Common Sense Parenting with Pam

Foundational Skills #7: Conflict Resolution

• Pam Palanza • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Unlock the secrets to raising resilient, empathetic children by mastering the art of conflict resolution. Imagine a home where siblings resolve disagreements peacefully, or your child navigates social challenges with confidence and poise. In this episode of Common Sense Parenting with Pam, we uncover practical strategies to teach your children these invaluable skills. With a focus on emotional regulation and problem-solving, we explore how modeling healthy conflict resolution can transform family dynamics. Discover how guiding toddlers and preschoolers through real-life scenarios—like taking turns or using a timer—can build a foundation for handling conflicts throughout their lives.

Empowering your children to express their feelings respectfully and develop their own solutions is key to nurturing emotional intelligence. This episode emphasizes the importance of stepping back as a parent, allowing kids to navigate disputes independently, whether they're dealing with exclusion from group activities or simple sibling squabbles. We also introduce creative tools like ear and mouth cards to enhance communication skills, and highlight the role of encouragement and praise in fostering these abilities. Join us in the conversation, and don't hesitate to share your own successful conflict resolution tactics. Together, let's raise a generation equipped to handle life's challenges with grace and understanding.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Common Sense Parenting with Pam, the podcast where we simplify parenting with common sense tips, real life scenarios and a little bit of humor along the way. I'm Pam and I'm here to help you build the skills and confidence you need to raise happy, resilient and responsible children. So grab your coffee, take a deep breath and let's tackle parenting one common sense tip at a time. Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm Pam, your host, and I'm excited to talk to you today about something that every parent deals with. It's one of our foundational skills Conflict. We're going to talk about conflict resolution today. So, whether it's your two-year-old screaming over a toy or your 10-year-old is fighting with a sibling, conflict is probably a part of your life I can almost guarantee that. But the good news is it's also an opportunity to teach your children lifelong skills, because you are not going to be behind your children all of their lives solving their conflicts. It's why it's so important you start early and you teach them how to do it for themselves. In this episode, we're going to dive into teaching conflict resolution to children, why it's important, what strategies actually work and how you can model healthy conflict resolution yourself. So stick around, I'm going to give you some real-life examples and tips to try at home. So let's start with some scenarios here and why it's important. Well, like I said, it's critical because they're going to have conflict all their lives. That's just inherent and they need to learn how to handle them on their own. They need to learn how to navigate relationships, whether it's with siblings, friends, classmates, partners, co -workers. They're going to face disagreements their entire lives. Teaching them how to solve conflicts themselves sets them up for success in school work and beyond, for their whole life. Secondly, conflict resolution helps children build key skills like emotional regulation, problem solving and empathy. So think about this for a minute. When your child learns to pause for a minute, consider another person's feelings instead of just their own and find a solution, a mutually agreeable solution, they're building emotional intelligence. Agreeable solution. They're building emotional intelligence and teaching this skill. Conflict resolution can help create a more peaceful home environment. So, instead of the children running to you all the time and tattling and wanting you to handle it for them and solve it for them, they're learning how to do it themselves. Ta-da, doesn't that sound amazing? Wouldn't you want that in your household? Let me just tell you one thing here.

Speaker 1:

When I taught children three to five-year-olds. It's my favorite age to teach and at that age, if you have a three to five-year-old, you're going to understand this. They tattle a lot. When they would come up to me and they would say, miss Pam, miss Pam, he took my toy or he's doing something he shouldn't be doing, I would say thank you for telling me. My job is to take care of all of you and your job is to take care of yourself, and I would send them on their way. So instead of feeding that and letting them go on and on and on about tattling, I'd say you, basically, I've got this. Thank you, I'll handle this. You take care of you, I'll worry about everybody else. That's my job. So it really helped. So for toddlers and preschoolers, you can use that technique. Just tell them very nicely, it's my job to handle everybody. You worry about yourself.

