Affect labeling, the practice of reflecting back someone's emotions, can reduce conflict and transform classrooms and prisons, according to a speaker who trained teachers and saw dramatic improvements in classroom dynamics after they learned the skill.
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The more people that can learn this skill— I mean, I think of it this way: every time you listen to somebody into existence, every time you reflect somebody's emotional experience, you engage in this process known as apic labeling. You're throwing a little pebble into the pond of peace. You're creating peace, you're not creating conflict. And my dream is to have enough pebbles thrown into that pond of peace to create a tsunami and change the world. My view is that parents who learned how to use these skills, in 20 years we wouldn't have prisons. We wouldn't need them. If teachers learned how to use these skills, all their classroom control problems would go away. I know this because I've trained a lot of teachers in these skills, and they get dramatic results in the classroom.