By Caylin Gans, Forest and Nature School Educator
As soon as we get outside of the school building and into the forest the kids race to the top of a small hill. Then they proceed to start pushing each other off of it…
The triumphant one who’s strength or technique allows them to dominate at the top is crowned “king” or “queen” of the hill.
It’s a physical game. It can get rough. And it often (almost certainly) causes conflict between the children.
Some complain when it gets too rough. Others don’t like when someone bends the rules of the game to their own advantage. There are arguments. There are frustrations. Sometimes there are tears too.
I’ve watched similar issues arise in the winter when the snow entices the children to have snowball fights. The activity is often first met with laughter and pure joy. A little while later though there’s tears when a snowball lands on someone’s head and cold slush trickles down their back. Or they feel like a group is “stashing too many snowballs” or “ganging up on one person” or “aiming at their head.”
These are just a few situations I’ve observed while working with a group of 5 to 10 year olds during an after school program at a public school where conflicts regularly occur during play.
Conflicts in play are bound to happen and they can be upsetting for the children involved as well as for the adults who are called or compelled to help resolve them. In the public school setting where I work it’s generally the adults who make most of the rules when it comes to play and, in an effort to avoid conflicts, certain behaviours are banned. Flat out. Just not allowed. No snowball fights. No contact games like King/Queen of the Hill. No building forts.
And I can totally see why this is the case. When adults make and enforce rules it seems to resolve the conflict relatively quickly. There’s a conflict, the children tell the adult, the adult reiterates the “rules” or establishes new ones if needed, everyone is informed, the banned behaviour stops. Problem solved, right?
Well I’ve tried approaching conflict in a different way because of what I’ve noticed to be the aftermath of the aforementioned method. The behaviours that are banned don’t really stop… at least not forever. The children start to throw snowballs again or push each other on a hill and the adults then have to be the police that keep an ever watchful eye and stop anything that “breaks the rules” and causes conflict. Sometimes this also involves using punishments to try to discourage children from breaking the rules again in the future, like being forced to sit out during play time.
So children devise strategies to deal with this, such as being the first to tell the adult about the conflict whether they were at fault or not. If you’re the first to tell then it’s your story that gets heard first and hopefully will be the one that’s most believed. Then you don’t get in trouble and the other kid does. By the way, I’m not making this up myself. The children have disclosed to me that this is their strategy!
I’ve also noticed the use of strategies like bending the truth or just flat out lying to try not to get into trouble. What seems to result, in my view, is a lack of accountability, a deterioration of empathy, and an adult who holds all the responsibility for deciding the outcome of the situation.
Problem not solved….
So what do I do? Within reason I refrain from interfering and let the conflict play out instead.
For example, one winter’s day an epic snowball fight erupted. It was pretty fierce and lots of conflict arose. The children started to speak up about things they didn’t like, like hitting others in the face and head, groups ganging up on one person, or lying about who’s team they were really on. There were tears and some children were pretty distraught. Instead of jumping in, I first listened carefully to the conversations the children were having with each other.
They weren’t necessarily the most civil, but they were expressing how they felt about the game, the behaviour of others, and what they liked/didn’t like. During conversations like this, if it feels appropriate, I join in with my own questions:
“How do you feel about what just happened?”
“How could you communicate how you feel to the other person?”
“How would you rather play instead?”
“What do you need to feel safe?”
“What can we do so everyone can enjoy playing?”
And I let the children answer these questions themselves. Suddenly, “rules” are established that the group negotiates and eventually agrees upon.
“No head shots!”
“No ganging up on one person!”
“Let’s divide into even teams first so we know who’s on what side!”
And then the play resumes.
When conflict inevitably arises again, what I’ve noticed is that the children start to self-regulate. THEY’VE decided the rules. So THEY enforce those rules by reminding others about them when things go off course. THEY then stop their behaviour when it upsets someone else. And there’s much less intervention needed from me in the long run.
This isn’t to say I don’t ever establish any rules or communicate certain boundaries of my own. If safety (emotional or physical) is concerned I step in without a doubt. But I try to always prioritize involving children in the decision making process about their own behaviour.
I also reinforce this through brief group meetings that are embedded into our afternoon routine. We always gather together at the very beginning and at the very end of each session. It’s a time for announcements, questions, and discussion and I open up the floor for the children to bring up any thoughts they want to share about the day. Sometimes they bring up the conflicts that have occurred and we all take some time to address what happened and decide what to do about it. I act as the facilitator and mediator, but it is the children who are ultimately directing the discussion. I find these meetings useful in providing space and time for reflection, closure, and ensuring we’re all on the same page going forward.
