How to Fight Fair with Your Kids
It’s a time of heaviness and yet, we’re more inclined to think with our hearts, focused on building relationships. Yes, it has a little to do with Valentine’s Day coming up. Also a little to do with the Family Day long weekend, where we can rest with our loved ones for a bit (or take advantage of this wonderful winter weather respite!). Mostly it has to do with the fact that we’re faced with hard choices around our finances, time, and energy in order to make it through the year ahead. Our relationships inspire us or can hold us back, depending on where we’re at mentally and physically.
So, we thought it might be helpful to remind our community that conflict isn’t a bad word, more so an opportunity to open our hearts and actively listen to each other. Here are some insightful article and book recommendations, for you to improve how you relate in your personal life.
Want to support your children in adopting great conflict resolution techniques? Why not explore the following, then take time to go over the salient details together? Our favourite part, adding time to the mix! By giving yourselves a day or two in between to form your own opinions, you improve confidence and reduce anxiety when tackling an otherwise potentially tough conversation.
In Kids Help Phone Canada’s article, “Arguing with a friend? Here’s how to fight fair.” they cover the basics about tactics as well as why the conflict exists in the first place. It helps teens, kids, and parents come together to better understand each other’s perspective instead of brushing it off with, “this won’t be an issue in a day or two, so why are you so upset?”.
Scholastic’s Choices Magazine lays out strategies and questions to prompt discussion in their article, “How To Fight Fair” as part of their social-emotional learning resources. Stuck on the basics? Their language focuses on various levels of understanding, from reasoning upset to accidentally lashing out, and offers text-to-speech capability.
In Jennifer S Millar’s blog, confidentparentsconfidentkids.com, her article "Family Guidelines for Fighting Fair”, she takes real-world scenarios and integrates research from a few different sources. Wrapping up with tips and notes for the future, it’s a worthy read.
Books to further explore:
Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields MSAE, Carla Naumburg PhD. New Harbinger Publications, 2019.
Somewhere Today: A Book of Peace by Shelley Moore Thomas (Author) & Eric Futran (Photographer). Albert Whitman & Company, 1998.
One by Kathryn Otoshi. KO Kids Books, 2008.
The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong & illustrated by Maurice Sendak. HarperCollins Publishers, 1954.
Enemy Pie by Derek Munson & illustrated by Tara Calahan King. Chronicle Books, 2000.
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlich. Simon & Schuster, 1980.
