Developmental considerations: Encouraging perspective taking in student mediators

Training Parents to Mediate Sibling Disputes Affects Children's Negotiation and Conflict Understanding

The effects of training parents to use formal mediation procedures in sibling disputes were examined in 48 families with 5- to 10-years-old children, randomly assigned to mediation and control conditions. Children whose parents were trained in mediation were compared with those whose parents intervened normally. Parents reported that children used more constructive conflict resolution strategies, compromised more often, and controlled the outcomes of conflicts more often in mediation families than in control families. Observations indicated less negativity in children's independent negotiations of recurrent conflicts, better understanding of the role of interpretation in assessing blame, and better knowledge of their siblings' perspectives in the mediation group. Thus, both social and social-cognitive gains resulted from experience with constructive conflict resolution.

Mediation as a method of parent intervention in children's disputes

This study examined the feasibility and short-term effects of mothers' use of mediation to help children (5 to 8 years) resolve disputes. Families in which mothers were trained to use mediation were compared with control families on intervention strategies at home and discussion of a recurring conflict in the laboratory. With training, mothers could use mediation strategies, and these strategies were favored by both mothers and children. Children responded appropriately to mediation (reasoning, discussing emotions, and understanding motivations more often than in control families). Mediation empowered children, particularly younger siblings, to solve conflict issues. Although questions of the long-term implications of mediation remain, this study suggests that mediation may be a powerful parenting tool, promoting social understanding and productive conflict resolution.