


Helping Your Little One (And You Too!) Deal With Conflict & Fall Outs
SCHOOL selected, fees paid, nametapes affixed and post pick-up playdates organized: when it came to my daughter starting school, I thought had everything covered. But what I hadn’t prepared for was conflict; first my mini me’s falling out with another child (a situation she instigated I hasten to add) and then my subsequent falling out with her teacher over the way the incident was handled.
After extensive research (read – asking friends, watching reruns of Supernanny and turning to Dr Google), I discovered that, when it comes to conflict, mamas need to adopt the same tactics as their kiddos:
These 4 steps will help you and your little ones handle a conflict
- Take a time out – just as a child should be removed from conflict if they’re struggling to handle it, I found coming back to the teacher with feedback after our initial discussion helped me clarify my position on the problem and how she’d chosen to handle it.
- Use your words – I always tell my little one to ‘use her words’ to explain what she needs – this time I took my own advice and, after my initial cool-off period, I arranged a meeting and explained to the teacher how her criticism of my daughter had made me feel and how best I felt we could work together with increased positivity to tackle the problem.
- Keep things in perspective – when you find out your child has acted in a way that neither of you can be proud of it, it’s easy to overreact – but that can often make the child (and mama) feel worse. Keep things in perspective; most children struggle to settle down in school at first so one small skirmish doesn’t mean you’ve raised a psychopath. Probably 😉
- Sharing is caring – it’s not just children who need to be encouraged to share; it’s mamas too (preferably over wine). Talking to other mothers about the ‘face kick’ episode opened up a wealth of friendship and support that I might not have found so quickly otherwise.
Got your own tips? Email them to us at sassy@sassymamadubai.com
Featured images from ADDitude Magazine