[00:00:13.140] – Speaker 1
Well, hey everyone! I’m Chris Tompkins, and welcome to the Shaping Our World podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading thinkers and practitioners and offer some resources to help you dive deeper into the world of our youth today. Today we have Kathleen Hilchey on the show. Kathleen is a conflict specialist, mediator, and educator. She’s the founder of Strong and Kind and Third Way Conflict Specialists, which are organizations dedicated to helping young people, families, schools, camps build healthier relationships by teaching conflict resolution skills and addressing bullying in meaningful ways. Through Strong and Kind camps, she equips camp staff to build emotionally safe and connected communities. Kathleen has spent more than a decade teaching in the Ontario public school system and has worked with young people all throughout the world in outdoor education, the Tim Hortons Foundation Youth Leadership Programme, the Brantford Boys and Girls Club, and with at-risk youth in Nunavut, Canada. She’s passionate about turning research into practical tools that parents, educators, and camp leaders can use immediately. She also founded The Village School, a micro-school inspired by her own family’s journey to create a learning environment where neurodiverse children can thrive.
[00:01:45.870] – Speaker 1
I can’t wait for you to hear this conversation with Kathleen. There are so many practical tools that she’s developed that will be really helpful as we think about building relationship skills and managing conflict and making sure our kids can thrive in the world they live in today. Kathleen, it’s great to have you on the show today.
[00:02:06.750] – Speaker 2
So happy to be here today, Chris.
[00:02:08.530] – Speaker 1
Those of us who are tracking with the show may recognise your surname, and we kind of evolved in interviewing your husband earlier in one episode, and then we found out what you did and we were like, Oh my goodness, we need to have Kathleen on the show because her context is going to be really relevant for us, and particularly for me as a camp person, and some of the work you do. Really looking forward to the conversation. So, we’ll dive into that in a minute, but let’s get started. Our listeners know that based on the title of our podcast, we want to know what’s shaping your world and what has shaped your world. So, when you were growing up, what were the biggest influences in your life?
[00:02:46.150] – Speaker 2
So I want to say camp. I worked in day camps. I didn’t really go to camp, interestingly. I worked in day camps. I started one at my cottage for 4 summers and then worked at a sports camp. But when I turned 16, I had the chance— I mean, it was amazing chance to go to Lakefield College School. And for your listeners that know, we sort of called it camp school. And so I had the first experience of being away from home in a camp-like environment. The school is beautiful. It’s on a lake. It was all, almost all outdoor ed, and it completely changed my life, which then dove me into working at overnight camps after that for about 6 or 7 years.
[00:03:29.730] – Speaker 1
It’s amazing. And we’re gonna dive into camp in our conversation a little bit, but maybe tell us what’s shaping your world today. What are your hobbies, interests? Help us to get to know you a little bit better.
[00:03:42.340] – Speaker 2
So, I am a mom, which I think probably a lot of your listeners will understand. I have 3 kids of my own. 2 of them are diagnosed with autism and ADHD and pretty high anxiety. And so, my life is sort of taken up with them. We pulled them from school a couple of years ago and started our own microschool. And so, I’m now a teacher during the day for them and 3 other families and a mom in the afternoon. I try really hard to work out and hang out with my friends too, but momming these sort of special brilliant brains is, uh, takes up most of my time.
[00:04:21.630] – Speaker 1
I, I can only imagine. And so with even that, you have time to do some other stuff. So tell us a little bit about how you’re shaping the world of young people, kids, adolescents, families, even outside the work you do with the school and your own kids.
[00:04:37.540] – Speaker 2
Yeah, so I am a conflict specialist outside of the teacher role. I’m a trained mediator, and I do two things in that role. One is I work directly with families or individuals who are being bullied or who are doing bullying, and I help them break down— so I do something called conflict coaching, and I break down, um, sort of the dynamics that go on within those relationships so that they can end quite quickly. The other piece of my work is I do training and I train mostly camps, but I also go into schools and work with mental health professionals and parents and train them on some of the tools that we’re going to talk about today to just make life easier. I mean, life is so complex right now, and I’ve stumbled on a few things that, that make all these super confusing drama-induced times much better, much quicker.
[00:05:32.170] – Speaker 1
So I want to dive right into that. Through your Strong and Kind Camps programme, you help camp staff, camp counsellors to develop healthier camp communities. I want to start just by like, why camps? Like, what do you think is it about camp, the camp world, that helps young people with resilience, empathy, relational skills, emotional skills? What’s the uniqueness about camps that enable you to really get in there and help shape this?
