We've been deepening our learning of effective collaboration and I realised I had been spending a lot of time coaching students to resolve conflicts during group work but also in every other aspect of school life (e.g. recess for instance). Thus, we spent some class time talking about conflict resolution but specifically how to talk to people so they will listen. Here are the main points we discussed:
1. I need to be calm. Anger, frustration, sadness etc. are all normal reactions to conflict and we need to learn how to return to a calm state in order to solve the problem. We already knew quite a bit about returning to a calm state because of our focus on self-regulation at the beginning of the year. Some strategies we use are deep breathing, exercise, take a short walk, squeeze a stress ball.
2. Tell the person what you expect/need from them. Ever get told not to do something? Logically we know we should stop but being told not to do something just makes it irresistible doesn't it?! Also, simply telling the person to stop or not to do something might not tell the person what they SHOULD do instead. It's a tricky skill to learn but we practiced telling the person what we want from them instead of telling them what not to do. For instance, instead of saying stop pushing me we can say keep your hands to yourself. The person is much more likely to listen if we tell them what to do.
3. Avoid general labelling/name calling. When reolsving conflict we want our langauge to be constructive, it should help us solve the problem. Telling the person they are being rude or that they are mean isn't helping to solve the issue. It goes point to point #2 tell the person specifically what they need to do.
I strongly belive that students are able to solve conflict themselves and that if we as adults constantly solve problems for them they never learn to do it themselves. Of course at the end of the day if students have tried the strategies above there's always the option of seeking some adult help.
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