Transcript: Conflict Resolution 

Welcome to the Us and Kids podcast. I am your host Jan Talen. I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a wife, a mom and a grandma. This Us and Kids podcast is about how to be married forever while you parent  together.

So let's talk about conflict resolution. 

I really don't like those words, they seem to fight inside my mouth. I know: I'm a therapist. I work with it all the time. But conflict means something's not reset and resolution means that something is fixed. Now I know that we're supposed to get between those two words that conflict is fixed. But in my mind, I keep thinking how can something be not resolved and fixed at the same time? 

And when I think about these words, I realized, just like with conflict, that learning how to think about something in a different way, is often the way to making it not be a conflict in my brain.

Also, in the dispute, or the differences, we're looking for a real solution or a new solution. The reality is, most of the time it's messy. It's filled with conundrums. It's filled with having to make adjustments. There's confusing language between one person and the other differing thoughts or the same thoughts that means something different and so ending up with mixed up messages no matter which way we go. 

And yet we know we are on the hunt for a better way.

A re-solution.

So, today we're going to try to untangle some of this conflict resolution stuff with some clarity, because we want that calm, and that wonderful connection, even when there is a conflict to re-solve. We can do it. It just takes knowing some about the conflicts and about how to build a re-solution, a new solution. 

So first of all, let's learn about types of conflict.

Okay, there's good conflict.

Not all conflict is bad, we don't have to just tuck our tail between our legs and run every time there's a conflict. Some of us are conflict avoidant, meaning we don't want conflict at all. In this podcast, I'm going to invite you to build your skills and grow your courage. Help each other out with this. The best way to do this is to listen with kindness and with care as somebody tries to stay present, even though they're fighting the fear inside of them. 

So what is good conflict? It's functional, it brings about growth, both personal and relational. Now, sometimes we can't see the growth, until a bit later when we've used a re-solution for a while. It's like planting a seed. We have to have some belief and trust that the new idea, the re-solution that we have for the conflict will grow. And that takes some courage. Both of you staying steady with what you agreed to do. So there's good conflict, it brings about functional growth and improvement. 

On the other side of the coin, there is conflict that creates dysfunction, where it blocks growth. and those spaces instead are filled without confusion and the discouragement. And then that ugly seed of divorce can take root. That creates disconnection. In the DNA for Fun Communications Course we talk so often about how to Define your Desires and grab the Necessary skills that you need, Applying them well, so that that seed of disconnection and divorce doesn't ever take root. 

So let's keep learning about how to make a solution when there's conflict, a solution that works.

There are three different places where conflict often develops. These are sort of bigger places. It's not like in the kitchen or in the living room or in the bedroom, although that may be places as well.

But these are a little bit higher up than that as we think through where do we usually find conflicts.  One of these is about the task. It isn't about whether or not the task is a good idea to do. It's about how to do the task. There might be a conflict about screen time and what is appropriate to watch around the kids and what is not. The conflict is not so much about whether or not to watch something on your phone or on a tablet or on the TV. It's about what to watch when the kids are around. This is a conflict around task. It often involves a conversation for the re-solution that includes a conversation about values, about priorities, and sometimes about power. Who wants to have the most influence or the final say so. So the question might be, "Is a priority (in this situation about the screens) that the adult gets to do what he or she wants to do? Or is the priority that we protect the kids and the adults sacrifice some to do that?" Couples go either way on these with very different priorities and different uses of power. Do we, as adults use our power to choose what to watch, do we use it to choose in a way that protects the kids, or do we use it to show them that we are more grown up and so we can be the boss of our choices. Now both have some validity. I probably err on the side of protecting the kids and what their brains are absorbing, but clearly other people have made arguments in the other direction. 

The power play here can create conflict between the two spouses. One spouse says it's important that they see that I'm the boss and I can choose. And the other person might say, no, it's important that we protect our kids from seeing things that they don't know what to do with. It's not about whether or not you're gonna watch something on the screen. It's about the win. 

And herein is the need for the adults to listen to each other carefully and to work towards a compromise or a balance that does protect the kids some, but also says, mommy and daddy are allowed to watch different things than what kiddos do.  Different families set this up in different ways. If this is a conversation in your house, keep listening because we're going to talk a little bit more about how to solve this kind of situation a little bit farther down in the podcast.  You see, you want to work this conversation so that it promotes growth, trust between you and your spouse, but also between you as a couple who operates as a couple on the same page  while taking care of the kids. 

How do you make it a functional conflict?  You talk it through carefully and specifically as you stay on the topic about screen time. 

