Our children are our future. Stop and think about children over the last several decades and how their roles have changed and evolved over the years. How did a child in the 60s or 70s differ from a child in the 80s or 90s? Here we are today, practically 10 years into the new millennium, an era of incredible technology advances, strong competition for achievement and material gain, changes in gender roles and most importantly, changes in house dynamics. Life is continuously changing and this is expected. We are an ever growing, ever changing society. But with such dramatic shifts in social norms and behaviors over the last 30 years or so, can we still expect to raise and teach our children as we were taught when we were young, which was predominately in authoritarian households? We will look at three private scenarios which have been taken from a new house dynamics study. All three cases are families in the new millennium brought up in the United States.
Three house Dynamic Case Studies
Sheila is an 18 year old immature girl beginning her freshman year of college. She has two younger siblings and lives in a middle class home with both her parents. Sheila's father is an insurance adjuster and her mum works as a secretary. Growing up, Sheila was predominately a straight A student, with a puny social group of friends. From the house perspective she would appear to be a child product from the typical middle class family. Sheila is also a drug addict.
Mark is a 20 year old young man and a sophomore in college. He has a younger brother and is a product of a broken home. His mum divorced his father when he was three years old. She was the traditional sole supplier for her house and attended school in the evenings. Mark was an median trainee during high school, was active in sports and had a wide collection of friends. He is active in local Christian youth programs and is majoring in elementary education.
Maria, 16, and Luis, 17, are brother and sister and live in the Bronx. Their mum is on welfare and their father left them when they were toddlers. They attend the local high school which is patrolled by security and covered in iron bars. Drugs and violence are rampant. Maria is a good trainee and finds security in solitude, while Luis has been arrested on numerous occasions for drugs and theft and will barely graduate high school.
These are just a sampling of the differences in children, their house dynamics and how they deal with conflict. Of course, every child has their own story, their own accounts of their failures and their successes. Every child is a product of our house values and our society. We are now practically ten years into the millennium and as we chronicle the past several decades we see how community has changed and how it has affected the house unit. One aspect of life that has never changed is conflict. Friction is and all the time will be a part of life. However, how we cope Friction has changed and Friction awareness and instruction is at the forefront of this modern age.
Conflict Defined
In her article, Conflict...A New Perspective, Julie Fauimano, Mba, Bsn, Rn, Success Coach, defined Friction as "two or more population looking things from separate perspectives, given their education, background, upbringing, knowledge of the issue, beliefs, time of day, mood, etc...". Plainly put Friction is diversity of thought. From this brief definition we see that Friction is more than just a disagreement, but rather a composition of sources ranging from our instruction to our mood. Most hear the term Friction and automatically join together it as a negative behavior. Many times when someone disagrees with our position we take it as a personal strike and we jump to the defense. However, Friction can be safe bet if we allow ourselves to be open to new ideas and separate perspectives to an issue.
History has shown that we often don't think about Friction until we need third party assistance to help us sort out our issues. Counseling, mediation and litigation are all methods of Friction resolution. However, in the past decade, more attention is being put on the science of mind aspect Friction by learning house dynamics, parenting styles, social interactions and Friction resolution education. In the past, we have all the time connected disputes with litigation, or in the judicial sense. Now, we are looking at Friction and Friction administration proactively by attempting to understand what drives individuals personally, and how we can educate society, beginning with our children in addressing issues in a positive, productive manner.
Parental work on and Behavior
As we think about our three cases at the introduction of this paper. All of these children are teenagers struggling to survive and find their way in today's world. Each child is from a separate ethnic and religious background, each representative of a unique house unit. Add to this the varying parenting styles, social influences, their predetermined personality traits, personal goals and life experiences and you can understand how each private approaches Friction in a separate way.
With all the varied influences on our children today, parents are the #1 influence. We are our children's role models. Parenting styles and their effects on children have been studied over the years and have been broken down into three categories: Authoritarian, Permissive and Authoritative. Understanding the three styles of parenting in relation to Friction resolution is the first step in Understanding how children think, behave and react within their environment.
