[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]
0:04 Dale Rubury: I feel like where the tension often kind of pinpoints to is who started it. So it becomes the, Well, he started it first, and that becomes kind of that focus of the conflict.
0:23 Leslie Cohen-Rubury: I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury, and this is, Is My Child A Monster?, a parenting therapy podcast where you get to listen in as real parents and caregivers share their trials and tribulations. And no, your child is not a monster.
Sibling rivalry has been a really hot topic this season on the podcast, and just recently I had an episode with Anna, and in Part One, I left you all on a cliffhanger. I talked about conflict resolution, and I left her with Step One, but we never got to reviewing conflict resolution and the other few steps. So here we are today to talk about conflict resolution in sibling rivalry.
These ideas that I talk about today in conflict resolution are the same ideas that apply to all relationships. Whether it's political, whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in your family, whether it's in your peer group, conflict resolution is really important, and we will go over all those steps, including the ones that I never mentioned before.
My daughter Dale is here with me today to talk about this topic and how it applied to her growing up in her childhood. Dale is a recent graduate from a physical therapy assistant program, and I'm so thrilled to welcome her back to the show. But as a reminder, though I'm a licensed clinical social worker, this show is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapeutic intervention.
1:57 Leslie: Hi Dale.
1:59 Dale: Hi Mom. I'm so glad to be back for Season Three.
2:03 Leslie: Thank you. Glad to see you.
2:05 Dale: Okay, so before we get into the conflict resolution, I thought maybe we just start off with talking about, very simply, what is conflict, and what does it look like in a relationship and what does it look like in sibling rivalry?
2:20 Leslie: Conflict is when you feel tension. Conflict is when there's a disagreement or tension between two people because they see things differently. You see things one way, they see things another way. I'm going to keep it really simple, defining it as the tension in relationships where there are multiple perspectives that feel like there are differences and disagreements.
2:49 Dale: Well, growing up, I know I definitely was the queen of creating conflict. I definitely was responsible for creating a lot of that sibling rivalry with my sister and my brother.
3:01 Leslie: But by that definition, where you say you created a lot of conflict, I'm going to just reinforce right there, you had a strong perspective of the world. You had the way you saw things. And yes, I will add, it might have been a little rigid when you were growing up.
3:20 Dale: Very rigid.
3:21 Leslie: Okay, so that led to conflict. That might be one of the ingredients that causes conflict, is rigidity in that perspective taking, you know, and that we may get into.
3:31 Dale: Now that we have a good idea of what conflict is, what are the steps of conflict resolution?
3:38 Leslie: I'd like to keep this simple. There's a lot of nuance in it, which we'll get to in a minute, but I'm going to name four steps of conflict resolution. This is how most people think about conflict resolution. But these are not the ones I want you to remember. Here we go. We have a conflict. So people stop the action, they state the problem, they generate solutions, and then they pick a solution and move forward. That is classically what people think of when you ask them, How do you do conflict resolution?
But what I'm saying is that there's a step that's often forgotten, and it is the most important step, which is why I only allowed Anna to work on this step that's normally missing. So let me repeat conflict resolution, including that step. Now there are going to be five steps. 1) Stop the action. 2) State the problem. 3) Use empathy and perspective to get to the underlying concerns. And then 4) generate solutions, 5) select a solution and move forward.
4:52 Dale: So that that empathy step is pretty key to the whole thing, then.
4:56 Leslie: That's exactly my point. And in Part One, that's all I asked her to work on with her kids, to really work on the empathy piece, to try to teach that to her children, because that's the one that's forgotten, and that's why a lot of conflict resolution actually fails.
5:14 Dale: That definitely makes sense. Should we kind of walk through one of the classic conflicts that me and Travis, my older brother, would have, and see how we would apply these steps?
5:27 Leslie: Sure, let's do that. Which one are you thinking of?
5:31 Dale: Well, me and Travis loved to play everything together. We were competitors in all sports, whether it was playing a home run derby game, wiffle ball, basketball—anything. And how it would often end is in him teasing me, and me kind of physically attacking him. I didn't know how to fight back with my words, and so I would kind of go after him. You would find us in that situation probably quite a lot.