Protect and value  the other person's perspective. And when you're concerned  and when you have a disagreement about the other person's perspective, talk about it with respect. In the DNA for Fun Communications Course we will talk about what is your D.  What is your Desire? What is your end game plan for your kids and how they choose what to do with their screens. (If you need more information about how a kiddos brain develops then check in on some of our other podcasts, but also in the DNA for Fun Communications Course we will talk more about that developmental brain architecture in young kids, and how our kids make choices based on the choices of mom and dad.) 

In this conversation, talk about what we are doing with our kids  developmentally and where they are in these growing stages.  How does this knowledge and thought change how we approach what we do with screen time. Listen to how I'm using the word "we". Because if we're going to have functional conflict resolution then we are going to work towards a we. How are we as mom and dad, and husband, wife going to work this conflict, so that it pulls us together and leads our children into healthy spaces. 

If the conversation was going to be dysfunctional, it would have some kind of refusal to really engage in the conversation. It would be somebody pulling out. Dysfunction might include a thought like this, "I'm going to do what I'm going to do and that's how it is". It would be somebody else screaming about how unfair that is or how good it is.

Or it might be an agreement only when you're sitting together. But when the other spouse is out of the room, you do whatever you want. And so there isn't sincerity in it. And that deceit undermines not only the connection between you and your spouse, but also the connection of you and your spouse, with your kids. 

So if you make an agreement, what agreement you make (even if you just try it for three weeks), stick to it so that your connection and honor with your spouse is sincere. That keeps out the dysfunction and helps it be a functional way solution, even if it's not perfect. The function is in the relationship, not so much in the decision about what to do with screen time, but the function, the functionality is in between the two of you and how you talked it through. 

The second way is if there is interpersonal relationship conflict.

This can be developed into where this interpersonal relationship conflict is either functional and we grow together, even though we understand that we are very, very different. Or where we separate and fraction  off from each other because we're too different, leading to dysfunction. When we study John Gottman who is a marriage researcher extraordinaire and has been for years, he explains that much of our conflict between each other as couples is going to be in this more interpersonal relationship space.  There's going to be a lot of give and take, some self sacrifice and putting the marriage or the relationship first,  in spite of the fact that you have differences. 

Because this conflict is not about the task at all.

It's about a personal dislike or distrust of other people around you. Now, sadly, that can be something you dislike or distrust within your spouse or your in laws are your coworkers. This is more of a personal opinion that you hold because of who or what you perceive the person to be.

Often this means that what the person does will not be liked, because of their personality more than your disapproval of the task. For example, it might seem to you that your spouse becomes more brash or more mouthy around friends and this puts you on the edge. And so, when you're around those friends, even when the energy isn't as high as usual, you are still more critical and reactive you're automatically nervous, even though nothing has happened.

This is a dislike of your spouse's behavior choices based on their personality trait. And you wish that they were less outgoing, less brash, less straight up when they're around their friends. However, your spouse just says, "I'm just really engaged, I'm excited to see them. It feels really good to just be me and not have to tamp anything down."

Oh, two different approaches. One spouse, (very, very common) is far more quiet, a little bit more introverted and the other spouse is more outgoing, a little bit more extroverted. And we have to find the agreement, because we're probably not going to change personalities. Figuring out how to respect and respond to the others input is important.  So, the person who's more extroverted and more outgoing might agree to respect and respond when their spouse's input -  a clue or a hint, a movement- is read that, "You gotta tone it down a little bit". And so they'll help you bring a little bit better balance, and thus less anxiety about going out together. If the engaged person ups their energy, and the worried person ups their reactivity and anxiety, you are going to have a dandy dysfunctional fight, I can tell you that. It's not going to be pretty!

Learning to respect each other might look more like this.  The more introverted person gives a little bit in terms of how much energy their spouse wants to give out at a party or an outing. And the extrovertive person agrees that when their spouse hints to "Back it down a little bit. Let's take a break." They agree to do that. 

What happens is that both of them are saying and asking each other, "Will you like me? Will you approve of me? Will you stay with me?"  Those are core questions that are asked, almost every day in a relationship. It is a continual need and you can call it needy, but it's not. It's just real life. We want to be liked, loved, and approved within our relationship, and much conflict, especially this interpersonal relationship conflict, is about. “ Do you like me for me??"

 This is where the self sacrifice and learning that what my spouse brings into the relationship might be good for me. That extrovertive person might agreeS/he might realize that it would be okay  to pick up a skill that learns how to be a little more still and a little more quiet. They might realize that their spouse is pretty intuitive, watching and paying attention.  Maybe some of that skill would be okay. Then the introverted spouse could say, “You know, I could probably have a little more fun at the party if I stopped sitting and watching, and if I got up and chatted a little bit. Maybe not all night, I couldn't last.  But I could do it some and I could learn," And we learn from each other, we approve and appreciate the other, and that keeps that disapproval and disconnection from planting within your relationship. You see that every person has value, and their thoughts and their reactions develop out of their own life experiences. Taking the time to learn about your spouse, and to understand them without judgment and with a lot of empathy, helps to mellow out this interpersonal conflict. It helps to find places in life that you have good shared experiences and building up those places that you share good experiences.  It's a good idea.

