Teaching Your Kids to Behave : On Letting They Resolve Conflicts Themselves

It is inevitable that there are arguments among children and it is always good to let them resolve it themselves. Do not intervene if it is not getting out of hand. A few points to note:

Teach the kids and let them understand from young that it is all right to feel certain way (i.e. angry, sad, disturb, happy) but they must manage their emotion and the actions they do. Set bottom line on what is right or wrong. For example, make clear to them that it is okay to feel anger but hitting someone or verbally abusing someone is definitely not correct.

Starting from infancy (their capability to understand what you are saying can start as young as when they are a year old), try to tag an emotion/feeling to a word/description. This is to teach them to understand their own and others emotions and guide them in expressing them properly. Take for example, this is how my sis will talk to my nephew FatBoy. When he was crying for milk (think was a year old back then), my sis will tag it to the word “Hungry” and say it to my nephew. Another occasion, when he was 3 at that time , “ I can see that you are unhappy when Skinny (FatBoy's brother who was 2 at that time) take your toys without your permission, it’s the same look you see on him when you disturb him when he is sleeping, so now you understand what is the feeling of unhappiness?” Main thing is to let kids understand how they feel and how to interpret the expression they see on others.

This is not going to be easy. Let them know that the purpose of arguments is to resolve a problem. Hence name calling (i.e. bitch, stupid), verbal abusing, or worse, walloping someone is definitely not a solution. Ask them to talk about the issue that they want to resolve first and work towards the common goal of resolving it.

Back then, when my nephew, FatBoy who was 3 years old and his brother Skinny was 2, there was always argument going on. For the first few time, my sis will intervene and ask them to talk about what causes the argument. It will usually be, i.e. FatBoy play more with Thomas (no, FatBoy is not gay, it is the name of a blardy gay train a very cute train that can talk) or X-Men, how come Skinny can always sleep with Barney (wait till they grow up and sleep with real woman) etc. Sis will then ask them what they should do to resolve it. She will (for the initial few time), guide them to think of ways so that both can be happy (i.e. you sleep with Barney for an hour, I hug him for the next..etc). Next and finally, is to make them both to agree upon on the resolutions that they have come out with together and to stick to it. I know it might sound crazy to ask 2 shouting kids to talk it out and work out a solution but I had seen my sis done it before. It takes a couple of time to guide them properly and subsequently, you can sit back, on auto-pilot, and watch your kids work out and resolve their issues themselves.


Resolving conflicts and how we behave when coming across adverse situation is a social skill that is require throughout our life (i.e. arguments with parents, co-workers, bitches like Margaret intellectual verbal sparring with ex-girlfriends). Teaching kids to acquire it in the early stages of their life help them significantly in their adulthood. Kids/toddlers can be very innovative in various ways and you will be surprised on how they resolve their own conflicts.

Kids Guide On Working Out Conflicts