From Conflict to Cooperation: How to Support Young Children through Disagreement (3-part series)

You will be able to reflect on your own stance towards conflict, and how that shapes your interventions in moments of disagreement, gain insight into the underlying reasons and motivations that move children to enter into conflicts, and build your own set of tools to support moving through disagreements.

The aim of this workshop is to equip educators with both insights and tools to move from seeing conflict as an obstacle, to being able to recognise opportunities that arise when disagreements are handled in a supportive and collaborative way. We will also use the “micro-circle” framework to explore how collaborative conflict resolution methods can be incorporated into Early Childhood settings.

In this series of workshops you will explore the underlying reasons for disagreements and conflicts between children in group settings, and strategies you can use to support children’s development of relational and problem-solving skills. You will explore your own understanding of “conflict” or “disagreement” and have time for reflecting how this understanding influences your responses to children’s behaviours. Together we will look at ways in which disagreements can be seen as opportunities for connection, collaboration and creative problem solving - rather than obstacles in children’s lives.

Session 1: 

In workshop 1 you will:

• Learn to recognise and understand common areas of disagreement, rooted in child development and group dynamics
• Notice how different choice of language impacts how children see: each other, their relationship and the disagreement itself.
• Explore developmentally‑appropriate ways to respond to children’s disagreements.
• Learn to support each child in recognising and expressing their feelings and needs.
• Explore what types of disagreements prevail at which stage of development, and how educators can respond to those at different stages

Session 2:

In workshop 2 you will:

• Practice guessing and active listening to understand children’s perspectives.
• Explore moving from “me-or-you” mindset, towards supporting children to engage in collaborative solutions
• Discover ways to encourage children’s agency and creativity in moments of disagreement, including everyone’s voices and needs
• Practice facilitating brief “check‑in” circles where children share how they’re feeling and what they need (mirroring the idea of practice circles)

Session 3: 

In workshop 3 you will:

• Build your own toolkit of developmentally-appropriate strategies for mediating children’s conflicts.
• Practice using a “micro‑circle” framework, where children’s voices are invited (whether in words or behaviours), and their needs are included in co-creating a solution