If you were tempted to think your kids were mastering the fine art of working out their differences without needing adult mediation, summer is a great time for being proved wrong. We are reentering a time when there is near constant unstructured play time with siblings and neighbors, which has been a good reminder for me about the importance of conflict resolution skills. If you’re feeling the stress of kid conflict at your house too, I wanted to share some tips with you:
-If they can work it out on their own, let them. My first goal is that kids figure out how to make peace without having to come to an adult. I will incentivize that outcome by saying things like, “If I need to come help you resolve that, I might need your help with making dinner after I’m done.” I want them to understand that my time matters too and if I have to come deal with every little disagreement, they’re going to have to help me make up for that lost time. I have also been known to give a little treat to kids who worked out a compromise without adult intervention.
-Empathize before intervening. Sometimes a child just needs to be heard. If I can say, “I’m so sorry you got your feelings hurt.” that may be enough validation for them to be able to run back and play. I can’t control the neighbor kids or make everything go my child’s way, so helping them know they are loved and valued even if they can’t get the resolution they’d like from somebody else may help heal their heart.
-Don’t keep them from relational consequences. There are times when my child is left out of a game because my child was being a jerk. I’m not going to keep my child from learning a valuable lesson– if you aren’t being a friend, people don’t want to play with you. If a kid comes to me with a complaint about other kids being mean, I like to start by asking them if there’s anything they contributed to the problem. It often turns out that if they can go apologize for their own actions, they are welcomed back. If I run in and demand other kids play nice with them, I’ve just enabled a bully. This means sometimes kids have to play alone for a little while until they can figure out how to function in a group or play as a team. This kind of peer justice can teach them more than I ever could.
-Help them get calm. If a kid comes running in the house screaming or crying about a conflict, I want to make sure they’re physically okay, then offer them comfort until they’ve calmed down. Once they’re calm, we can talk about the specifics of the conflict. I don’t get into details while they’re in that heightened state. Especially if both kids come running in at the same time. That’s when I’ll ask them to find a quiet spot and collect their thoughts before we talk it out.
-Make sure YOU are calm. Our kids can trigger our own emotions pretty quickly. It can be easy to make assumptions about who is wrong and want to fight for justice even before you’ve heard the whole story. Resist that urge. You need to be extra calm so you can be some stability for your child. Remember this as your kids are working things out– they need to have room to voice their own emotions without your feelings about things taking center stage.
-Each child needs a chance to be heard. If I’ve determined the kids can’t work it out themselves and they’re calm enough to do some conflict resolution, the first step is being sure each child gets to share their perspective without being interrupted. I will sit both kids (or all four kids, as was the case the other day) down on the floor and I sit with them. I ask one kid to share what happened first and the other child needs to listen. We’ve been doing this long enough that they know the drill, but it often takes a lot of reminders to help the listening child keep quiet until it is their turn. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, “It’s not your turn yet. You will have your turn in a minute.” or “You already had your turn and now it’s your brothers chance.” When you’ve done this regularly with your kids they start to feel safe in knowing they will be heard so they don’t interrupt as much. Just keep repeating those lines and do NOT engage in conversation with them until the other child is done.
-Is there something you need to apologize for? After a child has explained his side of the story I ask a simple question: Is there anything you need to apologize for? I don’t tell them what to apologize for and I ask them this even if they were clearly the victim. I’ve been really surprised at how insightful they can be at this moment. They may apologize for things that happened a day earlier that they know created some hard feelings. They may apologize for their own selfish heart even if there weren’t outside actions. They may apologize for something totally unrelated that had been on their conscience. And sometimes they don’t apologize for anything and I leave it at that. We may circle back around to it after the other child has shared their side of the story with “Now can you think of something you need to apologize for?” There have been times when both children agree that one of them actually doesn’t need to apologize.
-Ask follow-up questions. If they don’t know anything they can apologize for and it’s CLEAR they need to apologize, I may ask them some follow up questions to help them see how their behavior contributed to the problem. “Why do you think he was crying?” “How do you think he felt when you said that?” “How would you feel if he had done that to you?” Those kinds of questions that will hopefully lead to some empathetic thoughts.
-Summarize. Once the first child has finished telling their story and owning what they can, I will summarize what I heard and ask if that sounds right to them. We keep working through the summary until they feel confident that I have heard and understood them. Then we repeat the process with the second child.
-Offer the forgiveness option. I don’t make my kids say, “I forgive you.” We talk about why forgiveness is important and about how holding onto bitterness hurts you more than the other person. I may tell them if they aren’t ready to forgive, then they may need some time alone to think about why that is. If they still aren’t ready to forgive, I come back to it later.
-Ask them what they need. Once both kids have shared their version of what happened, have apologized for what they can and know they’ve been hard, I will ask them if there’s anything else they need. Maybe it’s a drink of water before they go back to playing. Maybe they need a hug– from each other or from me. Maybe they need some time to play alone before reengaging with the group. Let them have a voice about what would help them recalibrate from those big emotions.
-Praise them later. That night at dinner or before bed can be a good time to bring up how proud you are of them for handling conflict so well. Tell them about times you’ve had to deal with conflict. My kids especially love hearing stories from when I was little about fights I had with my sister or the neighbor kids. Let them know that conflict will likely always be a part of their life, so it’s really important to learn how to handle it well. We don’t want them to feel like having a fight is the end of the world, just an opportunity to learn better skills for handling their own strong feelings and the strong feelings of others.
Will this be time consuming at first? Yes. It is much faster to just assess the situation and yell down a verdict. But the problem with that way of handling things is that it keeps requiring you to get involved and doesn’t teach your kids the tools they need for handling conflict on their own. The hope is that eventually your involvement won’t even be necessary, which will be the ultimate time saver.
*While these tips are what I’ve learned in my experience of raising 6 of my own kids and 17 kids through our group home years, I know they are influenced by my reading of Karyn Purvis (“The Connected Child”) and Ken Sande (“The Peacemaker”). There probably isn’t an area of my parenting that isn’t impacted by Karyn Purvis because of how foundational her ideas are about treating kids with respect and empowering them. And if you’re looking for a resource for handling conflict in your own life or teaching your kids how to handle conflict, the Ken Sande stuff is solid. I’m including links here for those couple resources. If you purchase through these links, a fraction of that goes back to me, so thanks!
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