How To Use FBI Negotiation Tactics on Your Teenagers
By: Tania Moonen
Tags: Parenting, Teenagers, Personal Development, Negotiation, Self Improvement

How To Use FBI Negotiation Tactics on Your Teenagers

Be a better parent by creating an empathetic relationship with more listening and less conflict Tania Moonen Jun 16·11 min read

Shutterstock Credit: vchal ID: 371954932

I’m blessed with two boys, both teenagers. (I don’t always feel blessed about the teenager part). I made the mistake once of encouraging my oldest son to join the debate team in his school, and now I’m paying the price. Every conversation that we have about responsibilities, manners, work ethic, or morality goes into this debate mode of high combat, and he seems all too successful at rebuttal.

With this son, I have the sense that he’s a sleeping giant. If he’s mostly going in the right direction, it’s best to try to leave him to maneuver on his own. But with COVID-19 school schedules (or non-schedules), it has been more challenging because a parent can only go so long before exploding when their teenager sleeps in until noon every second day.

Recently I was watching Chris Voss on MasterClass. Chris was a former lead negotiator for the FBI and negotiated many serious hostage situations.

Chris says:

“If you want someone to say yes to anything, you’re in a negotiation. If someone else is trying to get you to say yes to something, you’re in a negotiation. If you say, “I want,” or “You think I need” then you’re in a negotiation.”

As he described negotiation, I realized that parents are in constant negotiation with their children, especially as we approach teenage years and our teenagers desire more independent decision-making, personal freedoms, and choices. I don’t know about you, but for me, this transition has been a super bumpy ride.

One thing he said literally caused my bedraggled, frustrated, frazzled parental ears to perk up and brought a smile to my face:

“Negotiation is the art of letting the other side have your way.”

What?? Now I had to hear more about what he had to say.

“Great negotiation is about great collaboration. Several people faced with different aspects of the same problem.”

My two sons both like to turn issues onto their parents. YOU are making me go to bed now, YOU are taking away my phone, YOU are harassing me about going for a walk, YOU are being mean. (YOU have a PROBLEM!)

Instead, we can turn the focus on the situation and remind our kids that we are working together to create a path that we can both agree on and that ultimately has a purpose to be positive in their life. Chris goes on to say:

“The adversary is not the person across the table, the adversary is the situation. The person across the table is the counterpart that is struggling with some aspect of the same problem that you are. You work with them, and solve their problem together and you’re both better off.”

And with teenagers, this is true. The adversaries are peer issues, the boredom of COVID-related isolation or loss of sports, the fight for inner self-discipline, the late-to-form brain, the typical issues of humanness that we all struggle with. Sleeping in or putting off work isn’t an issue between a teenager and you directly — it’s laziness as the adversary of discipline.

My younger son is a pre-teen, and lately, he is often coming up with viewpoints that I want to immediately argue against. He watches the internet, plays video games with his buddies while swearing in full voice, and he picks up stuff that I might not agree with. How do I convince him to listen to my perspective, at least to give it a shot and a consideration? He’s too young to be setting his views in stone, and I think that this is an important part of my role as a parent at the dinner table.

I’m on the artistic side, and the rest of the family is probably more on the math and science side of how they view the world. Sometimes I find myself desperately trying to make my view heard and feel like it is often drowned out. In fact, let’s face it, that’s most of the time at our family dinner table.

It started to dawn on me that my enlightenment strategy wasn’t working. To start debates at the dinner table is healthy, but my approach was causing there to be a digging in of “Us vs. Mom.” I had to ask myself, is there another way, a more gentle way to have influence without creating a division?

Empathy Is Critical for Your Negotiation Success

Chris Voss piqued my interest in trying to find a new way of connecting to my boys with his discussion on empathy:

“Empathy is becoming completely aware of the other side’s perspective, their point of view, their take on things and what they feel. It’s not agreement in any way, it’s not compassion, it’s not sympathy.”

The first takeaway for me: have I listened long enough to be completely aware of the other’s side’s view before jumping in with mine? I think this is where I blow it in my sons’ minds. You have to give them the sense that you are really hearing them, that you’re listening before you give your high and mighty “parent” opinion. If you’re like me and jump in regularly without really listening—then rather than having impact, we just get tuned out.

If you can get your idea of influence into a softer, more empathetic, and more patient connection, and embrace the idea that we should be listening, understanding, trying to do our best to hear their point of view, then it will feel better to them as a starting point. We’re working towards trust-based influence. Chris says:

“If you can really get at what’s driving someone, you can change their outlook and you can change their decision making. You have to understand what their rules are. I have to understand what your rules are. And I have to respect them. I don’t necessarily have to adopt those rules, but I have to respect what they are.”

The best conversations come up naturally. The best way to have influence is to just be there, listening and engaging without pushing too hard.

Mirroring

As I compared FBI hostage situations to teenager negotiations, I couldn’t help but think that what was for Chris Voss a hostage negotiation, was for me a negotiation on why women’s rights are important, or why someone should care about not dripping noodles from their face while slurping and talking. (“But I’ll improve if we have company!”, my son exclaims.)

My youngest son throws out viewpoints that are shocking to me from time to time and make me immediately want to launch into a tirade about some ideal for which I think he’s missing the point! But I’ve learned that as soon as I do this, he digs in his heels, and if anything, I further entrench the idea that I am most interested in changing. In our family, as soon as we are “categorized” into our belief systems, there seem to be walls built around them, and everyone gets defined and further committed to their point of view.

Mirroring offers a way to get kids to hear themselves think. Mirroring is not what you think, it’s about helping people articulate what they think. Rather than parents telling kids what to think, mirroring enables young people to articulate and think through their own ideas. If they aren’t well-formed, they will see it on their own, or if their belief system has flaws, these will emerge of their own accord.

