Mountain Strong Families Parenting Series plans to return next fall to Nederland Elementary School. This year, parents of infants to 12-year-olds gathered virtually to collectively discuss how to raise whole human beings. “It was wonderful to feel like there is a community all wanting to raise their children together in positive ways,” said one mom. Another admitted, “I didn’t think I would like talking with other parents online, but it helped me not to feel so isolated and alone while parenting my children.”

“We’re all going through similar challenges,” another realized.

For the final Teens, Inc. sponsored workshop in May, the focus was on helping children feel secure in their relationships. Security comes from believing that even though there will be problems, conflicts, and hurt feelings in relationships, there are also ways to repair and restore wholeness, and ways to resolve the dilemma.

Parents first reflected on what messages about conflict they had learned from their own childhood families. “Conflicts were always avoided,” said one dad.

“I witnessed the arguments,” mentioned one mom, “but never the resolution.”

“We learned to just obey and do as we were told,” said another.

As adults, we may now avoid conflict and leave things brewing under the surface, we may give in and feel resentment, or we may fight until we have damaged the relationship. The final session of Mountain Strong Families discussed how to coach children through problem-solving steps which we may never have learned ourselves.

Parents often focus on the external behavior (yelling, hitting, disobedience, grabbing, name calling) displayed during a conflict instead of thinking about what skills a child is missing. The word “discipline” actually means “to teach.” It doesn’t mean to punish. Rather than quickly intervening in conflicts, deciding who was right and who was wrong, and then imposing a consequence, Mountain Strong Families discussed a restorative problem-solving approach. Instead of imposing an adult-generated solution, a restorative approach allows for collectively addressing the situation, holding everyone accountable, and repairing the relationship along with using the child’s upper brain to solve the problem.

A stop light visual was utilized to emphasize the progression of stages in resolving conflicts collaboratively.

RED LIGHT: When tempers flare, stop the interaction. Encourage children to take a break in order to de-escalate their emotional reactions. If children are familiar with calming strategies like deep breathing, drawing, journaling, or outdoor exercise, they can more easily find ways to re-integrate their brains when they are upset. Use time, space, and calming strategies to prepare for a “do-over” with children. Circling back to teach is critical.

YELLOW LIGHT: When the parties appear to be more regulated, have each person share their side of the story, how they are feeling and what they are needing. Children can be coached to reflect on what they heard each other say before sharing their own perspective. Encourage them to repeat, summarize, ask curious questions, and seek clarity before they offer their experience. Families often use a “talking piece” to designate who gets to speak while the others work to listen and understand another perspective.

Once everyone has felt heard and understood, state the mutual problem that needs to be jointly addressed. Our natural tendency is to blame the other person for the problem. Parents need to frame the problem in a neutral way before asking “What ideas do you have for addressing this problem?” If the problem is stated in a neutral way, everyone’s brains should be ready to create multiple solutions together, i.e. “There is only one bathroom, and you both want to use it right now.”

Imagine the power of generating ideas along with your child and the buy-in that can occur from that process. After brainstorming safe and respectful solutions together, each person is asked how they feel about each idea. The pros and cons are discussed and some solutions may need to be tweaked.

GREEN LIGHT: Pick the solution that is the most acceptable to all. However, solutions to an immediate problem don’t necessarily repair the feelings that were hurt when everyone was upset. See if there are amends that still need to be made. Ask each person to talk about what they need to make things right between themselves and others. Offering to make amends in concrete ways (get a bandaid, give a genuine apology, clean up the mess, offer a hug) serves to repair the relationship that was damaged.

Many of the parenting tools that were practiced throughout the series came together in this final workshop. When interacting with their children, parents have worked hard to empathize with and tend to emotions first, uncover the underlying needs of the child, encourage empathy for others, empower children, and reconnect in order to restore the relationship.

Children who have practiced this restorative kind of problem solving in regular family meetings find it much easier to respond in healthy ways to conflicts in their lives. On a regular basis, families sit down together and work through the problem-solving steps. They find ways to collectively address common family problems like getting out of the door on time or screen time. “I’m excited to try out Family Meetings,” said one parent.

“This has been a great series and we learned a lot about ourselves and how to be better parents with our two children,” one couple shared.

“The comradery and the handouts with practical parenting tools have been so very helpful,” admitted another, “We hang them on our refrigerator.”

None of us can parent well in isolation. We need a community of like-minded, supportive folks to help us show up as our best selves with our children. Together, this group of dedicated parents have become Mountain Strong.

Contact ann@teensinc.org for information about the next offering of Mountain Strong Families in the fall.