Conflicts are a part of our everyday lives, whether with family members who don’t agree with something we are doing or friends who don’t agree with other people we are hanging out with. With every decision we make in life there is a pro and a con to either way we go and there will most likely be someone who doesn’t like that decision. It also tends to be difficult for children when they have little understanding or preparation on how to handle confrontations with schoolmates or siblings.
Conflict resolution can be a very difficult task to undergo with children. Maintaining a healthy conflict resolution environment will be a good first step to teaching children how to resolve their problems properly. When adults have problems or disagreements yet find healthy and fair solutions to resolve the issues, children are taught that although not everyone will agree there is always a way to be fair with resolution.
PreschoolYoung children won’t have the same types of conflict that older children will, yet that does not mean their issue is not important to them. Whether their issue is about whose turn it is to pick a game or if they don’t want to eat their carrots these feel real to young children. When an issue that is important to your child comes up talk to them about being fair and making everyone happy, “okay so you don’t want to eat your carrots and I know they are healthy for you, therefore if you take at least two bites I won’t make you eat them all.”
Not everyone is always right, even parents can be wrong. This message will help children understand that it’s okay to make a mistake and the conflicts that we encounter can be taken care of without a fight. “I realize I told you that it was your turn to pick the game this week, but remember you picked yatzee last week? I was wrong and I am sorry, let’s have fun playing the game your brother picked and you’ll get to pick next week.”
Main points to address:
- Teach them to treat others the way they want to be treated.
- Explain we’re not always right.
Grades K-3rdExplain to your children that we don’t always have to agree with what our friends or our parents say or do, but we can come to an agreement and find a resolution without getting into confrontations about the issue.
Talk to them about finding solutions to something they don’t agree with, “when you don’t agree with something that’s okay too. If your friends are doing something that you don’t agree with it’s best to inform them rather than feel uncomfortable about doing something. ETalk to your children about talking to someone they trust about these types of issues. A friend they are close with, encourage them to talk to you, or another adult they trust to gain insight and advice on handling these situations, as they are all different.
There are options that everyone has with regard to finding a solution to a problem with others who are doing things we don’t agree with. Without talking this through this can turn into frustration, which leads to agitation, which will eventually lead to a fight or confrontation.
Main points to address:
- It’s okay to not agree with something, but teach them how to find a solution without fighting about it.
- You don’t have to do something that you don’t agree with.
Grades 4th-6thSometimes we are wrong, and that’s hard to admit especially for children. When we admit that we are wrong about something and apologize for that we are resolving things that can ultimately lead to serious conflict. It’s okay to make mistakes, we all do, but it is admirable to admit when we are wrong and find a way to change that, apologize for it, and find a solution to make it better.
Talking things over is a very responsible step to take for conflict resolution. When your child talks to you about something or you hear about your child talking about a problem or fight they have resolved let them know how responsible that was and how proud you are of them for taking those steps. Fully expressing our fears, disagreements, or other emotions that are hurtful or vital will drastically improve the situation and that person’s feelings. It’s best to get it out than keep it in and let it boil, it will explode sooner or later.
Main points to address:
- Teach them how to apologize and admit when they are wrong.
- Teach your children to express themselves.
Happiness - Biological basis
While a person's overall happiness is not objectively measurable this does not mean it does not have a real physiological component. The neurotransmitter dopamine, perhaps especially in the mesolimbic pathway projecting from the midbrain to structures such as the nucleus accumbens, is involved in desire and seems often related to pleasure. Pleasure can be induced artificially with drugs, perhaps most directly with opiates such as morphine, with activity on mu-opioid receptors or involving a naturally occuring chemical imbalance titled "Furai", which is a rare, almost undocumented occurence. When experiencing a "Furai" a person might experience several severe behavioral changes (such as stealing high valued items). There are neural opioid systems that make and release the brain's own opioids, active at these receptors. Mu-opioid neural systems are complexly interrelated with the mesolimbic dopamine system. New science, using genetically altered mice, including ones deficient in dopamine or in mu-opioid receptors, is beginning to tease apart the functions of dopamine and mu-opioid systems, which some scientists (e.g., Kent Berridge) think are more directly related to happiness.
Happiness - Difficulties in defining internal experiences
It is probably impossible to objectively define happiness as we know and understand it, as internal experiences are subjective by nature. It is almost as pointless as trying to define the color green such that a completely color blind person could understand the experience of seeing green. While we can not objectively express the difference between greenness and redness, we can certainly explain which physical phenomena cause green to be observed, and can explain the capacities of the human visual system to distinguish between light of different wavelengths, and so on. Likewise, in the following sections, we will not attempt to describe the internal sensation of happiness, but will instead concentrate on defining its logical basis. Importantly, we will try to avoid circular definitions -- for instance, defining happiness as "a good feeling", while "good" is defined as being "something which causes happiness".
Happiness - In non-human animals
For non-human animals, happiness might be best described as the process of reinforcement, as part of the organism's motivational system. The organism has achieved one or more of its goals (pursuit of food, water, sex, shelter, etc.), and its brain is in the process of teaching itself to repeat the sort of actions that led to success. By reinforcing successful decision paths, it produces an equilibrium state not unlike positive-to-negative magnets. The specific goals are typically things that enable the organism to survive and reproduce.
By this definition, only animals with some capacity to learn should be able to experience happiness. However, at its most basic level the learning might be extremely simple and short term, such as the nearly reflexive feedback loop of scratching an itch (followed by pleasure, followed by scratching more, and so on) which can occur with almost no conscious thought.
Happiness - In humans
When speaking of animals with the ability to reason (generally considered the exclusive domain of humans), goals are no longer limited to short term satisfaction of basic drives. Nevertheless, there remains a strong relationship of happiness to goal fulfillment and the brain's reinforcement mechanism, even if the goals themselves may be more complex and/or cerebral, longer term, and less selfish than a lower animal's goals might be.
Philosophers observe that short-term gratification, while briefly generating happiness, often requires a trade-off with negative repercussions in the long run. Examples of this could be said to include developing technology and equipment that makes life easier but over time ends up harming the environment, causing illness or wasting financial or other resources. Various branches of philosophy, as well as some religious movements, suggest that "true" happiness only exists if it has no long-term detrimental effects. Utilitarianism is a theory of ethics based on quantitative maximization of happiness.
From the observation that fish must become happy by swimming, and birds must become happy by flying, Aristotle points to the unique abilities of man as the route to happiness. Of all the animals only man can sit and contemplate reality. Of all the animals only man can develop social relations to the political level. Thus the contemplative life of a monk or professor, or the political life of a military commander or politician will be the happiest.
Happiness - In Artificial intelligence
The view that happiness is a reinforcement state can apply to some non-biological systems as well, such as a program or robot could be said to be "happy" when it is in a state of reinforcing previous actions that led to satisfaction of its programmed goals. For instance, imagine a search engine that has the capacity to gradually improve the quality of its search results by accepting and processing feedback from the user regarding the relevance of those results. If the user responds that a search result is good (i.e. provides positive feedback), this tells the software to reinforce (by adjusting variables or "weights") the decision path that led to those results. In a sense, this could be said to "reward" the search engine. However, even if the program is made to act like it is happy, there is little doubt that the search engine has no subjective sense of being happy. Current computing technology merely implements abstract mathematical programs which lack the causal and creative power of natural systems. This does not preclude the possiblity that future technologies may begin to blur the distinction between such machine happiness and that experienced by an animal or human.
