How Parents Can Help Their Children Handle Conflict
Catherine Land

We feel good about ourselves as parents when our children are smiling, polite and cooperative. When our children are bickering and unhappy however, it’s easy to feel that we did something wrong. Eager for fast answers to fit our over-worked lives, we may try to achieve simple solutions, only to find repeatedly that our children and our lives are more complex than that.

Parents and children are naturally affectionate and eager to communicate. But this can be obscured when people are upset. Until we deal with these feelings, our distress colors and distorts our ability to think clearly and to react in a thoughtful manner.  As parents, when we are upset, we tend to be rigid with our children. When we feel unsure or overwhelmed, it is hard to think clearly about how to help our children manage conflict. These are the most important times to listen to our kids. Patty Wipfler says:

We gain an immensely valuable skill as we learn to treat our children well when they are wild with upset. We build the skill of winning agreement on good policy, not by lecturing, not by setting down lengthy rules, but by listening to our children tantrum and rage and cry their way through their upsets. 

Listening at these times is not the same as in ordinary conversation. Parents should deliberately open the way for young people to talk about their own thoughts and experiences. Jenny Sazama gathered input from teenagers worldwide to put together the following suggestions for parents who want to listen well to their children:

1. Give full attention to the young person who is speaking.  Do not interrupt.
   
2. Remember that the person you’re listening to is a wonderful, capable person who is already functioning beautifully, even if she is struggling with certain areas of her life.
   
3. Do not offer advice.  Advice may serve a purpose later on, but not during listening time.
   
4. Try not to direct the conversation. When you’re listening well, young people will quickly bring up the issues that they need to discuss.
   
5. Express appreciation and encouragement for the successes they’ve been able to achieve.
   
6. Keep strict confidentiality.  Do not repeat or refer to what a young person has said in social situations or in conversation with others.
   
7. When given thoughtful attention, people often cry from sadness, laugh from embarrassment or sweat or shake from fear.  Encourage this.  We often get confused and think that if we can stop the person from feeling the hard feelings, we will stop the hurting.  Feeling the feelings is part of naturally healing from the hurt.  It will instinctively occur when there is enough safety.

Regular family meetings are another way to keep the air clear of conflict at home, and to teach good communication skills children can use at school and with friends.  Jane Schorer Meisner provides helpful tips for successful family meetings. She suggests that each family member be given an opportunity to express his/her feelings, and that lecturing or advice-giving should be avoided.

Helping children with a simple mediation process can also help teach them to solve their own problems thoughtfully.  A basic outline of this process, called a Peace Plan, is found in the Parent’s Lounge of www.peacenet.com.

Finally, parents should not forget their own needs. Parents need good, supportive listening as well. The work of parenting is much too complex to figure out in a vacuum.  Developing friendships or joining a group in which we get our own special time to talk things out is vital in ensuring that we will be able to be relaxed and supportive with our children.

SOURCES:

www.findarticles.com (Family Meetings) - By Jane Schorer Meisner www.positiveparenting.com/nospank.html (9 Things to do Instead of Spanking) - By Kathryn Kvols
Listening to Children, Patty Wipfler, Parents Leadership Institute, 1990.
Listening to Young People, Jenny Sazama, The Resource Center for Youth and their Allies, 1994.

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