Conflict Resolution with Children’s Literature

Conflict Resolution with Children’s Literature 1) The conflict in the story Ant Bully is about ten year old boy named Lucas Nickle. He has just moved to a new neighborhood, has no friends, and is the target for the local bully and his gang. His parents are leaving for a honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, so they are too busy to attend to his problems. His sister is distracted by her cell phone, and the grandmother is obsessed with UFOs and aliens. Lucas is constantly being beat up by the obese and intimidating neighborhood bully. Because he cannot fight back, he takes out his anger on an anthill in his front yard; He kicks it, stomps it, squirts it with his water gun, and floods it with a hose. This terrifies the ants, who call Lucas the Destroyer. One wizard ant, known as Zoc being a hopeful and adventurous type, is trying to solve this dilemma. He tries to devise a magic potion that he believes will solve all their problems. As the plan to shrink Lucas down to their size with a magic potion and forcing him to live like an ant within the colony--an astonishing new world opens up to him. Lucas learns, first-hand, the value of friendship and teamwork, ultimately leading the ants in an effort to save their colony from annihilation. And in the process, Lucas obtains the things he wants most: friends, companionship, acceptance and the courage to stand up for himself. The conflict in the story is intergroup, because Lucas has to deal with more than one person, or animal. 2) The people that is involved in the conflict are Lucas who is avoidance because he takes it out on something else, his parents, who are complete avoidance, because they do not have time to mess with that, his sister distracted by her cell phone, his grandmother because she is obsessed with UFO’s and aliens, and finally the neighborhood bully, who is a competitor. I think Lucas chooses to handle the situation by taking it out on the ant hill, because this way he does not get in trouble, the parents just do not have time to mess with anything, and the grandmother is in her own world. I believe they each choose this way to handle the situation, because it best supports them- nobody gets in trouble or hurt. 3) The conflict started when Lucas moved into a new neighborhood, and the local bully started bothering him. When Lucas could not fight back, he then took his anger out on an ant hill. Then the ants got annoyed with Lucas and they decided to retaliate by forcing Lucas to their size and living with them. Lucas learns his lesson the hard way. 4) The characters all felt differently. Lucas was very mad and upset that people were trying to hurt his feelings. My feelings have been hurt before, when somebody made fun of me, or I just was not having a good day, and they made it worse. I probably would have felt the same way as Lucas, because many times I take it out on something else, not even thinking about what I am doing. 5) Lucas wants to feel welcomed by the “bully”, he wants friends, and he wants courage to stand up for what he believes in. 6) I would like to ask the bully, why he chooses to pick on Lucas, and if he has ever been picked on before? 7) The characters are different because they do not see eye to eye on situations. One character wants to bully the other one, and Lucas just want to befriend people. Their similarities are that they are both boys, and they live in the same neighborhood. These situations could be good because they could become best buddies, but their differences pull them apart from each other. The character I chose is Lucas. The adjectives are fun, caring, accepting, compassionate, and a good friend to others. The problems that Lucas and I share are that we avoid conflict when we can- but we try to compromise by acting towards others. Secondly, we both have learned life lessons, by lashing out at other things. I really enjoyed relating this book to my past experiences. 8) Lucas, How might you approach your bully, so that you two may be able to talk about your differences and conflicts, to work out this situation? In the story Ant Bully, some of the skills that could be used are how to give I-messages, and how to look for alternatives. The reason I chose these were because I think it would be helpful for Lucas to use his I-message towards the bully. He could tell the bully how he feels, when they are mean to him, and how they could fix the problem, by being nice. Secondly, the looking for alternatives would help Lucas, so he does not destroy other territories, such as the ant hill. These are great skills that Lucas could use to solve problems for his conflicts.