The new school year is just getting started, and students are finally back in the building. Unfortunately, many school districts are sending home emails about yet another dangerous new social media challenge on TikTok, the “Devious Lick” Bathroom Vandalism Challenge.
On TikTok, students record themselves vandalizing school bathrooms and then encourage classmates to do the same and share their destruction videos. Schools are finding missing or broken soap dispensers, damaged plumbing and fixtures, and extensive paint and toilet paper messes. This is an especially hard time given the importance of handwashing and keeping bathrooms clean to limit the spread of Covid. It is also providing ample opportunity for students to visit the restroom more often. This “challenge” seems to play out in middle and high schools, but that doesn’t mean your younger child, who doesn’t have unsupervised access to the Internet, won’t learn about dangerous social media challenges at school through peers with older siblings.
The most important advice to give people when talking to our kids about difficult things is to talk less and listen more. While it can be comforting to us to prepare some sage words to pass onto our kids, the best thing we can do when we are concerned about something they are seeing, reading, or hearing about is to listen to them. We really can’t know what to say until we understand more about their understanding of and reaction to something in the first place.
We, adults, tend to be wordy. So if you need to start a conversation like this, bring the topic up neutrally and succinctly. Perhaps something like: “Have you heard of this thing called “Devious Licks” on TikTok or the Bathroom Vandalism Challenge?” Then ask for information: “What do you think of it?” And bite your tongue. You may well be rewarded by having a chance to hear their perspective, their point of view, or perhaps even what worries or concerns them about something like the Vandalism Challenge. You can ask plenty of clarifying questions like, “Why do they think kids are participating when they clearly know it’s wrong to do so?” If they simply shrug their shoulders or offer the all too common, “I don’t know,” you can make some educated guesses. Is it peer pressure, to garner attention and be “cool,” or are they hoping to gain followers and clout on social media?
Once we hear them out, we will be in a better position to try to answer any questions our kids may have to the best of our ability. And yes, then (after listening to them first) we can provide critical adult perspective and advice while setting the clear expectation that this kind of behavior is not acceptable by explaining our concerns, including that this behavior is illegal and could have serious consequences. But it remains still more important to ask questions, reflect what we hear from them, and show interest in hearing more from them since they probably already know that this kind of behavior is not acceptable. This advice applies to all disturbing or confusing content or undesirable behaviors seen on the Internet or anywhere else, for that matter. Because ultimately, if we want our kids to listen to us, we should start by showing them how we listen to them!
If you are pretty confident this hasn’t happened in your child’s school yet, it can still be important to have this conversation proactively. And if you want to know more about what’s going on in their social media world, make sure to follow them on social! Nothing like seeing things firsthand to put us in a good position to ask questions and learn more from our kids directly. If, however, you already know your child was involved in something like this, your first instinct is probably to take their phone / social media access away or issue other punishments. While understandable, reactions like this rarely address the issues that give rise to challenging behavior. As hard as it can be when furious at or disappointed in our children, try listening first if you want to solve the problem in a durable way.
This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.
Mindy Todd, the host and producer of The Point on WCAI which examines critical issues for Cape Cod and the Islands hosts this episode focusing on the social and emotional aspects of learning.
Schools are seeing a significant increase in the number of children with social and emotional challenges, often manifesting in disruptive behavior. Think:Kids is a program developed at the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital to train parents and educators to work cooperatively with children to solve behavior issues. On The Point, we talk with one of the architects of the Think Kids program, and adjustment counselors at local school districts who have initiated the training.
Here is a list of the guests on this program:
As our kids and educators return to school this year, we are confronting the reality that this year (which we had all hoped would provide a return to normal) isn’t looking so normal at all. Kids are headed out of their homes and into actual school buildings this fall, some of whom haven’t been inside a school in over 500 days. Still, that progress comes with the risks of exposure to the Delta variant for kids and educators alike, especially our youngest and unvaccinated students. Both kids and adults enter new school years with anxiety and uncertainty; this year, they are also carrying the effects of this past year with them, which for some include tremendous loss and trauma. To state the obvious, stressed students and stressed educators make for little learning.
How might all this cumulative stress and anxiety manifest itself this year in our classrooms? Last year during remote learning, disengagement replaced disruptive behavior as the most common challenge facing our educators. Unfortunately, this year, we can expect to see more of both—disengaged students and disruptive students. In the face of these different flavors of challenging behavior, we need to resist the temptation to resort to traditional discipline, which exacerbates the problem by adding stress. Rather, we need to remember that challenging behavior at times like this is simply the downstream effect (or symptom) of trouble accessing skills due to chronic stress. In other words, we need to remember that it’s about skill, not will! Right now, the world is throwing a lot at our kids, their teachers, and parents too. Ironically, it is hardest for us to access the skills that help us tolerate anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty in times of stress like this.
Now more than ever then, we need to stay true to the grounding philosophy of our work at Think:Kids—the notion that students do well if they can—and so do educators! We are all doing the best we can to handle what the world throws at us with the skills we have at our disposal at that time. So let’s go easy on each other and ourselves and, most importantly, practice empathy. Empathy means working hard to understand what someone else is experiencing, what they are thinking and feeling.
How can we all practice empathy in the midst of a busy day, especially when we are stressed ourselves?
Stopping to take the time to learn what’s going for someone else is a challenge at school, where time is too scarce. But it might just be the most important way to spend our time this fall because empathy is calming, and no one teaches or learns effectively when anxious and stressed.
This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.
References
Ablon, JS, Pollastri, AR. The School Discipline Fix: Changing Behavior using Collaborative Problem Solving. New York: Norton; 2018.
Perry BD, Ablon JS. (2019) CPS as a Neurodevelopmentally Sensitive and Trauma-Informed Approach. In: Pollastri A., Ablon J., Hone M. (eds) Collaborative Problem Solving. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Springer, Cham
When a child is acting out or misbehaving, some people might say it is because adults are too lenient, or the child doesn’t have respect. Others might say it’s because the child wants to upset the parent. Others may say it’s because of a mental health diagnosis such as ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Autism, or Reactive Attachment Disorder. All these things impact youth and their behavior. But through the lens of Collaborative Problem Solving® (CPS), we see it as a matter of SKILLS, specifically, problem-solving skills, driving these challenging behaviors. We are talking about the kind of “thinking skills” that all humans need to get through everyday life situations: the ability to communicate our wants and needs, organization & memory skills, staying calm so we can think straight even when we’re upset or angry, problem-solving, and reading social cues.
When using Collaborative Problem Solving, we believe that challenging behavior happens when a person finds themselves in a tough situation and doesn’t have the thinking skills to handle it well. They can’t figure out what to do. In those moments, the skills necessary are lagging. For example, you might ask a child to put their iPad down and come to the dinner table while they’re in the middle of a game. (Most kids will agree this is a very challenging situation, even if we don’t think it’s a big deal!) If the child has the necessary thinking skills, they might be unhappy to stop in the middle of the game, but they can stay calm and think to themselves, “it’s okay, I can save where I am in the game and finish playing later.” But if they are lagging in those thinking skills, you might see arguing, resistance, and even violence.
Why doesn’t my child have the skills they need? Maybe the child was born this way. Maybe being disorganized, emotionally reactive, or highly inflexible runs in the family. Perhaps they learned it, or something happened early in life to make the child this way. Maybe there is a learning disability or a mental health diagnosis. Maybe there has been trauma and adversity, and this was their brain’s way of adapting. All these things can impact the skills a person has access to in day-to-day life.
Regardless, it all boils down to lagging skills and what the brain can and cannot do in difficult moments. It’s like not having the right tools in the toolbox to fix something. You need a wrench to fix your leaky faucet, but you only have a hammer. So, you use the hammer… and you break the sink! Or you don’t fix the sink at all, and it just gets worse! And you may need some help to figure things out.
