How to Use Collaborative Problem Solving to Deal With Children's Behavior

You're in the grocery store and your child loses it—has a screaming, swearing, destructive meltdown in the middle of Aisle 5. While other people stand there wondering why you can't control your child, you're thinking "here we go again" because you know something they don't: you're not a bad parent, you just have an extremely challenging child. Challenging children have challenging behaviors that don't usually respond to typical discipline techniques. However, there is an approach that you can use to try to deal with your child's behavior: the Collaborative Problem Solving model.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Acknowledge that what you're doing isn't working and that it's not your fault. Some children are very easily frustrated and don't respond well to change or situations outside of their own control. Sometimes referred to as "chronically inflexible children" or "challenging kids," these children have extreme behaviors that are due to lagging cognitive and social skills, not due to bad parenting.

2. Visit the Think:Kids website and look at the inventory of the skills that are commonly lacking in children with challenging behaviors (see Resources below). A project of the Center for Collaborative Problem Solving, the website provides information for parents, educators and clinicians about challenging kids. The organization's goals are to help people work with, understand and rethink the reasons challenging children and their extreme behaviors.

3. Evaluate the way you are currently trying to discipline your child. The Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) model identifies three ways to deal with behavior—Plans A, B and C. The first (A) is to tell your child he must comply with what is being asked, the third (C) is to temporarily let it go and the second (B) is the crux of the CPS model.

4. Learn Plan B. This will take a lot of practice, work and compromise—for both parent and child. Here, you deal with children's behavior by working together to come up with a way to solve the problem causing your child's behavior. Ideally, you and your child can sit down before a meltdown occurs, identify something specific that is always a trigger and come up with a way to work around it. However, sometimes you'll have to do it in the middle of a heated situation.

5. Stay calm and be empathetic. Instead of accusing your child or using phrases like "You always..." mention your observations, ask for her take on it and see how she thinks it can be solved. You may have different takes on the triggering event, but together you can find the common element and try to find a reasonable solution.

6. Stick with it. Once you (and your child) get used to using Plan B, you'll find it easier. It doesn't mean you shouldn't expect your child to comply with some things or that you should always let go of your expectations, just that you might be able to reduce the explosions. Remember that using the CPS model is really allowing you to teach your child some of those lagging skills.

Tips & Warnings

• For detailed information about the Collaborative Problem Solving model, read Dr. Ross Greene's book "The Explosive Child" (see Resources below). It describes the method in detail, provides examples and further defines "chronically inflexible children."

Resources

• Think:Kids.org inventory of lagging skills in challenging children
• The Center for Collaborative Problem Solving's website

[AmericanMexican]

on 12/6/2008 Thank you for offering me some new ideas of where to look. I really appreciate it.