The Young Problem-Solver: Teaching Conflict Mediation to Kids

Attorney, certified mediator, and conflict resolution educator Catherine Wilhoit discusses how to bring problem-solving tools to young learners as early as possible. She explores how the philosophy of the "trained neutral," typically reserved for legal mediation, can be adapted into a teaching approach that empowers students to communicate effectively and resolve their own disagreements. Rather than relying on external authorities to impose outcomes, she advocates for a model that teaches kids to navigate their own paths toward productive, positive results. This conversation highlights the transformative potential of integrating mediation techniques into childhood education, fostering a foundation for healthy conflict engagement throughout life.

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. If you've ever felt the burning frustration of a group project where you did all the work while others took the credit, you've experienced social loafing. This is the phenomenon where individual effort decreases as the group size increases.

It explains why some teams and committees often accomplish so little. In the 1890s, researcher Max Ringelmann discovered this with a simple rope-pulling experiment. He found that individuals pulled hardest when they were alone. By the time they had eight people pulling together, each person was only contributing about half of their original capacity.

We don't usually just decide to slack off. It's not conscious. Our effort automatically adjusts downward when we feel our individual contribution is hidden in the collective. Social loafing strains our most important relationships. Families, when everyone is [00:01:00] responsible for a task, it often means that nobody is.

In the workplace, group brainstorming sessions often produce fewer ideas per person than individual reflection because people can hide in the crowd or be afraid of social sanction. Even our democracy can suffer from this. As the electorate grows, individuals feel their single vote matters less, leading to decreased engagement.

To fight social loafing, we have to make the invisible visible. Whether at home or in the office, clear individual assignments work far better than vague collective responsibility. In your next conflict about unequal contributions, remember, the slacker might not be lazy. They might just be responding to a group dynamic that lacks accountability.

Sometimes the best solution isn't more people, but fewer people who have nowhere to hide. I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on When We Disagree is Kathryn Willhoite. Kathryn is an attorney, a certified [00:02:00] mediator, and a conflict resolution educator.

Kathryn, tell us an argument story. 

Catherine Wilhoit : First, thank you so much for having me here today. I really appreciate being on my favorite podcast. So this is absolutely a treat, Mike. 

Michael Lee: Thank you. 

Catherine Wilhoit : When you posed that question to me, what came to mind wasn't necessarily a dis- disagreement that I had, but rather lots of disagreements that are constantly floating around in my mind because my purpose and objective, academically and practically, is to bring problem-solving and conflict resolution skills to people as early as I can and as effectively as I can.

So that's what I'm here today to talk about. 

Michael Lee: Talk to me about, in a general sense, what a conflict resolution skill is. 

Catherine Wilhoit : Specifically as far as my expertise goes, I am a mediator. A mediation occurs when someone who is a trained neutral helps disputants to resolve their [00:03:00] problem in the best way for them.

So your job isn't necessarily to impose a resolution. It's to gain an understanding of the issue and help them walk through their thoughts and their problem for themselves so that they can have a productive line of thinking and come to a positive result. 

Michael Lee: Trained neutral? Say more about trained neutral.

Catherine Wilhoit : So when you're a mediator in a big-picture sense, where you would traditionally see mediation is- ... when you're in a contentious legal dispute, and as opposed to having someone like a judge or an arbitrator make a determination for you, you might endeavor to work with a neutral who will help you communicate effectively with the other party- and come to a decision for yourself, which is, in my opinion, in everyone's best interest, and and frankly, that's what I hear judges say as well. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. Can you give us an example, either real or hypothetical, that would illustrate the role of these conflict de-escalation or conflict resolution skills in action?

Catherine Wilhoit : [00:04:00] Yeah, absolutely. A great example would be, and I think one that would most broadly hit home, would be a contentious divorce. Okay. If you have, of course, a highly personal issue, civil issues, vary as to how personal they are, but if you're dealing, for example, with a divorce and it's your personal livelihood and your children and your home and so many things on the line, you run the risk of making decisions that don't serve your interest and will fail to alleviate the dispute.

