Helping my young child resolve conflict and say “no”

UPDATED POST: Gentle reader, I originally published this post yesterday. Based on reader feedback, I have updated some verbiage and added some commentary. This process has not been easy for me, as it is difficult to hear semi-anonymous negative feedback. But as my dear friend Heather pointed out today, I invited you into my kitchen, and in addition to cooking and eating, conversation happens in a kitchen. Especially in mine.

Recently, Giggle and I were participating in a “Mommy and Me” class with other parents and caregivers and their children. A little boy, who was there with his parents, pushed Giggle over (intentionally, as she had some toy he wanted). His parents were closer to the scene and responded before I could do anything. Their method of conflict resolution was the same as is common with conflicts between preschool children. Since that day, though, I have continued replaying the moment in my head over and over, wishing I could step back in time.

You see, they rushed over, admonished their son for pushing Giggle to the ground, and then required him to give her a big bear hug. Then the parents apologized to me. I replied as is common with conflicts between preschool children: “Oh, it’s alright. She isn’t hurt, and she needs to learn how to deal with conflict”. Meanwhile, Giggle was clearly not soothed by this “act of affection and apology” from the boy. She looked confused through her tears and squirmed within his arms. Once the hug was over, the child and his parents went on to another part of the gym while she and I remained. Conflict resolved!

And yet….. unresolved. Over the next few weeks, I spent a great deal of time considering the issues. I began to look at the situation based on the pure facts.

-A young girl had been attacked by a young boy because she had something that he wanted.

-The authorities in location allowed the young boy to further attack the young girl by requiring more physical touch.

-The young boy was then free to go enjoy himself as he desired.

-The protector of the young girl brushed off the incident as “no big deal” and insinuated that the young girl should have been able to control the incident, or should learn to do so in the future.

What’s wrong with this picture?

First, my response was wrong: 2 year old children, even bright and verbal ones, are simply not in a position to work out conflict. Frankly, many adults are unable to work out conflict. Children are not born with a framework for resolving conflict, and many times only see conflict that they themselves create. They have no basis for appropriately responding to conflict, especially that begun by another child EXCEPT for what we show them. They might choose the correct response, but more likely they will not, at least not without explicit guidance. The alternative scenario to intervening, which is letting a young child with limited or no moral framework handle a conflict situation in order to “learn from it”, is both lazy parenting and foolish.

Second: The other parents’ response was wrong. They should never have allowed their son to touch my daughter a second time. By not only allowing his touch, but requiring it, they are demonstrating that it is normal and correct that a push should be followed up by a hug. They are demonstrating that it is normal and correct for the violated to allow the violator access to their body again. They are demonstrating that it is OK to hurt, so long as you apologize, because the violated “should” accept your apology. And by teaching those responses to their son that day, they were forcing my daughter to accept those responses as normal.

Worse yet, I went along with the response. After all, this is a very common way to handle conflict among playmates. And I was still in the deep fog of sleep deprivation caused by sweet Wiggle, unable to fully grasp my own address, let alone a teaching moment.

Gentle Reader, it has been pointed out to me that the children involved are “just two”, and that the situation does not translate into adult language. That is, that the scenario I describe seems to compare a mere play group problem to an adult sexual or physical assault. I did look up the Webster’s definition of assault (“a sudden, violent attack) and attack (“to set upon in an forceful… aggressive way”) and chose to substitute ‘attack’ for the original post’s ‘assault’ so that the point, rather than the word, is the focus here.

Fortunately, this problem was neither of these instances. However, the way I teach my daughter to set personal boundaries and respond to conflict as a child influences the way she responds as an adult. What we learn and see in our youth then shapes our lives. Yes, it is entirely possible that the boy would not have pushed my daughter had the children been ten and not two. But it is also possible that he would still have pushed her. Our society’s children (of all ages) bully and harm each other in increasingly more alarming ways.

In addition, while the issue of pushing another toddler over a toy might seem exceedingly trivial to an adult with fully developed moral reasoning, it is very upsetting to the toddler. When she is pushed, or hurt by another child, or otherwise wronged, my daughter talks about the incident for months. She also repeats the incident by acting it out.

Also, we must be realistic about the world we live in. There are both adults and children who sexually abuse children, and this can happen at any age. I personally want my daughter to understand all of her physical boundaries and to comfortable saying “no” and “please stop”, no matter who is involved.

Since that time I have been giving Giggle the words to express herself, as well as working on building a moral framework. I say things like: “You can say ‘stop'”. as well as things like “You must not take toys from sister”. If another child or an adult wants to hug or kiss her, and she doesn’t seem comfortable, I say “You don’t have to hug so and so”, or “you can say ‘no'”. We have had both successes and failures and will continue to do so.

Today we had a success: while playing at the library, a much older boy came up to Giggle. They played next to each other for a few minutes. Then, he tried to take her toy, and both children looked at me with big eyes that seemed to say: “What do we do now?”.

I said, “Giggle, you don’t need to let someone take something from you. You can say, ‘Please stop’, and then walk away”. She has heard this same statement from me many times. She immediately responded to the boy with “You must not take from me”, held on to her toy, and walked over to me. He turned away, thankfully, and played with something else. A few minutes later he tried again, and she said it again. This time I asked her if she would allow him to take a turn with the toy, and she handed him the toy. I said, “good job, honey” and they played happily together for a few more minutes.

We are both learning how to deal with conflict. She is learning that she can say “no” and “stop” and expect to be respected. I can be grateful to those parents for giving me the opportunity to really think about how to give my daughter a voice, even if it was after the fact.