Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Early Childhood

Peer Conflict and Moral Development

Theory and empirical research has shown that peer conflicts are particularly important for children's moral development (Piaget, 1932/1997). Conflicts between peers provide children with the opportunity to debate with someone of equal standing, whereas conflicts with adults involve an aspect of authority that may influence children to acquiesce to adults simply because they are adults. This does not provide children with the chance to fully express themselves or to come to understand others' viewpoints.

The source of conflicts includes moral issues (e.g., pertaining to the rights and welfare of others, such as hitting or not sharing resources and toys); social-conventional and social-organizational concerns (e.g., not listening to the teacher at appropriate times, not following the rules of a game, disagreeing about how to structure a game); personal issues (e.g., dress, appearance, individual choice about friends); and prudential issues (e.g., regarding safety and health, such as not washing one's hands before lunch). These sources of conflict vary with age in terms of salience and magnitude.

Methods of Conflict Resolution

Methods of conflict resolution include dropping of the topic, compromising, bargaining, transforming a conflict into a game, retribution, reconciliation by the instigator of the conflict, adult intervention, appeal to an adult for intervention, threats, bribery, or reconciliation by an observer of the conflict. From a developmental viewpoint, the most constructive methods of conflict resolution among peers include the use of compromising, bargaining, and negotiation. The least constructive methods are insisting on one's own way, threatening others, and using forms of bribery. Typically, young children drop most conflicts and move on to new activities. Often, young children appeal to adults to intervene in conflicts. The use of bargaining and compromising involves incorporating others' viewpoints and taking into account nonselfish concerns. Thus, these latter forms of conflict resolution are the most advanced and are socially beneficial for children to use with one another.

Research on conflict resolution in early childhood shows that object disputes are the most frequently occurring source of conflict. As children get older, conflicts become increasingly more complex and difficult to resolve, and they involve psychological issues such as exclusion. By adolescence, parent-adolescent conflicts are frequent but involve mostly issues of personal choice (e.g., what clothing to wear, who adolescents can be friends with) rather than issues of morality (e.g., harming others or denying resources to those who deserve it). As types of conflicts become more complex, so do children's abilities to resolve the conflicts. For instance, as young children's verbal abilities improve, they are more likely to use verbal opposition in addition to physical opposition in object conflicts. Children's use of justifications for their opposition to another child's actions (e.g., “I don't want you to take that toy because I am still playing with it”) also increases with age, and conflicts are less likely to continue when children justify their opposition. The use of justifications is an important developmental achievement for young children, beginning around 2 years of age.

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