Dealing with conflicts and disagreements happen regularly between pupils and their friends can be challenging. Small kids (Nursery) gets very emotional and often cry. The most common conflict between infants is inability to share toys or outdoor recourses in the playground. From my working experience I find the best way to deal with conflict both nursery and KS1 pupils is to be calm and get all kids involved in disagreement. I always ask what happened and listen to every child has to say about unpleasant situation.
I encourage children to try to understand position of other peers and encourage to apologise each other. In some cases conflicts may be more challenging as some children with strong personalities will not to listen and ignore., then I use my visual signs as they help children to process information quicker due to limited language. Sand timer will be very helpful tool to resolve conflict and teach them turn taking.When deal with conflicts with older children the strategy may differ. Young people feels more independent and most of them have their own ideas and opinions.This ” strong ” group should be encouraged to discuss, listen understand and respect other’s feeling.
In school where I do work we have a” Restorative Approach ” which is a process of conflicts resolutions that ensures that all parties have their say and agree on the way forward. When resolving any disagreements school staff ask involved children five “Magic questions” :1. What happened?2. What were or are you thinking and feeling?3. Who has been affected and how?4.
What do you need to feel better?5. What needs to happen now and what can you do to make this happen?These questions help the child to rethink the situation and will help to understand their emotions and other’s feelings.