I knew a 10-year-old named Devin* who would get really upset when his dad made unplanned stops at the grocery store on the way home from school. He would get so angry when his dad turned off the usual route home. He would yell and scream that his dad was a stupid idiot. He would threaten to get out of the car and walk home, no matter what the weather was like or how far they were. He would demand that his dad turn the car toward home. Once, he even grabbed the steering wheel. That didn’t end well. No one got their way that day.
Was this kid acting out in the car on purpose to upset his dad? Did he want to put his dad in danger by trying to crash the car? Devin was on the Autism spectrum. Is that why he behaved this way? I’m more prone to think that he acted out because it was simply hard for him to adjust to the unexpected change in plans, which is a cognitive flexibility skill. He didn’t have the emotional regulation skills to calm himself down or handle his feelings about it. And it was hard for him to communicate those feelings to his dad without being rude or hurtful. He might have dealt with the situation differently if he could have accessed any of those skills that afternoon.
I had a problem-solving conversation with Devin a couple of days after the steering wheel incident. I asked him what was hard about stopping at the store that afternoon. I learned that he doesn’t like surprise stops because going to the store with his dad is boring. And waiting in the car is even more boring. He was also worried about an Amazon package supposedly waiting on the porch at home on that day. He was afraid someone would steal it if they didn’t get home in time.
If he’d had the skills to do so, he might have been able to find a way to entertain himself or patiently wait while in the car. Or he might have been able to say (calmly), “Dad, I’m worried our Amazon package will get stolen from the porch.” But he didn’t have those skills in his toolbox. Instead, he did the only things he could think to do: Make threats, say hurtful things, and act in unsafe ways. These were his best solutions to a problem he didn’t know how to solve.
Devin did a great job explaining his concerns once he was calm. His behavior was dangerous and problematic, but his feelings and worries made a lot of sense once I heard them. He regretted the things he’d said to his dad. He even said he understood that it was hard for his dad to plan ahead. He understood that adults struggle with the same kinds of skills too. And he’s right: We all do well if we can! We all handle day-to-day demands well when we have the skills to do so. Devin’s behaviors were more extreme than the average person’s, and he had many other factors impacting his skills and abilities. Still, we’ve all found ourselves handling things poorly from time to time. I’m sure many of us have those moments of 20-20 hindsight. “What was I thinking?” “Why did I say that?” People do well if they can! And just like Devin, we are all much more than our challenging behaviors.
If you have a realistic, important expectation of a child, we want them to meet that expectation! We take challenging behavior seriously, but it is not the focus of our work. Instead, we focus on the things that lead up to the behavior. The Collaborative Problem Solving approach improves behavior by helping adults uncover what triggered the behavior in the first place. What was it a response to? What was the expectation or demand that was too much and led right into the negative behavior? Challenging behavior is the tip of the iceberg. It is a reaction, a symptom, to an underlying difficulty. Through empathy, listening to the child, expressing the adult concern, and collaboratively coming up with a solution, we have the opportunity to change the behavior and, more importantly, to help kids build the kind of skills they need to change their behavior in the future.
*Name changed to protect identity.
A panel of Collaborative Problem Solving experts, with personal experience as parents and educators, talk about how we can prepare for Back-to-School in the context of COVID-19. Recorded September 1, 2020.
Dr. J. Stuart Albon: Good afternoon, folks, or good morning still, to those on the west coast. Thank you for joining us for what is, at this point, planned to be our last CPS Chat. I have to say I have really enjoyed this opportunity to connect with people in our community here at Think:Kids and folks who are broadly interested in supporting kids and families who struggle with behavioral challenges.
So today, very aptly, on September 1st [2020], is our back-to-school focus. I’m going to introduce our panelists here and set the stage for this conversation. For us to get going, so if I could, please ask Ben, and Hallie, and Lucas if you all want to turn your video on so folks can see you as well; thank you. There you all are.
Thanks for joining us. Let me make a few introductions. Ben Stich and Hallie Carpenter are members of our staff at Think:Kids who are not only talented trainers and coaches but serve all kinds of other roles in the organization, including notably Ben overseeing our Certification program. And Lucas Vincent, who is joining us, is a participant and a graduate of that program as he is certified in Collaborative Problem Solving. Well done, Lucas. I think that there are a few things that we all share here with the panelists. But first, let me just say a little bit more about Lucas, who’s joining us from McMinnville High School out in Oregon who, as I understand, has been the lead teacher in their Social-Emotional Growth classroom. And you’ve been working with students who struggle with their behavior for more than a decade now.
In addition to his work with these kids, he also shares what Ben and Hallie, and I share here, which is also having children of our own who are heading back to school in this very crazy and uncertain environment. Lucas has two active elementary school-age boys, and so he and his wife are navigating it from that side of the fence, if you will, as well. I know personally for me I’ve got three kids. And my family’s sort of a study unto itself because for our three kids, we have each one of the scenarios we have one kid who is completely remote, one kid who is there in person, and one kid who’s got the hybrid two days there three, days remote. So, we sort of run the gamut within my own family. So, I hope that we will all be able to foster a dialogue both when it comes to the professional angle on this and the parent angle on this.
So for our attendees, if you haven’t been to one of our CPS Chats so far, what we like to do is I’m going to kick off the conversation and start asking some questions to Ben and Hallie and Lucas, and just get the conversation going. As you all are listening and thinking about the things on your mind, please use the Q/A function to type in any questions or comments, or areas you would like us to touch on. After about 15-20 minutes of discussion or so, we’ll start making our way through all of those questions in hopes of getting to all of them or at least as many as possible. But don’t hesitate at any point to type in any comment or question; sometimes, we’ll just sort of take a break in the action and go right to them. I’m hoping this is going to be as much a dialogue with the attendees as it is a dialogue with my co-hosts here. As I take a quick scan of our attendee list, and I know that we’ve got some people who’ve joined already who have a wealth of experience at the leadership level when it comes to navigating challenges in the school environment in districts that we’ve worked with so I’m hoping we hear from our attendees as well. And the last thing I’ll say before kicking it off is that we do record these. So, we’re glad to say that we found these chats reach many, many, many more people after the fact. Folks who are not able to join us live, not surprisingly, because many people are dealing right now with the things we’re going to be talking about today. So, this will be available; we’ll send out a link on social media and other ways so that people can listen in at any point.
So, without further ado, let’s get to the topic at hand. I got to say this heading into this crazy school year; I think in many ways this is a school year that calls out for Collaborative Problem Solving more than any other school year. Because my goodness is everybody, kids, educators, parents, being asked to display skills related to flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving like we have never before. But as we’ve talked about on some of these other CPS Chats, one of the sad ironies is during the chronic stress of a pandemic like this, our ability to access our skills is much more limited. So right when we need those skills the most, it’s harder for us all to access those skills. And to make it worse, if you’re interacting with somebody else who’s feeling chronically stressed and having a hard time accessing those skills. What we say is “dysregulation breeds dysregulation,” and pretty soon, everybody can have a hard time doing their best. Many who know our work know our mantra is Kids Do Well if They Can, Teachers Do Well if They Can, Parents Do Well if They Can. We’re all doing the best we can to handle these circumstances. But this is tough. This is a tough time right now. So, we’re hoping to provide some guidance to folks and some assistance.
I thought I’d start asking you all, Ben, Hallie, and Lucas, about just backing up a little and talking about expectations coming into this very uncertain school year. This is a school year that maybe we tested the waters a little bit at the end of last school year. But if anybody can even remember back then, this is going to look very different. Does anybody want to chime in a little bit about the importance of expectation setting and communicating? Here I’m talking about both at home and school, and I’m curious if people have any thoughts on this topic.
