Recently I was called to sit in on a meeting at our child’s middle school. This meeting had nothing to do with our child, but instead involved one of our “surrogate” kids, one of the four children of our dear friend, a single parent. This “daughter” had been in a physical confrontation with another girl. Present at the meeting in addition to the child were the mom, the vice principle, the guidance counselor, and the SRO (police officer assigned to the middle school). The meeting was mostly fact finding, to determine what happened from our girl’s point of view. The final decisions that the school reached isn’t as important to me as their answer to one of my questions. I asked if they had any plans to bring the two girls together to resolve their situation. They both had done things wrong and had reason to apologize and ask for forgiveness. Not only did they have no intention of facilitating such a meeting between the two (instead they intended to issue a no contact order), but the police officer sarcastically said, “So you want the crocodile tears?” In other words, he felt that the only thing that would be accomplished would be to have the girls offer some compulsory apologies, give us what we want and then move on. In his expert opinion, it would be a complete waste of time.

Unfortunately I have run into this same attitude at the high school and with parents that we have coached. The thought process goes something like this, since we can’t get a heartfelt response from the offending parties, it is pointless. I would argue that almost regardless of the reaction of the two girls involved, much good can be accomplished when adults encourage restitution. First, these types of situations allow us the opportunity to begin teaching conflict resolution. These are teachable moments that permit us a golden chance to explain how to resolve disagreements and restore relationships. In addition, regardless of the response of these girls (or our own kids if that is the case) we as the adults must guide them in the right way to go. We have to do the right thing even if it falls on deaf ears, a big part of what we are to do in training up our kids is to teach them truth and the right thing to do.

Suppose the school had decided to bring these two girls together. What exactly should they do? Or more to the point, when our own kids are in conflict with a sibling, or another child, what should we do? Training up our kids in the area of conflict resolution is such an important lesson. Forgiveness, resolution, and restoration are biblical principles that we need to teach our children. How exactly do you do that? Well first, we must model the behavior we are trying to teach (you knew that was coming, right!?). You can’t expect your child to listen to any lessons about forgiveness and restoration if they have never seen you say those difficult words, “I’m sorry, please forgive me”. I remember the time Kelli and I got into a fight in front of our kids. Later when we were alone, we “kissed and made up”. Our family had to go somewhere together in the van and as we were piling in, I noticed our oldest son, Tavita looking upset. I asked him what was wrong. He said, “You and mom are fighting”. I quickly explained that his mother and I were fine; we had talked it over and made up. I’ll never forget his response, “But we didn’t see it.” So, if it wasn’t hard enough to say I’m sorry, please forgive me once behind closed doors; we now had to do it again in front of the kids. Our children need to see us humbling ourselves in the same way that we are going to be asking them to humble themselves; and besides it’s the right thing to do!

Next week - Part 2 of teaching our children conflict resolution.