Conflict Resolution

 

Conflict is inevitable in our lives. No matter how well we get along with people, we are bound to have some sort of conflict in the relationship. One of things that my twelve year old daughter and I disagree with is chores. Basically, like a lot of children she doesn’t think she should have to do them. Therefore, we often go back and forth arguing about her doing them and why she needs to do them. Her argument to me is that I tell her too much to do at once, and it stresses her out and doesn’t motivate her to do chores. In order to eliminate my stress as a parent and her stress as a child, I decided to have a conversation with her on ways we could solve this issue.

 One of the things I learned about conflict resolution is that respect is always shown even to those who are younger than us. Meaning, just because I am the parent doesn’t mean I am always right. Dealing with issues in an objective way rather than pointing the finger is important in conflict resolution. Keeping this in mind, I decided to listen to my daughter express her needs to me. Having an open discussion allowed us both to see our perspectives and respect one another’s opinion. After listening to my daughter express how stress she gets when I tell her to do too much at once, we both agreed that if I wrote a list of things to do each day, she would be able to follow it and do her chores without feeling so stressed. As a result, of our compromise, I am happy to say my daughter has been doing her chores. She looks on the chore list everyday and checks off the chores when she is finished. In the end the conflict that frustrated both of us was able to get resolved because we both made efforts to respect each other and develop a solution that offered us both compromise.

What would you have done as a parent if you was face with this conflict with you own child?  What approach would you have taken?