Teresa Hutchins

Conflict as social interaction: Building relationship skills in child care settings

Learning the skills to build relationships is an important part of child development. Good relationship skills in childhood lay the foundation for healthy adult relationships. Young children’s relationships are characterized by a high degree of conflict, as children learn the cognitive skills of taking another’s perspective, thinking in terms of multiple attributes and anticipating the consequences of their actions. Children who learn to resolve conflicts successfully become more popular and interact with other children more frequently and for longer periods of time as they grow older, thus practicing interpersonal skills more frequently and consolidating their advantage. This project looks at the conflicts in which young children engage in group care settings. The aim is to understand the children’s meanings of conflict by observing their behavior in context. Understanding the meanings of conflict for children can inform caregivers’ strategies for guiding their behavior and for developing effective conflict resolution strategies in children.

Young children who have experienced refugee or war-related trauma

SUMMARY Violence is of increasing concern in our society and the development of an increasing number of children is compromised due to experiences of violence and trauma. Children who experience refugee or war-related trauma and violence are attending services in the community in increasing numbers. Long term outcomes for many of these children include increasing social isolation, peer rejection, violence, criminality, mental health problems and suicide. Research suggests that where services are able to meet childrens needs effectively, long term outcomes can be positive. The research reported in this paper investigates the strategies used in child care services in three states of Australia to meet the needs of children who have experienced refugee or warrelated trauma.

Young Children in Child Care: The Role Adults Play in Managing Their Conflicts.

The conflict behaviour of three year old children in child care centres was examined using an interpretative paradigm and qualitative methodology to ascertain the shared meanings (between the researchers and the children) of each event. One strategy children used to solve their conflicts was to involve adults. This set of the data is examined in more detail. Adults were more likely to allow themselves to become involved in childrens conflicts when these conflicts involved physical activity that may escalate into a more aggressive interaction. The implications of these findings for professionals working with children in group care are discussed.

Classroom ‘Culture’ and Children's Conflict Behaviours

In any situation where children are involved in group programmes, the group ‘culture’, and the overall quality of the service delivered, will be a result of the interaction of many factors. One of these is the way in which adults interact with children. Adult interactions arise out of adult beliefs and values about how children learn, the role that they, as adults, play in facilitating that learning, and the priorities adults place on what children need to learn. We know that even in programmes where adults have the same basic philosophy and approach to their work, the actual day‐to‐day experiences of children are novel and vary significantly. Determining quality therefore, is a complex and challenging task. This project examines one component of adults’ beliefs and values about their role in working with children. Childrens conflict behaviour in the group environment is then examined. Results are inconclusive but do suggest possible links between classroom ‘culture’ and the relationship of that ‘culture...