[00:06:02.650] – Speaker 2
Oh, that’s such a big question. And there’s so many answers. I’m going to try to be succinct. Um, I think camp is one of the most magical spaces there is in our society. Nowhere else do we get to go for, I don’t know, depending on your camp, 5 days, 9 days, one month, and the only things you are really doing is interacting with others and learning how to do that better and stretching yourself to find who you truly are. And I think the, the beauty of overnight camp is that, you know, we’re all unique individuals and we’re really developed by our families first and foremost. A really good camp though is gonna have values and boundaries and experiences that stretch you into that individual part of who you are. I did a lot of studying of camping. I, I actually took a master’s and took, uh, camp games and put them into a classroom to try to see like, could we develop community just by using this one tool that most camps use? To help create positive communities, and it worked beautifully. Bullying went down, conflict went down, relationships increased. And in one period a day for half a term, students made friends that they kept all the way through high school.
[00:07:31.570] – Speaker 2
So then imagine for, for the kids who are going to Muskoka Woods, for example, and who are maybe there multiple years, think of the impact on them if like one period a day could make lifelong friendships. I mean, it’s just such a beautiful environment for kids to be able to go to.
[00:07:50.710] – Speaker 1
Before we get back to the conversation, I want to let you know about a great opportunity for families. Muskoka Woods is giving away one free week of camp for a child aged 6 to 16 in the summer of 2027. That’s a camp experience valued at $2,250, including all accommodations, meals, activities, new friendships, friendships and more fun than you can imagine. At Muskoka Woods, young people grow in confidence, try new challenges, and make memories that last long after the summer ends. And entering is easy. Just visit muskokawoods.com/winaweek. You’ll need to fill out a form and confirm your email. No purchase is necessary, and the winner will be drawn on March 3rd, 2027. That’s MuskokaWoods.com/WinAWeek. Enter today. We were just talking about community with our team the other day, and I love all the way you unpacked it, that unique environment. Like, where else do you have kids for a week and staff, you know, young adults who are in their 20s kind of work— well, staff would work, kids don’t— but they play, they eat, they sleep, they do all the things in life together in a cabin group. And for our staff, they work, they, you know, got to take care of themselves.
[00:09:26.860] – Speaker 1
They need to eat, they need to sleep, they need to do all that. And then they’re in this shared environment together. And there is some beauty in that. But what we were talking about is like, it’s, it’s a bit messy. You know, you got 10 weeks in the same shared space with people you’re not always choosing to live with. And so inevitably conflict comes up in that. And whether it’s in a camp cabin with kids that are there for a week from diverse backgrounds and unique perspectives, different parenting, they come in and they’re adapting to a camp environment or staff over the course of a summer. Inevitably conflict will come up. So can you maybe help us with this idea of conflict resolution? What do you tell camp counsellors? What are some pieces of advice or tools you give them to help manage the conflict that often comes up when human beings coexist together, particularly young ones?
[00:10:26.470] – Speaker 2
Totally, totally. Okay, so, um, The first thing is we often, when a conflict really explodes, as we all know, emotions are high. And I have something called the Kleenex box analogy, because often when we’re in that height, we then try to resolve it. And I actually think probably the most successful tool I have is to take time away and feel the feelings that we have about the conflict that happened and all the things that happened before. What we often do instead is we go to pick up a toolbox. We try to solve the problem really, really quickly. And when we try to solve that problem and emotions are high, we might pick up a hammer. And so my, you know, the analogy is if you pick up a hammer and the Kleenex hasn’t been doled out enough, we get snot all over the hammer. So we’ve picked up the wrong tool. We’ve put emotions all over the tool that might have been useful. So step one always is to like separate and just give out Kleenex for whatever the feelings are—mad, sad, embarrassed, angry—and we only feel those feelings. And like camp is the most beautiful place to feel feelings.
[00:11:46.500] – Speaker 2
We can go sit next to a tree. We can go for a hike. We can go swimming or like get our emotions out by playing basketball. There’s so many things that we can do. To release the emotions that are not like, sit down and write in my journal. Although that’s helpful, but not everyone has those tools, right? So if the counsellor can think, okay, these two kids cannot be together, what can I do to separate so that we’re dealing with feelings and we’re just letting them out so that they can become calm? And now we get the right tool. The other thing that I recommend, and you know, it might be helpful for parents to hear too, like I, I often don’t recommend bringing the kids together. I often recommend solving it separately. Like, what is each person’s solution? I’m really listening to the kid and then resolving it. So we, we like separate, we feel, Kleenex, and then the toolbox that we pick up is like, separate, what do you think is a solution to this problem? And only then do we have solutions, we come back together. Similarly with staff, right? Somebody is, I don’t know, brushing their teeth and putting water all over the sink and it’s driving them crazy.
[00:13:00.610] – Speaker 2
They’ve got to feel those feelings before they snap about the water on the sink. So, feel the feelings, come up with a solution, and then engage.
