The Prompt

This activity asks participants to enact different ways to solve interpersonal conflicts by creating their own paper puppets. Participants will use the template provided or create their own designs to construct puppets that will be used to explore different ways they can resolve conflicts through healthy approaches that center love, compassion, and understanding for all the puppets involved. Using puppet plays, participants will reflect on how they can respond to various interpersonal conflicts they encounter in school or in their neighborhood. Document your puppet plays using video. With the worksheet provided — along with your video recording — reflect on what you can do as individuals and bystanders to prevent these conflicts from happening again. What can you do as individuals and bystanders to interrupt harmful behavior? Reflect on how we can change when addressing interpersonal conflicts, whether big or small internal actions in ourselves or external actions with others.

STEP 1:

Make a puppet using any of the templates provided below or make your own puppet design.

STEP 2:

Fill out the “Brainstorming Healthy Solutions to Interpersonal Conflicts” worksheet as a group.

STEP 3:

Using your puppets, act out your puppet conflict and try to solve the conflict with your healthy approach centering love, compassion, and understanding.

Record a short video of your puppet play and give it a title!

STEP 4:

Discuss with your partner or group: at what moment could the puppets make a different choice?

Reflect on how you would interact with people if you focused on treating them with love, compassion, and understanding. Write a reflection on whether focusing on love, compassion, or understanding changed the outcome of the conflict and the relationship between the puppets.

STEP 5:

Share your work using the submission form below. Include the video you made of your puppet play and your reflection on the impact of solving a conflict with love and compassion.