Here's an example.  I was talking with my neighbor about water safety, and my neighbor was pretty adamant about his position and his desires. Then he heard a bit of my story around water safety in dangerous situations. He began to understand my perspective. He's softened enough to cooperate with my position and opinion. I'm not sure we have a totally functional relationship as neighbors. But I do think that around the topic of water safety we are fairly functional and safe together. I kindly shared my opinion. I listened and understood his. We came to a place of agreement. If we had gone into the space of all or nothing, we would still be in a dysfunctional relationship space which isn't a good place when you have close neighbors, or when you have a close spouse. So we had to just take the time to hear each other out and work towards something that was manageable. 

You see relationships are messy. And they take work, and they shift over time. And in this interpersonal conflict resolution space, gentle sharing, affirmation, encouragement to keep that relationship in a functional growing place is really, really valuable for the short term and the long term. 

There's a space here where as you define what you want in your relationship the D in DNA for Fun. If you can keep that in the front of your marriage and in your relationship, you probably will be able to work through these interpersonal re-solution places okay. 

There's a third place  that can either be conflict re-solution and it's functional, or it can turn into dysfunction. And this place of conflict is around the process. It's not around a conversation about whether or not the work should get done. It's more a conflict and the conversation about how to do the work.

So, when the kids were at home. (Sadly, they are all gone so housecleaning is on me, sometimes a cleaning person). But when the kids were home, Saturday morning was house cleaning morning. Sometimes dad was around, sometimes he was not. He had an expectation that if he was there and you were vacuuming, you got to do the whole rug, or all of the carpeting. Move the coffee tables, shove the couch around, get underneath it as well as around it. That wasn't my expectation. I just wanted them to vacuum around it, get underneath if the vacuum would reach, but you don't really have to move anything. Wel, they had to move like the soccer ball or the Legos, but not the furniture. So there was a little bit of disagreement about exactly what the task was. It wasn't about whether or not to vacuum. It was about how to vacuum, or better said, How to intensely vacuum. 

We came to an agreement. When the kids were working with dad, they worked with dad's rules and when they worked with mom, they worked with mom's rules. So what did the kids learn? I think they learned to adjust to working with different expectations. And we accepted (my husband and I), that different expectations are a normal part of life. So Chip and I stayed connected and respected each other's different approach to housecleaning. 

We agreed upon the task: vacuum please! We gave space for different ways to do the task. We didn't belittle or criticize each other. This kept us functional, even when doing things differently.

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking about this like it's black and white -  it's either functional conflict or dysfunctional conflict. Not really true. There are some things that can be good actions and attitudes that can move conflict into a more functional way. One of those things is to talk about what is your goal. My goal in vacuuming was to get the main idea of the house clean.  In a  general sort of way - is the house cleaner than what it was before?  I wanted it to happen in a reasonable amount of time with the amount of energy that the kids were going to be able to put out.  Chips role in vacuuming was to get the house vacuumed and vacuumed well, and to teach the kids how to do a thorough job. 

We talked about our goals. We both agreed the goals were valid, and that the kids could learn from both of us. So this kept the conflict at the beginning stage of just understanding that we have different goals. And we resolved it at this level. If we didn't, it could have moved into a space of competition between each other. And this would have separated our connection, because now we're against each other in our parenting and leading of our kids, instead of being with each other. And in the competition you see there is sabotage in saying that it doesn't matter what your mom says, it doesn't matter what your dad says, it only matters if you do it my way. And now the kids are torn. So, instead of letting competition sabotage move in, we had to acknowledge our differing goals, and then come to an agreement together about how to blend those two goals into a space that made sense for the kids, and was okay within our own guidelines.

You can hear. We had to listen to both sides of the issue. I agree, I'm talking about vacuuming. But we had to listen and agree with a core idea. And then we had to see and acknowledge, as we practiced our awareness while practicing two different approaches to vacuuming at the same time, we had to acknowledge that we were accomplishing the goal:  getting a cleaner house together. But our goal wasn't just to have a clean house. I didn't want, by the time Saturday morning, was done to have screaming, crabby, upset, uptight kids who are just tipped over sideways. We usually made Saturday a housecleaning day and a play day. We didn't want to have crabby kids. We wanted to have happy ones. So the goal wasn't just to have a clean house, but also to have happy kids. What an idea! Right?! We had to keep that goal in mind, the distress in the cleaning process was not in our idea of DNA. Our D, our Desire, definitely was to make the house cleaner than it was before. 