[00:13:08.770] – Speaker 1
That’s really good. And I think it speaks to really wise insight because we, you know, we do— adults, kids, we want to resolve things really quickly. Like, I think we, when something feels uncomfortable for us, we want to move so quick to a solve. And to your point, sometimes we’re not always in the right emotional state to see what we’re really trying to solve or how we’re feeling. So I do love that. I think that that’s a really, really great practise and one that I, you know, I’m going to continue to encourage our staff to see through.
[00:13:43.330] – Speaker 2
So oftentimes when we have a problem and we pick up a tool quickly and it like puts a Band-Aid on the solution, The problem is going to reemerge because the emotions are still there. So if you want to think about like the fact that every single time there’s a problem, there’s a Kleenex box part to the problem and a toolbox part to the problem. And so if like your listeners can think about like a time that they solved a problem, quote unquote, but they couldn’t get over it, they were like, it’s like, oh, I’m holding on to these emotions. I can’t like feel better even though my life is better. I still feel bad. It’s because they’re not using their Kleenex box enough. So if with our kids, we can just centre the feelings first, then when we find a solution, it’s like actually over. It’s not gonna necessarily pop up again. That’s so good.
[00:14:34.910] – Speaker 1
I think one of the tensions for us as adults who care for kids is when we see them in that conflict, and I know this has been true for every generation, it feels like maybe a bit heightened right now, like we wanna swoop in right away to solve it and fix it immediately. Totally. What would you say to a parent who’s calling camp, hears their kids is in some conflict in their cabin, and they are like wanting us to address it like in the millisecond. And we’ve trained our staff to say, it’s a big property, we’ve gotta find the kids, we’re gonna have conversations, we need to, you know, we wanna work a bit of a process that we’ve used for 20 years and plus and revised. We kind of know what to do, but there’s this like immediacy, like parents will keep calling and keep calling and going, how’s this been resolved? How’s this been resolved? And we’re like, we just need a little time. Is there any tools or tips that you can give parents who are feeling that anxiousness about solving their kids’ conflicts right away?
[00:15:31.660] – Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Can I just say first that I was that parent, so I teach this stuff and like my kid got bullied and I marched into the school and I, you know, I’m talking to his preschool teacher and I am I’m fired up and my finger is wagging in her face. And this sweet soul of a woman is so shocked because I’m, you know, you can imagine I’m like usually quite tempered and I’m forgiving and I’m generous and whatever. But I had to realise that I was triggered by my son’s conflict. So what I say, you know, what would I say to the parents? I would say, first of all, like, I understand. 100% do I understand, and I just, I feel for you because it’s so hard. You have given your babies to this other environment and you don’t actually have too much control. So just know that that is true. And then the next step is, what are your strategies to help yourself calm down? Because you don’t have control in this moment. You cannot figure it out. You are not there to solve it. So I want you to look inwards and think, what are the things that I do or that maybe I did before I had kids?
[00:16:46.750] – Speaker 2
Because some of us, myself included, who have gotten so wrapped up in our kids because we needed to, we forget who we were before. Well, now you have the opportunity to do that. Do you need to call a friend and vent? Do you have a partner that you can lean on? Do you need to go for a run or a bike ride? Do you need to go meditate or pray? Do you need to do some art? What are those things that bring you back to you? And I would highly recommend those. The other piece is like, it could be that there’s some trauma in there for you. And so this might be, you know, I often think like, oh, I’m, I’m triggered. I guess this is an opportunity to figure out how to heal, which is so annoying, but also helpful. Think about like, when did I have a similar situation as my kid? Where is this in my past? And then if you have a therapist, you call your therapist. If you don’t have a therapist, maybe this is a time to talk about it. You can journal about it. You can tell your friends about this, like, moment that happened when you were a kid and you felt alone and your parents didn’t help.
[00:17:50.790] – Speaker 2
So there’s like a series of things that you can do that don’t include you calling. The other thing that might be helpful is to to say to the camp the next time, you know, you arrange a scheduled check-in, maybe the next day, to see how things are going. And you can say to them, I’m really nervous right now, can you reassure me? Like, ask the— be vulnerable and ask, can you reassure me? Like, what are the steps that you’re going to take? Take some notes so that you can reread those notes or record the conversation so that you can go back and hear their reassuring voice that they are taking this super seriously because it’s very hard.
