The Teacher's Role in Territorial Conflicts of 2- to 3-Year-Old Children

Abstract

The teacher's role in young children's conflicts is discussed on the basis of the literature and on the authors' study of children's territorial conflicts in Dutch and Finnish child care centers. Children's territorial conflicts stem from a classic problem in child care centers—the dilemma of children wanting to play together while also needing privacy. The data suggest that teachers indirectly influence the occurrence and seriousness of such conflicts by their organization of time, space, and material. Two types of interventions by teachers were distinguished: mediating strategies and high power strategies—both types of strategies being equally used. Mediating strategies involve modification (proposing changes within the logic of children's play script), avoiding prohibition rules, and appealing to verbal expression. High power strategies to restore order involve giving directives, reminders of rules, and simple (non-) verbal objections. A high power strategy ignores children's perspectives and can even aggravate their conflicts. Teachers who employ mediating strategies base their intervention on the (nonverbal) strategies of young children to de-escalate territorial conflicts.