Session 4: Conflict C: Wrap-up – Worth, Anger

Goals:

• Review what the students have learned about conflict
• Make sure everyone understands escalation and de-escalation
• Discuss when a fight is and isn’t worth it
• Talk about the specific escalator of anger and how to control it

Materials

q Bother-o-Meter Signs

Methods:

I. Review of Conflict

II. Bother-o-Meter

III. The Physiology of Anger

I. Review

Lead the students in a review of what they have learned about the causes and results (good and bad) of conflict. Have them review what they learned about escalation and de-escalation. Make sure that everyone understands what these two words mean. If necessary, take some time to go over what the two words mean again – it’s a hard concept and big words.

II. Bother-o-Meter

Goal: to brainstorm what things are and are not worth fighting over.

Set-up: Teachers should come to class with three sheets of paper – one that says “Worth Fighting Over,” another that says “Might be Worth Fighting Over,” and a third that says “Not worth fighting over.” Volunteers, each holding a sheet of paper, should stand in a line, approximately seven feet apart.

Directions:

Explain to the students that you will read some situations to them. The students should arrange themselves nearest to the volunteer who holds the sign that best describes how they feel about the item.

Playing the Game:

One teacher should read each of the following items:

• Getting pushed on the subway
• Someone stepping on your foot
• Someone insulting your family
• A friend telling secrets behind your back
• When you can’t pick the television show you want to watch
• When someone borrows something of yours and forgets to return it
• When you lose a sports game
• When someone tells you you’re too scared to fight
• When your younger brother is jumped by some kids his age

Discussion:

You can reiterate the point that everyone has conflicts at times, and that we are not trying to tell them never to have conflicts. Instead, we want to talk about how to deal better with the conflicts we have and how to solve them.

Some prompter questions:

· Have you ever had a fight that you later regretted?

· What are some things that make you really angry, but still aren’t worth fighting over?

· Even when you’re angry, why would you choose not to fight?

· How do you decide when to fight and when to walk away?

· What are some ways to prevent fights that aren’t worth it?

III. The Physiology of Anger

Purpose: to have the students explore how their bodies react to stimuli that generate feelings of anger.

Directions:

A) Ask the students how their bodies react when they are angry. What is breathing like? What is your heart doing? Does anything else happen physically?

B) Tell the students they are going to make their bodies feel angry. Have the students close their eyes and imagine that whatever bugs them the most is happening to them. Ask them to try to concentrate on what is happening inside of them. Are their fists scrunching? Are their faces scrunching up? Are their hearts racing? Is anything happening to their breathing? You can suggest that the kids breather harder, tense their muscles, imagine their faces getting hot. Now tell the kids to relax. You can lead them by suggesting, “Now, breathe slower and more regularly. Relax your muscles again. Think of your favorite thing…”

C) Explain to the class that is what happens to your body when you become angry:

Something makes you angry.

1. These feelings create tension and stress in your body.
2. Your body begins to release adrenaline in your blood. This chemical causes you to become excited and your reactions quicken.
3. In response to the demands of your body, your breathing rate increases, your body temperature rises, your heartbeat accelerates, your blood pressure rises as your body works harder in response to the increased tension.
4. You react to the tension in your body. (You may cry, play sports, yell, hit something, etc)

D) Make sure the students understand that everyone gets angry; anger is a part of life. We cannot control whether or not we get angry. We can control how we deal with this anger. You may also want to draw the connection between anger and aggression: While anger is a temporary emotional state caused by frustration, aggression is often an attempt to hurt a person or to destroy property in reaction to this frustration.

E) Also make the connection between recognizing your anger and the conflict escalator: If you are on the first step of the escalator and you realize that your body is telling you that it’s angry, then you can deal with that anger and stop the conflict from escalating. It may seem like when you’re angry you just react – it may seem like you have no choice but to escalate the conflict. But we’ll prove to you over the next few weeks that if you learn to pay close attention to the messages that your body is sending you, then you can stop a conflict from escalating. One of the most important and most effective ways to stop a conflict from escalating is to realize that you’re angry and to deal with this anger so that you can keep the conflict from getting worse just because you’re mad.

F) Discuss with the students the way they deal with anger and stress, brainstorming other ways to do it. You can also discuss the things that make the students angry in the first place.

You will probably have enough to do in this lesson with the games provided. If you have extra time, play any games that you didn’t get to in the first few lessons or play the ones they really liked again. There are also extra games in Appendix A. Feel free to add your own.