6:05 Leslie: Okay, I already have a nuance that I want to say, which is in conflict resolution. I didn't step in each and every time. In that last episode, I talked about the one-third, one-third, one-third rule, which is one-third of the time, I just let you guys work it out. But every once in a while, I would step in to do this conflict resolution. So let's just take the example you just gave. And I would walk out there—let's say this is the time I decided to step in. Again, I don't do it all the time, but let's say I walked out there and I would state, “Wow, looks like there's a problem here. I notice there's a problem.”
6:47 Dale: And we would probably be like, “Yeah.” I would say, “Yeah, Travis is teasing me.” And Travis would probably say, “Dale's punching me,” or, “Dale's hitting me.”
6:59 Leslie: And there we see what I described before, which is: you each have your own perception of the situation, and your perception is your reality. So we've got these two very different realities that can both be true, which is our dialectic thinking, because it doesn't seem like they can both be true.
7:19 Dale: I feel like where the tension often kind of pinpoints to is: who started it. So it becomes the, Well, he started it first. And that becomes that focus of the conflict,
7:34 Leslie: I'm so glad you said that, because I'm going to put this big warning out, flashing a neon light: parents, don't try that. Don't attempt to figure out who started it. That is not what we need here. That's not going to help. It's not effective to go to that question. And oftentimes parents say, “Okay, who started this?” They walk in and that's their first question. My first question, as you noticed, is, “I notice there's a problem here.”
8:03 Dale: Yes. Very neutral approach.
8:05 Leslie: Okay, so we don't want to go down that road. It doesn't work for you, Who started this? So, now you both screaming at me, She did this. He did that. Now is the hard work. It is my job as the parent, stepping in to support you, to figure out—well, not figure out—to help you understand the other person's perspective.
So you both stated what you thought the problem was—that was step two. We did that. Something happened. We identify it. Now I'm going to see if I can…actually I do this in a little sneaky way. I might go over and stand next to Travis. I might put an arm on him. I might just stand over him and say, “Dale, would you explain to us what your perception of the problem is? Where do you think it started? Why is this a problem for you?” And I will say, “Travis, you will also have an opportunity. Right now, we want to make sure Dale is heard. Dale, would you go ahead and start?” So what would you say?
9:11 Dale: I'd probably say, “He's being mean to me. He's teasing me.”
9:15 Leslie: And I might leave it at that or I might say, “Tell me more,” at that point. But then I would turn to Travis and say, “Okay, Travis, here's the hard part. Can you tell Dale what she just said is the problem?” And he might need help from me, but he might be able to say, “Well, she said that I'm teasing her.” Now you're nodding your head. If he said that to you, your nod or your saying, “Yes, that's what happened,” is the confirmation that he understood you, or you feel understood.
9:56 Dale: I can see why this technique relates to all relationships, because that's what you would want in any relationship; to have that kind of validation and confirmation of being heard.
10:09 Leslie: Validation. Confirmation. This is what we call active listening and reflective listening. I'm looking for that nod, as the parent I'm looking for the nod and the yes. Then once I get it, I say, “Okay, Dale,” and now I might physically move my body over to you to give you a little physical support, non-verbal support, while Travis is telling you what he thinks is wrong, as a problem. So then I come over to you and I say, “Okay, Travis, would you share your perspective on what happened and why this is a problem?”
10:46 Dale: He’d probably say, “We were playing a game. And then Dale started hitting me, chasing me.”
10:51 Leslie: Then I would say, “Dale, give it a try. Don't worry if you don't get it right, I'm going to be here to help you.” So this is not a test of your children being able to do it. I'm here to teach my child how to do this empathy piece. Sometimes kids have a hard time with this. Would you act it out for us, where you don't actually validate him?
11:14 Dale: I could realistically see getting defensive in the moment and saying, “No, I didn't go after him. He was being mean to me first,”
11:22 Leslie: And then I say, “Okay, Dale, I know that was your perspective. What we're practicing here is understanding Travis's perspective. Travis, say it one more time.” And he would say…
11:36 Dale: “We were playing a game. And Dale came and hit me.”
