Conflict

For our last lesson of the year, I reviewed the 3 different ways we respond to conflict.  With our older students I go into the brain stem and our reptilian brain's fight/flight/freeze, but in the lower grades I found a great alternative that is much more developmentally appropriate from The School Counselor's Chronicle.  I started by showing them this hilarious video on conflict, compliments of Sesame Street and Robin Williams:

Then I introduce the 3 ways we respond to conflict as human beings: like a mouse, like a monster, or like me.  We wrote down examples of how each would respond to a conflict in our flip book.  For example, a mouse might ignore, stay quiet, etc.  A monster might yell, push back, etc.  Me might be assertive, use I Message, etc.  We created flipbooks to help learn about each of our possible reactions and discuss which works the best.

After we had a clear understanding of each of the 3 types of responses, we acted them out.  I printed out large masks of a mouse and a monster for students to wear to show the different ways we might respond. 

  
Some of the role plays included:

• My friend won't play with me.
• He poked me.
• She called me names.
• He cut in line.
• Ms. Sepp didn't pick me to act out scenarios. :)