Beavers and raccoons and porcupines - oh my!
Puppets boost pupils' awareness of conflict resolution, diversity
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer
For the past two months, puppets have played a large role at Parsons Elementary School, North Brunswick.

ERIC SUCAR staff Jennifer Smith, a prevention educator from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Middlesex County, answers questions from an eager third-grader during the "Footprints for Life" program at Parsons Elementary School in North Brunswick. Puppets are used in first- and third-grade classes at the school to teach conflict resolution, decision-making, refusal skills, cultural competency and expressing feelings.

As part of the first-grade "Forest Friends" and the thirdgrade "Footprints for Life" programs, Jennifer Smith, prevention educator for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) of Middlesex County, has used some age-appropriate language, mixed in with child-friendly dolls, to help express planning and decision making, cultural competency, conflict resolution, expressing feelings and refusal skills.

"We talk about things that will help them develop skills in the future, which will help them, hopefully, make good decisions in the future," Smith said of the program, which is based on 20 assets defined by the Search Institute.

ERIC SUCAR staff Jennifer Smith (l), a prevention educator with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Middlesex County, presents a short skit using puppets during a third-grade program at Parsons Elementary School, North Brunswick.

"Children at this age learn through entertainment [that is] not totally didactic," she said. "Puppets gain their interest and the children can relate to them."

During a lesson about conflict resolution for the third-graders, Smith first described the difference between a win-win, a winlose and a lose-lose situation. For example, if there is one piece of chocolate cake on the table and two people want it, win-win would be sharing it, win-lose would be only one person getting it, and lose-lose would be a mother getting angry at her fighting children and not letting either have some.

"It's only a win-win if both people are happy and both people agree," Smith said.

She also taught about the "Solution Stoplight" to present a method of resolving a conflict. She said that the red light means to stop and calm down, the yellow light means to slow down and think, talk and listen, and the green light is to pick the best idea that would create a win-win situation.

The newfound lessons incorporated the previous week's lesson, which was based on "I" messages. In an "I" message, a person says, "I feel (name feeling) when (name an action) because (give a reason)."

This idea was expressed through role-playing between two students, Jeffrey and Kiara. Because they could not agree on which movie to see, they either could take turns at the theater, rent a movie, go shopping at the mall or have pizza and ice cream. The two students worked it out and decided to eat instead of arguing over a movie, as the skit illustrated.

The puppet show, which was highly anticipated by the students, took all of the components another step further. Betsy Beaver, Riccardo Raccoon, Pete Porcupine and Serena the Fox had to decide on a soccer team name and uniform logo. Because of different personalities, Serena didn't like any names and gave her friends a hard time.

When the students went to their coach, Katrina (the Kangaroo), she helped them realize that instead of arguing, they should talk about why they are disagreeing.

The team soon realized that even though Ricardo was mad at Serena for being stubborn, Serena felt left out that her friends did not invite her to their discussion.

In the end, the team agreed to be the Shooting Stars and have yellow stars printed on a blue background.

"And they had a win-win solution," Smith said.

For the first-grade students, a different technique was explored during another lesson. Although the classes still learned about how to resolve conflicts, they use a kindness sandwich: they tell their friends something positive, explain why they are upset, and finish up with more kind words.

For example, an angry child would say something to the effect: "You are my best friend but I feel angry when you break my toys on purpose because they cost a lot of money, so please stop, because I like to play with you."

"When someone makes you angry, it's sometimes hard to tell them they've made you angry," Smith said. "When we're kind to others, it helps us get along with others and may make you feel less angry."

Smith again reinforced taking a deep breath, drinking cold water, playing a game, reading a book or taking a nap as ways to relieve tension after a stressful situation.

She also used her "Forest Friends" puppets to exemplify easing a difficult situation. With Flippy the Frog, Tommy the Turtle, Chippy the Chipmunk and Samantha the Snake, Smith showed the students how pushing a friend when fighting over a toy is not the correct response.

She said a more appropriate action would have been to use a kindness sandwich, such as saying, "I'm glad you're my friend but I felt angry when you didn't share the toy. But you're right, I shouldn't have pushed you. That's wrong, but I want to be friends again because we always have a good time together."

"Chippy learned he did the wrong thing and found out different ways to handle it," Smith said.

The program is funded through a grant from the North Brunswick Municipal Alliance Committee. The NCADD's intention is to have the Middlesex-created curriculum become a model-based program, based on its proven effectiveness.

"Prevention needs to start early on because the age of first use [of substances] is younger and younger, so we need to give [children] those protective factors earlier," Smith said. "In general, all the skills they learn in this program can help them in the future to be healthy adults, and we hope they learn to be drug and alcohol free as adults."