Ben Stich: I’m happy to jump in first. I mean, my thought is it’s critical, and I’m sure that goes without saying, and that’s why you led there, Stuart. I think it’s really important for parents and teachers to step back and rethink the expectations they have for themselves, their kids, and their students because it’s a completely different set of demands and circumstances and context for which these kids are going to be learning. I think about my brother’s family a lot; there’s three kids, nine, seven, and two. They’re all from home; some of them have some learning difficulties. They’re working from home. There’s a two-year-old running around, wants to get on every device. What are realistic expectations for what the kids can do? I think a lot about kids with significant difficulties with cognitive flexibility. I think making sure that expectations are flexible, based on whatever the needs are of the kids is it’s going to be pretty essential. And very difficult right because there’s this negotiation that happens between parents, parents’ desire to meet teacher expectations themselves at the school, and the district has of them the challenge the district has to meet the expectations of an IEP, for example. I think the big picture is it’s essential to step back and think about what are realistic expectations how can we teach those expectations to the kids and not just thinking about the kids’ skills but the parents’ skills and their ability to deliver. I have a set of parents I’m working with right now where they keep creating expectations they love but aren’t realistic. Not about the kids’ ability to meet them, but about the parents’ ability to set them, remind them, reinforce them, remember them when they’re distracted with work. And so, the work with that particular family is not about Plan B right now; it’s about thinking about expectations.
Stuart: So just for folks who are sort of newer to our work Ben when he’s using the term Plan B, he’s using a sort of code for collaborating to solve a problem, whether that’s with a kid or a teacher. And what you’re saying, Ben is even before we talk about collaborating to solve problems, we’ve got to be clear about what the expectations are in the first place. And one of the things I’m struck by, and I’d love to hear Lucas and Hallie’s thoughts about this, is the beginning of the school year in any classroom is always about expectation setting because these are new kids to you, and your class is new to them. And I found particularly at the early ages when expectations are set the most effectively if they are done a little bit collaboratively. In other words, if your expectations are things that you’re imposing upon a kid or kids, you’re setting it up for some trouble in the beginning. Whereas if the expectations are set jointly, together collaboratively, then when an expectation isn’t met, it’s not just the teacher’s problem or the parent’s problem because it’s your expectation. Now there’s some joint ownership around this, and I’d love to hear others thinking on this front.
Hallie Carpenter: Actually, I’m glad you brought that up, Stuart, because I was thinking about that as Ben was talking about expectations because I’ve been trying to think back to what spring was like, and we really had like these fluid expectations that were happening because we’re trying to figure out what’s happening all the time. And I think one of the mistakes that I made is that I wasn’t very clear at articulating and like in a way that my kids could understand those expectations. And so I was thinking about this fall and starting school. I sat down with them and had a conversation with them about how the spring went and how there were some things that were kind of hard. We did have a nice discussion about what expectations or what things were important to us as a family to be figuring out what’s going to work best for them and also what’s going to work best for me and my spouse, who are both working at home in those same hours. And it’s really amazing. Sometimes you forget what amazing insights kids have. If you just talk to them, so even some of the things that my incoming kindergartner five-year-old came up with, I was like, oh wow, that’s a really good idea for what we should do. And I think it gets a little bit more buy-in honestly from them about being able to then meet the expectations because we talked about it, and we had a discussion around it. I think it’s really nice when we can do that even with the younger kids who sometimes we think, oh well, they can’t engage in a discussion around that, but they can surprise us sometimes around that.
Lucas Vincent: To piggyback off of you guys, I also think it allows them to have more of an understanding of what the expectations are if they’re bought into it. They’ve had the conversation; they’re going to really understand them a lot better. With everything’s shifting and moving so fast over the like the past several months, it’s hard to keep up with it if you’re not really involved in it.
Stuart: Well said. So I think part of the theme I’m hearing is that the more you cultivate engagement and co-authorship right from the beginning of what this new school year is going to look like, the more you protect against there being sort of problems as you as you get going.
Okay, so let’s talk about let’s say you’ve got your expectations set as clearly as you can they’re going to be so many problems this fall when it comes to people meeting expectations. And I say people because I mean all of us, I don’t just mean the kids; I mean us, parents, because of all we’re juggling at the same time and the teachers as well. So, I’m interested in sort of shifting into that area, and I’ll kick it off by saying this that I have been impressed throughout the pandemic and actually through the pandemics, I guess one could say how much advice there has been out there about how to talk to kids. and don’t get me wrong I think it’s extreme extremely helpful for us to know how to talk to kids, but one of the things I found is that the more guidance we adults have for how to talk to kids, the more we talk. and not just to kids but at kids and it’s great to have the stuff to say, but if we have it, we’re going to use it, and I think one of the things that is often missing is how to listen to kids. and honestly how to listen to parents, and how to listen to educators as well because to understand know how to solve a problem you got to understand what the problem is all about. and that’s I think going to be at a premium this fall is how do we listen to one another to understand each other’s experiences. So you all the three of you have a great deal of experience using Collaborative Problem Solving in your own homes, in schools; talk to me a little about how we can help people who are attending to approach problems when they arise in this new environment this fall.
Lucas: I’ll go ahead and Stuart, please as an educator uh working with parents obviously with students who struggle significantly I’ve offered kind of a resource like being able to work sometimes instead of working on their schoolwork let’s talk about what’s going on in the home how can we help support you in different ways. Because of what we do, typically with like my special ed part, I would be giving instruction in the classroom, and that’s been cut down significantly because of the way we are doing school now. , my special ed services in my mind parents benefit, students benefit, from me being able to provide Plan B conversations over Zoom and things like that. Allowing them opportunities to actually get more access to us and get more access to that problem-solving and the skill building that takes place.
Stuart: And Lucas, you’re bringing up something that may be my biggest concern heading into the fall. When I think about our work with schools, you know we’re teaching people a lot how to do this thing again you refer to Plan B, this Collaborative Problem Solving thing, where you listen hard to the other person, you express your concerns, not your solution, and you invite collaboration to figure out how to solve a problem in a mutually satisfactory way. One of the things that it hinges on is the opportunity to do it. And pre-pandemic I think it’s the biggest question any teacher has coming out of our training is “I love this, sounds great. But, how do I make the time to do Plan B? Even it’s just a few minutes, how do I find that time to have even especially a one-on-one conversation?” Now I think there are lots of opportunities to do Group Plan B even in a fully remote environment. But grabbing a few minutes to connect with a kid individually is absolutely critical in my mind, and I’m really worried about the diminished opportunity to do that this school year. And I’ve been sort of encouraging a lot of schools I work with to think about what’s that going to look like? How are you going to do this on remote days? Or, if you’re fully remote, what’s that going to look like? And I wonder other people’s thoughts about this particular challenge.
Lucas: I think one of the ways that I’ve gone around it for me is trying to schedule office hours and letting the parents know, letting the students know hey when we need to if you need to connect, or these are the times that we’re going to connect. I think you have to be purposeful about building it in because otherwise, it really won’t happen.
Ben: There’s no question that creativity needs to come into play. I know some high school teachers, for example, they’ll text their students or use email, and while it’s not the same kind of organic natural flow of a conversation, there are still questions, there are still answers, there’s still kind of engagement. So, I think there are creative ways of doing it that way. And from a parent’s perspective, I’d like to jump on the Group B bandwagon a little bit. I think there are opportunities if they’re siblings and in the home, to have family meetings daily, weekly, because I think when you participate in this problem-solving process, one of the risks is thinking, okay we’re going to talk about this problem like logging on time or getting your homework done, or whatever and the problem you have a solution it doesn’t work. There’s a risk that it’s a static process where, okay, we tried to problem solve it didn’t work, so now what do we do? Versus looking at problem-solving is just a process. It’s a continual process where we’re going to have a conversation we’re going to then check-in in a few days the family is we’re going to figure out if it’s working. Then we’ll make some adjustments, and hey, what else is hard about this and being curious about what the kids’ experiences are. The group process can be very effective and can address some of that time challenge, especially if you bake it into time that you might be together already, like a meal or right before watching a movie on Friday night while you’re eating pizza. And whatever it is that your family traditions might be. And I do hope it.
