Island Parent Fall 2023

Helping Our Tweens & Teens Navigate Conflict
The “tweens” (between the ages of 8 or 9 and 12) are rough. Carefree
childhood innocence rapidly slips away as kids encounter higher expectations
at school and home, an ever-widening sense of a chaotic
world outside themselves, confusing hormonal and physical changes,
and the increasing complexity of social interaction with their peers.
Suddenly, social spats aren’t simple: “Jane wouldn’t share the toy,”
but can become complicated, multi-layered issues: “Jane was mad that
I didn’t eat lunch with her, so she wouldn’t talk to me and told everyone
not to be friends with me anymore. Then she said mean things about me
on {insert social media du jour here} and now everyone hates me.”
How do we help our kids get through this incredibly challenging
time in a healthy way that promotes positive social skills?
Apart from making sure they are secure in our unconditional love,
and helping them build genuine confidence in themselves, it’s essential
that kids learn how to work through conflict constructively. There
are several important skills and mindsets that we can help them build
that will make this easier.
Over the year I noticed more students solving their own conflicts
within the classroom, as well as increased empathy towards others,
evidenced in their personal writing and even the way they spoke to
each other.
Perspective-Taking and Empathy
Helping kids more fully understand how their actions affect others
is something that can be practiced at home.
Books. When reading, you can discuss the characters’ feelings, and
point out how several characters can feel differently about the same
situation. Powerful “tween” books, told from multiple perspectives,
are R.J. Palacio’s Wonder and Rob Buyea’s Because of Mr. Terupt.
Authenticity. Give them feedback when their words or actions have
an emotional effect on you, positive or negative.
Drama—the Good Kind. Role-playing is a great tool for helping us
see and understand peoples’ emotions and motivations. Act out social
situations and discuss what you are thinking and feeling when, for
How We View Conflict
Conflict is a natural and unavoidable part of human interaction, but
working through it isn’t always intuitive, or easy. When I was a rookie
elementary school teacher, I struggled to help my Grade 6 students
sort out daily drama.
I attended several workshops on Restorative Justice and conflict
resolution, and learned to view conflict not as “right” versus “wrong”
but as two people wanting or needing different things. Resolving conflict
isn’t about punishment or exacting revenge—it’s about making
sure that everyone’s experience is heard and acknowledged, and that
they find a way to move forward from the conflict in a way that meets
everyone’s needs.
Our school formed a “Peace Squad”—a group of students, many
from my class, trained to help mediate playground conflicts. This
wasn’t a miracle cure for conflict and, obviously, there were issues
(physical altercations, and bullying, among them) that mediators had
to refer to adult supervisors. Sometimes students weren’t interested in
participating when they realized that the other kid wasn’t going to get
in “trouble.”
However, anyone involved in the process, whether as a mediator or
someone in conflict, came away from it seeing that there is an alternative
to the pervasive idea that if someone “wrongs” you, they need to
be “punished.”
example, your best friend decides to sit with someone else at lunch.
How might you react? What are some alternative ways of handling the
situation?
Boost Emotional Awareness
Being able to describe how someone’s actions make you feel is an
essential key to finding satisfying resolutions to conflict, but many kids
struggle with a limited emotional vocabulary.
Labelling. We can help our kids develop and expand their emotional
awareness, starting with labelling and talking about our own emotions.
We can also provide a safe space and opportunities for them to
practice.
Visual Aids. My four-year-old has a calendar with emotion magnets,
and every day when we change the date, weather, and day of the week,
he also takes a moment to think about how he’s feeling and picks a
face. Sometimes we get into the “why” of his emotions, but just labelling
them is a great start.
Shared Journal. If your tween isn’t yet comfortable with verbalizing
their feelings, you could try keeping a shared journal (with a list
of emotion words taped inside the cover for easy reference). There are
some beautifully-designed journals out there for this purpose, full of
creative prompts. Some are even fill-in-the-blank.
36 Island Parent Magazine IslandParent.ca