Parent Mediation Empowers Sibling Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Research Findings: For the current study, formal mediation procedures were adapted for families and parents were trained and asked to mediate their children's disputes; control group parents intervened as they normally would. Conflict negotiations with parents and their children (ages 3½–11 years) occurring 3 and 7 weeks following training, and with children alone 7 months later, were videotaped and coded. Parents were able to learn and implement mediation techniques: They were more likely to discuss the children's emotions and less likely to blame them for past transgressions and to propose solutions to the children's conflicts than were control group parents. Children in the mediation group learned from their parents and were more likely to ask each other for plans to resolve the conflict, to generate plans, and to discuss their own and their siblings’ emotions than were control group children. Younger mediation group children were specifically empowered, as both they and their older siblings were more likely to discuss the younger children's interests and emotions and to resolve issues so that younger siblings’ goals were achieved. Practice or Policy: Our results replicate and strengthen previous findings of the benefits of conflict mediation for children's conflict resolution abilities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its continuing support of this research. We are grateful to Kristi Berg, Lauren Chance, Ashley Hyatt, Olivia Ng, Ryan Persram, Sara Schleien, and Julie Smith for contributions to planning, executing, and analyzing data for this research, along with many other volunteer members of the Family Studies Laboratory at the University of Waterloo who assisted in collecting and coding these data.

Notes

^a Analyzed only for the parents because of low frequencies for the children.

^b Analyzed only for the children because of low frequencies for the parents.

^a Main effect of condition.

^a Main effect of condition.

^a Main effect of condition.

^b Condition × Self Versus Sibling.

^c Condition × Session.

^d Condition × Child × Self Versus Sibling.

¹All simple effects described in relation to significant interactions refer to significant differences in follow-up t tests or ANOVAs.

^a Main effect of condition.

Note. Adjusted standardized residuals are reported in parentheses.

^a Main effect of condition.

^b Condition × Child × Self Versus Sibling.

^a Main effect of condition.