[00:18:32.710] – Speaker 1
It’s very hard. It is. And admittedly, sometimes on our end, there are things that come up that sometimes get missed, or, you know, delays come in to solving things because of the camp life, and it doesn’t get the attention right away. But generally speaking, like, we’re usually on it, you know, and we care about the kids and their well-being in the cabin. And so we’re working through it, and sometimes these things just do take time. So I love— that’s a really good piece of advice. We had a speaker come into our full-time staff named Steve Cuss, who wrote the book Managing Leadership Anxiety, and his whole premise is that so often when we feel anxious in something, we’re actually picking up the anxiety of somebody else, and then it’s speaking to our own stuff. So that’s a perfect example, like our kids are struggling and there’s something going on. But that our anxiety is, yes, it’s because we care about our kids, but it’s usually tapping into something else that is going on with us. You know, we can’t protect our kids well enough, or there’s, you know, something that— a message that’s going through our heads that is kind of heightening our own anxiety.
[00:19:40.650] – Speaker 1
And his advice as leaders is always like, yeah, we work on our own anxiety first before we enter back in to the anxiety that’s in the room or the space between others or in them or however that looks. And we’ve always used that as a great guide for our own full-time staff and our senior people to say, you walk into a room and, or a situation and you can feel yourself getting heightened is like, ask yourself a few questions first. Why is it, why am I getting worked up here? What’s, you know, I feel like I’m not being heard. What’s that about? You know, so asking good questions of ourselves. And like you said, taking the time to process some of our our own stuff in that will help us enter in to make sure we get the resolution that everybody wants and needs rather than, you know, picking up the wrong tool at the wrong time, I think.
[00:20:30.890] – Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s like all that Kleenex box work. Yeah, you know, you’ve done your job, you’ve alerted the camp, and now you gotta go get all that Kleenex out. It’s so annoying.
[00:20:41.150] – Speaker 1
But I will say, you’ve said it, it’s, it’s hard, right? It’s easier said than done. I’ve told so many parents on the phone to do that, encourage them, and then my daughter’s in and I’m like, “Grrr,” you know, myself. So— Totally. Yeah, it’s more difficult. I wonder if you can help us get a bit more of a lens or a view into where conflict is today. Like, there is some uniqueness, I think, to this time in life. Can you maybe describe it from your perspective in all of your work? Sure.
[00:21:12.280] – Speaker 2
So, I mean, when I started really into this work, when I was teaching high school, so about 20 years ago, And at that time it was very normal, like girls were catty and boys were physical. And over time, uh, what we know is like the, the kids who are reacting with physical harm typically drop outta school by about grade 10, and the chances of ending up in the jail system is quite high. The dynamic has changed. More boys are now acting more manipulatively. And so they, they’re falling through the cracks with their conflict management or with their, their, you know, they’re not getting necessarily punished because they’re, they’re leaning into lying and manipulating. That is much easier now with, uh, devices. I know having worked at a school and having worked in different camps, depending on their policies around screens, Things get real messy real fast with screens. The school that I was at was willing to suspend people for things that happened outside of school. So let’s say there was bullying at a party or there’s online chats going on, they were willing to, to suspend kids. And so bullying was significantly less at our public school than it was in most of the other high schools.
[00:22:30.110] – Speaker 2
A lot of the schools that I work with are not willing to look at what’s happening on screens, and I think that that causes a huge tangled mess. What I’m seeing post-pandemic are groups of kids, teens, and young adults who are missing human relationship skills. And so we’re seeing, let’s say, older teenagers act like we would imagine middle schoolers act, because that time where we were offline We were just missing the time connecting and learning like, oh, if I say this really mean thing, like, this is the response I’m going to get and then I’m going to get in trouble by my mom and I don’t want that. And so I’m going to be a nicer version of myself. We’re also missing kind of like the finessing tools that those of us who are adults have when it comes to having a conversation. We’re not necessarily seeing that, especially in our teens and our young adults. And so things are getting messier, more intense, more dramatic than ever before. What we know from research is like, especially for those of you who are parents who’ve got littles, aggression is increasing in schools. And part of that I think is missing skills.
[00:23:47.240] – Speaker 2
And I think part of it is missing supports at school. So I, you know, I was saying to you, Chris, earlier, I wish we could say we’re out of our mental health crisis. But we’re not, we’re still in it. And this aggression, this uptick in aggression, either like verbal interpersonal aggression or physical aggression that we’re seeing is just mental health issues playing themselves out.
[00:24:10.090] – Speaker 1
You mentioned in that answer just the lack of relational skills or maybe just them not being as formed as maybe they once were. When you approach topics like bullying, you talk about that one of the ways we can address bullying is actually helping kids with conflict skills around that. Can you talk about that connection and why that’s kind of an important way into the topic of bullying? Yeah, sure.
