AVOIDING AND DEALING WITH CONFLICT
National Network for Child Care's Connections Newsletter
Christine Todd
Human Development Specialist
Cooperative Extension Service
University of Illinois
Copyright/Access Information
Have you noticed more fighting and arguments among your school-agers lately? The long winter months can be hard on both young people and child care providers! Here are some ideas to help keep things on an even keel.
Children usually have fewer opportunities to play outside during the winter months. The weather is often bad and the sun sets early. School-age children have a great need for physical exercise. If they don't get enough exercise, their energy may come out in the form of short tempers and arguments, especially in a child care setting where there are many children together. To help children work off their excess energy, schedule active play every day. Go outside or use the gym. If your facility doesn't have a gym, look for other community resources. Could the children enroll in swimming classes at the YMCA? Is there a gym in a church or community center you could use several times each week? In addition to keeping kids active, these trips will help them learn more about the community.
Be sure to schedule some special activities that have not been done before. Do you have access to a video camera and VCR? Try having school-agers make their own commercials. Encourage the children to publish their own newsletter. Or, find another school-age program and have the children exchange "letters." Younger children can draw pictures or send photos; older children can write actual letters. You could even set up a field trip to the local post office to help children better understand how the mailing process works. Perhaps the children could bring their letters along and watch them being processed.
It's also important to add novelty to familiar activities. Are you about to play a familiar relay in the gym? How about having the youngsters bounce the ball while walking backward instead of forward? Are you going to have the children draw some new pictures for the bulletin board? How about having them work in pairs instead of alone? Anything you can do to add novelty to a familiar activity will keep the children's interest and will leave less time for arguments.
Despite all your interesting activities, children will still argue and fight to some extent. This is normal for school-age children. Rather than attempting to stop all conflict, which is an unattainable goal, we should work to help children manage their conflicts in acceptable ways. Just as children need to be taught how to read and write, they need to be taught how to deal with differences of opinion. We need to be teachers of social skills as well as of physical and academic skills.
When children fight over rules, suggest that they work together and decide on a common set of rules to follow. Be sure to have them write the rules down, so there is no room for disagreement later. It is also important to help children learn appropriate ways to react when disagreements occur. Children can calmly discuss their differences. Or they can check the written rules, if there are any, to see who is right. Or they can check with an adult for an opinion. Children can also decide to do something else if they don't like the way the other kids are playing. However, name calling, hitting, or throwing things are unacceptable. These responses can hurt others, physically or emotionally, and destroy property. Furthermore, these responses are not likely to lead to a solution to the problem.
When children act in ways that are inappropriate, have them generate several acceptable things they could have done. Then, have them role play those responses. Children learn slowly. You may need to repeat this process many times before children spontaneously use the acceptable responses. But with time, you will begin to see the difference.
Often times, arguments and fights begin as play. But then things get out of hand. Unfortunately, elementary school children are not always good at noticing how their actions affect others. They fail to pick up on some of the subtle, nonverbal cues that children use to say "stop." And in the excitement of play they may also ignore verbal requests to "cut it out."
When arguments arise, work with both children. Help the "victim" learn to give off cues that are clear to others. For example, if the child never told the other child to stop, you could say, "What could you do so that Jerry knows you want him to stop?" It is also important to help the other child learn how to watch for the cues being given off. For example, you could say, "Jerry, how did Matt look when you were poking him? Was he laughing or did he look mad? Did he ask you to stop? If someone asks you to stop, what should you do?" By teaching children to give off recognizable cues and to pay attention to those cues in others, you will help children learn how to regulate their own behavior.
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