In high school nearly all teens face significant conflict. This conflict can happen with many people and forms of relationships in the teen’s life….parents, teachers, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends, and enemies. What’s certain is that it will happen and teens will do well to be equipped with the tools required to deal with that conflict. Those tools must be learned, so let’s examine a technique here.
This technique is called SEAL and I am shamelessly stealing it from self-help author Rosalind Wiseman. Her work was the inspiration for the movie Mean Girls and I personally think she is amazing. She specializes in adolescence and her insight into the teen psyche is spot on. If you’re a parent of a teen, check out her books.
Anyway, what is SEAL? This concept works with the notion that the best way to solve a conflict is to communicate and talk about the nature of the conflict. Let’s take one letter of the acronym at a time. S is for stop and set-up. Take a moment to think about the root of the problem and then consider the best situation to have “the talk”. That might be best with both parties have something else they can focus some attention on, like playing a video game together, meal prep, or even walking together.
E is for explain. It might seem obvious to you, but it is important to fully give the party insight into your perception of the conflict. If they’ve mistreated you, give them instances of the mistreatment and some insight into how that made you feel.
A is for affirm and acknowledge. Affirm that you have a right to resolution or to be treated better than you were, then acknowledge anything you might have done to contribute to the conflict. This step goes a long way towards giving you credibility in being a part of a solution.
Finally, L is for lock. This could mean to lock in the relationship for a longer term, or it could mean to lock out the relationship for some period of time. Either way, this step provides the desired resolution. This is where you state the direction you want the relationship to take.
Now, it’s important to note that you can do all of this in “regular” teenage words and vernacular so here is how the conversation might look.
(S) Okay, we’re playing video games now, here is my chance to bring this up where I don’t have to make eye contact the whole time and we can both just stare at the screen.
(E) “Hey, what was up with you joining in when those guys were making fun of my shoes the other day? You’ve done stuff like that before and it’s not cool. I can’t help that my family doesn’t have as much money as you guys do and when you do that, it really makes me feel like crap.”
Him: “Whatever dude. I’m sorry.”
(A) “Just don’t do it that anymore. If we’re really friends, you can try to change the subject or something when people are dissing me instead of piling on.”
Him: –just stays quiet and keeps playing video games.
You’re probably not going to get a flowery emotional apology. But, laying everything out on the table is going to be impactful. Your words might even have to sink in a little later. The last step is closure and decided the direction you want the relationship to move forward in. In this case, let’s say you still want to be friends.
(L) “Just think about it, man. Anyway, do you want to go to Chik-Fil-A before the game on Friday?”
You’re suggesting future plans which solidifies a future for the relationship.
The SEAL technique is a great format a teen can use to undertake the awkward process of resolving conflict. That’s inevitable, so take a few minutes to think about how you could have used SEAL on past conflicts and that can be good practice for the future.
