Being able to resolve conflicts arising with peers is an important life skill that your child will start to learn in their early years. Being able to find solutions, negotiate with others and establish a mutually acceptable way forward is not easy, but it is a skill that your child will need in their personal and professional life. Therefore, teaching your child strategies of how to manage conflicts is an invaluable life lesson. Here are the 6 steps of successfully supporting your child in managing conflict: 1. Approach calmly and neutralize the situation Getting upset or angry is a normal reaction and emotion that we have. What we may not think about immediately is that these emotions also cause a physiological reaction in our body. You must have heard, or used, various phrases that depict our physiological state when we are upset, such as 'blood boiling' and so on. If you think about a time when you got upset or angry you could probably associate that feeling with certain body reactions such as redness on face, faster heart rate, sweaty palms, pain in stomach or difficulty breathing. In those moments the lower part of your brain (called amygdala), which is responsible for warning us about danger or threat, starts sending all our body responses into a fight or flight mode. In such physical and emotional state, even a grown up would be unable to think clearly and logically - let alone a child who is only beginning to grasp the whole concept of self-regulation, understanding and managing their own feelings. They need you to support them and co-regulate their emotions. This is why it is very important to approach any conflicts calmly and neutralize situation to help the cortisol levels return to a normal level to enable us to start thinking more logically again. There are various techniques that you can use to help your child come down in stressful situations, such as breathing techniques, blowing bubbles, counting to 5 and many more, which I will cover in a separate blog in more details. Now that your child is calmer and able to think more logically, you can start discussing their feelings, establish what the problem is and together think of possible solutions to address it. 2. Acknowledge feelings and gather facts Acknowledging your child's feelings is important because it reassures them that their feelings are important to you. Supporting them to name or describe how they are feeling in that particular moment develops their emotional awareness and language, helping with self-regulation. When teaching your children about emotions you may want to use a visual representation (to help your child, you can think of emotions as colours). The 'Colour Monster' book by Anna Llenas can be a great way of introducing young children to emotions and encouraging them to talk about them, even if they find them confusing. Reassure your child that feeling sad, upset or angry is normal and that you understand why they would feel this way. However, although feelings and reactions are normal and understood, the behaviour that your child may demonstrate during such situation may not be acceptable. You must make your child aware of that using boundaries and reasoning with t them - i.e. 'I understand that you are feeling angry that your friend took away your toy but you cannot hit them. Hitting is not okay and it hurts. I cannot let you hit your friend. Let's all sit down and talk about what happened'. 3. Define the problem Together, go over the situation and repeat what your child is saying. Acknowledge the feelings of the other child involved in the conflict and hear what they have to say. Once both sides have had time to discuss and say what happened, help them establish and name what the issue is i.e. 'I can see that you both want to play with the same toy...'. 4. Think of solutions Depending on your child's age and level of understanding, think of some solutions that could be used (older children will be able to used prompts to find a solution by themselves). For younger children, it is always good to have limited options to make it easier for them choose. I usually use two options and ask which they think would best resolve their issue. 5. Evaluate the best solution Allow both children to say what they think of the solutions, which one they like most and why. Together, think of pros and cons and evaluate which solution would be best to address the situation. 6. Decide on action plan Explain how the chosen solution can be executed and praise both children for working through a problem successfully. As they come across similar situations in the future, they will start following the same steps to solve any arising problem. What a fantastic team work! The steps we looked at above are very important when teaching your child self-regulation, which according to Birth to Five Matters framework is: Self-regulation involves children’s developing ability to regulate their emotions, thoughts and behaviour to enable them to act in positive ways toward a goal. Self-regulation grows out of co-regulation, where adults and children work together toward a common purpose, including finding ways to resolve upsets from stress in any domain and return to balance. If you would like to find out more about co and self-regulation in early years then watch the video below created by a Pediatric OT Nicole Kristal:
