JIN XUAN

One of our activity was conflict management role-playing. Through the role-play, the children displayed ways to manage conflicts. However, they still quarrelled with each other and required us to mediate their conflicts.

 

This activity was less effective in addressing depression. The children were not able to generalise conflict management skills to real-life situations. They are possibly ill-prepared to maintain healthy relationships. Role-playing was ineffective as children aged 7-11 lack the cognitive development to generalise learning from hypothetical situations (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2017). Therefore, they are unable to understand the importance of conflict management with regards to their socio-emotional development and mental health.

 

For activity to better address the risk of depression, I recommend to facilitate more sharing sessions before and after the roleplay (Wee, Shin & Kim, 2013). Before the roleplay, the sharing session could allow the children to open up about past experiences of conflict. The roleplay could then re-enact the past conflict, which allows children to realise that they have the ability to change their behaviour towards the past conflict. After the roleplay, the sharing session could facilitate children to discuss about how they can apply learnt skills to possible future conflicts. This would allow children to generalise learning from the roleplay better and visualise the effects of positive conflict management (Wee, Shin & Kim, 2013). Subsequently, they would be more inclined to practice better conflict management and maintain healthy relationships. With better relationships, the children receives stronger social support. This lowers their risks of depression.