11:40 Leslie: “And now, Dale, why don't you try saying, if you can say this, ‘Hey, Travis, it sounds like you think I came after you and I was hitting you.’ Can you try that, Dale?”
11:50 Dale: “Hey, Travis, it sounds like you said I came after you and hit you. “
11:58 Leslie: He would probably respond, “Well, you did, you know.” And I'd say, “Okay, there you go. Travis, do you feel like Dale now understands what your perspective is? Do you feel hurt?”
12:10 Dale: I can see a key part in this, like you mentioned, is making sure the kids know that you are just validating. This is not a way of admitting wrongdoing, because I know as a kid, I would get caught up in: if I said that I did those things, I would have to be agreeing to his reality, which in that moment, I might not agree with it. And so I'd want to get defensive. And I think that it gets hung up a lot, even in adult relationships, that that validation, you think a key part of it is I have to be agreeing to your version of reality versus just validating how that person feels in their version of reality.
12:53 Leslie: Exactly. So my job as the parent is to support my children learning this skill of validation, active listening, and perspective taking. This is about taking someone else's perspective. This is the underlying premise—not even underlying—this is the definition of dialectic thinking, because you're taking someone else's perspective. It is a key, it is a key and very important skill for growing up and being in relationships…
13:28 Dale: …it leads to empathy.
13:30 Leslie: It leads to empathy. And I'm going to come back and say that loud and clear: you're not going to resolve conflicts without the empathy piece. Because you got to work together in this dilemma, you've got to work together and understand the other person's perspective. So we just took a lot of time on this. But I think it's that important.
And I want to add one more little nuance, which is I didn't even notice if we were doing it. I want to reinforce that the child uses “I” statements. When Travis is describing the problem, “I didn't like it when Dale hit me.” And, “I didn't like it when Travis teased me.” So “I” statements are very important. And when you're validating, you don't want to be blaming.
Step four—this is when we generate solutions. So believe it or not, sometimes doing step one and two, which is the empathy piece, you might calm everyone down and you might be done with it. That might be the conflict resolution right there, because now both people feel like they got heard and understood. But oftentimes there is a problem to be solved. So I would say to the two of you, “All right, now that you both understand each other's perspective, let's generate some solutions, or let's figure out how you want to solve this problem.” I might say, “What can we do to solve this problem?” And I really want to convey to the two of you that this is your problem. And if it's up to you guys to find the solutions, I want to engage you in the process. “So hey, Dale and Travis, can you just work together to solve this problem? What are some ideas?”
15:21 Dale: I'd probably say, “Tell Travis to stop being mean.”
15:24 Leslie: “So I'll write that down on this piece of paper that I have.” Which is a great idea, folks, is to write it down. “Okay, I have that down. Tell Travis stop being mean. Travis, do you have any ideas?”
15:36 Dale: I could see Travis saying, “Tell Dale to stop hitting me.”
15:41 Leslie: “Okay, great. I have those two ideas.” And then Dale, you most likely at that point would have said, “I'm going to…” you know, you'll get defensive.
15:50 Dale: Oh yeah, I'd probably say, “I'll stop hitting you if you stop teasing me.” And so it becomes a you-have-to-do-this-before-I-do-my-part.
15:59 Leslie: And that immediately gets us right back into the conflict. So I am going to make a little “T” with my hand and say, “Time out, you two. I can see the conflict building up again. Let's make sure that we generate our ideas. We're just coming up with solutions. We're not picking a solution right now. So I want you to sort of hold your horses. I want you to just give me ideas. I'm going to write them down on this piece of paper. We're not going to pick a solution yet, until we have about maybe five or ten ideas. Let's work together on just the ideas. No evaluation here.”
16:36 Dale: That's key, because I feel like I could get caught up in assessing each one as a viable solution, and then just getting caught up being like, “No, that wouldn't work. That wouldn't work, that wouldn't work.”
16:48 Leslie: Exactly. So I might say, “All right, let me see if I can throw a solution in. How about you play for 15 minutes and then take a break. Because what I've noticed is that when you play for a long time, you start fighting.” So I'm going to say, “Let's put a time limit: twenty minutes play, five minutes break. Don't evaluate, let's just keep going. What's another idea?”
