Want Cooperative Children? Treat Them As If They Are

Man walks into a room with a clothesline across it, takes a handful of clothespins out of a basket and starts pinning up clothes. A mother and her 18-month-old son are sitting on the floor watching. After pinning several items, the man accidentally drops a pin on the floor. He then pretends to reach over the clothesline to try to pick up the dropped pin, but his arms just aren't long enough. The 18-month-old watches the man struggle for few seconds, then leaves his mother, goes over to the man, picks the clothespin off the floor and holds it up to the man, who takes it and says thank you. The boy goes back to his mother on his own.

At the Boys and Girls Club over spring vacation Cam and Aiden, two second graders from a private school, were throwing a football around with kindergarteners Maya and Jayden, when four public school 10-year olds came over and asked if they could play. A teacher, anxious about what might happen decided to stay and watch. He thought he would at least have to organize the teams and referee to keep the younger kids safe, but he soon discovered how wrong he was.

Cam quickly organized everyone into teams: private vs. public, and with other activities swirling around them in the gymnasium, the eight young people launched seriously into a game of touch football.

The teacher was concerned that the teams were unfair; the older kids were so much bigger. But again he was wise enough to wait and see. The younger students quickly realized that Aiden and Maya were too speedy and shifty to be caught, and they began improvising handoffs and reverses executed by quarterback Jayden and directed by Cam.  Jayden hardly came up to the waist of the opponents, yet time and again he was able to throw the ball just over their hands and Maya or Aiden would race to grab it and take off. The game continued without let-up for an hour and a half.

But what impressed the teacher most was the students' ability to resolve conflicts. They collectively decided how they would handle kicking extra points and agreed that certain markings on the walls were goalposts. From time to time the game would be halted by a big disagreement about rules or whether someone had been touched or gone out of bounds. Each time the game stopped until the dispute was resolved.  

Several times the teacher thought he would have to mediate, but each time he discovered that the students, themselves, had matters well in hand. The little ones confidently debated the issues with strangers a foot taller than them, and each time they all agreed on a resolution or a do-over.  Nobody was going to let too much time get wasted before they could play again.

The game attracted the attention of some other adults who watched the proceedings together for a while. "How is that are these younger ones are doing so well?" asked one club worker?"

"Because they're being a better team!"  answered another.

Why do adults think their intervention is so essential to teaching children how to resolve conflicts? I haven't noticed that they are any better at it than children. Most Americans have decided that conflict is bad and that to keep the peace we need to bring in lawyers (our conflict specialists) to do our dirty work.

Maybe this is because our original assumption that humans in a state of nature are selfish, is false. Maybe it is truer that humans are naturally empathic, and learn to be selfish by paying attention to adults.