Ending conflict: What's the right move to make first?

My 9-year-old son’s moods are always at a simmer.  And when you add 6:45 a.m. and his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to the mix, the pot can escalate to rapid boil in an instant. 

The day before, this same son threw an all-out fit because he was asked to stop whining.  He protested that he wasn’t whining.

“My throat is just scratchy,” he whined.  “And dad yelled at me!”  Funny, the only loud sounds I heard were the sound of him flailing his body on the couch. 

My spouse was generously and busily making lunches in the kitchen and didn’t have time for détente.   So I picked up the baton, and took my turn. 

Tag, I was "it."    

Talking down to the couch over the banister, I calmly tried to explain that whether he thinks he’s whining, or not, its really about how others hear him. 

“All you have to do is say, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to whine, can I have something else for lunch?’ ” I explained.   He stopped protesting about whining and launched into a diatribe about being yelled at.

I was trying to reason with a 9 year old before 7 a.m.   What was I thinking? 

So I changed my approach.  I directed him to go back to his room and start the morning over.  You would have thought I’d stabbed him with a rusty, pocket knife.  So I start counting—louder, and firmer, now—trying to keep the anger out of my voice.   

“Five!” I said.  He flails on the floor. 

“Four!”  He rolls on his side.

“Three!”  He’s back on his back. 

“Two!”  He scrambles onto the floor and runs to the stairs.

“One!”   He is running for his room. 

“GOOD JOB!”  I say loudly.  He threatened to stay in his room all day, and as I shut his door I quietly told him it was his choice to miss school (He loves school!).  I disengaged. 

Five points for mommy.

A few minutes later my son is sliding down the stairs—yes, literally slithering like a reptile.   Now I wanted to bark, “Get up and walk to the kitchen!”  I really did!  But I knew my response to him in the next minute or two—my tone more so than my words—would determine the remainder of our morning.  More screaming, crying and whining?  Or cereal, milk, vitamins, and off to school with a smile.   He was in one of his moods, but the direction things went from that moment on was up to us.

So instead of barking, I joked about the lizard slithering into the kitchen, and warned my husband to watch out. 

At that moment, everything shifted. 

Under the topic of “Relationship Mastery” in Coach training, I learned there are four key elements to promoting healthy relationships—and this applies to ALL relationships.  The first two, for your information, are:  Respect and support each others’ dreams, and increase overall positivity to a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative.

The other two elements came into play on this particular morning, and deserve some attention.  They are: Decrease negativity in conflict, and start softly when making a “Repair Bid.”

Decreasing negativity is a no-brainer to building healthy relationships.  Once the ‘fight’ is on, there is nothing that can be said that won’t escalate it.  Our initial instinct may be to “spit back” fire at a slight, or even overt, insult.  But it is never as effective as holding a basic standard of respect and refusing to engage in the ugliness. 

This morning, I held my tongue, I counted smoothly (albeit loud enough to cover the din of his screaming), and I spoke the positive (“good job”) instead of highlighting the negative.  That showed respect, and gave my son space to accept the next key element in building healthy relationships:  The repair bid.

The repair bid is the effort one person makes to end a conflict, make amends and/or fix the problem.  It is hard to make a repair bid – there is a certain amount of eating crow that is required and it usually takes people a little while to muster up the courage.  And nothing can dissolve a situation back into the vat of hot oil than when a bid for repair is rebuffed.  Unaccepted repair bids, over time, can be more damaging to a relationship than original conflicts.  It’s like adding insult to injury.

How many times do we find ourselves with our backs up against the wall, engaged in a battle, when we don’t even know how we got there?  How many times have you wanted to end the fray, but are too afraid that whatever you say will be thrown back in your face?  And, on the other end, how many times have you denied another’s efforts to end a conflict, heels dug in and determined to prove you’re right!

All it takes for a relationship to improve is for one person to start to change his/her approach to conflict.  Respect breeds respect.  Conflict can’t escalate if you don’t take the bait.  Resolution of the issue will NEVER happen in the midst of the fray.

This is one area where we can learn from our children—they are masters at accepting repair bids.  They want nothing more than a hug most of the time.  Don’t you?

When I recognized the playful reptile in my son, he graciously accepted my repair bid and played his part, with tongue darting and tail swishing.  It didn’t matter that I was not ‘at fault’ in this scenario.  Things needed to be de-escalated-- we needed an end to the conflict so that we could all move on with our day.

Tonight, I anticipate a calm conversation about tone of voice and whining, without the emotional charge of this morning’s drama.  Perhaps I’ll slither into the room, myself. 

I wonder what lizards sound like when they whine?

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This blog also appears as part of my regular column on ShareWiK.com.