Conflict is a normal part of children’s lives. Having different needs or desires or wanting the same things can lead children to conflict among themselves. Common ways that infants respond to conflict include arguing and physical aggression, as well as more passive responses, such as retreating and avoiding each other.
Children are much happier, have better friendships, and learn better in school when they know how to handle conflict well. Therefore, in this Psychology-Online article, we tell you how to resolve a conflict between childrenconflict resolution techniques and steps to resolve a conflict between infants with activities and examples.
Resolving conflict effectively requires that children have a combination of social and emotional skills well developed. Some of these skills include managing emotions, understanding others, effective communication, and decision making. Children need good guidance to learn these skills. Learning how to use these skills in combination takes practice and maturity. However, children with good support from adults can gradually develop their skills to resolve conflicts independently.
Let’s see the skills and techniques necessary to resolve a conflict between children:
- Managing intense emotions. To develop this skill, emotional education is essential. In this article you can see.
- Verbal expression of own thoughts and feelings. To help you develop this skill, begin to identify and communicate thoughts and feelings in your presence.
- Identification of the problem and expression of one’s needs. To develop this skill in children, encourage them to talk about their own wants, needs, fears or concerns without demanding an immediate solution.
- Understand the other’s perspective. To foster this skill, you should encourage your child to listen to what others want or need, to understand others’ fears or concerns, to understand others without reaching an agreement, and to respond appropriately.
- Generate various solutions to a problem. Encourage him to think about various options and try to include everyone’s needs and concerns.
- Negotiation. To help him practice this conflict resolution technique, encourage him to be flexible, open, and look out for his needs and those of other people (assertiveness).
When conflict is handled poorly, it can have a negative impact on children’s relationships, self-esteem, and learning. However, teaching the social skills to resolve conflict can help significantly. There are some steps you can take to make resolving a conflict between children easier:
1. Calm and distance
Give everyone the opportunity to take a breath from each other. Ask them what they need to calm down. Something that can be done is to distance yourself from each other, walk, count to 10 or write what you feel on a piece of paper. What we must not forget is that, in any case, nothing coherent will emerge in a discussion with angry and emotionally fragile children. So ask them to determine the best way to calm down before trying to solve the problem.
2. Identification and understanding of the problem
Once the children are calm, talk to each of them (at the same time or separately, depending on the circumstances) and help them identify their problem. Emphasizes the importance of being honest and admitting one’s fault in conflicts. Encourage them to express what they feel about the problem and to listen to the other person.
3. Adequate apologies
A good apology will communicate three things: regret, responsibility, and remedy or solution. Apologizing for a problem may seem difficult, but it will help repair and improve relationships with others.
Encourage each child (or just one, depending on the circumstances) to give the other a good apology. Writing it down before saying it can be a good start, and then that letter can be given to the other child. If the children are young, you can give them an example of how they can apologize. The children’s apology It should include:
- The word “sorry”.
- Recognize what has been done wrong.
- The solution to the situation.
- Promise of better behavior next time.
- Ask for forgiveness.
However, a bad apology is one in which the child tries to justify his or her words or behaviors, blaming the other, making excuses, and minimizing the consequences.
4. Search for a solution
Ask the child to brainstorm ideas for . For them it is very tentative to ask the adult to generate solutions, but it is good for them to search, think about solutions and reach agreements on their own. Encourage each child to listen carefully to the other and to speak kindly and honestly.
5. Tracking
Follow up with the children to see how they are getting along and whether the agreed upon solution has worked. If the strategy of talking together and solving it on your own does not work, it is best to suggest a strategy. This monitoring can help remind them to listen and interact with kindness.
As we said before, something fundamental when it comes to resolving a conflict is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and reach the solution that is best for everyone. Therefore, emotional skills such as empathy are also needed. Learning the ability to recognize and appreciate feelings and needs, even if they are different from your own, is essential. Empathy skills develop over time and include:
- Recognize your own feelings.
- Recognize the feelings of others.
- Learn .
- Listen to the opinions of others.
- Think about what it would be like if you saw the situation their way.
- Think about how you can respond in a loving way.
- Do something to help.
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We must not forget that they are very important in supporting children to learn kindness and empathy.