Nonviolent Communication and Conflict Management

For this week's blog, our assignment was to think about any disagreements, or conflicts we have experienced and share the strategies we learned that might be helpful and effective in managing and resolving conflict more productively.

I can recall an disagreement that happened my at my job concerning our Christmas pre-k party. It was time for us to have our Christmas parties, and we were making preparations to send home newsletters to the parents about what to expect concerning the parties. Some of our teachers wanted the parents to attend and some didn't. We have always had parents attend our Christmas parties, but this year some teachers had a change of mind due to us having an early release day. I was unaware of this change until a parent asked me why we wasn't having a Christmas party for the pre-k children.

Since pre-k is an important time in a child's life, I feel like parents should have every opportunity to be involved in their child's learning experience and extra curriculum activities, so I wasn't in agreement with the other co-workers about not having parent to attend the Christmas parties. Therefore, in order for me to approach the other teachers about this conflict, I had to come up with a strategy and quick.

In the text, "Real Communications", when we engage in conflict by debating the issue at hand, we exchange more ideas, reach better decisions, and foster stronger, healthier relationships (O'Hair & Weimann, 2009, p. 214). The strategy we always use is cooperative strategy, that way we can produce a solution that will benefit everyone. Also, the 3Rs are used in order to be an effective communicator in resolving the conflicts. We have to be mindful to be respectful, reciprocal, and responsive to each other differences through communication.

As educators, we have learned how to be more effective communicators as it relates to conflict resolutions by calling team meetings to discuss certain issues we may have concerns about. This has allowed our pre-k program and staff to be successful and one big happy "family".

Reference:
O'Hair, D., & Weimann, M. (2009). Real communication. New York:  Bedford/St. Martin's.