):
Where is the play in that?
What you're describing is like the value of the
conflict and some of the attributes in there.
The curiosity is one of the
It's so easy
to get into just the conflict instead of the play.
You sort of need to have the right ingredients or
a way to allow yourself to have that curiosity.
(13:08):
If you are in that flight or fight mode,
you aren't going to be in a place that is
We hear about that, like, people who are just sort of
angry the whole time they're playing unless they win.
Yeah.
To me that sounds just miserable.
And I think it's why that one little meme that went around, uh, after
the first COVID lockdown, when there was the professor asking people
(13:31):
if they had all defeated Tom Nook, because that's not the point,
like, of Animal Crossing, it's, you don't really defeat things.
I'm curious about how to continue to engage in play
when you're wanting to play, like, so you come into
a situation wanting to play and You find yourself not
(13:54):
feeling playful, not having fun, and there's conflict.
How does that work?
Strategies of disconnection is, is a really key thing.
It's, it's like the counter to one true thing.
So if I feel I'm in that situation, if it's building and I don't
feel like I have a release for it, or I don't have the energy because
(14:17):
it's the end of a long day or a long week, I will gravitate towards.
disconnection towards finding something that is just
going to tune myself out so I don't have to deal with it.
And if I do that, if I avoid the conflict that way, there isn't going
to be any of this mutually getting into a different space together.
(14:37):
It's me saying this conflict is not going to happen.
In my mind, and with other people's minds,
it's like that's a way of resolving it.
It's to just avoid the conflict, or to come in so forcefully
that it shuts the other person down, and therefore there is no
conflict, but you're not in the same place at that point, and
(14:58):
they may be doing strategies of disconnection in other ways.
It takes lots of forms.
Is there room to say, is this fun?
Maybe that's a companion to the one true thing.
It's the question you're sort of asking to give
yourself a chance to find that, that thing.
Because the answer could be no, and it doesn't
(15:18):
necessarily mean that just because you say no,
it's not fun, that that's the end of the game.
There's opportunities to be curious and to find out
why it's not working, to change rules around or do
something different momentarily and then come back to it.
When you ask that question, it allows
everybody involved to be part of that answer.
(15:40):
And that answer then can lead to other questions.
I don't know whether it initiates conflict, but being
able to ask that question allows you to see the conflict.
If you just keep pretending that it's fun, hoping
that it'll get fun later, it doesn't give you
an opportunity to grow and to deepen your play.
(16:03):
And I can think of a time that we were
playing a board game with our kiddo.
It clearly wasn't fun anymore.
For the kid, it was confusing.
And I think I was more at a, like a, when you do that
thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs to the side, you were
probably like at thumbs up because you wanted to like,
Try it.
Learn this game and try it and get it.
And kid was at thumbs down and I was at like thumbs sideways.
(16:27):
Like, I would keep playing if people wanted to, but I
was finding the sort of like emotional management that
was required of the moment tiring, and we stopped.
And I think that was okay.
And I assume that at some point, the same
group of people will play that game again.
Maybe, maybe not, maybe as different characters,
because we also learned that it's complicated.
(16:49):
I was sort of proud of that afternoon, even though I know
it didn't end the way probably any of us wanted it to.
We were able to talk about what was happening and then
say, Hey, let's try something different in that way.
We, we disconnected and we reconnected.
We did that dance of naming what was happening and naming the
(17:10):
disconnection because disconnections always happen because
that's just how life is and valuing each other enough to
check in and to connect over what our next steps would be.
I have one more thing to say about play
from the therapeutic powers of play.
The line was, and I've changed it so this isn't a direct
(17:30):
quote, but they were talking about allowing play to
emerge authentically, like not trying to control it.
And true play is co world building.
If you're co creating a world, it has room for everyone.
Kids play doesn't have to be fair because it probably won't
be fair because they're experimenting with fairness and equity
(17:54):
and what they want to give and what they don't want to give.
Your job as a play facilitator is not to make it fair.
It's to address the power imbalances.
So you're not necessarily making it fair, but you're pointing
out, hey, you are three times as big as this other kid.
So Is there something we should do to make the
(18:15):
wrestling a little bit more fun for both of you?
I like the, the look at power with that.
Just to try to summarize a little bit is we have healthy
conflict as something where there's there's a tension that has
surfaced that you're both trying to get to a new space together.
In those moments of tension you could feel yourself pulling
(18:37):
away and using your strategies of disconnection to end it.
Or to disengage from it, but that's not going to allow you to move.
You have these tools, such as the is
it fun question and one true thing.
Will it
still be fun if you don't win?
Yes, yes, it's another uh, Jonathan Liu thing.
To find a way, probably within yourself, or to see
(19:01):
somebody struggling and help them find a way to be
able to ask and answer those questions together.
If you are embroiled or embracing or experiencing that tension
fully, you're not in a situation where you can do that.
The
health of a relationship is, can you reconnect and come back into it?
(19:23):
The reconnection almost demands that
there's going to be a disconnection.
It isn't a state where it's just always on and you're always
in a good relationship and you're always doing the thing right.
It's going to ebb and flow and we've got to find ways to come back in.
So then when I think of using play to help with real world
conflict, one of the terms that comes up for me is, is resonance.
(19:46):
I'm sure there's some studies somewhere that will
tell you that laughter and humor does something
fabulous to your brain and your nervous system.
If you are having the real world conflict, being able to take a break,
and it might mean that you're taking a break to play separately.
I don't know.
(20:06):
But if you can take a break to do something that you
know makes you laugh together, you know, I think of my,
my YouTube need to laugh list that I can snap myself
out of a pretty deep funk with that particular playlist.
Or sometimes when our geek camp would get like a little bit
too, uh, I don't want to say mean, but like, they really get
(20:30):
into each other and like, be no, I want to be on this one.
I want to be on that one.
And we would just sort of say, okay, this is clearly not working.
The thing that we're doing right now, not working.
We're going to do something else.
And then.
playing that funny elephant giraffe game where you like
motion that you're an elephant or a giraffe and you
pass it around the circle, but just do something to sort
(20:51):
of disrupt that sort of the rigid protections that are
popping up and to to break into the resonance a little bit.
Another real life example of that is when you're just
having such a horrible day and you know, you're sobbing
and suddenly you think of, well, at least it's not.
(21:14):
And then it turns out to be something kind of funny
that you say and probably inappropriate, but you
get to laugh and you usually get that eye contact.
And that response, you get that nonverbal holding
from the other person that helps you start the
reconnection and work through the conflict that way.
(21:37):
It's hard to do that in the moment.
I mean, if you ask somebody in a bad
mood, do they want to play a game?
The answer is going to be no, more often than not.
Right.
So, how do you help somebody and yourself into
intentionally going into a different space?
Those are some things that we can explore when we do our cadre.
And healthy conflict on May 5th, we will be back to hybrid.
(21:59):
So we'll be here at the BCC and we will be online with zoom.
Yes.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah, I'm too.
This episode of Cadre is a production of the Bloomington
(22:20):
Center for Connection, an organization using relational
cultural theory to promote social change through connection.
This conversation between Kevin Makice and Amy Makice, LCSW,
took place on April 16th, 2024 in Bloomington, Indiana.
And was edited for this podcast by Kevin McKeece.
Theme music lovingly sampled from Positive
Thinking and Serpentine by Vlad Glushenko.
(22:43):
Follow Bloomington Center for Connection on
Facebook and other social media platforms.
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