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 Family Life
Children and Conflict
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Audio/Video Script:
Dr. Wally Goddard
Family Life Specialist
[Title Slide – Children and Conflict; Dr. Wally Goddard, U of A Division of Agriculture. Picture of
two children looking mad at one another.]
[Dr. Wally Goddard] Have you ever known children to fight and quarrel? Now,
if you haven't, then it probably means you probably don't have any time with
children. Because when you put children together, they tend to fight and quarrel
with each other.
And so let's talk about what you can do with that. [Dr. Wally Goddard holding
a felt board with farm animals on the board, a sheep, chicken, cow and pig]
Let's imagine that we've got two children - a boy and a girl. And that they are
playing along and let's imagine that your son is playing with this particular
toy and enjoying the various elements of it and along comes his sister. And the
sister sees the toy and, of course, because the brother thinks it's interesting
then she does too. And she comes and tries to grab a hold of maybe the sheep
here. And at this point the son goes, "No, leave it alone. This is mine. I'm
playing with it." And the fight is on. She, of course feeling insulted and hurt,
cries and maybe screams and asks for a parental intervention. And the fight goes
on and as we enter this scene of conflict, we have several responses.
One is, we could punish one of the children. We could punish the boy or the
girl, whichever one we thought was the offender. Or we could separate them. And
those might, at best, might at least temporarily stop the conflict, but in the
end that doesn't teach either of the children how to deal with conflict. So I
want to suggest a different way of dealing with fighting and quarreling.
Let's return to the boy is playing with this toy, the sister enters and so
what do you do when there's this conflict? Maybe the parent comes and says "oh,
let's pause for a minute. Son, you were playing with that weren't you and having
fun. And which is your favorite animal?" We take time to connect with the son,
we sidetrack the conflict by talking about what they're doing and what they're
enjoying. And then maybe mom or dad turns to the daughter and says, "So, what do
you think of that?" And maybe the daughter says "Well, I want to play with it
too." "Yeah, don't we wish we had two of those. That would be nice."
Now here's where we teach the conflict resolutions skills. At this point,
since the son was indeed playing with it first, rather than impose our arbitrary
rule about, "You must share." Maybe, instead, we say, "Son, do you think you'd
let your sister pick one of those animals to play with?" And he may say yes and
he may say no. If he says yes, you say "Oh great. Why don't you hold that up and
let your sister pick one." And maybe she picks that lamb and she's happy and he
has learned to be noble, to offer a compromise, to offer a way of working
together.
Now there's a chance he says no. There's a pretty fair chance, depending on
his disposition and his mood. So he may say "No, I don't want to share with her,
I was playing with it." And you can say, "Well, I can understand. When you're
playing with something, you'd want to keep playing with it." So then you take
the hand of the daughter and say "Let's find something that you enjoy doing just
as much." And you wonder off to find something that would be just as enjoyable,
just as attractive, just as fun for your daughter.
The message to the son is, you kind of passed up an opportunity to share
there. And yet you didn't force it. You just opened the door and invited. So, as
we as adults try to help children deal with conflict, we can help each of the
children identify what it is they want. We can help them work together, to find
compromises, to find ways to share. And when we do it, the amount of conflict
will diminish.
[Narrator] To learn more, contact your county extension agent and follow
the links in this section. [U of A University of Arkansas Division of
Agriculture]
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