This week, during Social Emotional/BrainWise lessons at NES, children are practicing the key steps for resolving their conflicts in a healthy manner. Family time can already be full of disagreements, but being together indefinitely during a pandemic may increase the number and intensity of conflicts. Siblings may bicker about this, that, and everything. Parents and children may struggle with each other over the new routine. Spouses and partners may be feeling extra tension between themselves. Now is a good time to acknowledge how conflicts between partners can impact the watchful eyes of the children who may be caught in the crossfire. And, it is a good time to work together with your child through the Steps to Conflict Resolution ~ assigned in Google Classroom (code sjotzxu)
Many partners may assume they should never "fight" in front of the children, since kids often become anxious watching their caretakers argue. But there are important lessons children can learn about conflict if adults are aware of the process they are utilizing. According to Mark Cummings' research in Bronson's book, Nurture Shock, children get anxious when witnessing their parents disagreeing, and especially when the adults yell, insult or disrespect each other. But when the children also see the adults "resolving" the argument with affection, the kids were fine afterwards.
a. disagreeing without yelling, insulting, or disrespecting does not have the same effect on children as witnessing parents emotionally attacking one another during a conflict, and
b. any time partners have a disagreement in front of their children, even without yelling, it is essential that you affectionately and explicitly "repair" the relationship with your partner.
According to Markham, the following scenarios are actually terrific modeling for your child:
1. One parent snaps at the other, then immediately course corrects: "I'm so sorry - I'm just feeling stressed -- can we try that over? What I meant to say was ..." Kids learn from this modeling that anyone can get angry, but that we can take responsibility for our own emotions, apologize and re-connect. During a conflict, you may see your child react strongly from their reptilian Lizard brain, but then you'll begin to see your child start to apologize and course correct, too.
2. Parents work through a difference of opinion without getting triggered and raising their voices. For instance, if you and your partner have a good-natured discussion about who should clean the bathroom or how to spend money, your child learns that humans who live together can have different needs, values, and opinions, still listen to each other, and work toward a win/win decision -- all respectfully and with affection.
3. Parents notice that they have a conflict brewing and agree to discuss it later. Hopefully, this happens before there's any yelling -- or you'll be modeling yelling. And hopefully, you can close the interaction with a big, public, hug. If you're too mad, model taking some space to calm down and then prioritize the hug in front of your child, with a family mantra like "It's okay to get mad...You can be mad at someone and still love them at the same time... We always work things out." This takes maturity, but it models effective self-regulation and repair for your child. And it's crucial to restoring your child's sense of security.
Anger is a message to us about what we need. There's always a way to ask for what we need without attacking the other person. It's never appropriate to dump anger on another person, in front of your kids or not.
Not so easy to do? You're right. Most of us never learned how to manage our own emotions, express our needs without attacking, and handle conflict in a healthy way.
Despite what we learned as a child, we can help our children learn the steps for collaborative problem-solving:
a. TALK ABOUT THE PROBLEM not the Person. State the mutual problem (i.e. "We both want to use the laptop right now.") Use an I-message to identify what is going on inside of you ~ "I feel ___ when____ because _____"(describe your emotions and what you need) instead of attacking the other person by describing them in a "You-message."
c. THINK OF WAYS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM. Brainstorm several choices for working through the situation (together if possible).
💖Repair the relationship with an apology, a hug, or a gesture of love.💖
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