De-escalation in a Group Chatroom!

When we see a heated situation in a group chat-room, or a situation which we want to prevent (for example a conflict building up), we try to de-escalate and calm the situation down to prevent it from either continuing or increasing, in order to enable the room to return to a supportive, inclusive and welcoming environment.

De-escalating as a Room-Supporter

• If members are frustrated/angry/triggered - validate how they feel.
• Change the topic by throwing in an ice-breaker.
• Compliment someone - Compliment the participants on something they did well earlier. Try to think of something genuine to say. Be also careful to not show favoritism, by always just complimenting a handful of people.
• Compliment someone's DP - For example, “I really love the colors in there.”
• Distract with a different topic or statement - You need to pick something catchy. Think current events like holidays, interesting things you heard on the news (although we want to avoid politics), a really big new movie coming out. If you want to change the topic this way, it is always helpful to keep on asking everyone in the room open-ended questions on the topic and keep going with the questions, slowly engaging more and more participants.
• If the whole room is talking about an inappropriate topic, change the existing topic to an appropriate version can be very helpful - Pick a detail of the topic that might look like a natural thought you had, and just like when distracting, keep on asking the members questions on your appropriate version of the topic, and remain subtle.
• Offer support to those reaching out - If you notice someone is asking for help and not getting responded to, take the time to respond to them. “Hey x, I noticed you said you’re feeling anxious. Can you tell us more about what helps when you’re feeling this way?”
• Welcome new members who enter.
• Purposefully misunderstand a provocative statement - “Not everything that needs to be said, needs to be heard.” You can just on purpose misunderstand them and respond to the kindest version of what one might interpret what they are saying to mean. Who knows, after all they might have even have meant that in the first place. ;)

Interested in becoming a Room-supporter? Visit here