2022 New Year Resolutions

Happy New Year!

It's finally 2022 and we all made it! Congratulations on the next year to start over, continue new work, achieve more success and finally believe in new possibilities. New years resolutions are about getting the chance to resolve our disputes in a peaceful manner. We get the opportunity to tell the world that we have begun to make ourselves brand new. We get to chose to work out more, walk around the public park, eat healthier, try out that new restaurant, join a political activist campaign, talk to your parents and relatives back at home, work on new career goals, make more money, and find your next dream travel destination. There is so many different options to choose from in the new year and we have 362 days left to figure it all out. Make every day count. So, let's be honest. We're gonna have some bad days, right? But we can always think about our next move and play our cards right.

In conflict resolution, there are many types of disputes that individuals have to overcome this year. Let's make an effort to be courteous and respectful to all members of a party. We know that many people go through small civil disputes within their family, friends and community. The big idea is to make sure we know that when it comes down to working with new people that don't know our history we make an effort to try and respond in a manner that helps others.

Understanding Implicit Bias: Eliminating Bias

Types of implicit bias happen in our everyday life when we don't have a conscious world view of our social impact. For example, implicit bias can happen when a young person identifies as a LGBTQ and communicates the challenges of that identity which could be different than yourself. Implicit bias means how it changes our ideas and decision making challenges. Bias towards a sports teams, campaign candidate, higher education school, technology company, bank or creditor company, and citizenship status can occur daily in our communities. Cultural diversity is a method to change your world view into the ability to relate to different parties in conflict. Cultural diversity can give you a sense of unplugging from the lifestyle you live normally to the life of the other members of our society.

Emerging yourself into their life experience and allowing others to teach your who they are. Stereotypes life misunderstood LGBTQ members can give implicit bias for their ability to speak up for themselves. Unconscious actions happen when we make quick or rash decisions based on the idea that we have on a characteristic of an individual. Many implicit biases could subject tp gender, income, race, ethnicity, education, environment, accents, age, facial features, disabilities, weight, and so forward. Diverse socialization can help mitigate implicit bias by emerging yourself into new ideas of people. Social media, banks, online clubs, events, public venues and gatherings can help stop implicit bias for many disputes that are in a controlled closed door environment. Regular activities can help expose yourself into to new life experiences.

Example: Parenting Coordination & Child Care

Many implicit biases can come from a social expectation of a happy family unit. Yet, we can be consciously aware that many social biases are not true. For example, parenting coordination of the amount two parents give for their child can be biases on the individual parents gender, education status, race, housing or work place location to the determine the effectiveness of the parents care. Parents can even get caught up in a life that follows a false "social normative" like where the child gets dropped off and picked up every time the parents transition custody. One family can pick a location that is free like a public park, McDonalds fast food restaurant, or public library instead of a normal daycare and afterschool care center.

Another could be the division of money and time shared caring for a child. Sometimes there are families that dispute financial coverage for children and have to redispute their settlement agreement based on job loss, disability, transportation, housing cost, or other refinance options. The importance of taking an unbiased approach is to settle the facts and give equitable options for these individuals. When we see happy families in the streets of our communities there can be various new issues that they deal with everyday. Prospective ideology of resolutions can be started through active listening and instant respectful communication. Many of the families I have described want to be a picture perfect family unit. Acceptance that your family could be different and that is perfectly normal is a goal of mediation.