Janet Hanna, Extension Educator
University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension
When using conflict mediation, children learn skills necessary to reach peaceful solutions. These skills include: communication, compromise, the ability to see how different aspects of a dispute are related, and the ability to consider their own perspective as well as that of another person.
It must be remembered that just like any other social skill, children need numerous opportunities to practice resolution under the guidance of a more experienced person.
Failing to Lay the Groundwork: Children need to know that you will stand by your word and set limitations.
Ignoring Developmental Consideration: Children must be developmentally able to indicate acceptance or rejection of proposed alternatives. Adults who try to mediate conflicts are cautioned to remain sensitive to children’s tolerance for frustration. Not all children are ready to go through all the steps of the process at once.
Mandating Rather Than Mediating: Adults often neglect to use conflict mediation properly because they feel uncomfortable taking their attention away from the entire group in order to focus on one or two children. Instead they may separate the children, remove the disputed toy and/or dictate an expedient solution. These approaches undoubtedly work in the short run. However, it does not provide an opportunity for children to practice problem-solving strategies.
Denying Children’s Legitimate Claims: In the adults zeal to reach a compromise they may inadvertently deny a child’s legitimate right to maintain possession of a desired object. When this occurs, the focus then should shift to helping the child, who wants the object, to generate appropriate strategies, such as asking, trading or bargaining to achieve their goal.
Affixing Blame: Sometimes an adult’s first response to hearing a commotion is to say: Okay, who started it? It is better to approach the conflict saying: You both seem very upset.
Taking Sides: In order to establish and be accepted as a mediator, the adult must be perceived as impartial.
Denying the Child's Perspective: There will be times during conflict mediation when a child expresses a point of view that seems ridiculous or untrue. It is the adult’s responsibility to practice patience and allow the children to work through their own feelings about the problem under discussion.
Masterminding: Sometimes, to accelerate the mediation process, adults step in with their own solution rather than permitting children to work out the problem themselves. In response the chances for continued conflict are high because children do not feel a real commitment to a resolution that is decided for them.
Ignoring Ripple Effects: Children on the fringes of the conflict feel quite relieved when the adult steps in to mediate, and they should be allowed to watch the process as it unfolds. Children have the opportunity to see that disagreements can be resolved in safe, supportive ways.
Research has shown that when adults first start working on conflict resolution skills the average resolution took eight minutes and the children generate two solutions. Within four weeks the average resolutions took four minutes and five to six solutions were generated. More importantly as children learn problem-solving procedures and words, they become increasingly capable of solving problems by themselves. Developing skills which will serve them well into adulthood.
After you have helped your child work through problems and conflicts, log onto unlforfamilies.unl.edu and click on TIPS and let us know how you are doing.
