An increasing incidence of school violence is one of the primary reasons for teaching young children how to appropriately handle conflict. Teaching character education and conflict resolution can reinforce basic attitudes and values of society in a child’s setting. Some ways to prevent violence in the classroom are as follows:
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Provide adequate resources to reduce conflict but not so many materials that children have no need to share. For example, adding another favorite toy to the sandbox may help prevent daily conflicts.
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Reduce the emphasis on possessions and focus instead on how children can take different roles to play together. For example, dramatic play may occur without expensive costumes.
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Eliminate materials with violent themes or cultural or gender bias.
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Choose materials that celebrate diversity and show people of different cultures and genders, both with and without disabilities, engaged in everyday activities.
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Create “thematic prop boxes” that suggest helping, cooperative roles for children to enhance cooperative play. For example, prop boxes may have items that encourage children to play as teachers, librarians, nurses, firemen, mechanics, moms, dads, grandparents, etc.
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·Choose books, stories and videos that support acceptable social and non-aggressive behavior. A good example is the book, Hands are Not for Hitting.
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Provide materials that promote discussion and role playing to engage children’s skills in problem solving in acceptable social ways.
Teach problem-solving skills by actively guiding children to use a simple strategy: 1) identify the problem, 2) brainstorm several solutions, 3) choose one, 4) try it out, and 5) decide if it worked. Show the child laminated pictures of possible solutions to help him/her brainstorm solutions. These can be pictures of children playing together and sharing a toy. Another picture might show children trading toys. A picture of a timer might indicate that a possible solution could be that each child has a certain amount of time to play with the toy. A picture is also needed to indicate that the child may simply choose to move to another play area. Follow up with a discussion on how well the chosen method worked and praise the child for not “hitting.”