Now as time went on, we had to keep on making improvements and innovations. This is one of the ways that we keep a conflict in the functional space. When there's a need for improvement or change, we do it. The kids got older and different places of the house got dirtier while other places got cleaner. For example, the loft where all the toys were got cleaner, less play with toys. The basement got dirtier. At that time the computer was down there. They did homework down there and they did more hanging out down there. So we had to switch it up a little bit in terms of what the priority was. There were times when there were kids sports that were interacting with the Saturday morning idea. We had to switch up the time that we were doing things.  You see, in order for it to be functional,  (I just want you to notice functional has the word fun in it:), we had to be optimistic with each other. We had to hold up our end of the agreement. Not criticizing each other, not undermining each other and really staying with what was our goal. And even when I was uptight about people  coming over, we were going to have company  and all I could see was Dirt! dirt! dirt! dirt! The corners weren't clean, the baseboards were dirty, in between the chair slots were messy. Things were sticky. We had fingerprints everywhere. Settle down and hang on to the goal.

What I wanted an upgrade in the house cleaning stuff. I had to acknowledge it and talk about what we were going to do about it. As the kids got older we included them in that conversation. When they were younger, I had to reset some of my own needs and some of what I was telling myself about whether or not I was a good person based on how clean my house was.

And my husband had to listen carefully and accurately without telling me that I'm an idiot because I worried about how clean my house was when I had people coming over. He was kind and caring about it. We had to be sincere in putting the relationship above our own personal, "I know best, and you don't." We had to stay in a place of honor and respect and care. So that means that we had to take care of our own selves and our own anxiety, our own worries and not pass them off on to the other person,

 but can acknowledge them to the other person. I feel like I really need this person's respect and if my house isn't clean I won't get their respect and we won't get what we want.

That's an "I sentence" that Chip could respond to and could reassure me. He could also ask what part of the house I was most worried about and suggest that we clean that part and leave the rest. 

You see what I'm saying. For good conflict resolution, for it to be conflict that has a good re-solution that is functional, check in with yourself. What is going on with you, emotionally, and relationally? Slow down and think that through. Own your own thoughts, own your own motives and change your emotions and your behaviors to better care for yourself and for the relationship. This is your work. You can talk it through with your spouse, but it would be your responsibility. It has self change and self sacrificing. And it would mean that you will be trustworthy, to protect your spouse, as your spouse is trustworthy to protect you. It also means that you will say your own thoughts in the "I" sentence.  "I think...."  "I need...", "I would like..." with kindness of tone and kindness of words. Be specific. Don't talk about what you need for the next hundred years. Talk about what you need around house cleaning, around child care, around the dishes, or around bedroom behavior. Talk very gently about those things. 

One sentence might be, "I would really like for us to do the dishes after the kids go to bed. I would like to do them together to just chat and do them without distress. And then I'd like to sit down together with you. That will help me relax more and feel like we finished the day together.  I feel more connected."  , And so you can see, it means that you're going to listen, according to what is said, not what you heard. In that sentence about doing dishes you might have heard, "I feel really lazy and I think you owe it to me you've been gone all day you owe it to me to do the dishes, most of them are yours anyways!"

Nobody said that in there.

Take those words at face value. If you have a question about it gently, ask the question, quietly. Ask it with care. Not with critique, or consternation. When you do it that way, you can really problem solve, you can create a re-solution that has real function in it and has real fun in it. You both understand the problem from the behavioral space, as well as from the emotional space, so nobody is going to sabotage it because you're going to work to protect both spaces. That a good solution (re-solution) addresses both the emotions and the behavior needs. 

You can see our vacuuming solution that I truste the emotions of respect for things we had worked for and the time we had taken to get those things, along with our worry about ifour kids will know how to work and be responsible and know how to take care of things, and do a job well. We addressed both. And I think our kids know how to take care of their things nicely. Some of that - thank you to the children - for learning and cooperating. I don't have total control over them. I only had control over what I was trying to teach them.

So for you and your spouse. As you listen to this, and you apply it to your relationship, remember you can apply it to your relationship with your kids. As you problem solve with them, look for a solution that has fun in it. That is fulfilling for both of you and that gives room for creativity, and that is naturally good as it enhances both of your personalities. 

You are worth it. 

Remember that if you're stuck, if you want an upgrade on how to do this better, the DNA for Fun Communications Course teaches core skills in communication that you can apply to your kids, or to your spouse and your marriage, really any other place in between. 

It works effectively. 

And it works well for a lifetime.

Join us in that course. It's up on the Us and Kids website where there is more information. I encourage you to use these skills quickly and together so that you can function and grow into a fulfilling, unlimited and naturally good relationship!

I'm cheering for you!

Thank you again for joining! Bye bye!