I’ve been curious. I mean, I want to give Hallie a chance here, but I do think something worth noting is also really working hard, and this is hard, and I can tell you it’s been hard is stemming from the impulse to know what’s going on for the kid for your child or for your student. I’ve been so surprised that when I think I know why a child is having difficulty logging in or engaging with their classmate or responding to their teacher, sometimes I’m right but more often not the reason something was so far removed from my radar. And to your point that you mentioned earlier, Stuart, until you know what the concerns are, what’s going on for the child, it’s really hard to solve for it.
Stuart: Right. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked the question, “what do I do when my kid isn’t engaging in their remote work?” And my quick answer to that is, I have absolutely no idea what to do. And the reason I have absolutely no idea is because I don’t know why yet. And there’s myriad reasons a kid won’t. What we try to embrace in Collaborative Problem Solving is that we may not be so happy that they’re not logging on, but you know what? I bet there’s probably a good reason, and I suggest for teachers and for parents that’s the leading, that’s the lead into this conversation, “Hey, I’ve noticed you haven’t been logging on. I’m sure there’s a good reason why, and I just want to understand what that’s about.” And to Ben’s earlier point, man, you’ll be surprised how many different versions of concerns there are that all lead to the same endpoint of I’m checking out when it comes to this remote learn Hallie jump in, please.
Hallie: Well, I have a perfect example related to that, and it’s like you couldn’t have set it up better, but I was thinking about I had almost this exact same conversation. It’s almost like we worked together. This last spring with my, let’s see he was a second-grader, and he was not wanting to log into his Zoom whole class meetings, and I was like, oh he just wants to rush through get his all work done so he can play, and so those are my like initial assumptions and thoughts that came up. And like you said, we found little moments in which to have the conversation in chunks. He loves food, so we had started it at breakfast; we didn’t quite finish the conversation. I said, “Hey, I just really noticed that it seems hard to log into your whole group Zoom meetings. Can you tell me what’s going on?” We got a little bit going there, and it ended up being totally off of my radar for what I thought the concern would be is that when he saw all the kids on the Zoom call, it made him really miss his friends, and so it made him feel sad because he was seeing them and wanted to have like some one-on-one time like he had had in the classroom with them. And so I was like, whoa, that really challenged a lot of assumptions that I had, and also that’s a concern that I have too is that he’s not getting that social interaction with his friends. And so, we were able to come up with a solution to connect find some other times to connect with friends in different avenues so he could have some of that one-on-one time. It still made it hard right when he was logging in to his Zoom meeting still had some of those feelings, but and we continued to kind of talk through those as we went through, but I got a better understanding had a lot more compassion for what he was going through and experiencing and had a better understanding about how to support him in some other ways. And really felt this stronger connection with him throughout the process. And again, it wasn’t this one static sit down conversation with him, but rather it was something that kind of happened over time, and each time we talked, we got a little bit more information, or we got a little deeper into it because I think he had some different insights as well into it. And so, anytime I have these interactions with my own children or children in schools, I feel like I learn something new right you come away with some new type of opportunity of learning well with them so.
Ben: I really appreciate that we have some mantras at Think:Kids, “be prepared to be surprised,” “be curious, not furious,” and I think of another family I worked with where the child also was refused to log on. The issue was that they saw another student in their classroom chat something mean to another student and they were scared that they would be bullied or be on the receiving end of something mean. And the parents were convinced that do with curriculum or the teacher or being too tired or not getting to bed at the right time or whatever it might be. And to me that also helped in segues to another point which is, I think the increasing demand to collaborate between family and school. Right so, in an example like that, the parents can do a wonderful job of understanding what the concerns are, but there are limitations to how they can solve for it right without the teacher’s involvement.
Stuart: Yeah, and I used to, before the pandemic, I think one of the things we all dealt with was challenges with kids meeting expectations around homework, and one of the things I counseled every family I worked with and teacher was if it’s a homework issue there’s got to be collaboration across home and school. Because it’s supposed to be done at home, but it’s assigned at school, so there’s a whole bunch of people involved here and understanding where the breakdown is and what might be going wrong. Well, actually, now if it’s remote learning like school, all of the school is in that position. And so, I think you’re absolutely right that the need for communication and collaboration across school and homes just it’s extraordinary right now. And, of course, educators, I mean time to use the restroom and grab a quick bite to eat during the day forget to do anything else while you’re trying to teach the curriculum. So how do we afford those opportunities so that teachers can be communicating? Because all of a sudden their class, their colleague in the classroom is now 35 parents who are out there in their homes, and so that’s an extraordinary challenge, I think. And it does, by the way, point out uh something you said, Ben which is the need for incredible creativity here in terms of how we’re going to do this. And I want to actually bring up one great creative example a charter network in the Boston area that we work with kicking off the school year. One of the things they’ve started to do is trying to work their schedule rework their schedule because, of course, the schedules are entirely reworked to figure out how they could have another adult popping into Zoom classrooms, and then if something’s happening and you literally see a kid disengaging, some issue going on, they’ll invite that student to a zoom breakout right then and there one-on-one. So, you’re able to quickly say, hey, I’ve noticed that you turned your video off, and you’ve been off well, don’t worry, you’re not in trouble, but what’s going on? Everything okay? Just checking in with you. And so that’s one creative Zoom use of trying to connect one on one, but clearly, we’re going to need a lot of other creative ways to communicate, to collaborate, and I guess the other thing is to build a relationship. Right, I mean, we haven’t said this yet, but like, what does this all rest on? This all rests on relationship building. And how do you do that? Especially in a largely virtual environment, and even if you’re in person, by the way, with half your face covered, trying to stay far away from one another and everybody on edge. It is hard enough there to create a relationship.
Let me see here, folks, we’ve got uh some things coming into our Q&A here that I think I’d like to pivot to a little bit here, so one question is: “How we would engage with a school that refuses to implement an IEP for your kid when she really needs one? They say homework’s not a school issue when it is, and that’s when she has the most troubles with her anger and aggression.” So, this tough question. I guess I’ll be interested to hear others’ perspectives here. I shared my bias a few minutes ago that I believe everybody does the best they can, even schools. And what I mean by that is, just like if a kid’s refusing to do something, I take the perspective of let me understand their concerns. If a school’s refusing quote-unquote to do something, that’s what I’m interested in understanding too. What’s their perspective on the role of an IEP here? But I would also add that I got to tell you, I’ve worked with kids who’ve had tremendous IEPs, the best IEPs in the world, and they haven’t been implemented well, so it doesn’t matter. And I’ve worked with kids who don’t even have a 504 plan of any shape or kind, and they get incredible assistance because the educators really know who the kid is, what they’re struggling with, and how to help. So I would say to you sort of less about, and I know there are legal protections and coverage here but less about the IEP and more about can we help the school to understand why she is having such trouble with her anger and aggression when it comes to homework. And it’s important to remember that sometimes in schools it’s very hard for us in a school to understand what might be happening at home because kids will look totally different at school than they do at home. I can’t tell you how many educators I’ve said, wow, you’re working with this family; why do they have a psychologist involved? She’s like the easiest kid; she’s delightful; she’s a class leader. And I say, oh well, that’s funny. I don’t think her parents would describe her that way. And by the way, it happens in the reverse as well angel at home trouble at school. Why is that? Home and school are completely different places with totally different demands. Now, of course, in the remote environment, they’ve got similar demands too. But anyways. Lucas, Hallie, Ben, I don’t know if anybody else wants to chime in on this question here at all well.
Hallie: I was thinking, I mean you’ve made a lot of really great points, Stuart. One of the things I was kind of thinking about along those lines that’s been helpful sometimes when we come into situations where we feel like from a school setting, we’re looking at things totally different than the home setting right where we’ve kind of got these dueling solutions that are out there. Because oftentimes what happens is people come to the table with two sets of solutions, and we try to talk through the solutions, and behind each of those really are valid concerns, right? Really good concerns, and if we can take the time to break it down a little bit and really truly address or find out what the concerns are behind them, behind those solutions, oftentimes we come up with more mutually satisfactory types of solutions. And sometimes we realize that we’re actually coming at things from the same place but in a different way. And so, I think one of the things that has sometimes been helpful is to work on completing a CPS Assessment together right and to look at and examine what are the behaviors that we’re seeing across home and school. What are the specific situations that we notice are really challenging for the youth at home and at school? And what are some of those lagging skills that are behind it? And sometimes, that can get us to a place where we can come up with an action plan for what we want to do or how we want to move forward with some solutions. And so, as much as we are able to team together to do that process or some sort of process to examine things a little deeper, I think that can be helpful too.
Ben: I think the other thing I would add, and again I want to acknowledge what you said, Stuart, is that there are certainly legal implications of compliance with an IEP. It is perhaps for the family to identify who has the best relationship with their child. Regardless of whether or not it’s the team chairperson is in charge of the IEP process or the school administrator, it could be a paraprofessional; it could be the special ed teacher. It could be a general education teacher, but I think perhaps one option is to explore the conversation with them first because those are people who really understand their child who might be able to hear their, the parents’, concerns and work together to try to think through how best to meet their child’s needs. I’ve seen a lot of success with that, really leveraging relationships. As you said earlier that everything rests on the quality of relationships.
Stuart: Yeah, yep. Well, and I think one of the other things I’m hearing from both of you is, when possible here the importance of being as proactive as possible. And we did have a little bit of a window into what things might look like at the tail end of last school year. And so if your child, if your student, was struggling in particular ways then, it would be a pretty good bet that it might be trouble again this fall. And so that’s the importance of a teacher communicating to their colleague who this kid is coming into their class. What did you see in the remote learning environment? But as parents, also if we have concerns about how our kids were able to engage, getting ahead of that. And as Hallie said, also if you look through the lens of “skill not will,” which is what we try to do here at Think:Kids, and see that when kids are struggling or anybody for that matter, it’s more likely a struggle with skill instead of a lack of will to do better. If you look through that lens and keep in mind what are the skills that your child struggles with that are making it even harder right now, getting ahead of that and helping your teacher, your kid’s teacher, to know that this is an area of growth for them that we’re expecting is going to be a challenge. It is going to increase empathy right from the beginning and help teachers to be more proactive.
Ben: And teachers usually tremendously appreciate that kind of communication for families. I hear that universally.
Stuart: So we got another question coming in here which is: “How do we suggest Plan B-ing,” and again we’ve got the lingo here, so that’s shorthand for how do we suggest collaborating to solve “doing school remotely,” which is that’s a big question, Deborah Ann. But she’s saying, bring teachers and parents together is challenging remotely, as we’ve been saying. Homework used to be a big issue, but what I read your comment/question here saying is teachers are understandably, as they should, trying to pursue a whole host of expectations. When for some kids, just the fact that they are showing up online is a success. And how do we try to? These are my words, not hers, not sweat the small stuff. So, for instance, if a kid shows up in PJs as opposed to more serious attire, we might not like it, but we’re happy they’re there. And, I think first of all, since we are talking to a lot of educators here, even before we talk about how to collaborate to solve a problem, one of the things we talk about is prioritizing. Just deciding what are you working on and what are you not working on. And in the middle of a pandemic, with the most unusual start to a school year, I think there’s a lot of things that we need to decide. You know what? Maybe those used to be important. They’re not so important right now. And I would put PJs on that list in my book, and it’s not to say, if you’re there in person, I actually think what kids look like does matter. It does show a certain appreciation for the importance of the learning environment. But if we’re just hoping that kid’s going to show up. You know what? I’d rather have them there in PJs than not there at all. And so, people familiar with Collaborative Problem Solving, that’s what we mean is use Plan C. Decide proactively I’m not taking up the PJ thing, just happy they’re there. Now, if the year gets going and they’re there a bunch, and things are cooking, and you want to address the PJ thing, then you bring that back, and you decide to take that on collaboratively. But Deborah Ann’s question is also “how do you talk to the teachers about this?” And before I open this up to the group, the one thing I want to say is remember the most important piece of Collaborative Problem Solving its empathy. Right? I mean, Teachers Do Well if They Can. Teachers are not trying to get our kids to wear something other than their PJs because they want to cause trouble. No, they’re just trying to pursue good expectations, and if you think we need to prioritize a little bit differently, start with empathy not for your kid, but empathy, in this case, for your teacher. And understand their perspective and concern first before you share yours. And that’ll get the conversation going. So my fellow panelists here, anything to add when it comes to addressing Deborah Ann’s question here?
Ben: You kind of said what I was thinking. Yeah, it’s the same lead-in, right? “Hey, I noticed that the kids not wearing PJs seems really important for your class. I’m kind of confused by that. Can you help me understand it?” Right? And then understanding the teacher’s perspective and then sharing your concern. Like, “well, really, it’s been so hard to get my child to participate. It’s actually creating a lot of conflict and making it harder for them to learn.” Whatever the parent’s concerns.
Stuart: So, the Plan B you’re doing is actually is the parent with the teacher, okay. Now some might be saying, “oh wait a sec, so you’re saying I actually use Plan B on the teacher?”
Ben: No, with the teacher.
Stuart: And that’s what I would say, is no you don’t use Plan B on anyone folks it’s not some special technique that use surreptitiously. No, you collaborate with them, and by the way, it’s okay for them to know that’s what you’re doing. But notice what Ben said; you start with their concern, as opposed to starting with yours. Here’s what starting with yours looks like, “hey, I just don’t think that it’s important that my kid be wearing something other than their PJs. And I think we should just be happy that he showed up, and so I really think it would be good if you were to just lay off for the PJs.” Right? What happens if you’re the teacher? You feel disrespected, you start to get dysregulated, and collaboration goes out the window. If however, you say, “hey it seems like him not being his PJs is important, and I bet there’s a very good reason because this is this is important that they show up at school and take this seriously.” Right? “So, I just wanted to touch base with you about that.” What are you doing? You’re regulating that teacher through empathy. And by the way, teachers, it’s the same exact thing when we’re saying how do you talk to a parent who has who’s upset about something start by regulating them before you’re going to share your concern. All right, Deborah Ann, I hope that’s helpful there.
Hallie: All right, can I add on that too?
Stuart: Of course, Hallie, please.
Hallie: Well, I think one of the also things that we think about too with Plan B that’s so important is building relationships. Right? And we’re talking about not only building strong relationships with but also creating those strong bonds and relationships with other adults. Which is equally important if we think about moving forward in working because part of the success of educating our kids is having strong relationships with families, right? We know that that creates really good outcomes, and so this process of utilizing collaborative problem solving helps to build relationships amongst everyone. And so it’s equally important to use it with adults as it is with kids.
Stuart: Thank you. All right, if anyone has any other questions or topics they would like us to address in the closing minutes here, I would invite you to type those in the Q&A, and in the meantime, if not, I’m going to encourage each of our panelists just to share any last words of wisdom, anything that you would suggest people keep in mind when it comes to this very challenging year ahead so if anyone wants to chime in with some final thoughts for the group here.