17:16 Dale: I mean, it probably wouldn't be one I wanted to do, but it would be, “I don't want to play with Travis at all.”
17:22 Leslie: It's okay for us to brainstorm ideas that are way out of the box or very different, because that helps us decide which one we are going to pick. Like, all of a sudden, do I want to not play with him at all? Or do I want to learn to play with him? Great.
So you get the idea of step four. Let's move on to step five. Step five is evaluating the solution. This is when you go back, you take your list, and you say, “Travis, which one of these would you like to make your first choice and what's your second choice?” And then I say, “Dale, what's your first choice and second choice?
18:01 Dale: I could see this step…it being important that we've reached a certain level of calm by this point to actually have this step be successful to evaluate. Because if you're evaluating it, and you're still in full emotion mind or if tension’s high, I feel like it would be hard to successfully do this step.
18:23 Leslie: So now you're talking about a very key factor in all of this. When conflict tends to happen—and this might go back to the beginning, when you said, “What is conflict?”---I would often say it throws us into emotion mind; not always, but often throws us into emotion mind. And when it does throw us into emotion mind, if we're going to engage in conflict resolution, I want to see the de-escalation of the emotion mind into wise mind.
What you're saying is, by the time we get to step three, is when we want to see a de-escalation, so that by the time you get to problem-solving and picking your solution, you are in wise mind. That is exactly the process we want to go through here.
19:13 Dale: I can imagine that step three would hopefully…that step of empathy would would, in and of itself, help de-escalate. Because if you're able to do it, then that step of empathy would shift the emotion from like pure rage and anger to maybe like a sadness. I could see that step taking me from just rage and anger, because Travis was teasing me, to actually feeling sad that my brother, who I want to play with, was teasing me and making me not feel good. And I feel like even just that, that change in emotion could de-escalate, in a sense.
19:59 Leslie: What you just said reminded me of something I want to add in step four, in generating solutions. As a parent, some of the solutions I want in there is, I would say, “Dale, what are you going to do? What solution can you add that would change your part of the problem?”
20:23 Dale: So instead of just finding solutions for the other person to do, you're naming some solutions for yourself. So I could say, “I could walk away; or I could come and get you and say, ‘Travis is being mean,’”
20:37 Leslie: Or you can learn to be assertive. “Hey, Travis, I want to keep playing with you, but it feels like you're teasing me.”
20:45 Dale: That does sound effective. At a younger age, I didn't have those good communication skills, and the emotion went straight to my body, and I attacked.
[Laughter]
20:55 Leslie: I don't mean to be laughing. It's very real. You know, a little bit of laughing that you didn't have those skills then. I don't expect my child to have those skills. But taking the time to teach you these skills, that's the point. So my teaching you these skills doesn't mean I expect to see those skills the next time you go out and fight. But I expect that you are being exposed to these very effective skills, in validation, in conflict resolution, in generating solutions, and problem solving.
These are life skills, and I know that they're going to take a long time and a lot of practice. So why not practice when kids are fighting? Sibling rivalry is the perfect opportunity. Again, warning: do not try this all the time. You will drive yourself and your kids nuts. Just do it periodically—that's the 1/3 rule—so that you get to practice every once in a while.
21:55 Dale: That makes sense.
21:56 Leslie: And you don't have to do it in the moment. You don't need to do it right then and there, if emotions are too high. Sometimes when the emotions are really high, you may feel too much anger, Dale, and I might say, “There's a problem here. And we're going to come back to this when you're a little bit more in wise mind.”
22:15 Dale: Or I could see you having let us work it out outside. We'll get back to playing, or we won't, and then maybe two hours later we're watching TV together. You come in and say, “Hey, I noticed you guys got into a bit of a fight. What happened?” And by then, we're chilling. We're watching TV, we're doing whatever.
22:33 Leslie: Yes. So there's another time and place where we can go over this—I think that's really important. At the same time, it is really okay for us to either do it in the moment, if that can help de-escalate things and work things out, or save it for another time. Both are very, very effective
22:51 Dale: For parents, how do they know when to intervene? I know you're saying that they shouldn't intervene all the time, but is there any indication of when is the best time to intervene versus not intervene?