[00:24:41.250] – Speaker 2
So, so often people will say, like, was the kid rude? Were they mean? Or were they bullying? We’ve got a lot of policies in our schools. I mean, depends if your kids are at private school, depends on the private school. But in public, the public system, there’s very clear guidelines around bullying. There are not clear guidelines around being mean. And if staff are overworked or you are exhausted or maybe you’re hitting a mental health low, we’re not dealing with the rudeness. Now, rudeness is actually a kid who interacts in a way that’s not appropriate, but it’s actually not intentional. So one day I showed up at my kid’s school And my adorable little 4-year-old, you know, marches up to me, puts her hands on her hips and says to me, and I’m not going to say the word, but I’ll say the first letter, where the F have you been? And I was like, oh, pardon me? Yeah. So I actually asked her to repeat herself because I couldn’t believe that I, and she said it again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what we need to do in that moment is take a moment to do the teaching.
[00:25:47.750] – Speaker 2
Right? So I said, “That’s not a word that little girls say. It’s actually very shocking. You know, you might hear this somewhere, but we need to not say it because it’s going to cause a big issue.” Right? So now she knows this is not appropriate. So should she say it again, now this is mean. And a few days later at dinnertime, I was in the kitchen doing something and she says in her strong voice, “Pass the effin’ bananas.” Okay, so now she’s being mean because now she knows. Mean though is a huge spectrum and it goes, you know, from a little thing like what my daughter did all the way to like harassment. And if we’re not dealing with the mean, then that mean is going to turn into bullying because a kid just doesn’t know how to be. They’re trying to exist. They’re trying to make sense of the world. They’re trying to get power. They’re trying to have friends. And if there aren’t value boundaries, which at school sometimes there can’t be because the teachers are overwhelmed or, you know, Kid X is having another meltdown, if we as parents are not putting in those limits for the mean, then our kids are learning, I have to be mean to interact.
[00:26:59.820] – Speaker 2
And so then it can slip into bullying.
[00:27:02.000] – Speaker 1
I think sometimes in our world today I love how you kind of categorised it as mean, bullying, etc. I’m finding a lot of our young people today and parents, so it’s both and, want us to treat the mean, like the entry point, as like the bullying. Yeah. And it’s like using really strong words around harassment and other things like that. On things that in previous generations— and again, I’m not assigning a value, right or wrong, good or bad, but this is— I’m just stating a fact. And using that language on things that might have been before mean comments, or actually right now associating something like excluding someone from a group as harassment, and are kind of requiring people to handle the mean as what you would do for what might be a bit more severe or serious stuff. And I’m not trying to trivialise or lower some of the mean stuff, but do you know what I’m saying? Like, how— can you speak into that a little bit? Like, are you seeing that? Is that a challenge? What do we do as parents who care about kids to, you know, not just go to the 100 out of 100 on something and kind of deal with things appropriately as they come up.
[00:28:28.790] – Speaker 2
So maybe just let me say two things first. Number one is sometimes camps don’t see the mean because the kid shows up and they’re already bullying, right? Yeah. So the camp can’t know and can’t dismantle that. So just to like let the camp off the hook, like sometimes you don’t have a choice. Number two, there are mean things that are harassment. Absolutely. 100%. What we need to remember though is that these are kids. And to me, when I, you know, I have dived into the research always, everything that I do is like based in sound research. What we know to be successful to help a kid grow are two things. One, that there’s a boundary set. And that we get underneath the aggression to figure out what’s going on. And getting underneath that doesn’t look like kicking a kid out of camp. That’s the boundary. The boundary is, you cannot do this again. We cannot see this behaviour again. I don’t know Miss Kokowood’s discipline policy, but the reality is, if the kid is not hearing a no and all we’re doing is just looking underneath the behaviour, it’s not going to work. If all we do is put in a boundary, that only works 50% of the time.
[00:29:51.640] – Speaker 2
So we need to do both to really dismantle behaviour. So what you could ask as a parent when you’re calling, you could say, so I have, um, uh, sort of a— my focus in conflict is to be both strong and also kind. And so in a situation like this, when there’s conflict or whatever, you’re worried that your kid is getting hurt, You need to ask for what their strong is and what their kind is. And the strong is some boundary, and the kind is what are they doing underneath the surface to help this kid. And underneath that surface can be that the kid has some pain and that pain needs to be addressed. So let’s imagine they show up at camp and there’s some abuse going on in the home. Hurt people hurt people. And so maybe they’re going to be turning around and hurting people. And so the camp needs to be having caring and curious conversations with that kid, which can’t come up when all they do is punish them so that they can get them supports and call CPS and provide support for that kid while they’re at camp. It could also be that that kid is lacking conflict management skills, and part of it might be like my kids.