Hallie: One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and in my role as a parent and working in schools and working with people in different places is how we apply this model to ourselves as well. So, we can be very hard on ourselves and if we can go back to that philosophy of People Do Well if They Can, it means I’m Doing Well if I Can. And have more compassion for ourselves and recognize that we are in a challenging situation and that our skills are going to be stressed right now. And so, how do we apply? Perhaps we need to Plan C, let go of expectations for ourselves as well in the multiple hats and roles that we serve. And that when we can also do that for ourselves, we’re also going to see things improve for everyone around us. So that’s been my mantra lately.
Stuart: Yes, very well said Hallie, thanks for I think that’s phenomenal advice. Ben, looks like you’re going to chime in next?
Ben: Yeah, so to piggyback off that, Hallie just talked a lot about the philosophy that Kids Do Well if They Can, People Do Well if They Can, that We Are All Doing the Best We Can and the idea of problem-solving can not only occur with children, but between adults, parents, and teachers, teachers and parents. I think that is also true for households with two parents. And it’s really important in this era. You know your spouse or whoever else is living in the house is doing the best they can. The demands that everyone is facing now is unprecedented, you know, working from home, having to figure out homeschooling, not having daycare, not being able to. I was on a call with a friend last night, and he was talking about how he’s such an extrovert and how hard it’s affecting his ability to be as motivated and energized as normal because he’s missing that part of his life. We’re all under tremendous stress, and this model can be applied in all relationships so you can problem-solve with your spouse, you can be empathic to your spouse. You can remember that they’re doing the best they can, just like you’re doing the best you can. And that might mean you might need to do what you described as Plan C. There might be some expectations right in your relationship that you guys need to let go of each other, you know, maybe it’s okay the dishes don’t get done on time. Maybe you divide and conquer in a different way. Maybe you just order out on Friday night instead of cooking. Really having empathy, support, and flexibility within the relationship can be important and will just there will be a trickle-down effect, and the kids’ ability to stay calm or what you’re describing is regulated because it will reduce the stress in the environment. And boy, is this environment stressful. There’s so much that we don’t know that’s going to happen. Right we’re talking about expectation setting. It’s like for this week, right? Who knows what’s going to happen next week? All the rules of the game are to change again, right? Who knows what this is going to look like?
Stuart: Exactly. Best laid plans. Well, thank you, Ben. Lucas, anything you want to share in our last minute here some parting words of wisdom for folks?
Lucas: Yeah, I think everybody be patient, be understanding, have that empathy the relationship’s going to be huge, and I honestly am really hopeful that because of the situation, having it be a necessity for us to be stronger communicators with families, that this will actually create more opportunity for us to have those better relationships just based off a necessity. I think in my mind as an educator; I’m at the school until five, six o’clock at night sometimes, and oftentimes I don’t have opportunities to connect with families. And I honestly feel like now, because of the situation we’re in, I might have a little bit more flexibility to make phone calls, to email, to do Zoom calls with families and do some more work with them, and hopefully provide some more resources. So be hopeful that wherever everybody is out there that they’ll have opportunities as well.
Stuart: Thank you, Lucas. And thank you, Divina, for your kind comments about this conversation, which we hope has been helpful for folks. Karen, I don’t want to leave you short here. You snuck your question in. I invited it, so I’m going to try to answer it super quickly. First of all, talk about empathy for kids under nine together 24/7. Oh my gosh. I feel for you already, but she’s asking a couple two of the four go from playing well together to all hell breaks loose in a split second. They use Collaborative Problem Solving after the fact, but often somebody gets hit before you can step in. Just make sure, Karen, that you’re not just doing what we call Emergency Collaborative Problem Solving, which is trying to sort it all out at the moment right after it’s occurred. But when the dust settles where people are not fighting with four kids under nine, you’re going to want to just like relax any moment you get to catch your breath. But, try to grab a couple of minutes to have a proactive conversation with those two, if not all four, to do a mini Group Plan B discussion where you simply notice what’s happening, and you try to gather information about why it goes from playing nicely to all hell breaking loose. You’ll get a better read on what the specific triggers are and how you might be able to address them.
All right. On that note, we’re going to wrap things up, but I do also want to let people know that we do have a lot of other ways we can help you all online here. So teachers and parents, or anyone else for that matter, we invite you to consider our online training, which I’ve typed into the chat window here. These are intensive training where you can learn all about Collaborative Problem Solving; four afternoons a week on Zoom, it’ll be your own remote learning. And parents specifically, if you are interested in learning Collaborative Problem Solving along with other parents in a supportive environment, we have online parent classes. Those links are in the chat window for folks. Visit us at thinkkids.org. Lucas, thanks so much for being a part of our certified community and joining us today to share your experiences as a parent and an educator. Hallie, Ben, thank you for joining us as well.
But most importantly, thanks to all the attendees, we do hope this is helpful. We wish you the best of luck with this very uncertain year. And as everybody said, be kind to yourself, be kind to those around you, remember we’re all doing the best we can under very challenging circumstances. Good luck and take care, folks. Thank you, thank you.
Edited for clarity.
It’s mid-summer, and for many kids, this means a well-deserved break from school. If you look closely, a typical school day involves hundreds of expectations! Think about all the things your child has to do from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed. Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, pack a backpack, get to school on time, pay attention in classes, raise hand before speaking, get along with peers and teachers… and that’s only a sampling of the first half of the day! There are lots of opportunities for your child to struggle or experience success. As many of you know, some kids have an extra hard time with the day-to-day demands of school. And with COVID-19 impacting the school environment, there have been even more stressors for students to navigate over the past year. Has your child struggled? Let’s look at some strategies you can put in place now that may help reduce those struggles when school starts up again in the fall.
Look Backward for Clues. What school-related things were hard for your child last year? Think back, and make a list. You will probably be able to identify predictable patterns of things your child had difficulty with. Did they struggle with attending class? Or maybe they attended, but they struggled to participate? Maybe there were certain subjects they had a harder time with. Perhaps there were a lot of arguments about math homework. Maybe they had meltdowns whenever there was a science test. Or maybe it depended on the type of assignment. Maybe writing and reading went well, but they struggled with group projects. Or perhaps the schoolwork was fine, and the social aspects of school were hard for them. Did they struggle with making or keeping friends? Was bullying an issue? All of these clues can help us understand common sticking points that might come up again next year. When you’ve clearly identified them, you will be able to make a plan to address them before they come up again!
Plan Ahead. Make a point to talk with your child about school-related issues before the year starts. Work together to identify ways to reduce those issues before they happen. For example, if your child struggles to focus on that math homework, sit down and talk about it together. Ask them what makes it hard to focus on it. Listen with empathy (see #5). And then together, figure out a way to make it easier to concentrate during homework time. What would help? What are their ideas? Working with your child to build a plan is a great way to empower them, and it can be great for your relationship!
Think about Skill vs. Will. At Think:Kids, we believe all young people are doing the best they can with the skills they have at any given moment. To navigate day-to-day situations, kids (and all humans, really) need the kinds of skills that help us communicate, focus, adapt, handle our feelings, and interact with others in a positive way. Challenging behavior, such as skipping school, having meltdowns at homework time, getting in fights on the playground, or talking out of turn during class, are all signs that a child is struggling with these kinds of skills. The behavior is really just the tip of the iceberg. Try to look beyond it and instead focus on the day-to-day situations that lead to the behavior, remembering that if they could do well in those moments, they would. That mindset alone can help! Talking collaboratively with your child will help build those skills!
Consider Going Beyond Rewards and Consequences. Let’s say your child struggles to get any grade higher than a “B.” Does it help if you offer them a reward for every “A” they earn? If so, that’s great! But if not, you may need a different strategy. It’s possible that all the rewards in the world won’t bring the grades up because earning the grade would require skills the child doesn’t currently have. Sometimes this means we need to adjust our expectations a little bit. It also means we need to help differently. Olympic athletes want to earn gold medals, but just wanting the gold isn’t enough to ensure they’ll get it. They need coaching, practice, and support. They need help working on the hard parts. When rewards and consequences aren’t working, they can actually backfire by decreasing motivation, making kids feel like failures, and causing them to give up. But when kids are provided support with things that are hard for them, they tend to feel more successful, more understood, and more capable.
