The Peace Table helps preschool, kindergarten, and school age children to see all problems as solvable, allows perspective sharing, and scaffolds them in their attempts to “solve the problem” within an environment where adults assist children to feel empowered to actively solve interpersonal problems. The Peace Table is a safe and peaceful place to go to solve problems nonviolently with their peers. Does simply adding a Peace Table to a classroom insure there will be peaceful solutions to every problem?  Not at all. At first, children require a great deal of adult support and input in negotiating their problems, and often, it is the adult who guides the discussion. 

The steps which can be followed to guide these conflict resolution discussions are:

• Initiate the mediation. "It looks like there is a problem here." Or, "what’s happening here?"
• Clarify each child’s perspective. In this step each child is given the opportunity to explain his/her perspective on the situation. Helping them with feeling sentences, "I feel ____ when you _____." A poster with feeling pictures is on hand to help them show their feelings when they can't find the words.
• Summarizing. In this step, the teacher clearly articulates a summary of each child’s perspective.
• Generating alternative solutions. What can we do about this problem? In this step, the teacher supports children’s generation of alternative solutions. A Solution Kit (such as this one provided by The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning) is printed and used to aid children.
• Agreeing on a solution. Here, both children agree on a solution to the problem. It is critical to allow sufficient time for children to arrive at a mutually satisfying solution.
• Following through. The teacher checks with the children later to be sure that the solution actually satisfied everyone. You had a problem with that doll before. You two solved that problem. Did your solution work?
• As the children gain more skill with the Peace Table, the teacher allows them time to solve the problem on their own.