I recently experienced conflict with a colleague who has different views about involving parents more in our kindergarten program. For example, for our lantern festival every year I would like to invite parents to our classroom so that they can decorate and paint the lanterns with their children before going on the lantern parade in the evening. I work in a German-Swiss International School so the lantern festival is a very important tradition for the families from Germany and Switzerland and therefore we organize this event at our school for them every year.
Her argument is that we have a lot of children and having that many parents in the classroom with their children working on the lanterns would be too much work and chaos. I, on the other hand, think it’s a great opportunity to involve parents in the classroom and making families important in the classroom. I understand how she feels and respect her opinion on this matter, and to some degree, I agree with her. However, I think that if we organize it well it will not create chaos and would benefit the families and children tremendously. Therefore I suggested to her that why not let each class decide for themselves what they would like to do. As she also sees my point of view and respects my opinion, she thought that this was a great idea and therefore from next year on each class can decide for themselves how they would like to go about painting and decorating the lanterns, and whether or not they would like to invite parents to help out. In this situation there were supportive climates, as we were both open to each other’s ideas and feelings (Dan O’Hair, 2015). This conflict was managed effectively and therefore this conflict was productive conflict (Dan O’Hair, 2015). Productive conflict fosters healthy debate and in this situation the productive conflict that we had indeed fostered healthy debate as we were able to both exchanges the pros and cons of involving parents (Dan O’Hair, 2015).
Reference
Dan O’Hair, M. W. (2015). Real Communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Laying a Solid Foundation for the Early Years 
Hi Lindie,
It sounds like you and your colleague found a meaningful and respectful compromise to this conflict. It will be interesting for you to see how it turns out next year when you each take a different approach to the decorating before the festival. I wonder if you are concerned about the response from the parents and the idea that the compromise could present more conflict? If some parents are not invited and would want to be this could create a different problem. I hope it all works out well for the families and for you and your colleagues.
Wendy
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We did the same for “Loy Krathong” which is a festival where you make beautiful flower krathongs that you float in the water in the evening to show respect for the water and water creatures. I invited my students’ parents to the classroom to help make their children’s krathongs and the other teacher preferred making them without the parents. We didn’t have any parents complain and it did work out very well.
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you and your colleague really have great communication and it was awesome that you were able to positively and productively come to an agreement about the festival. I believe that parent involvement is important but I can also understand how hectic it can be. Hopefully you all will find a way to involve the parents that will not make the festivities hectic.
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Approach the conflicts with an open mind and restraint our emotions and not let the feelings control us and stop assuming is to solve conflicts effectively and you and your colleague showed that both of you are open-minded.
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Great communication style. It was very interesting how you all used the productive conflict style. This allowed emotions and non-valid opinions to be place aside and whats important was place first.
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Hi Lindie,
I am glad that you were able to reach a compromise for the situation. Have you considered the parent reactions to your compromise? With some parents invited and others not invited, you may want to have a unified response to parents’ questions. Some families may be upset that they do not have the opportunity to participate. How you respond to their upset will be a key factor to their future perceptions of family involvement activities. Personally, I agree with you that if the activity is well organized it would be more beneficial than not to invite parents. It sounds like a great family involvement opportunity. If, however, your colleague does not feel comfortable organizing such an event, then it could be chaos and look unfavorably on your program. Seems like a compromise is the best solution to this unique situation. Best wishes with your event; sounds fun.
-Elizabeth Dupin
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Hi Elizabeth, I work in a school where teachers have a lot of freedom to make these kinds of decisions. It’s a Swiss style of managing. We did this for another festivity and it did work out quite well and parents did not complain about our different approaches.
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You two seemed to have reached a compromise to the conflict. Maybe another suggestion would be that each class picks a day that week to come in to decorate the lantern instead of the night of the event. That gives some parents an opportunity to come in at a more convenient time for them. Or even take the lantern home and do it as a family and have them bring it back in. It is always a relief when a resolution can be reached. What do you think is more stressful, finding the solution or implementing it even though it is not what you truly want?
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I think that either could be stressful and that the kind of situation will determine what will be more stressful for me personally.
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