And so mediation principles can be used, a neutral can be brought in to help you work out a solution that works for both parties and that will will avoid a decision-maker having to make that determination for you. But to be frank, although I'm a trained mediator, I'm more interested in bringing these skills in as early as we can, and for me, that means starting with kindergartners and working our way up.

Michael Lee: I wanna get to the [00:05:00] broader adaptability of conflict resolution for adults, for kids, for kindergarten, but stay with me on the legal side just for a second so I can understand this. So you and I are getting divorced. We bring in a trained neutral, and then what happens? 

Catherine Wilhoit : And then the neutral will hear confidentially from each side and- There are a lot of different schools of thought about how to go about this.

There are different different kinds of mediators that you can hire, but a facilitative structure, a facilitator will help you sort through what issues that you have, help you prioritize them- ... and help you negotiate with the other side so that you have your best shot and the other size ha- other side has their best shot of an outcome that's livable for both of you.

And on an academic level when you're talking about programs that are typically in schools and that kind of thing, it's not uncommon, for example, in a middle school to see a mediation program- ... where [00:06:00] preteens and teens or even high schoolers will first select a small group of students to train as neutrals, and then they will allow for other disputants, students to come in and see them so they can help them through this process.

Sit at a table together and have a facilitator help them work through their problems. But in my opinion, that is waiting too long and approaching students in the wrong place with the wrong mentality to learn what they need to learn from the skill set. 

Becoming a mediator is its own skill set.

Participating in mediation is separate and apart from that. 

Michael Lee: Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about that skill set then and at what age do you think it's appropriate for kids to start learning that? 

Catherine Wilhoit : Yeah, absolutely. So the skill set, in my opinion, is best brought in... I can give you examples of how you could integrate important skills, and those would be communication skills, reframing problems as [00:07:00] goals finding commonality when you can, and when you have that objective, finding all of the options, generating as many options as you can so that you can evaluate them thoughtfully through consequence.

And there are ways to stair-step your way to that competency. I've been working with my own son, my six-year-old, for as long as I can remember, and it may look, at a young age as small as speaking to him about what his choices say rather than what his actions say or his voice is saying.

And so I build tools to expand children's understanding of how they can communicate, work collaboratively to identify problems- ... teach them to reframe them as goals, and then put them to work in creative ways to come up with as many options as they can to create resources. 

Michael Lee: And you do this in workshops, in class, in after-school programs?

How is the curriculum delivered? 

Catherine Wilhoit : Man, I have skinned that cat in so many- ... different ways [00:08:00] over the years. This is a 15-year endeavor for me- Okay ... that began with an externship in law school to train students as mediators and to run a program. 

But when I can, I love to work with whole grade levels of children that are meeting each other in the same place, face the same challenges, and have a vested interest in caring about one another and building a community.

Because that's what these skills bring when they're brought neutrally, and they're brought proactively, as opposed to the example that we started with, like a divorce mediation or even traditional mediation programs. One of the flaws that I see and saw, was toying with the notion that people can learn effectively from their own problems, which is a very high-level skill.

I like to think that if you're going to teach someone to be a mediator or about mediation, you shouldn't catch them in their most contentious moments when their mind is going bananas and with only their [00:09:00] resolution in mind. Instead, to incentivize them to think proactively about problems that will likely occur, and in a neutral way that doesn't feel personal or feel like you have exposure in that regard, to create resources, in other words, to collect a bank of solutions so that you can consider those solutions in your time of need and expand your understanding of your options before you make a choice.

Michael Lee: I went to elementary school at Margaret Willis Elementary. Shout out to Fayetteville, North Carolina. And let's just role play this out. You get two hours after school every day for a week at Margaret Willis Elementary, and you find my smiling face amidst many others in the audience in this two-hour after-school program, Monday through Friday.

What does that Monday through Friday look like for us first-graders? 

Catherine Wilhoit : For me, I don't program in the same place for a long [00:10:00] period of time. The structure that I have found over the years that works best for me personally as I have been developing this framework is to work with students, with consistency if I can, for four or five days back to back.

