Conflict resolution is a key skill. No matter how great your plan is, conflict is inevitable.

These activities and skills will set your child up to be able to skillfully navigate conflict in digital spaces, to know how to respond and when not to respond, and to know when an adult's help and guidance is needed.

After you watch the video, you'll find the three discussion activities for this lesson in the PDF.

Conflict Resolution

You have more experience with conflict resolution than your child.

Now, you may have a little Gandhi in your house who’s great at conflict resolution. And maybe they embrace talking things out. But kids often are afraid of conflict and don’t know what to do with it, or they get revved-up or overwhelmed by conflict.

A lot of kids treat conflict as a spectator sport. If your child is arguing with a friend over text, the friend may end up sharing screenshots of the argument. Your kid may do it, too. Your child may screenshot the dialogue or show the phone to a friend, and we want to talk to kids about why that’s not a great idea.

Kids should only be sharing their texts with others if their friend is in danger or if their friend gives permission. When your friend is mad at you, you don’t want to amplify the fight by sharing the text with other people. The best thing to do in a conflict is to take it offline, meet in person, and talk it out.

It’s easy for feelings to get hurt over text because there’s no ability to gauge tone or intent. Often, kids will say they were "just kidding," and it’s hard to know whether that’s true, or they're just saying it because they know they hurt someone's feelings.

Crucial Reminder!

It’s almost impossible to successfully resolve an argument via text. I have many times tried to resolve an argument via text and realized the impossibility of doing so, and this is even more true with kids.

Actions

1. Watch the video.
2. Review the PDF below and plan to discuss with your child.
3. Reflect on those discussions.