Chris Voss discusses the mirroring technique as it relates to hostage negotiation and here’s how it works: you listen to something that the other person says, a sentence or a statement, and then you repeat back to them the last one to three words of what they just said with a question mark at the end. You don’t engage or lead in any other way. And you leave open space at the end of these last few words to create a gap that needs to be filled by your teenager (forcing them to further expand and think through their answers):

Here’s an example:

“How was school today?” “Today was the worst day ever. I hate school.” “You hate school?” … “Social studies was rancid. My teacher is so brainless.” “Brainless?” … “He created this four-point system of marking, and even though I did just one small thing wrong, I got 3 out of 4 and it brought my mark down to a B. It makes me so mad because I worked hard, and I really deserve an A.” “You deserve an A?” … Well yes, I totally knew everything about the feudal system and wrote lots about it — but he marked me off for not creating a nice cover page, or drawing a picture or anything on it. “Drawing?” I hate drawing….Yah, I know, I guess I should have put in some time to make it look nicer.

As you get them to articulate their ideas, their ideas get “mirrored” back to them. They will have to sort through what it is that they think, and as a result, they might learn that they are not so clear, or maybe that they are really clear in their ideas.

This technique does four things:

It shows the other side that you are listening because you are literally “mirroring” back to them what they are telling you. They feel like you are engaged and interested in what they are telling you. When you repeat back what they say, questioning them for more, they reveal more about what they’re thinking, and in so doing, you discover more about their ideas, what they care about, and what might help you come to an understanding. And your questions tell them that you’re trying to understand, but that you still don’t until they explain more. When you mirror a person, it helps them connect the thoughts in their head. They’re talking, and you are repeating back to them what they say but leading them to more. After you repeat back, it’s imperative that you wait… pause… the silence propels the other side to go on and to fill in the space with their thoughts. Silence is a skill that needs to be used as a tool and practised. If it’s awkward, that’s good, because it means you’re learning a new skill!

People Want To Be Heard. Teenagers Are No Exception.

If you go around a room and ask people questions, and engage them in telling you about their stories and lives, when they think back to talking to you, they’re going to say that they had a great time. They’re probably going to think that you were interesting because you showed interest in them.

As Chris says:

“The other side loves it when you’re paying attention. And they love it that when you gently know that what they’ve said is inadequate, they’re not being accused of being inadequate. People go on. It’s a remarkable skill.”

As I think about how many conversations we have about moral issues, politics, cultural issues, transgender, Indigenous, COVID-19, women’s rights, manners, behaviour, you name it…this mirroring technique is a chance to have a discussion, but to realize that you can be gentle with your technique of guiding your kids, or not to guide them at all, but to let them learn somewhat from their own thoughts, and to notice themselves when what they say is not thought through or fully formed.

I’ve noticed that my technique of telling them how I feel (while yelling in exasperation), doesn’t work. It’s almost as if whatever I say, they feel compelled to go to the other side, just for the sake of habit. It entrenches them further away than if I left the topic alone. I realize that #1 is to create an environment where they don’t feel like their opinion is being opposed. I probably jumped one (or several) too many times.

If your opinion matters in your family, then rage on. But if it’s met with skepticism and debate, or their viewpoint isn’t as expansive as yours (because how could it be when their experiences are so much less expansive?), then perhaps the better way to think about these questions is: how can we get our kids to think about things with an open mind?

That’s what I love about this technique. It’s a gentle mirroring back to someone about what their ideas are, experiences, and thoughts. It causes them to hear themselves speak about something. It shows them what they know and what they aren’t sure about. It causes them to reflect on what they are saying. It’s non-judgemental. If I’ve learned anything, being judged by a parent is an immediate non-starter. I have to find a way to associate, discuss, and teach in a non-judgemental way.

When you mirror your teenager, use a nice tone of voice, keep it non-confrontational, and use genuine curiosity. See if you can’t get them to change their viewpoint to see things your way and get to that great negotiation quote: “negotiation is the art of letting the other side have your way.”

Labelling

“Labelling” is another bonafide hostage negotiation technique.

Our emotions can be at the heart of many of our discussions and negotiations, especially within a family. But there is a technique called labelling and studies have shown that it works to reduce negative emotions. Within family discussions, there are greater opportunities to be honest and open about how we feel, but sometimes we can make this a bad habit too, and regularly let go of emotional control and go over the top when it isn’t always necessary.

With teenagers, we can get into emotional debates when the need for freedom and discipline start to intensify. However, with labelling, we can diffuse that emotion and have more productive and effective conversations.

If you “label” someone, you are putting a label on their emotion. You use the words “It sounds like…” or “It seems like…”

“It sounds like you’re upset about this.” “It seems like you’re angry.”

When you label a negative emotion, it causes the other person to reflect on that, to contemplate what they are feeling in that moment. This takes them out of their emotion momentarily while they view it from an outside perspective — that is, outside of the emotion itself and in the thinking side of their brain.

Also, when you label an emotion, it immediately shows that you empathize. You are listening.

“Looks like you’re tired today.” “Sounds like you’re frustrated.” “Seems like you’re bored.”

When you label a negative emotion or experience, you deactivate it somehow. First, by labelling it, you’ve shown empathy and awareness, so your teenager doesn’t feel alone. And, because it shows that you’ve noticed it, it feels good to be noticed. Sometimes when we think about it from an outer perspective, such as someone asking us, we realize it’s not so bad after all.

When you label a positive emotion, it’s the opposite: it reinforces the positive emotion. “Wow! You look happy today!”