[00:31:04.480] – Speaker 2
Lacking executive functioning skills, and they’ve got ADHD, they got autism, and they’re just losing their marbles quickly, and they need to learn how to calm themselves and how to feel more centred. Or it could be that kid actually doesn’t know how to solve a problem, right? Many kids that I talk to who are bullying or who are being mean will say like, but that other kid is doing this legitimately hard thing for me to handle, and all I know is to shame him. So then we have to find a new conflict management skill. The third reason why people are aggressive is because they, they don’t understand power. They feel that they need more power than they deserve at their age and stage. That’s a hard kid to be around. I’m raising one right now and they’re very tricky, right? So for the camp to instil proper power dynamics in a kid is going to be tricky for them to do too. So that’s all looking underneath to find the root cause of the aggression. That’s the kind. Putting in tools and skills for that kid. That’s the kind. We need that. And we need to know that maybe they can’t go sailing anymore because they dunked your kid in the boat and put you, put them underwater.
[00:32:15.770] – Speaker 2
And like, that was super mean and was unsafe. So I think just asking for those two things will help soothe you. To say like, okay, they’re taking this seriously, they’re doing everything that they can to help this behaviour end.
[00:32:31.120] – Speaker 1
I wonder if you could speak into sometimes what we, uh, experience, and as parents we want to do, is like the second that we see something emerge like this, our instinct is to either get the kid out, the offender or the person that’s done the wrong, remove them or remove our own kid from the situation. And while I will admit there are absolutely, like you said, boundaries, times where that is the most appropriate way to navigate it, one of the things, and, you know, think particularly of our staff that live together and there’s some conflict and maybe there’s some mean things that have started to emerge and people’s first thing is like, I need to move to a different place, I need to get out of there. And again, Absolutely. If it’s harassment and bullying and when it’s escalated, that is often the most appropriate response. But we often feel like there are times where, as we deal with them separately, as you said, then part of actually being able to say sorry to somebody else and recognise the error of your ways and reconcile and move forward can be healthy. But I just— I’m wondering if you can speak into that a little bit, just our temptation.
[00:33:48.770] – Speaker 1
Like, when we do that too quickly, too soon, is there consequence to the interaction? What are we communicating to our kids? What are we providing for them? Can you speak into that maybe a little bit?
[00:34:00.040] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, so it’s funny because I’m coming from a position where I did just pull my kids from their school, and it was needed because we couldn’t come to a resolution but we tried really hard. Yeah, absolutely. First, we tried really hard. And I think in the world of conflict management, I mean, we aren’t, as adults, we’re not very schooled in this. We’re not schooled to be strong and kind. We’ve been schooled, I’ve got this sort of 3 ways to conflict model. We’ve schooled to be strong or we’ve been schooled to be kind. So I call this power over and power under. And our society sort of set up here. Right? Somebody wins, somebody loses. Sometimes there’s a fight with two power overs and then one person powers under. So maybe just take a second right now and think about yourself and think, do I power over or do I power under as like a common strategy? It might change when it comes to your kids. You know, I’m much more likely to power over with my kids, but I call myself a recovering people pleaser. So I’m like typically power under. What I’m suggesting is finding this middle ground where we take the best from both.
[00:35:08.160] – Speaker 2
And we are strong and kind. And I think if you can, if you’re feeling like, I gotta pull my kid, and you notice that that is a strategy that you use often, that maybe you are in a power over or under mode, you might be triggered yourself. And maybe again, we go back to that trauma. You had a terrible experience and your parents didn’t pull you. And so now you’re pulling your kids. What they’re going to miss if they don’t actually need to be pulled is all the richness of what it is to be in conflict, to come back together, to see that we are resilient, that we can solve problems, that we can work through things, that we can re-trust someone if they, if they build our trust back. There’s like so much importance in being in conflict, full stop. Our kids need it. They need it. We have two kids at our school, at our microschool, who are in conflict quite a lot. And we have been working on, you know, the other parents and I, we’ve all been working so hard to help them learn how to be in conflict in a healthy way.
[00:36:22.510] – Speaker 2
Because if we’re normally power under and we never share our opinion, Then we’re gonna do that like snap and now I’m bawling or I’m crying after 6 months of someone taking advantage of me. What does it then look like? What are the tools we need to come back together? You know, when these two, the last day of school, got it, you know, love them, they got into another fight and I said, now we need to stop talking and we need to separate. And they did it. And then they took an hour off. We got back in the car and I said, when we’re ready to talk about this, we can. We are not talking right now in this car. We just need to be quiet. We need to soothe our bodies. And one of them popped out with, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. And the other one said, I’m sorry too. And by the time we got home, they hugged. And what the moms and I talked about was like, oh my gosh, like they feel so much more secure in their friendships. Because they know the messy parts of them can come out sometimes and they can find their way back to each other.
[00:37:24.770] – Speaker 2
But if we just constantly pull the kids, they don’t learn all that messiness in between of what it means to be human and imperfect and needing to say sorry.