The Authoritarian Parent. Authoritarian parents expect their children to obey their rules exactly and often use bonus and punishment to keep their children in line. With authoritarian style parenting, some children strive to please their parents to avoid punishment and do not feel comfortable communicating with the parent their feelings for fear of disappointing their parent or punishment. Some children may resent their parents or even rebel against their precise rules.
The Permissive Parent. This is a permissive form of parenting which provides puny or no structure to the children. The no limits and guidelines are often few or fuzzy. Without limits, children are likely to have a difficult time getting along with peers and learning how to behave in society. Permissive parenting is a very free and open form of parenting, one that is typical of a particular parent home or a home where both parents work and do not make house time a priority.
The Authoritative Parent. Authoritative is a democratic style of parenting which balances rights with responsibilities. This form of parenting allows limits to be set for children while providing them with choices within those limits. By giving choices to your children you are expressing to them that their opinions are leading and their choices may carry an undesired outcome and consequence. Authoritative parenting great prepares the child for independence in society. It provides teaches them compromise and instills the Understanding that we learn by our choices and consequences of those choices.
Family Dynamics
Back in the 50's and 60's the house unit typically consisted of the Father/Provider and Mother/Caregiver. The father was the decision maker and provided financially for the house while the mum took care of the home and the children. This is also referred as the "nuclear family". Through the years the changes in our community with gender roles changing, women desiring careers outside the home, pushing for equality with men, desiring their own financial independence, the house unit has changed drastically. Children of disunion are more prevalent than ever before with the disunion rate being at 50% as compared to 22% back in 1960. (DivorceRate.com, 2008). Now we have a more diverse house unit made up of particular parent homes, children being raised by grandparents and blended families resulting from remarriage. Vast changes in the house core have opened the door to many other life challenges within the house unit, especially pertaining to the children.
Divorce not only affects the parent but the child as well. Studies have shown that children demonstrate their anxiety over the disunion of their parents in varying ways many times dependent upon the age at which the disunion occurs. The pain children experience from disunion can consist of vulnerability, insecurity, grief, loss, anger and powerlessness. Additionally, the relationship in the middle of the parent and child changes as the custodial parent may experience disorganization, anger, decreased expectations of their children for standard social behavior or aka, diminished parenting. Furthermore, studies have shown that a child's post-divorce quality of life can have a major impact on their long term adjustment outcomes. Most frequent concerns of children are that of repeating the cycle of a broken marriage.
For many parents, life continues after disunion and they move onto new relationships which leads them to re-marriage and blended families. Today's typical house unit consists of step-parents, step children and step-siblings. Our children are thrown into "instant" families which have already begun to compose their own set of beliefs, standards, ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs and parenting styles. New personalities, customs, and memories are all added to the blended house household. However, a child is still the child; and the adult is still the adult and we must still remember that even Through the tumultuous changes in the house dynamics, we must remember that children still need a balance of love, attention and discipline.
Social Influences
As children grow and attend school, they are highly influenced by their peers. They will come to be leaders or followers. They will find a definite peer group with which they can recognize and form friendships. Peer groups offer children the opportunity to compose varied social skills, such as leadership, sharing or teamwork, and empathy. Peer groups also offer the opportunity to experiment with new roles and interactions which is typically the surmise that adolescents drift from one group to another as they are in quest to "find themselves," or work toward the formation of their identity.
Children need acceptance and they are also highly influenced by their peers. Peer groups can have either a negative or a safe bet work on over a child. When a child is lacks self belief or self-worth, they will turn to anyone groups that are most accepting, regardless of the groups social and ethical behaviors. However, peer groups can also contribute a very safe bet outlet for a child that can promote safe bet behaviors and promote scholastic excellence along with wholesome emotional support.
A teen that has been taught standard Friction administration skills will have an easier time when it comes to peer pressure and social acceptance by learning to balance the value of going along with the crowd against the significance of production their own decisions.
