Problem children get the talking cure

As part of an exercise for the Midlands Mediation Network, I scanned our local newspaper for headlines relating to children. In two weeks, I collected 20 that included words like yobs, hooligans, terrorising and fear. Many articles pictured the children besides other, much smaller articles referring to adult drunk drivers, robbers and attackers.

At Mediation North Staffs, we have seen a large increase in the numbers of community disputes where children's behaviour is cited as the main concern. Although the numbers have trebled in the past two years, we have a success rate of over 90%.

Below is a typical example of one of our cases – a story of children "running riot", "bad parents" and "a housing officer's nightmare". We were called out to a street where five families had fallen out over the behaviour of their children. As often happens in such cases, it hadn't taken long for the adults to join in and monopolise the dispute.

Shuttle diplomacy
In all, seven adults and 14 children were referred to us, and two volunteer mediators arranged to see them in one afternoon. Rather than get everyone round a table, we use "shuttle mediation": that is, visiting each party at home and shuttling between houses transferring messages, increasing understanding and defining agreements to cover future behaviour.

At each interview, we follow a clear structure. First, we listen to and clarify their story and explain what mediation can do and what its aims are. We acknowledge their feelings and constructively summarise what we have heard, seeking to enable them to look to the future, while defining possible clauses for the final agreement. These are then included in messages that we help them to create for us to relay to the other parties.

The following picture came across in bits and pieces with numerous examples, pictures (including home CCTV footage) and plenty of anger and upset. In all, 21 different stories combined to back up the image of a street full of problem children, bad parents and somewhere you wouldn't want to walk through, let alone live in.

They had been arguing for a year. Everyone felt they were being stared at by the others. There had been numerous incidents of verbal abuse. Some parents tried to discipline other's children. No one was communicating constructively and the children were just being children – they wanted to play together, but often fell out. The children were playing out the frustration they saw in their parents – the children's fights caused the parents to argue, and the parents' arguments led to further fights between the children.

Mediation dictates that we look at everything issue by issue, or you cannot begin to untangle this sort of mess. By using pieces of paper with key words relating to each part of the dispute, you can easily focus a disputant on one issue at a time.

The stories painted an image of a street full of problem children and bad parents, somewhere you wouldn’t want to walk through, let alone live in

You cannot resolve past incidents – you might be able to collect evidence and prove fault in a legal framework, but that does little to restore community harmony. If you focus all your efforts on the past, you will do nothing to reshape the future.

In this way, we helped the families to shape and own their agreement. They addressed how they would like to communicate in the future, who would raise contentious issues, and, more importantly, what they would do if it all goes wrong.

There are some disputes where a simple objective overview removes the argument. For example, if you think you're being stared at, you will look to see if it's happening, which guarantees you will be accused of staring yourself, and vice versa. Therefore, the best way to stop feeling stared at is to stop checking to see if it's happening.

Taking a step back
Finally, we looked at the issues around children playing together. Issues of discipline were addressed, but there had to be something about how the families were going to work to change the environment for their children. Where were they going to get their positive role models when it came to resolving disputes? Who was going to take responsibility for communicating constructively with them? And how were the adults going to step back from always seeing the children as potential troublemakers?

I'd love to give answer all these questions, but that is where we left the case. They had to work the answers out for themselves.We provided an independent, impartial third party to help define those questions.

We left that afternoon with a draft agreement in place. We monitored the case for a month, making slight amendments to the agreement where necessary, and communicated between the parties until they found the skills to do it themselves. All parties then signed the final agreement. There has been no trouble since.