[00:37:37.440] – Speaker 1
You do often talk about, and you just have, how conflict isn’t something to be afraid of or avoid. And you’ve given great examples just in that last storey you were telling about how we can help kids with it. Can you maybe— one of the things that always comes up for us is about modelling. You know, kids often learn by seeing us. Can you give parents any tips in, you know, not avoiding conflict in their own lives? I know it would be probably a lot of the same stuff you just shared, but I wonder if maybe you can speak directly to that.
[00:38:12.000] – Speaker 2
Okay, before I do, because I always forget to say this, if you are a parent that avoids conflict or a parent that gets mad immediately at all the people, there are two books that are excellent about this. One is called The Curse of the Good Girl by Rachel Simmons. Changed my life. I read this book, I didn’t have my own kids, I was like, I’m doing everything wrong, and it pulled me on the trajectory of my life. It was written for moms and daughters, but I just read it for myself. It is for women, so all the Guys out there, it’s not helpful. There’s another book called Crucial Conversations. Okay, so what we need to understand is like we have learned conflict not because of who we are. It is not innate. It is a learned skill. And typically we’ve learned to power over or to power under. And what we need to do is to power with. So what does that look like? I get into a tiff with one of my best friends. And my kids can hear me on the phone, like, getting frustrated, and I hang up and maybe I vent a little bit to my husband, and my kids are watching this whole thing.
[00:39:16.090] – Speaker 1
Yeah, they hear it.
[00:39:16.750] – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They hear it all, and they’re— and they’re mod— like, we know there’s research to show that the way that kids watch us is how they show up in the schoolyard or how they’re going to show up at camp. So what I know I need to do now, because I now study this and teach people, is to say, like, okay, that was such a good vent session. I just needed to get that off my chest. I don’t actually mean a lot of that. I just had to say it. And now I need to call, I don’t know, Joanna back, and we need to talk this through because I realised I need to share. I have to apologise for this and this, and I need to ask her these two questions. And I can have that conversation in front of them, but I need them to see the arc. There is like an arc in conflict, right? There’s a conflict, There’s big feelings, get that Kleenex box out and we’re venting or we’re journaling or whatever, and then we need to solve it once that art comes down. So that, that I feel like we absolutely need to model it.
[00:40:19.210] – Speaker 2
The other thing though that I think we do, and I catch myself doing it all the time, which is annoying because I tell people never to do this, we need, when we are watching our kids in conflict, It is not our job to put our words or ideas in their mouths because with this elusive strong and kind voice that I’m talking about, everyone’s strong and kind is different because every human is different. So my husband, if you saw his podcast, the guy is hilarious. His strong and kind is funny. Sometimes it lands wrong and we have to be like, it’s not the time for the joke yet. We’re doing the Kleenex box thing. Yeah. But once he comes to, you know, present something and to be honest and vulnerable, like, he’s going to be goofy and funny about it because that is who he is. Where I’m like a deeply emotional person. And so, it’s going to show up kind of like gently but strong. Some of you who have a stronger voice, finding that vulnerability is going to be hard, right? So, your strong and kind is going to be different. Mine is going to be different.
[00:41:22.500] – Speaker 2
And our kids, oh my gosh, I can’t, I mean, When I go to solve bullying, we find kids’ strong and kind voice. There’s this whole process, it’s called cooperative conflict coaching, and the solution is what is their strong and kind answer. Their solutions, Chris, are so weird most of the time. When I’m working with parents, they’re like, are you sure this is what you think that they should do? Like, I’m not sure that this is the right answer. And you know what? It works every time because We don’t know how to solve a conflict with a 3-year-old, right? I had a kid being bullied and his solution was to put his finger out as this kid was running towards him. He kept like shoving him down and then pinning him on the ground and saying, “Your mommy’s not going to save you.” It was awful for a 3-year-old. Kid comes at him, he pulls out his finger and he goes, “Abracadabra, you are a fish.” Like, would we ever put those words in a kid’s mouth? No. Did it solve the bullying? Yes. And when I tell that solution to my 3 to 5-year-old clients, they laugh hysterically like this kid was like a stand-up comedian child.
[00:42:31.800] – Speaker 2
Like, this is like the smartest solution anyone could have come up with. So when we say to our kids, like, put your hand up and say like, no, nobody’s going to treat me that way, or whatever adult thing we think is appropriate. Have you noticed that they never do what we say? This is just not going to work, right? So like I’ve had preteens say, can we talk it through? But we need, you know, always we have an adult there, especially when it’s bullying. But can you sit there and like read a book and listen if we need help? Or can we bring in a— I had one client say, We’re not doing enough character education at our school. Can we do that? Because I swear nobody knows how to be nice at my school. So they brought in a conflict management programme. I had one boy, hilarious, a 7-year-old who was just being mocked by his whole class. And he was just the sweetest, goofiest kid. And his Strong and Kind was to put his arms out and say, “Does somebody need a hug today?” Cut everyone at the knees. Like, his bullying ended within 3 days.
