Terry Miller
“Mom, she won’t share with me!”….. “Dad, he took my stuff!” ….. “He called me a name!” …. “She took the last candy!”
If you have children at home, you are probably hearing this more and more during this time of the year. Summertime seems to be a time of increased arguing and sibling rivalry among our children. Siblings are a person’s first peer group. The family serves as a proving ground to help children learn social skills like sharing, managing conflict, and how to best communicate with others. As in any learning, there will be some bumps in the road. The bottom line is that all kids are going to argue with others, whether it be with their parents or with their siblings. It is a normal part of life and one that parents can tire of very quickly. When conflict does arise, it is important for parents to manage their own emotions. Effective emotion management allows you to stay in control of yourself, teaches that conflict can be handled calmly and makes the situation easier to handle. Remember, your emotions comprise 50% of the relationship.
Children must be taught what is and what is not allowed in terms of conflict resolution. They must see, and be taught, that it is never okay to hurt another person’s body, feelings or things. I know many parents, fathers in particular, tell their children that “if someone hits you, you can hit them back.” This is not the message we want to be sending our children as it doesn’t solve any problems to do this; as a matter of fact, it makes the problem worse. It is more beneficial to teach children to stand up for themselves using their words to solve conflicts.
In teaching conflict resolution to children, it is important to first help each child calm down by using deep breathing techniques, counting, and/or doing another activity that they already know is calming to them. Many schools teach these skills to their students, so ask your children to show you what they already know.
Once your children are calm, allow each to tell their side of the story without interruption. By doing this, each child can feel respected and listened to, and will understand the situation from the other person’s perspective. Ask questions such as: What happened, how did that make you feel, what did you do next, what do you wish would have happened? Let each child speak without interruption from the other child. As the adult, you can then summarize what has been said by both: “It sounds to me like the problem started when … , and then .. happened. You were feeling … and you were feeling …. Is there anything else you’d like to add to what you’ve told me?”
Now that both sides have been shared, the children can then be encouraged to come up with a possible collaborative solution to the problem. This framework allows each side to be shared without blaming and allows for the children to solve the problem, rather than the adult. As the adult, you may have to remind them that feeling angry is okay, but it is not okay to hurt the other person. This helps to lay your expectations for appropriate actions when future conflict arises.
As these skills are taught, and paired with good role modeling, our children will learn to use their words to solve their own problems. This type of independence is healthy and what we want to see in all children.
Terry Miller, a licensed clinical social worker, is a school social worker at Weston Elementary School in Greenfield.
