Conflict Resolution

[Trudi G]

A guy on the breakfast news this morning was saying that we need to teach our children conflict resolution in schools, so that they stop stabbing/ shooting each other to death.
As the mother of a young boy, i feel terrified at what the future holds for my son, if all it took for the last young boy to be killed on our streets was looking at someone 'the wrong way'.
I personally think teaching children to resolve their differences without violence is the way to go - rather than filling our streets with police, who will stop and search at random and cause more conflitcs.
Yesterday on the way home from school there were 2 community police officers talking to a group of kids outside a shop - and it was clear that these kids didn't see them as any threat - saying things like " Can you really arrest anyone tho, or do you have to make a citizens arrest?"
These kids know that they can't really be touched under a certain age - the schools can't discipline them in case they get done for abuse, parents have a hard time disciplining their kids for fear of the social services getting involved. Single parents are pushed out to work when their kids reach 12, and there's no proper provisions made for those children so they land up roaming the streets and forming gangs.
I'd like to hear the views of people on this forum - with or without children, on what you think a good solution to this major problem is?

[Pip Madeley]

We get community wardens coming into the library when we get problem teenagers, and although they mean well, you're right, they don't carry much weight. The only thing they can do that frightens most teens is mention the word ASBO, but then some really nasty teens regard that as a badge of honour...

[Si Hunt]

It's such a hard thing, because years ago when you didn't face being sued if you tapped a kid, there was undoubtedly more discipline. Yet if you, for example, brought back caning it would be open to abuse and suddenly you have a situation where violence against kids is ok. It's a toughy - you need violence to teach discipline, and discipline means teaching someone not to be violent. So you're screwed either way.

Ultimately, I think you can enforce discipline through respect, and yet this doesn't seem to be something you can learn in a book, and also needs to be backed up with some threat. I think ironically non-violent authority works when there is the THREAT of violence behind it. So the answer, for teachers and parents, is to teach discipline through respect, and respect through threat, making that threat tangible, making it hurt, making it fully enforcable, and hopefully therefore never having to use it.

Si.