Coping with conflict

Delta Primary School
!Gaoses Mapril

According to Monique Bester, a Grade 11 Deltarian, conflict resolution is a way for two or more parties to find a solution to a disagreement among them. Ashandré Beukes, another Grade 11 Deltarian, believes that when a dispute arises, often the best course of action is to negotiate as a means to resolve the dispute, because dialogue is the most effective way of solving conflict.

Joshua Sithole, a Grade 12 Deltarian elaborated more on Ashandre’s point by adding that combat should be your last resort to resolve conflict.

Conflict can present itself in two primary ways, man versus man and man versus self.

Respect is for those who deserve it not those who demand it but Joshua Sithole states, “the problem in our school is that people don’t understand the hierarchy, that you deserve respect for the wisdom you gained from the experiences you underwent and most often the older students or elder people have gained more life experiences and therefore deserve respect, although you earn respect we all have to have a certain level of respect for one another and our elders.” This is where parties clash. This is the conflict between man versus man.

When one party thinks they’re more deserving of respect because of age, maturity, wisdom or integrity, forgetting the golden rule of reciprocity. If you want respect you have to give it too.

People need to demonstrate that they are worthy of respect because as Albert Einstein once said, “unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”.

Resolve this conflict by allowing yourself to reflect on your own actions because you should behave towards others as you want to be treated. Never forget that behavior is universal.

A lot of how we interpret behavior is with cultural prejudice.

Contrary to popular belief, conflict is not only external. Simon Gabriel, a Grade 12 Deltarian declares, “inner conflict stems from ones insecurities that when who you are contradicts who you want to be the conflict arises”.

This, known to many, is what is known as man vs self. Fighting who you are and denying yourself certain liberties could cause frustration which ultimately makes way for man vs man conflict.

“I think too much. I think ahead. I think behind. I think sideways. I think it all. If it exists, I’ve thought of it,” said Winona Ryder. How to self-diagnose as a chronic over thinker. You second guess everything. You analyze things to death. You rarely have a thought by itself it’s more like thought a sub thought, playing devil’s advocate to this thought, a sub-sub thought and ideas about the thought process in general so you either end up over explaining or being entirely inarticulate.

You could stop overthinking using Sharon Martin’s method by writing it down, planning a time to think about it(15minutes), distracting yourself, firmly telling yourself “stop”, and asking yourself if you can change whatever you’re worrying about. The benefit to self-diagnosis is that you start to understand who you are and in that sense, avoid placing yourself in situations that bring about man vs self conflict.

Once you’ve diagnosed yourself as a chronic overthinker, learn to dial down the inner self-conflict so as to avoid man vs self conflict.