Facts In Action

Increasingly, we hear reports of escalating rates of children's exposure to violence as well as aggressive behavior among young children. Researchers, teachers and providers have expressed concern with this trend because such an environment can undermine healthy social and moral development. In addition, few teachers or providers are prepared to deal with the repercussions of children's exposure to violence, nor are they trained in conflict resolution skills, or knowledgeable about how to help children build their moral and social skills through curriculum.

In response to these needs, Nancy Carlsson-Paige of Lesley University and Diane E. Levin of Wheelock College, researchers who have written extensively on conflict management and the impact of violence on children, have created a curriculum guide to help teachers and providers teach conflict resolution skills to young children. The guide, Before Push Comes to Shove: Building Conflict Resolution Skills with Children, provides strategies to help children build social skills to counteract the effects of real and portrayed violence in everyday life. Throughout the guide, the authors use the children's book Best Days of the Week (also by Carlsson-Paige) to serve as a springboard for teaching conflict resolution skills and concepts to children and provide meaningful situations to which children can relate. The guide also encourages children to discover satisfaction and a sense of empowerment by learning to create positive social relationships and solve their problems without violence.

Since children create an understanding of conflict through their experiences, they each have their own unique conflict styles shaped by developmental factors and the sociocultural context in which they live. To develop positive moral and social skills, children need curriculum that provides active, first-hand experiences and opportunities to learn and use tools for peaceful conflict resolution. When creating a conflict resolution curriculum, teachers and providers should be mindful that:

• Younger children use facial expressions as cues, and may not be as sensitive to the less tangible signs of conflict.

• Younger children may not be capable of finding multiple, nonagressive solutions to a conflict.

• Younger children may not understand how their actions affect others; this understanding comes with maturation.

To help children move through this developmental process, teachers and providers need to appreciate the diverse ways young children experience conflict and adapt their approach to conflict to the meanings, experiences, and style of each child. Additionally, teachers should find ways to connect classroom activities to children's own meanings of and experiences with conflict.

Figuring out what causes conflict, that there are two sides to a conflict, and that each side plays a role in causing the conflict are essential aspects of learning how to manage conflict. Carlsson-Paige and Levin's model shows teachers and providers how to guide children in learning perspective taking, how to recognize their own and others' feelings, how conflicts escalate, skills for de-escalating conflictual situations, and how to find solutions in which both children benefit.

Carlsson-Paige and Levin suggest the following programmatic strategies to help children talk through conflicts and learn to find more peaceful solutions:

• Use dramatic play as a context for discussing conflicts - because play is one of the central ways children work out their understanding of new experiences, expand the discussion of conflicts that come up in the classroom or family child care home by having children draw pictures and tell stories to share about current conflicts they are having, or by using puppets to have children reenact the situation.

• Teach specific skills about conflicts and how conflicts can escalate - teach children about perspective taking by building it into the curriculum, teaching children about feelings, and focusing on put-downs and bias statements as contributors to conflict. Some of the other specific strategies Carlsson-Paige and Levine describe in their guide to help teach children learn about perspective taking include: encouraging children to act out characters and then switch places, playing turn-taking games, and discussing lists of put-downs.

• Focus on reinforcing children's successful conflict resolution - examine real experiences by having children write about situations when they tried to cool down conflicts, and "put-ups" they have given other children. Children can also be taught how to use "I" statements, active listening skills, how to develop peaceful solutions to conflicts, and how to build win-win solutions into classroom conflicts.

• Create a peaceable program - to be most effective and meaningful, conflict resolution needs to pervade all aspects of classroom or program life. This can be done by implementing a win-win approach when conflicts arise, such as allowing children to share power of decision making with the teacher or provider, helping children use their conflict resolution skills throughout the entire day, and infusing conflict resolution into all curriculum areas.

Carlsson-Paige and Levin suggest that books that depict conflictual situations and describe the repercussions of both positive and negative solutions to conflict, puppets, and feeling photos provide valuable resources for developing positive moral and social skills. In addition, these tools provide active, first-hand experiences to learn about and use strategies for peaceful conflict resolution. Incorporating this type of an anti-conflict curriculum into a regular program curriculum can result in children who have stronger, better-developed moral and social skills, and are more able to negotiate conflict in positive, non-violent, and fair ways.

Source:
Before Push Comes to Shove: Building Conflict Resolution with Children, Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Diane E. Levin, 1998.

This guide, as well as Best Days of the Week, is available at bookstores, or through online booksellers such as www.amazon.com.

Facts in Action, June 2002