What a different world from the days of my childhood! Filled with so many people who have no control of their emotions. Simple things can set them into a rage, whereby ultimately, the end result is some catastrophic event that will change their life (and many others’) forever. We are beginning to hear about it far too often. My take is that we have truly neglected to teach our young people the appropriate skills for conflict resolution. We’ve forgotten how important it is to prepare them for life among the multitude. In a world of multi-cultures, multi-opinions, multi-living styles and multi-parenting skills, we place our children at risk by not preparing them for the conflicts that will be inevitable in their lives. The last thing any well adjusted, sensible person should want to experience is the wrath of another who has lost control of their emotions and is bound to wreck havoc on us. If I am subjected to such a display, I’d rather walk away unhurt and alive, knowing I was able to appropriately de-escalate a potentially volatile situation. A very serious issue in so many schools around the world is bullying. Special attention is paid to aiding young people in gaining skills needed for conflict resolution. But, these lessons should not start when a child reaches school. These skills should be taught as early as possible whenever a social situation demands, and taught just as consistently as we might teach manners. The sad truth is that most of us don’t have a clue as to how to teach conflict resolution. And we have not learned or acknowledged that it is the greatest tool and skill for co-existence in our world today. What we fail to accept is that with the increase of population there are a great deal more attitudes and behaviors to bare. The conflicts seem more extreme and people are a great deal less compromising. We have not compensated for this onslaught of beings and behaviors, and because we are not prepared for these disruptive and invasive confrontations we become victims.
Even role models who accept responsibility for their position often fail to realize that their own inability to resolve issues may one day be reflected in the behaviors of their young onlookers. We forget that we are their learning tool. Even our world potentates struggle, with high intensity, to reach resolutions that will enable us to avoid world conflict and we ourselves see that they are not always successful.
My gut wants to share the thought that there is nothing more valuable in this world than the one life we have been given to live; not money, land, borders, or ideas. Life is the greatest gift of all. It is the only one we’re going to get. No substitutes! No replacements! It is horribly sad that so many people don’t recognize the greatness of that miracle. It is for our own sake that we engage ourselves in fulfilling this miracle, by not allowing our simple and resolvable misunderstandings to catapult us to our own demise.
It should be our task and responsibility to first learn and then dispense to our young people the appropriate dialogue, behaviors, and skills necessary to effectively live in this world filled with an immense multitude of humans, all of whom need to learn these same strategies. It would be a lesson well taught!……..and oh what a victory for peace!!
