Cohousing-L Mailing List: Latest article, "Especially Challenging Behaviors" in community, now available, and at Coho Conference

[Diana Leafe Christian (diana]

Hello,

For cohousers who may be concerned about what I call "especially challenging 
behaviors" in community, the third article in my series on this topic, "Working 
Effectively with Especially Challenging Behaviors," is now available in the 
Fall 2022 issue of Communities magazine, just out a few days ago.  

The first article describes the kinds of particularly challenging behaviors I'm 
talking about — not your normal, ordinary difficult behaviors, but especially 
egregious behaviors that often have negative effects on the community. And a 
quick overview of three things individual community members can do to protect 
themselves from the effects of these behaviors.

The second article goes into detail about one of the first things we can do, 
which is to learn as much as we can about these behaviors re what mental health 
professionals say, and what they recommend we do. Including two suggested books 
and three different video series on youtube, to make learning more about these 
behaviors relatively easy (and with the videos, completely free). And a quick 
overview of what we can learn from these books and videos . . .  knowledge that 
helps us know what to expect — and _not_ expect — from fellow community members 
who may do these behaviors

The these two articles are available on this Communities magazine webpage : 
gen-us.net/DLC

The third article -- out just now in the Fall 2022 issue -- goes into detail 
about other ways individuals can protect themselves from these behaviors, 
focusing especially on setting limits and boundaries. All three articles have 
examples of real "challenging behavior" situations in real communities, and 
what people have done in response that has worked well.

I assure you I do _not_ suggest that people who do these behaviors are "bad," 
or that we blame or vilify them. Rather, I encourage us to feel compassion for 
them (once we've learned more, and know the factors that cause them to do these 
behaviors). And that we feel compassion _while at the same time_ we also 
protect ourselves as best we can. 

And . . . if you're attending the Cohousing Conference in Madison, my breakout 
workshop  on this topic, with the same title, "Working Effectively with 
Especially Challenging Behaviors," is scheduled for this Sunday, Aug. 28, 11:00 
am to 12:30 pm. It's hosted by cohouser Laurie Frank, and features a video 
recording of me narrating my slide show on this topic. In the slide show I 
suggest six things individuals can do to protect themselves. 

The slide show  _also_ describes three things groups of friends in community 
can do to help each other, and three things communities can do to protect the 
community as a whole — all topics of future articles in the magazine series. 

However, this last part of the recording won't be  in the 11:00am-12:30pm 
workshop on Sunday as there wasn't enough time. Rather, these topics in the the 
recording will be available with a link to a folder on Google Drive. The folder 
also has the first two articles and various workshop handouts with more details 
about some of the ways individuals, groups of friends, and whole communities 
can protect themselves from the effects of these behaviors. Laurie Frank will 
send that link to participants in that workshop.

I'm very grateful to Coho/US, and to Laurie Frank as workshop host, for this 
kind and helpful way they've arranged for me to present this information at the 
conference, even though I'm not attending in person this year. 

Diana Leafe Christian