The downside to these methods is they take much more time. Some conflicts take multiple days to resolve, as conversations continue and rules and behaviour are adjusted from one day to the next. The snowball conflict took a total of 4 afternoons to negotiate rules that felt good to everybody. It took about the same when it came to King/Queen of the hill. That’s a lot of time to invest in an experience that feels uncomfortable and even emotionally painful to some! Many of us would rather the negativity be eliminated as quickly as possible.
The upside however is that the children are learning crucial skills for getting along in a group. Skills like communication, listening, expressing feelings and needs, compromising, and problem-solving. Letting conflict play out also offers the opportunity to develop empathy while trying to understand and appreciate perspectives that are different from their own. All the while, the play that the children engaged with in the first place is allowed to continue rather than being banned by us adults, which preserves children’s autonomy to make decisions about their own play. Snowball fights allowed! King/Queen of the Hill allowed! Fort building allowed!
Recently another conflict arose in our group while the children were playing a hide and seek game. There was a misunderstanding about the rules and an argument broke out. The group came to me complaining and both sides began spewing their versions of what happened. I stood there silently and as they ranted, their attention started to shift from me to each other. They started to listen and talk to one another. They expressed how they felt (“It doesn’t feel fair!”) and what they wanted to change (“If you stop doing that, then we’ll stop doing this!”). Throughout the entire conversation I just stood there and said nothing until eventually they resolved it all and ran off to continue playing.
I wasn’t really needed at all to resolve the conflict. Why? Because ultimately children are much more competent and capable than we often give them credit for. Sometimes we just need to provide them with our trust, some time, and some space. This was confirmed by the children themselves when I asked them with genuine curiosity one day, “What do you think about the way we resolve conflicts here compared to what it’s like in school?”
Their answer? “It’s waaaayyy better!”
How reaffirming.
Thanks for article, you say “If safety (emotional or physical) is concerned I step in without a doubt.” My question is what does it look like when you step in? What do you say and do? Thanks !
Great question. It really depends on the situation and what the concern is. I would react differently to a physical outburst of anger than to verbal bullying, for example. I also want to highlight I’m not a behaviour expert so definitely reach out to professionals to seek guidance appropriate to individuals and situation your in. In general, I’d say I when I intervene it involves calmly requesting pausing the behaviour (“Hey, can we talk about what’s happening?”) and if the children feel comfortable and emotionally ready, describing what I’m seeing and how I’m feeling about it (“I’m noticing ___ is happening and I feel concerned because ___”) then facilitating a discussion asking similar questions to the ones outlined in the blog post. Sometimes the discussion part has to come later and/or on an individual basis rather than with the group if emotions are running high, but I always try to circle back to create open communication and closure. Hope that helps!
Hi, thank you for this usefull article.
I’m working with a group of 3-6 years old kids and the physical conflict are a daily event. If I try to asck ” How do you feel about what it’ S happend?” at both the children involved in the conflict often even If I accept to stay in the conflict one of them doesn’ t won’ t end goes away. I don’ t feel I have been usefull, with one child upset and the other went away. I want to respect both, but I don’ t know How.
Are they too young?
Thank you
Hi Daniela, it can certainly be different with younger children who may need more guidance and support in navigating their emotions and learning how to communicate. As mentioned in the blog, this particular story comes from working with children 5 and older. I also want to acknowledge that interactions with and between children can be really different depending on context, personalities, cultural background, etc. so there’s no prescribed way to handle things that will work for all. But I do think it’s possible to encourage ways for children of all ages to understand emotions, cope with them, and communicate respectfully with others – and the support (or space!) we give to them will vary from context to context. The more practice they (and we) get with it, the easier it can become.
Thanks for this really interesting article. what do you think about using “this method” with a 2 year old child?
Today my child wanted to play with a swing but another child (4 years old) was playing with it. My son was in front of him shouting “my! My! Mine!” and I said “I understand that you want the swing but now this child is using it, we can wait or we can do other games and when it stops it can be your shifts”. My son accepted ok. But other parents told me that it is not correct because the children need the conflict and I just distracted him. I honestly think that the world is already full of frustrations for a 2y old baby to live and to solve. Was I wrong to intervene?
I feel I have found the right place to be. I have always believed in letting the children work out their own differences as long as they are not hurting or harming each other. So many times I have been working with children and adults have stepped in too soon which takes all the power away from them. And ultimately the trust as well. So thank you for such an easy and honest article – kids are much more competent and capable than we give them credit for – and it is not serving them on the long run if we intervene each time – I have worked with older and younger children and this can be done but yes it is within the context of the situation. If the children have no time to make the mistakes how can they learn? Thank you again. Laura Lewis.