What have we taught our children?

As parents, one of the biggest things we have to deal with in our children is conflict, and how to deal with it. Our children (I mean this in a general sense) fight with each other, children from other families, and when they're old enough they'll even try to fight with their parents. As adults, we see conflict every day. Between coworkers, between groups of people with differing views on a variety of subjects, and with spouses as well. How we react to and resolve those conflicts is one of the most important lessons we teach our children.

Our society has taught that if you are not 'getting along' with your spouse, you can divorce them. What society is teaching our children is: to give up and walk away is an appropriate form of conflict resolution. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't appropriate times when people shouldn't 'step away' and try to calm down in order to resolve the conflict. But far too often people aren't willing or able to take the time and energy necessary to engage the other person to find out what the root problem is, any and all misunderstandings between the two people, and to find an agreement both people are comfortable with.

One of the other things society has taught us is that it is entirely appropriate for people to say, as in the title of the Queen song: 'I want it all, and I want it now.' There is no way that everyone can have things that way and not be in conflict. And when both people in the conflict have that mindset, the end result is easy to predict: both people will be hurt, angry, and something that could have been easily resolved is now an unconquerable mountain.

The title of an old Rolling Stones song is more appropriate for dealing with conflict, at least on a personal level: 'You can't always get what you want.' We must learn to apply that principle when dealing with other people in a conflict situation. We must be careful, however, that one person doesn't do all the 'compromising', as that only teaches the one who didn't compromise they can get their way.

The last we should keep in mind in a conflict is to keep the emotional responses to a minimum. We've often heard as children, and even adults,we should count to 10 before we answer someone if we feel ourselves getting angry. Taking the time to listen to the other person and understand them will go a long way in keeping a conflict from getting out of hand. Our emotions will lie to us sooner or later, and we need to remember that.