Relationship Skills & Conflict Resolution

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Why it works

Relationship skills, another CASEL competency, include communication, cooperation, and constructive conflict resolution, and research links them to better peer relationships, less disruption, and stronger collaboration. Teaching students explicit steps for working through conflict, communicating needs, listening, finding a resolution, gives them tools to handle disagreements themselves, which reduces escalation and the load on the teacher.

The research: CASEL framework; research on conflict resolution skills.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

The core activity: teach a conflict-resolution routine

Teachers leave with explicit conflict-resolution steps to teach and practice.

Pick the relationship skills your class most needs: communication, cooperation, conflict resolution.
Teach explicit steps for working through a conflict: communicate, listen, perspective, resolve.
Model and practice them.
Plan how students use them independently.

Teach the steps, reduce the refereeingConflict resolution is a teachable skill. Give students explicit steps to communicate, listen, and resolve, and they handle more themselves.

Facilitator notes

Teach explicit steps, and model and practice them.
Build communication and listening.
Let students use them independently.

Refereeing every conflict teaches dependenceIf you resolve every conflict for students, they never learn to. Teach the skills and steps, and let them practice resolving themselves.

Adapt it

Elementary: feelings words, simple steps, practice.
Secondary: communication, perspective, mediation.
All settings: explicit steps, modeled and practiced.

Participant handout

One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

K12 Academics · Professional Learning

Relationship Skills: teach the steps

Tools for life and the classroom: communication, listening, and explicit conflict-resolution steps, practiced.

The relationship skills my class most needs:
The explicit conflict-resolution steps I will teach:
How I model and practice them:
How students use them independently:
Where I build communication and listening:

Make it stick

Steps, modeled and practiced:

Teach the steps.
Model and practice.
Bring students resolving a conflict themselves to the next PLC.

Common questions

Aren't conflict resolution skills something kids just pick up?

Some do, many do not. Explicitly teaching communication, listening, and conflict-resolution steps gives all students tools they can use.

What do I teach?

Communicating needs clearly, listening to understand, taking perspective, and steps for working toward a resolution both sides can accept. Model it and practice it.

Will this reduce how much I have to referee?

Over time, yes. Students who can resolve minor conflicts themselves bring fewer to you and escalate less often.