THE APPEARANCE OF NON-VIOENT COMMUNICATION IN THE SKI TEACHING

Abstract

Research has shown that a verbally aggressive, punitive atmosphere has a negative impact on children’s development. Therefore, it is crucial that where the children spend a lot of time-- e.g. school, weekly training sessions - there is a positive atmosphere and the person in charge takes great care on how they communicate with the child, how they resolve conflicts and how they set a good example. Non-violent communication is based on empathy and honest self-expression. Its goal is that the parties participating in the communication can both come out of the conversation as “winners” by taking into account their own and the other party’s feelings. It is a method that has various benefits as it helps emotional development, teaches conflict management and language development, it has a positive impact on the way how people can interact with each other, and it helps to develop social skills, while it also develops the relationship between the participants and the relationship with the teacher. The purpose of this study is to examine the elements of non-violent communication and its possibilities of use in the educational processes of a ski school in Budapest. Our basic hypothesis is that in such a specific environment- extreme sport condition, increased accident risk- instructors should place more emphasis on patient and calm communication, and on establishing a trusting coach-student relationship. It is our assumption that this kind of instructor attitude may include elements of non-violent communication. In our research, sports instructors (n=20) from a popular ski school in Budapest completed a communication test that we created. According to the results of the questionnaire, the instructors of the ski club are effectively applying the elements of nonviolent communication during the ski lessons. They are aware of their behaviour, they communicate with attention, they have a positive attitude and open mind towards their students. We believe that the use of non-violent communication elements contributes a lot to the fact that children who attend ski club arrive at their lessons happy, enthusiastic, and motivated. As a result of our research, we have come to a conclusion that there is a need to create non-violent communication programmes for sport instructors, in order to maintain the psychological health of their students.