Conflict Resolution And Young Children

Conflict is a normal, healthy part of young children's development. For preschoolers learning to socialize can be the beginning of something new and exciting. Socializing however, requires children to learn many skills especially if they are to enjoy the experience of playing and having fun with other children.

Some of the many skills necessary for positive social interactions include; the ability to respect the rights of others. This includes property rights, space rights and safety rights. The ability to control expressions of anger. The ability to assert themselves in a socially and acceptable manner and the ability to share ones own ideas and listen to those of others.

Naturally, children develop at their own pace in all areas, socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically. It is therefore, not unusual for a child to be ahead in one area of development and lag a little in another. This will to some extent, depend on their family circumstances for example, if there are siblings at home, if they have attended formal outside of home care and education and if parents are from non-English speaking backgrounds. Conforming to rules of sharing and being willing to accept them will vary from child to child and circumstances.

Strategies to Help

1. Adult need to firstly remember that learning socially acceptable behaviour takes time-sometimes a long time. Be positive, patient supportive and consistent. You may feel like a `running record' when helping children to use their words to express themselves, but don't give up.

2. Always be interested in what the child has to say and try not to comment until the story is finished. It's important that children feel they are being heard and understood.

3. Validate children's attempts to cope with new situations such as sharing. for example "thank you for listening Hugo and working on this problem together with Mary".

4. Teach children to use the correct words in order to avoid conflicts. for example, "can I have that toy when you have finished" Or "I don't like you pulling me....please stop".

5. Some children don't feel sorry if they have done the wrong thing to someone else so getting them to say "sorry" has very little value other than satisfying the adult. Better to help a child understand that his/her actions caused pain or distress to another child.

We should give children enough time to resolve their own conflicts before we step in as sometimes they can solve the problem without our help. Whether we decide to step in or not however, we are still supporting children to manage their own conflicts.

By doing this, we are in turn empowering our future generation to reach peaceful and non-violent solutions to problems. Now wouldn't that be the kind of world we ALL want to live in?