Remember, Every Child is Unique. One size does not fit all. Different kids need different things. Sometimes this means adjusting expectations accordingly. Perhaps one of your children is very ambitious about school and feels ashamed when they don’t get perfect scores. Meanwhile, your other child says they don’t care about school and refuses to study at all. The needs of these two children different, and so to provide the best support, you will need to approach them differently.
Listen with Empathy. In Collaborative Problem Solving, we find that empathy is not agreeing or disagreeing with someone; it’s about understanding where they are coming from. Listen and validate your child’s point of view, even if it’s different from your point of view. Let’s say your child struggles to participate in art class. Perhaps you think art is fun, so attending art class should be easy. Why can’t they just do it! But for your child, art is really stressful, and the class is too noisy, and the assignments are confusing. Listening and treating their concerns with value will do wonders for the parent-child relationship!
Here’s to a relaxing, collaborative summer!
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Wish your teenager would do his homework or his chores just because it was important to him instead of because you bribed him to do it? Wish people on your sales team would strive for higher numbers not just when an incentive trip is dangled in front of their noses but just because they want to be good at their job?
Parents, teachers, managers, and CEOs alike all search for the Holy Grail of performance: internal motivation. How do you internally motivate someone, and is asking that very question antithetical to the goal itself? Can you actually help someone to be more internally driven?
Many people opine about the keys to intrinsic (as opposed to extrinsic or external) motivation, but let’s use empirical research here to set the record straight. There is, in fact, an entire field of research in this area. What do the data say? No, you can’t make someone internally motivated. However, it turns out that it is quite possible to help foster sustained intrinsic drive in others. The key lies in three very basic psychological needs that we humans must have satisfied if we are going to be internally driven to pursue a goal. These three basic and essential needs are:
Self-determination theory flows from research in this area and has shown that we must feel (1) reasonably good at something (i.e., competent), (2) that we have some independence, and (3) connected to those around us if we are going to internally motivated to pursue any particular goal in a sustained way. Think about your own job. If you like your job and feel internally motivated to go to work, it is probably because you feel good at your job, feel like you have some autonomy, and feel connected to your colleagues and others with whom you work. However, if you don’t particularly like your job and often feel unmotivated, it is likely because you don’t feel particularly good at it, you feel told what to do or controlled, and you feel and disconnected from those around you.
In my previous blog, I described the dangers of focusing on extrinsic motivators like rewards. One of those dangers is a marked decrease in intrinsic (internal) drive. There is a negative correlation between the two. This makes sense when you realize that using a carrot and stick approach doesn’t build skills, autonomy, or connection. In fact, when you try to incentivize people to perform, you are taking away their autonomy by attempting to control or manipulate their behavior. So instead of bribing someone, if we want to foster sustained, internal drive we need to think about how to help people feel more independent, more connected and better at the task or job at hand. But how exactly do we do that? Easier said than done for sure.
However, we’ve made some basic observations while teaching people our Collaborative Problem Solving approach for over 20 years now. When an individual is having a hard time meeting expectations, it’s important to not turn, as many of us do, to offering incentives or threatening consequences. Those only work for the short term because the only focus on increasing external motivation. If you really want long term change, you’ll need to invite your child, student, employee (or yes, even friend, partner or relative) to solve problems together with you, to foster connection and autonomy while also helping them practice and build their skills – skills that lead to them becoming and feeling more competent in the future. In fact, we actually see the ingredients of our Collaborative Problem Solving process as a sort of a roadmap for meeting these three basic psychological needs that lead to sustained intrinsic drive. Start by understanding and valuing their perspective on a problem before sharing yours. Then invite them to brainstorm solutions together with you, giving them first chance to suggest an idea.
So, if you want your child to get her homework done, don’t reward her with more Fortnite time whenever she actually completes it. That will just make her more motivated to play Fortnite! Instead, ask her what gets in the way of getting the homework done. Get her perspective on it. Maybe it’s a focus issue, a fatigue issue after school, maybe she often doesn’t know where to start without the teacher’s help. Whatever it is, assume she’s got a good concern and find out why before you share why the homework is important in your mind. Finish by inviting her to try to come up with solutions to the homework problem. If she’s co-author of some ideas to try, she will be much more invested in the solutions. She will also feel much more competent, independent, and connected to you while doing so.
Same deal with your colleagues at work. Start by finding out why, directly from them, that they aren’t jazzed about selling your new product. Express the obvious concern you have about sales numbers and invite them to the problem-solving table. All of a sudden, they are a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. And your team members will feel … you guessed it, more competent, independent, and connected – the recipe for fostering internal drive. If you use this process repeatedly, you are bound to see increases in internal drive—and long-term change. The data don’t lie.
This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.
Pink, D.H. (2009) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Riverbed Books.
Ablon, J.S. (2018) Changeable: How Collaborative Problem Solving Changes Lives at Home, at School, and at Work. New York: Penguin Random House.
Ryan, R.M. & Deci, E.L. (2000) Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions, Contemporary Educational Psychology 25.
The answer is actually quite simple. Our understanding of how to change problem behavior comes from our understanding of why the problem behavior exists in the first place. And our explanation for why people behave poorly is typically wrong! When someone doesn’t behave or perform as we would like them to, our default assumption is that they must not be trying very hard; they just don’t want it badly enough. This is true whether we are talking about a child in our home or school, our friend, relative, or partner, an employee whom we manage, or even a professional athlete on our favorite team. As a result, when people fail to meet our expectations, we typically respond with incentives intended to make them try harder in the future. Unfortunately, these conventional methods often backfire, creating a downward spiral of resentment and frustration, and a missed opportunity for growth.
But what if people don’t misbehave because of a lack of desire to do better, but because they lack the skills to do better? What if changing problem behavior is a matter of skill, not will?
Interestingly, neuroscience research has shown for decades now that people who struggle to meet others’ expectations (and even their own!) have challenges with specific thinking skills. It is time to listen to this research and accept the fact challenging behavior is the result of a lack of skill, not will—skills in areas like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving.
For the last 20-plus years, I have been teaching an approach called Collaborative Problem Solving to parents, teachers, clinicians, managers, and entire organizations interested in behavior change. The approach is predicated on the simple philosophy that skill, not will, determines behavior. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the toughest settings to try to change some of the most challenging behavior, and I have seen firsthand how powerful and effective this shift in mindset is. The simple but powerful skill, not will philosophy puts us in a far more compassionate and helpful place as a parent, teacher, friend, partner or manager. And the good news is that skills can be taught! We’ve shown that by practicing problem-solving skills, as opposed to resorting to incentives and punishments, you can improve just about anyone’s behavior. So the next time someone’s behavior frustrates you, remind yourself that we are all doing the best we can to handle what life is throwing at us. And if we aren’t handling it well, it’s probably more about skill than will. In fact, people who struggle with these skills are likely trying harder than anyone else to behave themselves—because it doesn’t come naturally to them.
I’m excited to announce the arrival of my new book, Changeable, which starts shipping June 5, 2018! In the book, I review the research behind this way of understanding challenging behavior and describe the simple and remarkably effective framework that Collaborative Problem Solving provides for helping anyone in your life (even yourself!) build skills related to flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. I describe my experience applying the approach in some very tough settings, including state psychiatric hospitals for chronically mentally ill adults, prisons, residential treatment centers working with traumatized youth, and with police officers working in schools in the poorest congressional district in the United States. Regardless of setting, the basic tenets of the approach are the same. I then detail the implications for anywhere there is conflict between us humans, whether or not there is a power differential present—parent-child interactions, teacher-student interactions, relationships with friends, partners, and family members, as well as with employees and supervisees. Perhaps the furthest-reaching implications apply to problems on the world stage. In the book, I make the case that we all might benefit from a more compassionate and empathic stance towards others and legitimate attempts to solve problems in mutually satisfactory ways.
