How Parenting is Like Hostage Negations

Have you ever asked your kid to clean his room, take out the trash, or stop taunting his sister/brother. I found some advice on hostage negations and realized that these are the exact tactics I use it when dealing with my son, step son and step daughters.

In a life or death situation to free hostages, it's vitally important to remain calm and avoid the use of force. Analyze the hostage taker and make him or her feel understood. Your goal is the safety of the hostages.

1. Evacuate the area within at least a full block of the building the hostages are in. Have a team of officers control foot traffic within the radius. Cover all potential points of entry and exit to the building. This equates to turn off the TV, video games, etc and stop any potential distractions.
2. Gather intelligence on the hostage taker. Find out who the hostage taker is, who his family and friends are and question any witnesses. Learn why the hostages were taken. What caused the fight or discover what leverage you have.
3. Remain composed and communicate in a nonthreatening way. The biggest challenge.
4. Gain the hostage taker's trust. Assure him that you don't want to hurt him. Encourage conversation, repeating back carefully every detail that he mentions. Ask him to continue talking. When he demands something, tell him you have to negotiate with the scene commander. Go ask your father.
5. Ask the hostage taker for a solution. Negotiate for a solution by giving the hostage taker a role in the process. Like I ask my kids, “how can you solve this problem?”.
6. Let the hostage taker know that you can't continue to help him if any hostages get hurt. Remind the kids what will happen if they don’t do as their told.

Things to remember when dealing with a hostage situation:

It is not about you
We know that our subjects sometimes behave in seemingly irrational ways. We know how difficult it is to be truly heard or understood. No matter how difficult we must remember that this negotiation is not about you. It is about the subject and his or her needs. This point may be hard to keep in mind especially when the hostage taker is nasty, insulting or worse. Here here!

Everyone involved is a negotiator
Anyone communicating a message to the other side is a negotiator so virtually everyone on-scene of a crisis is a negotiator. Everyone must be sending the same message. If the negotiators are taking a conciliatory, non-threatening approach, the tactical team must not pose a threat and the public information officer must be taking the same position, especially if the subject has access to television and radio. Few circumstances will prolong an incident more than sending the subject conflicting messages. Basically make sure you and hubby are on the same page and if you have multiple children make sure you give them all the same answer/privilege.

I found this article at: http://www.ehow.com/how_2096270_negotiate-free-hostages.html