Conflict Resolution

What is a conflict?

Anything someone does that makes you feel uncomfortable, hurt, angry, and other negative emotions can be labeled a conflict. Sometimes it is physical.

For our purposes, we identify both non-physical and physical behavior such as disrespect, eye-rolling, name-calling, taunting, hitting, shoving, teasing, and more as "conflicts."

How does one resolve it?

The purpose of The Peace Rug is to give children a specially designated safe place to work through bad feelings with the other child when a conflict occurs. A specific dialogue has been created so that both children know what to say and how to say it so that feelings are settled, rather having a situation escalate. Children can learn this new way - The Peace Rug way - to resolve conflicts easily, quickly, respectfully, and peacefully.

Examples:

A child's property has been taken: A young boy takes another's pencil - again!  Usually there are outbursts and blaming, "He took my pencil!" Now he invites the other child to go to The Peace Rug. They go through the dialogue at the suggestion of the teacher; they work through the problem; and a couple of minutes later, they are in their seats back at work. The teacher has now been able to continue teaching and the whole class has not been disrupted by the conflict between these two

Someone's feelings are hurt: Two girls get into an argument about a boy they both like. One shoves the other, and the other retaliates by calling her names. They look at each other and say, "Let's go to The Peace Rug!" They do and are able to work through their differences, deciding that a boy is not worth their friendship and that it is not okay for them to disrespect each other in any way. And it's never okay to get physical!