Restorative
Practice (RP) applied in my family
An attempt of a 7 year old trying to use RP to resolve a
conflict between her siblings.
Faith
(2 years old) was standing at the naughty corner for hitting her brother. She
has been standing there for about 5 mins. Our practice in the family is that
the child standing at the naughty corner needs to be able to tell us what
he/she had done wrong. Then, the child will need to apologise to the victim.
The victim will need to forgive the aggressor and let the aggressor out of the
naughty corner.
Emmanuel
(the victim) refused to let Faith out.
Natalie
(7yrs old) to Emmanuel ( 5 yrs old):
“ How
do you think she is feeling now?”
“she
is very sorry and must be sad now that you don’t let her out.”
“How
do you think you will feel if you are standing there?”
“How
would you feel if you have done something wrong, realise the mistake,
apologised and yet not forgiven?”
“So
what do you think you should do?”
Eventually,
after what Natalie said, Emmanuel let Faith out and apologised for being
insensitive.
This incident left an impression in my mind because our
family have been practicing RP which is a method of resolving conflict using a
series of questions ( to help with the thinking process) and dialogue to help
make things right. Though dialogue in the story is not strictly RP, but it
shows the attempt of Natalie to use RP to resolve a conflict between her siblings.
Though I have gone through a training on RP, my knowledge on RP is still very limited. I am still very new to this and still learning. But I find it
really useful to apply within the family context. I’m just sharing how I have
modified this technique and use it to resolve conflict among my children. Of
course, I am a strong believer of “spare the rod and spoil your kids” as I have
seen many examples of how spoilt some kids can be where parents do not believe
in punishment. However, the rod is always used as the last resort and RP is
always practice first. Ever since I learnt it.
So what is RP?
RP is a method which we can manage misbehaviour by helping the
child to identify what had happened, the impact of their action on others and
they can do to make things right.
One of the reasons my family adopts RP is because it helps
to restore, repair and strengthens relationship. My hubby believes in this
method too.
How RP
can be applied in a family context.
When a child misbehaves, we would ask them a series of
restorative questions. These questions serve to help the child think through
his/her action.
Regarding Misbehaviour:
o
What happened?
o
What were you thinking of at the time?
o
What have you thought of since?
o
Who has been affected by what you have done? In what way?
o
What do you think you need to do to make things right?
These are
very simple questions, yet it guides the child through the thinking process of
identifying what happened, his emotions and thoughts. It also helps the child
to identify the impact of his actions on others. Finally, to come to an
understanding and decide what he can do to make things right again.
As parents,
we should understand that a young child may not be in full control of his
emotions and actions. Therefore, it is for us to help the child to understand
what has happened and how to move on.
Circle Time
Restorative Circle Time is used when a very serious conflict happens.
Restorative Circle Time happens after I have addressed the aggressor using the
restorative questions and the victim’s needs has been attended to as well.
During this restorative Circle Time, I usually allow the aggressor to speak up
first to describe what has happened. Next, I will ask the victim to talk about
how he has been affected by the action of the aggressor. The aggressor will
then be given a chance to explain to the victim his actions (usually not
intentionally), apologised and attempt to make things right. My role as a
parent is to facilitate the dialogue.
After this
Restorative Circle Time, the children will have a better understanding of what
happened, perspective from both sides and it strengthens relationship as the
victim and aggressor can better empathize.
Circle Time
can also be used to build relationship in the family.
What do we do during family circle
time?
We usually
take turns to talk about different issues or topic.
For examples:
- When the kids
were younger, I put a piece of mah-jong paper at the center of the circle and
told everyone to draw about what family means to them. After which, each of us
will take turns to talk about what we have drawn.
- Also with a
piece of mah-jong paper, my family has each written what we each like most
about our family. Again, we took turns after that to talk about what we have
written.
- We also talked about what makes a good friend. In these conversations, we can get a good idea of what values they are looking at when they are making friends.
- Each of my
family has also been given a few small piece of square paper to draw or write
down our personal goals or what we want to achieve. These papers were later
piece together forming a mosaic.
- We have also
done our individual liking and hobbies.
- In the most
recent family circle time, we went in a circle to identify the strengths of
each family member. This did this as part of positive reinforcement.
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