[00:43:40.590] – Speaker 2
So if we are not allowing time— I often tell parents, when there’s a solution, we give out the Kleenex, and then when it’s problem-solving time, let them come up with 50 ways they would want to solve the problem. And let them power over, let them power under, and you write everything down and you say nothing. And then we, you know, cut out the ones that are like, I want to shoot the person or hit them or whatever. And also the power unders, we stay with our strong and kind ones in the middle and they pick a strong and kind answer, but you say nothing but like, I’m so proud of you. Because what they’re doing in that process is they’re finding their voice. They are strong and kind so that when they go to camp, it’s right there. Kids who are assertive, which is strong and kind, don’t get bullied. Aggression comes at them and they can like, it just it wipes right off of them. It’s the kids that shrink or the kids that fight back. Those are the ones that end up getting embroiled in bullying situations. So, it’s just like you finding your strong and kind voice and them.
[00:44:45.720] – Speaker 2
I actually, I don’t know if you have a link to a video that I can give you that you can attach. Sure. Yeah. That would give people the activity and the handout and a poster with the pairs of the strong Power Over, Under, With that they can print for their families if they’re interested to just sort of help them along trying to figure out their own voices.
[00:45:07.950] – Speaker 1
That’s perfect. Well, we’re kind of coming to the end of our conversation and I’m like taking all these things, you know, the tissue box and the toolbox and the strong and kind, you know, Power Over, Power Under, Power With, finding your strong and kind. You’ve given us really helpful things to think through. And I wonder, as you mentioned the link for the video, are there other places that people can go to find out what you do, conflict stuff? You shared two good books already. Are there any other resources that parents are like, oh, I would love to learn more about this? Again, feel free, point them in your direction. Where can parents find a little more help in this?
[00:45:46.490] – Speaker 2
Sure. So my website is strongandkind.org. So easy. And then if you want to find me on Facebook or Instagram, I’m just Kathleen.StrongandKind. You know, I’m posting tips and tricks the whole way, but on the website also, like, if you feel like you want to reach out and have a chat, you can just— there’s a form, a contact form that you can connect with me for.
[00:46:09.780] – Speaker 1
That’s amazing. And you’ve shared so many helpful things. I wonder if you have just kind of a final piece of advice or encouragement for parents, educators, teachers, adults that are watching young people go through maybe bullying or difficult things like that? What’s one kind of parting piece of advice, wisdom, encouragement you’d want to share with them right now today?
[00:46:34.710] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I would say hop on to the link and get the, get the poster of Power Over Under With. And when they’re home from camp, the whole family go through it together. If you’re a teacher, do this with your class. I’ve got tonnes of classes who are doing this. And try to define like, you know, where do I go when I’m stressed? Am I powering over? Am I powering under? And explore as a group what a strong and kind voice might sound like. As a parent with my kids, I’ll say like, oof, that sounded a little too strong. Can you try that again and add some kind? Or, “That was really kind, but I’m not hearing enough strong. Can you just like try again?” Now here’s the hard part, is that your kids need to be able to call you on it too, because that’s the pro, that’s what they need to be able to ask for respect. They need you to be strong and kind too, so that they can go to camp, they can go to school, and they can be using that language out in the schoolyard also. So even just having that one little tool and everybody’s working on it together because everyone is struggling with it can make a huge difference in, in a kid’s life.
[00:47:50.040] – Speaker 1
Thank you, Kathleen, for this unbelievable conversation today. Again, I have so many things that I’m taking away with it, and I’m sure all of our parents and listeners, adults that care for kids and want to understand more about the world they’re living in, are going to go to your website and get that and can have that conversation. I hope they do have that conversation with their kids. So thank you so much for the work you do, for helping all of us navigate some of these uncharted territories, I think, for young people today. So really appreciate our conversation. It was great having you with us on the show. Oh, my pleasure.
[00:48:25.410] – Speaker 2
Thank you too, Chris.
[00:48:29.670] – Speaker 1
Well, that’s it for today’s show. If hearing from Kathleen and Kathleen Hilchey inspired you to think differently about conflict, bullying, emotional regulation, and the role adults play in helping build resilient young people, why don’t you head over to muskokawoods.com? There you’ll find a blog post with key takeaways from today’s episode and a link for you to listen again. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Shaping Our World podcast and share this episode with a parent, educator, teacher, camp counsellor, anyone passionate about helping young people build healthy relationships, navigate conflict with confidence, and grow into strong and kind young people. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on Shaping Our World.