Conflict administration & Resolution Styles of Teenagers
There are three basic approaches by which teenagers cope conflict: the passive approach, the aggressive advent and the assertive approach. The advent the child takes can have a huge impact on the outcome of the disagreement. The Passive Approach. The passive advent is connected with lack of communication, low self worth and fear of confrontation. Passive children are likely to be pushed around with puny to no repercussion. Additionally, these children may have a hard time forming friendships and often find friendships are unfulfilling due to the fact that these children are unquestionably taken benefit of.
The Aggressive Approach. This advent uses intimidation and confrontation as its traditional source resolving conflict. These children will do anyone valuable to reach their desired outcome, not matter the consequences. They look at Friction as a win/lose situation and take criticisms personally, instead of looking at it as a way to learn and grow. Aggressive children are often labeled as bullies and are either avoided or make friends with other similarly behaved children.
The Assertive Approach. A democratic style of Friction resolution, children take an advent which combines respect with cooperation and compromise. These children have learned how to effectively chronicle to transport their opinions while taking into observation the needs of others. The assertive advent is the most thriving advent as it can typically supervene in a win-win clarification for all parties involved. It minimizes the negative feelings of anger and resentment as with the passive and aggressive approaches and replaces it with safe bet feelings of self-fulfillment. (Carney, 2008).
Teaching Life Skills
Teaching our children leading life skills is valuable in assisting them with handling conflicts as children and carrying these skills into their adult years. Up until the past decade or so, most of our focus has been on Friction resolution for adults. However, with the increase of disruptive behaviors by adolescents, increased disunion rate and the transportation breakdown in the middle of parent and child, practitioners are now looking at assisting children in looking a more productive way to cope conflict. In a new study, 6th and 7th grade children were examined as to how each gender handled conflict. Girls were found to typically rely on verbal assertion where boys showed more aggressive tendencies. Self-efficacy and self-control were found to be valuable predictors of Friction resolution styles. Additionally, it is found that by promoting social competencies in our youth, psychosocial problems such as delinquency and drug abuse is reduced and scholastic achievement increased. (Vera, et. Al. 2004)
In new years, schools, churches and youth programs are implementing Friction resolution programs such as Friction coaching, Friction administration workshops, peace building workshops and mediation programs. Evidence is showing that by providing our youth with the standard skills early on, we will be teaching them habits they can take with them for a lifetime. Teaching the standard social and Friction administration behaviors has come to be just as valuable as teaching our children skills in math, science, social studies and english. We can no longer wait until we are adults to begin to outline out how to manage conflict. Children will deal with Friction from their infancy, so why not begin developing the standard skills early on.
In sports and athletic events, we have coaches and these coaches support, implement athletic skills for the game, promote team play, character and team unity. In life, we need coaches on a daily basis to keep us on track, accountable, to promote teamwork, house unity, and teach life skills. Life coaches are just as valuable for guiding our youth, as coaches are in guiding our team sports. Counselors or counseling is implemented to fix something that is wrong, but we need to be looking at behavior from the prospective of facilitating and implementing the standard skills in our youth for managing their daily conflicts and social issues.
A valuable tool we have is the internet. The birth of the internet has opened a door to endless resources at a touch of a finger tip. Teenagers are one of the most proficient at using the internet, with 55% of all online teens belonging to some sort of social networking site (Lynch 2007). A good outlet for any teen who is facing an issue and wants to chronicle their feelings privately is by creating an online avenue for teenagers to post their concerns and receive feedback, without revealing their identities. A good example may be a child being pushed around by a bully. Children do not like to appear "weak" or "afraid" so they do not narrative or chronicle when another is harassing them. By having an outlet to discuss and seek help anonymously keeps the child feeling empowered, and reduces any possibility of retaliation by the bully.
Our youth need outlets for Friction resolution and instruction and coaching for Friction management. We are looking a increase and slow acknowledgment of this in society, but we most come to be more proactive and start focusing on providing and offering programs to our youth now. We are looking more and more problems in our community and we have to stop looking at just a fix to the problem, but rather we have to look at proactive ways to educate and chronicle with our youth. It is like our health. We can go to the physician and get a prescription to control high blood pressure, or we can implement a wholesome diet and rehearsal in an exertion to keep our blood pressure within normal limits and remain healthy.
