This game is especially useful for those parents whose children are exhausting them, demanding justice and constantly complaining about each other. If you are unable to let the children solve their problems on their own, then you can use this method.
Agree that you will listen to both children and try to help them understand the situation. But on one condition. If your Andryusha will talk about what Kolya did and felt, and Kolya — about Andryusha. That is, the children should tell you about what happened, leading the story on behalf of the second participant in the quarrel and trying to imagine the situation from his point of view. At the same time, you need to speak in the first person, that is, start the sentence with the words «I …» or «I …». To make it easier for children to change places mentally, it is advisable to put them on chairs next to each other while explaining the rules (preferably not opposite and not hand in hand, but at an angle at some distance). When the game begins, the children should transfer to the chair where the second quarrel had just sat. So that they do not forget during the story about who they are in this game, you can write their names on the sheets and give everyone a “foreign” name.
Of course, at first the guys will go astray in the story and get confused in their own and other people’s thoughts and feelings, this is natural. But all the same, they will be forced to try to take the place of another person and see the situation «from his bell tower.» This is a useful quality that needs to be developed in children, and besides, it gives us (adults) the moral strength to forgive (I understand, which means I already accept in many ways). If you manage to shift the emphasis in the children’s quarrel in this way, it will be easier to achieve a positive perception of your resume about what really happened, and agreement with your proposals for resolving conflicts. By the way, you can ask the children themselves to put forward these proposals, and it’s better to let each of them will say what, in his opinion, Kolya (Andryusha) would like to do in order to make peace and solve the problem.
Note. If this game is very difficult, then your children probably have a strong egocentric position and they are not able to put themselves in the place of another person and see someone else’s interests and emotions other than their own. Well, then you have to systematic and painstaking work in this direction. After seating the conflicting parties in chairs, first listen in turn to each child’s own version of what happened. But warn them to remember what the second brother or sister says. Don’t pass judgment at this stage. When the children say everything they wanted, move them and then already play the game «The story in the first person.» When the experience of such unusual “complaints” is over, then draw the attention of the children to the fact that they had common feelings, common interests, that somewhere they simply did not understand each other, etc. Do not forget to ask them how they felt , leading a story on behalf of another person, and how they are now planning a way out of the situation.