Speaker 1:

With this age group, conflict resolution starts with simple concepts like sharing and taking turns and using words instead of physical actions. Because we know a lot of times, toddlers, this is where you see biting happening. You see hitting happening, even with preschoolers. They don't. Preschoolers don't tend to bite. They shouldn't by the time they're three years old. Sometimes it happens, but that's because they don't know how to verbalize how they're feeling, and so that's how they're expressing their frustration or whatever's going on in their little brains. Behavior is communication, so they're trying to tell you something there. So it's your job to kind of get a grasp on what it is they're trying to tell you, Because that's where you see them start having meltdowns. They get frustrated with their sibling or a classmate and they start crying and having meltdowns. So how do you handle that? What do you do? Well, the first thing I want you to do is stay calm. Stay calm, get down on their level and say they're fighting over a toy and you can say I see you really want that toy. How can we figure this out? Let's work together to figure this out. You help them name their feelings. So, for example, you say I see you're upset because you want the toy, but your sister's playing with it right now, and then guide them toward a solution. So see how these problem-solving skills are coming in here. We have a problem, what's going on? How can we fix it? Guide them toward a solution.

Speaker 1:

Now, in this case, you can offer choices. You can say things like maybe you can take a turn, maybe you can find another toy. So you can even say something like how about we set a timer, and when it dings, it's your turn to play with the toy. So you can even say something like how about we set a timer, and when it dings, it's your turn to play with the toy. And then you get them to agree. And when they do agree, you reinforce that by saying that's a great job. You guys work so well together. That's how problems are solved, that's how we take care of this.

Speaker 1:

And another thing to keep in mind is, if they're having them out on, that's not the time to start having the discussion. By the way, you wait till they're calm. So it could be. You say hey, you guys need to take five minute chill time. If you're at home these are kids at home you go sit on the couch, you go sit in that chair and just relax for a minute and then, when you're calmed down, we'll talk. This is exactly why you don't try to talk to a child when they're having a tantrum because they're not hearing a word. You say so, make sure your child is calm and then you have these discussions. Okay, but what do we do with like slightly older kids, say six to nine year olds. Well, with this age group they're going to be more independent. So by now, hopefully, you've been teaching them these problem solving skills when they were younger. That becomes more natural for them and they can learn to do these on their own.

Speaker 1:

So let's just say your eight-year-old child is arguing with a friend about whose turn it is to pick a game. They're playing on a play date and one wants one game and one wants the other all right, and who's going to pick it? And they're frustrated. You can just merely walk up to them and say what's the problem here? And then say nothing. Let each child explain their side without interruptions, listen to them and then say so, you're upset because you're getting to pick a game and you're not, and what do you think you can do about it? And you guide them to come into a compromise, like maybe taking turns picking a game that they both like. But you let them come up with the solutions. First you just sit back and listen. They're old enough at that age. You'd be surprised at the solutions they might come up with that you never even thought of. And then, once they've done that and they've compromised, you're like you're all in agreement here we're good, everyone's win, win, win here, going on Good, great, wonderful, great job.

Speaker 1:

You want to make sure you're teaching them. It's about both people feeling that they're being heard and that they're getting something out of it. It's not one side versus the other. At this stage you can teach them to use the I messages, because what happens a lot of times when children are frustrated, they start blaming and name calling You're so mean, I hate you. You always pick the games first. I never get a turn. That's not helping anything, right. So you can just teach them to say something like you know, I feel frustrated when you don't let me pick a game because I want a turn. So when they can verbalize how they're feeling to the other person, it kind of de-escalates that frustration that they're feeling and let's tell the person how they feel, which is great. You want your children to be able to do that.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's talk about your 10 to 12 year olds Now. This gets a little more interesting with this age because they're dealing with more complex relationships with their friends. You know, maybe they're on team sports or teams at school, even social media drama. Okay, let me back up here on this one. My personal opinion is no. 10 or 12 year old needs to be on social media period Period. They do not need to be on social media. Obviously, as a parent, you do what you see fit. However, I find that highly disturbing that a 10 to 12 year old would be on social media, either have their own account or be viewing it. Next rant over Okay.

Speaker 1:

So let's say, in this age you have an 11 year old child that come home from school and they're upset because their friend excluded them from a group project. They were picking groups and your child's friend did pick them, and so you ask them well, how did you feel about it? Why do you think it happened? So help them understand, maybe, the situation and their emotions and then say what could you say to your friend next time? Or what can you talk to them? You know, when you talk to them, what could you say? Role, play it with them, because you know often they don't know what to say, especially if they've not been in that specific situation before. So in that case could say well, maybe you could say something like I felt hurt when you didn't include me. Can we work together next time? Simple, okay, but just run through some possible scenarios, see if they can come up with some on their own and then help them stand up for themselves in a respectful way Again, avoiding the name callingcalling or the blaming and then use this opportunity to teach them about empathy and the importance of kindness in friendships.

Speaker 1:

They're not always going to get their own way right. They have to understand that. It's great for you to sit down with them and discuss it with them, but give them the opportunity to come up with solutions first, instead of just jumping in. And that's going to lead me to some universal tips for all age groups here and I get tired of saying this and I know you probably get tired of hearing it Model the behavior you want to see.

Speaker 1:

They're watching you. They learn how you see how you handle disagreements calmly and respectfully, whether it's a spouse, a neighbor, a coworker, a friend. They're watching you and they're seeing how you handle it and you're teaching them how to handle it by the way you're handling it. This is really important. Resist the urge to jump in and solve every problem. Be a mediator. Guide them to help them come up with their own solutions. Stop being a fixer and I see that a lot and I understand that. I understand where parents are coming from. You want the best for your child, you want to help them right but there comes a point when your help then becomes a crutch and then becomes a problem for them, because they've not learned how to do things on their own, because you've come in and fixed it every time. So they need to learn to handle this on their own.

Speaker 1:

Teach them empathy by helping them see the other person's perspective. You know not just how did you feel, but how do you think they felt? I told you my father used to have these discussions with us. I think we're the most empathetic people you'd ever meet, because there are four of us and if any of us had an issue, he would sit us all down on the couch and we'd have a discussion. Why did you do that? How did you feel? How do you think the other person felt Right? So we have those discussions and it really made you empathetic and make practicing problem solving daily a habit.

Speaker 1:

Small conflicts, solutions, even small, small ones. It's important because then it becomes second nature for your children and they don't freeze up when they're in a conflict. They go oh, it's a conflict which is just a problem. How do we solve this. How do we break it down? What do we do? What are some ideas? Teach them how to do that and then praise their efforts always. You know you praise, you model, you praise when they resolve the conflicts, even if it's not perfect doesn't have to be perfect but you can praise them for the effort they're making in resolving that conflict.

Speaker 1:

Let me throw in another tip I used to use. I taught three to five-year-olds and my favorite age to work with, and obviously at that age there are a lot of conflicts that happen. So one thing I did was I had a card that had a picture of an ear on it and I had a card that had a picture of a mouth on it, and I think I talked about this on one of my Facebook Lives. But two children are having a disagreement. We sit them at a table. One would get the ear card, one would get the mouth card. The person with the mouth card got to talk and the ear person had to listen and then you'd swap the cards and then the other person would get to say their side and then I would say okay, now what do you guys think we should do about this? And I would sit back and listen. Sometimes they'd figure it out on their own. Sometimes they had really good ideas. Sometimes I had how to guide them through it.

Speaker 1:

But what the beauty of this is the cards are the tool you use to get them to talk and to listen, and you can keep a set of these in your car. You can keep them somewhere in the kitchen, maybe on the refrigerator, and your children are getting into a conflict over something, and they can go to get the cards and sit down and have the discussion. Now they may fight over who gets to talk first. Yeah, of course there's a conflict right there and you might have to intervene and just hand one to one and one to the other, but then you step back and let them figure it out, depending on their age. So conflict resolution is a skill that it takes time and practice. So you're going to have to repeat this multiple times until it sinks in, because children learn best repetition, repetition, repetition. But it's one of the greatest gifts you can give your child. It empowers them to handle life's challenges, to build strong relationships and to grow into emotionally intelligent adults, and that's what we want.

Speaker 1:

So thank you for joining me on this episode today. I hope you found it helpful, please share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe, and I'd also love to hear your thoughts. What conflict resolution strategies have worked for your family? You can reach out to me on social media or through my website, pamelapolanzacom. There is a contact form there and I'd love to hear from you. So until next time, remember, every conflict is an opportunity to teach and grow. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Common Sense Parenting with Pam. I hope you enjoyed the episode and, if you did, please leave a review. That helps other parents find us. And if you have friends who also have children and could use some parenting tips, feel free to share this. I would really appreciate it and you know I'd love to hear from you so you can always find me on my socials. And until then, remember, hug and love your babies.