CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study
Conflict is a situation in which people, groups or countries are involved in serious disagreement or argument. Conflict is a necessary process of life. Within the individual, there is always conflict of thoughts, choice and interest, to mention but a few. This is known as intra-personal conflict. This does not only make decision taking difficult, but also has been identified as one of the major sources of stress. On the other hand, the inter-personal conflict occurs between individuals, states, groups and organisations or members of an organisation, groups and states. Conflicts can also be either constructive or destructive (Peters, 2006). He further states that whenever disagreement arises, we say there is a conflict. While conflict is universal and occurs naturally, crisis is almost always the key by-product of conflicts. If conflict is properly resolved, there will be peace. If on the other hand, resolution and reconciliation fail, the conflict will degenerate to chaos, crisis or war. According to Peters (2006), causes of conflict all over the world are midwifed by inordinate desires for political and economic advantages, greed, ego related problems and plain mischief. Injustice and inequitable distribution of resources invariably give rise to conflict situations. Lutz (1999) states that a family can be compared to a four wheeled cart, where each of the wheels is free-wheeling. As long as all four wheels face front, the cart rolls along nice and smoothly. But if one of the wheels turns itself crossways to the other three, there will be problem. There will be a family conflict. That family is in need of some basic family conflict resolution skills. The first thing to do is to identify the problem, then make a plan and set goals on how the members of the family can jointly resolve the problem.