Conflict Resolution

As much as we would like to prevent this, there is always going to be some type of conflict in our life. I believe it is up to us on how we choose to resolve and deal with the problems that we are presented with. My biggest conflict right now is with my significant other. As much as we care about each other there are things that cause us to not be able to get along. Like with any couple you have to think of ways to have productive conflict resolution. In this situation I would say this is unproductive conflict. Although we are trying to prevent this, unproductive conflict "has a negative impact on individuals and relationships involved." (O'Hair&Wiemann 2012).

We both were trying to figure out what it was that was causing our conflict, one of the biggest issues was our communication. We decided one of our strategies would be to channel our communication. "We don't think much about which available channel to choose in order to deliver a message"(O'Hair& Wiemann 2012) when speaking to one another. We learned there are times when communicating face to face may not be the best option in order to get our points across without upsetting the other so have decided to write letters exchange them and then talk about the feelings about what was read. 

In order for a relationship to be successful on has to be willing to compromise and be cooperative. We realized this was another effective conflict strategy for our relationship. Although we may different views on how things should done we agreed that attempting to hear the other persons point of view that maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle and be on a common ground and come to a resolution. 

Conflict can ruin peoples lives not only with the personal relationships but professionally to. It is very important to make sure we as educators have productive conflict resolution strategies in place to help keep things productive in our lives and work place. 

Resources:

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.