Conflicts can arise between children for a variety of reasons - at school, in the play yard or at home between siblings. How children deal with conflict varies widely based on the temperaments and reactions of everyone involved, including other children and parents and other adults. When a conflict arises at school, some children will immediately tattle to the teacher or yard-duty staff. These adults might ignore the conflict or assume a position on one side of the conflict. Either approach can be the easy one during the hectic and busy day of school, but both do an injustice to the possibility of the children to learn how to constructively resolve conflicts on their own.
During my tenure as a fifth grade teacher at a small, independent school, I had the wonderful opportunity to learn and teach an approach to dealing with conflict called Conflict Resolution. The program is based on teaching us how to handle conflicts appropriately and move toward solutions in a productive and non-threatening manner. It's pretty easy to teach to children, especially younger children who are more receptive to the step-by-step approach and more likely to internalize the process in a natural way. It is a method that has a place in the home as much as in the classroom. An important thing to remember in teaching and guiding your child toward conflict resolution is to establish some groundrules. These are usually decided and agreed upon by the family or students before a conflit arises and can be as simple as: 1) no put-downs or insults and 2) Be an active listener.*
Here is a summary of the basic principles of Conflict Resolution.
Step 1: Cool off
When a conflict arises between children, the first thing that needs to happen is that everyone invloved needs time and space to COOL OFF. The understanding here is that trying to resolve an argument, hurt feelings or misunderstanding is not going to be productive if the people involved are still very emotional and upset. Depending on the conflict, the cooling-off period may take a few minutes or a few days.
Step 2: I-statements
I-statements are about giving the opportuntity for everyone involved to express their reasons for being upset in a non-threatening and non-blaming way - and to be heard. The I-statement should be focused on the speaker taking responsibility for his/her feelings rather than simply accusing and pointing fingers at the other person. It is also essential that children be given instruction and practice in ACTIVE LISTENING. Good listening is not something that comes naturally to all children and practice can really help children 'get' what it means to really hear and understand what someone else is saying. Teaching children to use I-statements and supporting children in creating effective I-statements during the conflict resolution process is also important. Each person should be given an opportunity to make their I-statement and the other person should acknowledge that they have heard the statement before contributing their own I-statement. We usually give children a template to guide the conversation in the form of:
"When you _________, I feel __________, because ________, so what I would like is ___________________."
If the I-statements turn into blame statements, or otherwise become heated and emotional, it's time to return to step 1, because it is clear that the participants haven't really cooled-off yet.
Step 3: Discussion
Once all parties have had an opportunity to state their feelings and be heard, they are ready to move into the discussion and resolution period. This is the part of the process where children are given the chance to brainstorm solutions. In my experience, once the children make it to this step, the conflict has often dissipated and the children have fun coming up with ways to prevent the same type of conflict from occurring in the future.
While the steps are simple, internalizing the process and effectively resolving confilcts is not always an easy thing to do. Like all important skills, it takes practice, encouragement, feedback and modeling. There are planty of other ways to help children work through conflict in non-threatening ways, and I encourage you to try out this process and others and share them with your child's teachers!
* There's a great overview of the importance of teaching and modeling Active Listening skills here:
