Children need to be taught conflict resolution strategies early in life to avoid escalation and seek positive outcomes. Role play and discussion can help them develop coping strategies, consider different approaches, and understand the opponent’s goals. Different situations may require different strategies such as collaboration or compromise.
Conflicts occur in many areas of human endeavor and often arise very early in life. It is therefore important that children are taught the strategies available to avoid conflict escalation and to seek a positive outcome. Conflict resolution activities for children are an important tool to help them deal with conflict resolution in school and family life and can help them develop coping strategies for the conflicts they will encounter throughout their lives. The different types of conflict resolution activities include role play which allows children to try out their approach to conflict using practical situations and allows them to use strategies such as compromise and collaboration.
Conflict resolution activities proceed by outlining a conflict situation and suggesting possible approaches to the problem. The more aggressive and competitive approach may not always yield the best result and so children should be encouraged to consider the merits of compromising or working together with their opponent. Conflict resolution activities could proceed by asking children for suggestions on the best ways to reach a resolution or through role-playing involving individuals or groups in negotiating conflict resolution. The outcome of the role play could then lead to further feedback which can highlight mistakes made in problem negotiation and suggestions for improvement.
Children can be encouraged to discuss how and why conflicts arise and to gain insight into why conflict is inevitable when people are involved in pursuing their own goals in life. After understanding why conflict arises, children will be in a better position to see that the opponent in a conflict should not be seen as an enemy but as another person striving to achieve a desired outcome. This is a basis for understanding the need to take the other person’s goals into consideration when working out a solution. Conflict resolution activities can reinforce this teaching by assigning set goals to two groups of children and challenging them to come up with a conflict resolution that allows both sides to achieve most of their goals.
Another thing that can be taught to children is that different conflict resolution strategies might be appropriate in different situations. Collaboration might be the best strategy where a level of trust can be built between parties or when the conflict involves matters important to third parties. It can be practiced by conflict resolution activities dealing with situations where the needs of other people need to be taken into consideration. In some situations, when the problem is not very important to one person or when the collaboration has not been successful, compromise may be the best solution. Conflict resolution activities could be designed to reflect this type of situation.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
