Conflicts are bound to arise in any relationship. During the teen years, however, these conflicts seem to be more dramatic and emotional, and teens often lack the skills to resolve them independently. Kids need to learn a system for resolving problems that helps all participants feel heard and respected, and involves all of them in the resolution of the issue.
Helping Kids Express their Perspective
Give each person a chance to express his or her point of view, without interruption or judgment. Generally, kids will not be able to move into the problem-solving phase of conflict resolution unless they feel that they have been heard. However, there need to be some guidelines and boundaries for this stage. Make sure kids know that they need to express their position respectfully, calmly, and directly to the person they are having the conflict with. Raise awareness of negative nonverbal messages, like eye-rolling, and defensive body posture, and tone of voice. These things can have a detrimental impact on the process.
Teaching Reflective Listening Skills
Explain to students that while the other person is talking, you expect them to be listening to both the content and the feelings underlying what the person is saying, whether they agree with them or not. Also encourage kids to use “I statements,” when describing their feelings about what happened. “I felt angry when you said that about me,” is a healthy was of expressing both feelings and point of view.
Ask each student to restate what he heard the other student saying. Ask for factual information, but then follow up with questions about intent, perception, and feelings. The purpose here is to get each participant to understand what may have motivated the comments or behavior in question. Sometimes, it’s something as simple as miscommunication or inaccurate information. Sometimes the problem is part of a larger problem that may take longer to tease apart. In any case, it’s important that kids learn to recognize perspectives other than their own.
Summarizing the Conflict
The facilitator should then summarize what has happened so far so that he or she ensures that all participants have the same information before the process moves to the next phase. A simple statement like “Kelly, it sounds like you made the comments because you heard a rumor that Ann was making comments about you and it made you angry,” sums up both content and feelings neatly. Be sure to do this for each participant, and give them the chance to correct you if the information is no accurate.
Brainstorming Possible Solutions
Ideally, these solutions should come from the kids, but leaders can nudge the process along if they seem to have trouble getting started. Write down all possible suggestions, and then have students work together to pick the option they would like to try.
Implementing a Plan
Spell out clearly what the expectations are for each person, any time frames or other conditions that might apply, and choose a time to regroup to evaluate the situation. Have all parties agree, either verbally or with a handshake, to follow the agreement and the return to the facilitator if problems arise.
Assessing the Plan
Follow up after a reasonable amount of time has passed to make sure that the conflict has been resolved. If not, move through the process again, if necessary, and try other possible solutions. If the problem has been resolve to the participant’s satisfaction, give them the opportunity to verbalize how they fixed the problem and how they feel now that things have improved.
The teen years present frequent opportunities for miscommunication and resulting social conflicts. But with support, students can learn a healthy conflict resolution model to solve their own issues, and prevent further problems.
