Conflict is to be expected at home, especially for young children. Siblings and playmates are still learning how to share space, express feelings, and solve problems. The adult’s job is not to referee or decide who was right. It’s to teach children how to work it out.
The Adult’s Role
During conflict, the adult guides children through the steps by prompting and actively listening. You know the four steps, so you have to prompt them to follow them. As they do, you will actively listen to their answers. Active listening includes mirroring, summarizing, empathizing, and validating. Not sure how to do that? You can read more about how to actively listen to children in my article on Helping Children Navigate Challenges. The adult does not judge, blame, or announce what they saw. You know how to resolve conflicts. Remember, you are teaching them how.
The 4 Steps of Conflict Resolution at Home
1. What Happened?
Invite each child to tell their side.
You might say:
“Tell me what happened.”
“Each of you gets a turn to say what happened.”
This helps children slow down and put the problem into words.
2. How Do You Feel?
Ask both children, not just the child who is crying or upset.
You might say:
“How do you feel?”
“What was going on for you?”
This helps children build emotional awareness and empathy. Remember, feelings are one word, not a sentence. You have to be sure they actually expressed an emotion.
If they say, “I wanted the toy,” that’s a belief not a feeling. You might say, “Yeah, you wanted a toy and it looks like you are mad about not getting it. Did I get that?” Mad is the feeling there.
When I ask adults in therapy how did that feel they very, very, very often give me a thought. Be sure you are getting the emotion. We are trying to build emotional intelligence as managing emotions is at the heart of conflict resolution. Give children a chance to notice, name, and tame big feelings.
Moving to solution…we don’t start here
3. What Solutions Can We Try?
Notice we didn’t start here. All you “fixers” out there might be impatiently wondering why we don’t just say what can we do to start. It’s because you are teaching them how to skillfully resolve conflicts. Not fix. A big part of the work I do in therapy with adults includes getting them to stop just throwing advice at their partner.
For example you might say to your partner complaining about work, “Your boss is being hard on you? Why don’t you just tell him you are having a health crisis.” While that might be great advice, your partner might not feel like you care because you didn’t acknowledge their perspective in depth like we did above. They might feel “rushed to a solution” when they were really searching for understanding.
Kids feel the same. While they want a solution, they need to also feel seen and soothed.
Now, have the kids get the Solution Kit
Have the children bring out the Solution Kit, which you can create on an electronic device or print out, laminate, and have as a book they can leaf through. It has images either cartoon or pictures of your kids demonstrating the solutions. Your kit can include any solutions you see as acceptable. Some examples I used in my classroom as a teacher:
- walk away
- get an adult
- share
- take turns
- play together
- find something else to do
You might say:
“What solutions can we try?”
“Let’s look at the Solution Kit.”
The goal is not for the adult to solve it. The goal is for children to practice problem solving.
4. Acknowledge Children’s Efforts
Once children work it out, use Positive Descriptive Acknowledgement (PDA) or PDA Plus, not praise.
That might sound like:
“Anita nd Max, you worked out your problem together.”
“You stuck with it and found a solution. You must be proud of yourselves.”
“Looks like you both shared your ideas and made a plan. That’s teamwork!”
For more about PDA/PDA plus read my article. Examples are for children in a classroom setting, but you can change them a bit for home use.
Example: Resolving Conflicts
at Home
Two siblings both want the same stuffed animal before bed. One grabs it, and the other screams.
The parent says, “What happened?”
Each child shares their side. The adult actively listens to both (mirror, summarize, empathize and/or validates)
Then the parent asks, “How do you feel?”
One says angry. The other says sad. Again, the adult actively listens and shows softness, curiosity, and patience (I know, hard!) through body language and tone of voice. Non-verbal signals matter!
The parent brings out the Solution Kit and asks, “What solutions can we try?”
The children choose to take turns with a timer. The adult affirms their choice, “You decided to take turns with the timer! Great. Let’s set it for 5 minutes.”
The parent closes with PDA Plus: “You both worked through a hard problem and figured out a solution. You ought to feel proud of yourselves.”
To ensure your success
Conflict resolution at home is not about stopping the problem as fast as possible. It is about teaching young children the social emotional skills they need for life. And honestly? If you do this approach for three months at least, you will start to see the frequency, intensity, and duration of conflicts decline.
And you need to be going through all four steps correctly and consistently, of course. If your non-verbal signals show danger, threat, or warning, you are not doing it correctly. For a video example of the 4 Steps to Conflict Resolution, check out videos on my YouTube channel. See if you can identify all four steps in this video and watch others on my channel.