I have made a study of education and child psychology and many other things that are fascinating to me and that serve this work, although, of course, not a part of my traditional credentials. But I have found that you have to first connect with the student. So day one might be me making my best effort to connect with them on a personal level, to build trust, and that means introducing myself to each of them individually.

I write children's stories that help Bring about trust with the students and that, that highlight some problems that educators identify with frequency and give them solutions, but also get to show them something really creative. And then I [00:11:00] bring in a tool that is my all-time greatest hits favorite tool-

the judges ask me for, too- All right ... on occasion. And I call it the four corners of communication, and it goes thus. I proffer to these students that there are four corners in which they can communicate, verbally, non-verbally, with their creativity, and with their choices. And I set them to work. Your job is a neutral, and what I am trained to do is not to impose an opinion or a solution to the students, but to let them fill in those blanks for themselves.

So with games and excitement and with encouragement, I allow them, first independently, then in small groups, and then as a whole class- ... come up with as many ways as they can think to communicate as possible. That same tool is then used again in the following days where I ask them to identify problems that exist in their community most prominently, which I graph out and I [00:12:00] give to the administration and the teachers and the kids and anyone else who's interested in understanding where they perceive their problems to be.

And we learn to reframe them as goals in those following classes and use that same simple framework to generate as many approaches as they can think about to meet those needs. 

Michael Lee: What kinds of problems do kids map out? 

Catherine Wilhoit : Man, they offer me so many insightful issues, and it's been interesting to me on an academic level and also on a human level to watch this over the years, to see as children will begin to identify things like issues that they experience on social media and stuff like that because when I started, this was not so much a thing.

But because I have pushed younger and younger, their problems are so real and so true. They tend to identify things like loneliness or struggling with their [00:13:00] schoolwork or not being able to make friends or not knowing what to do when their friends or loved ones are sad, or most prominently these days, how to handle their big feelings, their anger and their frustration or their sadness.

But the beautiful thing about it is that I have also found that there, there are no more capable people than children when it comes to generating hundreds of ways to meet the objectives that we find there. 

Michael Lee: Okay. There I am, fresh out of Margaret Willis, coming to one of your seminars and workshops- And you say, "Map out some problems."

I say I'm really... maybe I'm new at school, and I'm struggling to make friends, or I feel lonely, or I feel like I've left a bunch of friends at my o- other hometown where I just moved from." How do you reframe that problem as a goal? 

Catherine Wilhoit : So first, it wouldn't come from you personally. Okay. I find it advantageous you can work [00:14:00] with personal problems, it, but in terms of building the skill set, I wouldn't say, "Mike is here, and he's really lonely-" He's really lonely

"so let's work on that-" ... "because he..." It would be tainted. And they would say, "I couldn't believe it. He's such a nice guy. He couldn't possibly have trouble making friends." It's... 

Michael Lee: I know. 

Catherine Wilhoit : For real. But if that is a problem that we wanna tackle, the kids will be the ones to reframe it, but more typically, they'll say, "I want more friends in my life."

Or, "I want stronger relationships," or, "I wanna meet new people." And because those kids are the experts, which is i- incredible to think about, but they are the most expert ones to identify resources and ways that they can connect with one another. It is impactful to you, Mike, as a little one, to sit in a room with a room full of kids that are your peers, to watch them offer up suggestions as to how you could connect with them- using your home space and everything that they've got to throw at it. And the other beauty of a young mind is that they are [00:15:00] unembarrassed and endlessly incentivized to want positive attention from one another. So putting them to work is the best thing that, that you can do, in my opinion. 

Michael Lee: What are your biggest challenges, both in terms of the larger curriculum and in terms of specific buy-in with populations you work with?

Catherine Wilhoit : My challenge, my biggest challenges so far have been, first, development, and it has been painstaking over years to make sure that I am being thoughtful and mindful about best practices and skill sets and learning a lot of things that, as a lawyer, I was not necessarily trained to do. But now I think my challenge becomes, how do I take this initiative and the distillation of this very big concept that I touched alongside judges as a legal extern that's typically reserved for the highest-thinking elites, and [00:16:00] persuade people that we should be teaching this younger, that community-building is worthwhile, and that logic-based thinking should be, and studies show that it should be, overtly taught to every child as young as we can get them?