23:06 Leslie: That's a great question. And what parents usually look at is the intensity for the children. That's not the best indication. The best indication of when to jump in is when you, as the parent, are most capable of handling your children when they're fighting
23:27 Dale: Okay, because as the, kind of, the mediator…
23:30 Leslie: Yes, the mediator needs to have it together. And I might have told this story on another podcast, but it is so worth telling it again, because what I call my worst parenting moment came from exactly this kind of thing. I thought I was capable. I didn't even think about it, but one time you and Carrie were fighting upstairs in your room. Now that would have been a fantastic time to just let them work it out. Just let them figure it out. I was in the kitchen. I was exhausted. I was frustrated with the phone company. I had nothing left in me.
My vulnerabilities were very, very high. But for some reason I said, Dale and Carrie, get down here. You both listened. You came downstairs. I said, “What's going on?” You could tell I wasn't prepared. And you started to share very appropriately what the problem was, calmly. And I because I was already in emotion mind, but not aware of it, I got more and more upset. And I went to slam my hand on the counter, but instead I slammed my hand on the faucet. I broke the faucet and water went everywhere. This is the famous sink story.
24:45 Dale: I remember it well.
24:47 Leslie: You remember it well. And it was proving that it's really up to the parent to check in with themselves to find out if they can handle it. This was when I did not do that. And you can see that it doesn't work. So you guys went upstairs, you grabbed your piggy banks. You both wrote notes, “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we broke this. We made you break the sink.”
And when you came down, I had turned off the water. I was in wise mind at that point, and when you said it was your fault, I said, “No, no, no, the anger is my problem. And I broke the sink.” That was my anger and my problem. If someone else was here, they would not have dealt with the situation in the same way. So yes, I took responsibility for it. That's a whole ‘nother episode, where parents can take responsibility. But I want to stick to the point, which is your question of, when should you jump in? When you're capable of handling it.
25:44 Dale: Yes, that does seem key. And parenting seems exhausting. So I can see that it would be choosing the battles, choosing when you have that bandwidth to step in to be an effective mediator and not add to the emotion of the moment,
26:05 Leslie: Exactly. So I just want to add one more little tidbit, because there's this book that has a worksheet in it, called Fair Fighting that talks about the fouls. And I just like to add that when I'm talking and teaching conflict resolution, because we do make fouls. I'm going to just read some of these and then also add this worksheet or this page to the show notes. So some of the fouls are—and you can guess them—name calling, interrupting, blaming, bringing up the past, threats, pushing, hitting, put downs. There're a few more: bossing, making excuses…They're pretty cool.
26:57 Dale: Yeah, I think I did probably seven of those all at once in each fight. I was pretty good at fouling.
27:07 Leslie: I recommend people make a copy of this sheet of fouls, put it on your refrigerator and just remember it. And that brings me to my last point before we wrap up. Parents, children learn conflict resolution from you. We model it. You may be teaching your children these beautiful skills. But if you don't use these skills in your relationships—it can be with a stranger, when you're talking to customer service, it can be talking to a peer, it can be talking to your partner—if we don't use these skills and teach the perspective taking and making sure that you have that flexible thinking, that dialectic thinking and working out and problem solving, if you don't model it, they're really going to have a hard time learning it. So teach the skills and model the skills. And remember my big takeaway, conflict resolution starts with empathy.
Thanks, Dale, thanks so much for being here with me.
28:10 Dale: Of course, always happy to join in for these conversations.
[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]
28:18 Leslie Cohen-Rubury: For conflict resolution resources, including a handout with all the steps I just talked about in this episode, check out my show notes. And join us next week where we meet Crystal and Burt who, like Anna, are dealing with sibling rivalry, but in a very different family dynamic. We address the question: Is the tension between the children coming from the tension in the marriage?
Subscribe to Is My Child A Monster? wherever you get your podcasts. And please rate and review to help spread the word. You can also find a full transcript of this episode, or sign up for my newsletter at ismychildamonster.com. The Is My Child A Monster? team is Alletta Cooper, Camilla Salazar, and me. Special thanks to Eric Rubury. Our theme music is by L-Ray Music. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Thanks for joining me.
Transcribed by Eric Rubury