Conclusion
Addressing Friction with our children has come to be a major concern due to our societal changes over the past combine decades. As we have seen there are a collection of factors that lead to how our children cope conflict, parental work on and social influences being strong factor in a child's perception of Friction and how to form a resolution. In conclusion, let's briefly look at our three cases and see if we can decree the factors that lead to how these children deal with conflict.
First, there was Sheila who was the straight A student, product of what was once thought about a "nuclear" house unit. In Sheila's situation we can accumulate that her parent's had an authoritarian style of parenting, precise rules with no input from their children. Sheila had a small social network and probably had a hard time production friends, so she many times settled for those who would accept her for who she was regardless what the peer group's beliefs were. As a result, Sheila was not strong adequate to weigh the inequity in the middle of doing her own thing and doing the wrong thing, i.e. Drugs, and she found herself lost and unable to appropriately function in society. Sheila's Friction resolution style would probably be the passive advent as her self-confidence and self esteem levels are probably low and because of the attitudes at home, she may try to avoid confrontation. If Sheila had an outlet, she may have found maintain and directives that could have lead her to understand why she struggled to fit in and how she could convention belief building techniques that would help her to walk on her own, instead with individuals who would lead her in the wrong direction.
Next we had Mark, the 20 year old college sophomore. He was the product of divorced parents and his mum worked and attended school. It would appear her time with her children was limited. Although, Mark's high school grades were not all the time up to par, he did manage to have a strong social network and was active in school sport activities. From this situation we may witness that Mark's mum chose the authoritarian style of parenting. She allowed input from her children and gave them choices. For example, Mark's grades, if he chose not to take his studies seriously he had to deal with the consequences such as not getting to play in the basketball game. His type of Friction resolution style would appear to be that of the assertive approach. He appeared safe bet adequate to know that his needs were just as leading as the next person's and looked for a win-win clarification for everyone. Even though his mum was a particular parent, she was able to instill the skills valuable for him to cope socially and carry those habits onward into college and beyond. While Mark's mother, being particular mother, was notably busy with work and school, she was still able to teach Mark some leading life skills. Mark however, could still have benefitted from a form of life coaching that may have great directed him with his instruction and life goals.
Finally, we have Maria and Luis. It would appear that Maria has taken over the role of her mum and Luis has decided to rebel. From this situation, it would appear that Maria and Luis' mum uses the permissive parenting style with her children. She is divorced and living on puny means and probably was never taught the social skills while growing up to help her own children. As a result, Maria keeps to herself and does not join together with others at school as a means of protecting herself from what she perceives as a socially diverse and unsafe atmosphere. She probably feels very insecure and unsure of herself and her role amongst her peers. Maria's Friction resolution style would be similar to that of Sheila's, passive. Luis on the other hand, being male and more prone to aggression has taken the aggressive route. He is angry with his social and economic situation. He does not have the advice from home and he is rebelling. He has not been taught the social skills and therefore cannot cope Friction in a productive manner. His style of Friction resolution is unquestionably diagnosed as aggressive. This whole house would benefit from Friction resolution skills training or coaching - the mum to compose her skills in raising and communicating with her children and the children with developing the safe bet social skills and Friction resolution skills valuable to carry them throughout the remainder of their lives.
As we can see Friction is a part of life. either young or old, there will be issues that need addressing in our marriages, families, businesses, churches, schools and communities. Understanding the science of mind of Friction will assist us in being able to great assist our children in developing the skills valuable to successfully manage Friction in their lives. Think about how much the world has changed over the past 30 years or so. Now try to imagine how much more it will change in the next 30 or more years. Investing in Friction resolution coaching and training now with our children will help them to compose the skills that will lead to a more productive, safe bet private in the future.
friction Coaching and management For Today's Youth
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