And in terms of wrapping that all into the notion of mediation, which is dealing with disputants, the second tool that I bring in, the option-based tool, the four corners of communication, helps you generate options The next step that I don't introduce in kindergarten, it's for older students, and when I say older, second, third, fourth, fifth grade.

Literacy tends to be very helpful in this regard so that you don't have to have a scribe or that kind of thing. 

But they then begin to, since they've already done the hard work that a mediator would do to help them reframe as a goal- 

... 

Catherine Wilhoit : To generate a lot of neutral options to think about, they pick one to consider the consequences of, and then they put it to action.

So if you're in a [00:17:00] dispute, and you have, I call it a choice map where you have worked your way down and you have found your common goal, then I think it's as simple as finding the options that you can collectively work with. That's what mediation really is. It's finding the places of agreement and writing them down.

So as opposed to traditional student-run mediation programs where you have to start from scratch and you don't have resources or tools, and you're not thinking neutrally, and you're in your fight or flight mode, you start with resources that help you find agreement more readily, and it makes it a much more productive conversation.

Michael Lee: You're the founder of Conflict Resolution For Kids, organization that promotes and teaches your curriculum. Let's pretend for a moment that you're wildly successful in this endeavor. 

Catherine Wilhoit : Here's hoping. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. And schools across America are commissioning Conflict Resolution For Kids, and from your new house in Saint-Tropez, you can [00:18:00] look at the world that you've been able to build.

What's your hope if you are able to create Conflict Resolution For Kids at a grand scale at these K through five levels? 

Catherine Wilhoit : Conflict Resolution For Kids is a nonprofit, so I don't know if I'll be in Saint-Tropez but we can hope. Fair. 

Michael Lee: Fair. 

Catherine Wilhoit : But in terms of what I hope, I have done so many gut checks over the years because, in truth, this is not a traditional path.

I, when I started out in law school, I love kids. I've always wanted to work with them, but that more traditionally means family law or guardian work or that kind of thing, which can be taxing, and I have sat. I've been fortunate enough to have been given a lot of legal professionals who handle really difficult situations on behalf of kids, and I grew to see this- the advantage of this early.

And I've done gut check after gut check with professionals in education and in health because your mental health and your conflict resolution skills end up leaving you a healthier human. [00:19:00] So it's advantageous in that way. And so what I want is to spread this kind of thinking and collaborate if I can with those in the field who have something to add and to grow this initiative.

Beyond that, I want to start studying how children encounter problems and when and what solutions that they generate so that I can program and so that collectively we can better understand how and when children encounter troubles and assist them in resolving them and building the skill set. Because again, it's not about imposing your understanding.

It's about helping them learn to think for themselves in an effective way and trust one another, communicate more effectively. 

Michael Lee: In the end, the pitch is this will help children learn themselves and cooperate better with one another. 

Catherine Wilhoit : That's the hope. Absolutely. And these are essential skills and it's in the community's best interest [00:20:00] to speak a common language and to have a common objective.

And I will say that over the years, I have tested this notion that, some folks, I guess if we were to start back where we began with a disagreement, I have run into folks who believe that children are not interested in learning how to help one another. But when I go in even to middle schools and middle school is a tough audience.

I like elementary schoolers for a lot of reasons, but even when I go into middle schools and I ask them, how many of you guys want to come in on a weekend and learn how to be a problem solver? An administrator might guess maybe 20 out of 300. But the truth is, if I ask them and I give them a piece of paper to write down yay or nay, I think the last time I did that, 280 of them wanted to do it because they want positive attention from their peers.

And even those that we as adults would perceive as difficult children, they're the ones I would think that most greatly benefit [00:21:00] from this line of thinking and the ability to use what they have in their heart. And there is nothing wrong with even the silliest answers to contribute to do something positive.

Michael Lee: Catherine Wilhoit, thank you so much for being on When We Disagree. 

Catherine Wilhoit : Thank you for having me. 

Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at whenwedisagree at gmail.com.