Holiday Is Perfect for Peace Talks

It begins so joyously. They arrive at your door (or you at theirs) bearing goodwill and gifts, maybe casseroles and cookies. Siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, cousins, nephews. Your “next of kin,” your “blood relations,” the ones who map your past and (genetically speaking) predict your future. They are referred to by your parents, in sacred tones, as The Family--those from whom you would inherit and to whom you would bequeath; the ones you’d call first to post bail or donate bone marrow.

Love is always in the air on this one day a year when they gather. But somewhere between grace and goodbye, the buoyant atmosphere seems to dampen. Old wounds open, unresolved issues reappear.

The cousin who has more children than The Family thinks she can afford; the other who is childless because, The Family whispers, she is selfish. The sibling who feels he’s been slighted because he never married; the one who feels slighted because she married the “wrong person.”

The cousin who sports multiple flags on his car and his sweater; the other who thinks flag displays are foolish. The hawk uncle who wants to “bomb ‘em to oblivion;” the dove who wants to “stop bombing the innocents immediately.”

If every year you wish the family Christmas could magically be just a little more peaceful, forget it. A man who knows about these things, Samuel Chasin, psychiatrist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, says nothing magical will happen--unless you make it happen.

“In families, certain choreographies are firmly established that people fall into year after year. It’s a stylized, totally predictable way of interacting. The same thing that happened last year and the year before is probably going to happen this year.”

That’s especially true in families in which members don’t see one another frequently, he says. People who come back home maybe once a year often feel as if they’ve gone back in time, as if they are still children--as if nothing has changed in the family pecking order. In a sense, Chasin says, nothing has changed.

Let’s say you’re 42, and you moved to the East Coast right after college. That’s 20 years away from your family, and only one week a year spent with it. Your family has, in a sense, never updated its image of you. To it, you’re still only 20 weeks older than when you left. To change that, Chasin says, you must somehow underline and activate the more grown-up, independent and resourceful aspect of your personality.

This won’t be easy.

Neither good food nor spiked cider will help alleviate the tensions that occur when people feel ignored, disrespected, excluded or just plain outnumbered in their choice of lifestyle or opinion.

What’s needed, says Chasin and his colleagues at the Public Conversations Project, is creative intervention.

The Public Conversations Project, a 12-year-old nonprofit group based in Watertown Mass., is composed of family therapists who foster “a more empathic and collaborative society through constructive conversation among those with differing views.”

In other words, they use the art of conversation to get rid of the shouting, violence and stereotypes among people who disagree on hot-button issues. So far, the project has promoted peaceful and productive dialogue between antiabortion and pro-choice groups, opposite camps on the environment, activists on both sides of incendiary labor issues. And because this year has been so difficult for Americans, it has posted on its Web site, www.publicconversations.org, what amounts to a home-usage manual for constructive family dialogue. It takes some guts to change the dynamic at your homestead, Chasin says. He admits that some of the ideas he and his colleagues propose may sound too formalized or downright hokey. But they work, says Sallyann Roth, a social worker and member of the project.

First, someone has to pipe up amid the shouting or arguing and say, “Hey, it’s getting a little tense in here. Let’s try doing this a little differently this year, so we can continue the discussion.”

The clan may start muttering into its eggnog, but it’ll be so surprised at your gutsiness that it’ll probably agree to listen. That’s when you hit them with the question: Would you be willing to spend an hour or so in which we talk together according to certain ground rules? If it sounds enough like a game, even the least malleable may want to try it. The ground rules are that one person speaks at a time, and the order of the speakers goes in a circle. Chasin says it’s a little like the Talking Staff councils held by Native Americans. The person holding the staff--which is a stick--gets to talk; when that person is done it’s passed to the next person.

What’s the point? Chasin says it’s subtle. The person with the stick knows he or she can talk for a certain length of time, uninterrupted. Everyone else feels free to spend their energy listening--they know they will also have a turn.

Having something to pass around helps keep it clear whose turn it is to speak--your talking stick might be a toy football.

Decide on a speaking time limit--say, four minutes--and start with a question that everyone who wants to speak can answer. (No one should ever feel forced to speak or embarrassed if they prefer not to, Chasin says. One should be able to say, “I pass,” and feel no ill will from the others.)

Chasin recommends opening with a personal question that everyone can answer, such as “Let’s talk about something that happened to us this year that really affected us and made our lives different.” The questions should be driven by curiosity, rather than challenge, he says.

“Every statement should begin with the word ‘I’ because you are talking from your heart about what you are experiencing,” he says. “If you stay with that, no one will ever say that is stupid, or you are not experiencing that.”

And people may come to understand one another better.

Therapist Roth says you should ask yourself some questions even before you get to the Christmas reunion: Is it really important for family members to know your opinions about everything? Or would you rather have a really good connection with them? The answer to that question might change the way you react to family members, she says.

Decide what you really want to happen. Then you’ll behave in a way more likely to achieve it. “We are asking people to become more reflective and intentional about relationships which often have a very automatic character,” she says

Roth says the point of changing the conversation pattern is not to try and understand another person’s point of view but to understand the person who holds it. And to simply admit that you don’t understand them is a step toward closeness.