Sandra Boston

As a parent of three very young children I took an eight week course called Parent Effectiveness Training (Thomas Gordon). It was the best preparation for parenting I could ever hope for. Six months later I took the license instructor training and proceeded to teach the course for the next forty years. Over that time I studied with Marshal Rosenberg (Nonviolent Communication), Arnold Mindell (Worldwork), and many others, and became a psychotherapist (MSW) in the process. As a member of Movement For a New Society In Philadelphia for ten years, I taught the training as "The Language of Nonviolenc" to our annual new trainees. I also was amazed to see my children take up the skills with each other and with me, as they became allies in handling conflict with patience, kindness and respect. Today they are all good fathers, modeling these same skills for the next generation.

Over the next twenty years, I would take the training to retreat centers in Switzerland, Moscow and Uganda as well as many of our United States. In 2000, I started The Conscious Communication Institute and wrote a curriculum for a teacher training program. This book became the text for new teachers to use. Each chapter corresponds to one of the eight sessions of the training I have written down everything I know about communication along with many personal turning points in my growth as a parent, and later a leader in organizational development, emotional intelligence, nonviolent direct action organizing and community building.

I am changing the subtitle to "Transforming conflict into cooperation" to be more specific about the goal of the training which the book embodies.