Helping Your Child to Cooperate and Resolve Conflict

Many parents feel discouraged when their children bicker or resist requests made of them. How do we teach children to cooperate and resolve conflict?

Here are some general steps in teaching problem-solving skills to children.

• Get the facts and the feelings. When children are upset, fighting, angry, or hurt, first find out the details. When questions like, "What happened?" are asked calmly and nonjudgmentally, children usually calm down and answer them.

• Help children see the goal. Generating ideas for solutions is much easier for children when they have a clear goal. Help children define the problem in terms of what both children want to happen. For example, "What can you do so you have room to play with blocks and Casey has room to drive his truck?" When the problem is phrased this way, children get the idea that the needs of both are important.

• Generate alternatives. To help children resolve conflict, adults can help them stay focused on the problem. Adults can also act like a "blackboard." When children suggest alternatives, adults can repeat the ideas then ask them what else could be done.

• Evaluate consequences. After the children have generated all the ideas they can, evaluate the consequences. Ask them, "What might happen if you...?" or "How might Matt feel if you...?"

  Resist the temptation to judge the ideas. Adults will not always be around to tell a child that his/her idea is not good and to suggest another. In the long run, adults will be more helpful by encouraging children to evaluate ideas themselves and see why they are unacceptable.

• Ask for a decision. When the children have completed thinking of and evaluating ideas, the remaining task is to make a plan. Restate the problem, summarize the ideas, and let the children decide which they will try. If they choose an alternative you think will not work, be sure they know what they should do next.

The process of teaching problem-solving often seems tedious, and parents may be tempted to just tell a child what to do. But that does not allow children to gain the experience of thinking of what to do for themselves.

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