Lessons from EastEnders: Should I get involved when my child ...

“If two adults publicly fight,” said Dr O’Hare, “they can get arrested and charged. We need to think about the skills that young people are developing and taking forward. Adult involvement in this is probably a given.”

Based on the second clip the students watched, Dr O’Hare agrees that if a group of adults need to come together to discuss their children’s differences, it is better to meet face-to-face, although he feels it should be done in a certain way.

He explained: “It wasn’t [in EastEnders] on neutral territory, it was in somebody’s house, which I think is probably not a good decision. I also didn’t get the sense that it was planned, they just kind-of turned up. If you catch another parent at the school gate because your kid was hit yesterday, they’re rushing out - what kind of response are you going to get if you say, ‘hey, your kid hit my kid’? You’re going to get aggression, you’re going to get defensiveness.”

Instead, Dr O’Hare suggests both parties organising to meet on neutral territory at a future date, face-to-face, with the focus on reaching a common goal that the situation is never repeated.

One kid standing up to another might be violence to one family, but to another, that might be courage. If people’s values feel threatened, it can lead to a tricky conversation." - Educational psychologist, Dr Dan O’Hare

“It’s really hard, I know,” Dr O’Hare continues, “sometimes we’re asking a lot from parents and carers and what we’re talking about here is the expression of people’s values. One kid standing up to another might be violence to one family, but to another, that might be courage. If people’s values feel threatened, it can lead to a tricky conversation. That’s when you can stick with what we call I-statements."

An I-statement involves somebody saying what they feel about a situation, rather than apportioning blame (e.g. ‘you did this’ or ‘you did that’) to someone else. When parents and carers discuss a fight between their children, Dr O’Hare suggests I-statements such as, “When I heard about this, I felt really embarrassed,” or, “When it happened, I felt really worried for them,” may be useful for when children have been fighting.

Ultimately, before any discussions between adults takes place, it’s perhaps worth considering if the situation demands it. Dr O’Hare says: “How valuable is it to be to be involved in this?

“Is it somebody you're going to have to see every single day? Is it somebody where the conversation might not go very well? Was it a one-off physical thing, perhaps while on holiday and you'll never see them again? I think there's a decision that an adult needs to make about how much worth their involvement has - and that is also related, I guess, to the severity of the conflict.”