Conflict Resolution for Students

How Parents Can Help

Resolving Conflict Starts at Home

The key is learning how as parents and caregivers to stay calm and teach our kids how to work through their problems and come up with effective solutions.

Pause Before Reacting

• Before we can help teach our children how to resolve conflicts peacefully, we need to be able to stay calm ourselves. When we’re stressed or angry, it only escalates our kids’ emotions and we won’t be able to help them effectively.
• The next time your kids are upset about something or someone, remind them to take a few deep breaths before reacting.
• Think about the kind of calm behavior that you want to model for your kids, and try your best not to get drawn into their negative emotions.

Have Them Take a Break

• When you’re trying to help your kids learn how to resolve conflict, timing is important. If your kids emotions are still running high, having a conversation with them likely won’t be productive. Tell your kids that you want them to take a break, Let them know that you’re there for them if they want to talk one on one while they’re trying to get calmed down. �
• Just be sure they know they can’t avoid the conversation altogether-- you will be talking about it when the time is right.

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Normalize Their Feelings

• Let your kids know that it’s okay to feel sad, angry, or upset. It’s a normal part of life and something they need to learn how to handle. Sometimes kids shut down and don’t want to talk through an issue because they’re embarrassed about how they’re feeling.
• Try to help them understand that their sad or angry feelings are normal, but teach them that they have a choice about how they are going to react to those feelings. (“Feeling angry is okay, but yelling or hitting someone is not okay. Let’s talk about what you can do instead.”)

Lay the Foundation

• Listen to each other and take turns speaking, share feelings respectfully using “I” statements, and then work together to come up with a solution.
• Teaching your children to use “I” statements when discussing a conflict helps to shift the focus away from blaming (“you did this or that”), which only escalates tensions and resentment, toward sharing helpful information about how the other person’s behavior affected them (“I felt angry when that happened because…”). This is key to building empathy.

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Make a Plan

• Let them take the lead in coming up with a solution. If you let your kids have a voice in coming up with a solution that works for everyone, you will help them become independent problem solvers. �
• Help your children develop a sense of empathy.�
• You don’t want your kids to change their behavior simply because they don’t want to be punished, but rather because they have empathy and know how it will benefit themselves and those around them. You want to help them learn to make decisions out of a sense of empathy rather than fear, so they will do what’s right even when you’re not around.

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Be a Role Model

• Children are always watching us, and modeling the behavior that we want to see can be one of the most effective ways of teaching them these skills.
• Try to be intentional about naming your feelings out loud when you’re around your kids to help them learn that these feelings are normal and how to recognize their own emotions. Also make it a habit to talk to them about how you’re managing your own emotions (“I’m upset this happened, but I’m not going to yell; I’m going to my special place to calm down, I’m taking a few deep breaths, squeezing this stress ball” etc.)
• Let your kids know that you get upset too and it’s okay to feel frustrated, but show them that you can also control your emotions and how you act on them.

Be Patient

This process takes time, and you may not see results overnight. Some days it may seem like you’re not making progress and it would be so much easier to speed things along by telling your kids what to do and coming up with a solution for them. But trust that they will get better at it. By making the time and space to help your kids learn how to identify their feelings, be good listeners, develop empathy, and solve their own problems, you are giving them skills that will benefit them for a lifetime.

Contributing Factors?

• Social Media
• News/Media
• Poor Family Functioning
• Low Parental Involvement
• Substance Abuse
• Mental Health concerns