I hope you will join me here in the future as I go into more detail on different aspects of the model and tackle all kinds of related topics with some guest experts as well. For now, remember these 3 key take-aways:
This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.
Ablon, JS. Changeable: How Collaborative Problem Solving Changes Lives at Home, at School, and at Work. New York: Penguin Random House; 2018.
Greene, RW, Ablon JS, Monuteaux, MC, Goring, JC, Henin, A, Raezer-Blakely, L, Edwards, G. Markey, J & Biederman, J. Effectiveness of Collaborative Problem Solving in affectively dysregulated children with oppositional defiant disorder: Initial findings. JCCP, 2004; 72(6): 1157-1164.
Pollastri, AR, Epstein, LD, Heath, GH, & Ablon, JS. The Collaborative Problem Solving approach: Outcomes across settings. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 2013, 21(4), 188-199.
Pollastri, AR, Lieberman, RE, Boldt, SL & Ablon, JS (2016) Minimizing Seclusion and Restraint in Youth Residential and Day Treatment Through Site-Wide Implementation of Collaborative Problem Solving, Residential Treatment for Children & Youth, 33:3-4, 186-205
In my first post for Changeable on Psychology Today, I described some of the foundational thinking behind the Collaborative Problem Solving approach that my colleagues and I teach. I pointed out that when someone exhibits challenging behavior, we typically resort to conventional methods aimed at motivating better behavior from them, safe in the assumption that what is getting in their way is a lack of motivation. Motivational procedures can make the possible more possible, but they do not make the impossible possible. If challenging behavior is the result of a lack of skill, not will, as I suggested in my first blog, then relying on rewards and consequences might be barking up the wrong therapeutic tree! However, I sometimes find myself less concerned about the fact that motivational procedures don’t work with the most challenging behavior and more concerned about their side effects. Not only may motivational procedures not work if challenging behavior is caused by skills deficits, but I often see them make matters worse.
There are two primary dangers to focusing on external reinforcers like incentives or rewards and consequences:
A very clear finding from thousands of studies in this area is that the more you rely on extrinsic rewards to motivate behavior, the more you eat away at a person’s intrinsic drive to achieve those very goals. I have seen this time and time again in my work with some pretty tough children and adolescents, and Daniel Pink and others have described what this looks like in the workplace for us adults. The more we rely on a carrot and stick approach, the more dependent we get on constantly producing shiny new objects for people to be motivated by. In the worst-case scenario, over-reliance on extrinsic rewards actually encourages unethical behavior when people we are trying to motivate become focused solely on how to get the rewards as opposed to the goals we are trying to get them to achieve with those rewards in the first place. Much research has confirmed the negative correlation between extrinsic reinforcement and intrinsic motivation. The more we try to incentivize someone to do something, the less internal drive they will feel.
A related side-effect of over-using external motivators is something my 101-year-old grandfather describes best. He often says: If you give a dog name, eventually they will answer to it. This is his way of describing how when we treat someone as though they are lazy, unmotivated or just not trying hard enough, that we should not be surprised when over time they start to look like, and talk like, and act like someone who is lazy, unmotivated and not trying hard enough. I like to think that none of us would want to consciously try to make someone else feel as if there are lazy, unmotivated, and simply not trying hard, but the cold reality is that whenever we use reinforcers to try to motivate better behavior we are indeed sending the not so subtle message that we think things would go better if they just tried harder. This is a dangerous message to send, and I have seen its impact firsthand in homes, schools, treatment facilities, and workplaces all around the world. When someone is constantly subjected to external reinforcers, they really have no choice but to come to one of two conclusions: (1) either the people trying to motivate me are right—I must not really be trying very hard; or (2) the people trying to motivate me are missing the boat and don’t understand me at all. I am not sure which conclusion is more damaging—to one’s self-esteem or trust in others.
As a parent, teacher, clinician, manager, or leader, I hope this blog gives you pause before you design your next sticker-chart, demerit system, or employee incentive program. In my next blog, I have some good news. There is a whole field devoted to how to foster that elusive thing called internal drive. So if you want to foster internal drive and steer clear of the side-effects of external reinforcers I described above, I will walk through what to focus on instead. Together, we will dive into the fascinating field of what is called self-determination theory to highlight what actually does foster sustained intrinsic drive. Stay tuned!
This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.
E. L. Deci, R. Koestner, and R. M. Ryan “A Meta-analytic Review of Experiments Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin 125 (1999): 627.
R. M. Ryan and E. L. Deci, “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions,” Contemporary Educational Psychology 25 (2000)
D. H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Riverhead Books (2009)
Traditional school disciplinary strategies are guilty—guilty of being woefully ineffective and failing kids and educators alike. They aren’t needed for most of the students in our schools, and in a sad irony, they don’t work for the students to whom they are most applied! Research has clearly shown that disciplinary actions actually increase the likelihood of further discipline and are related to higher drop-out rates as well as lower academic achievement and even eventual juvenile justice involvement (APA, 2008).
Despite having learned a lot about the brain in the last few decades, school discipline hasn’t changed much. Sure, we have fancier jargon for describing these strategies, but the basic ideas and interventions are the same. Time-out, detention, suspension, expulsion are all aimed at motivating students to behave better—which ought to work if a lack of motivation is the reason kids are behaving poorly in the first place. But, as I’ve explained in a previous blog, thanks to research in the neurosciences we now know that this conventional wisdom about challenging behavior is flat out wrong. Students who struggle to control their behavior at school don’t lack the will to behave well, they lack the skills to behave well—skills like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. No end of motivational strategies will teach students neurocognitive skills like these that are the reason they are struggling in the first place. I’ve also discussed in a previous blog some of the dangerous side effects of the ineffective disciplinary strategies we use in schools.
As if all this wasn’t enough, guess who suffers the most from traditional school discipline? The most at-risk, misunderstood, and marginalized students, specifically students of color and students with histories of trauma and exposure to chronic stress. Students of color, particularly African-American students, are suspended at disproportionate rates and are on the receiving end of much more severe punishments than their white peers for far less serious behavior (Gilbert & Gay, 1985; Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, & Curran, 2004). They are also punished for more subjective offenses because of something called implicit bias. Caucasian adults are much more likely to perceive the behavior of students of color as angry or threatening. It is absolutely imperative that we implement new approaches to school discipline that address these racially biased misinterpretations of behavior. Fortunately, we are finding that when we teach school staff how to focus on a specific student’s struggles with certain skills as the root of their misbehavior, they are less likely to rely on things like race and socioeconomic status in judging students. In other words, focusing on skill, not will, has the potential to reduce the harmful effects of racial or socioeconomic disparities in school disciplinary practices.
Our schools aspire to be “trauma-informed” or “trauma-sensitive.” Many educators are being trained to understand the impact of chronic stress or trauma on students’ development, behavior, and learning. Educators have far more empathy for how chronic stress and trauma delay brain development, causing lags in skill development which result further downstream in challenging behavior at school. However, these same schools often then rely heavily on punitive school disciplinary strategies for these very students. And let’s be honest here: traditional school discipline is about as trauma-uninformed as it gets! Nowhere in the trauma-informed practice literature have I seen anyone advocating for the use of power and control to manipulate a student’s behavior. Using behavior charts and rewards and consequences is doing just that. Students who exhibit challenging behavior are often the students with trauma histories for whom these interventions not only don’t work, they do damage and make matters worse.
We have referred to this as the vicious cycle of chronic stress and punitive discipline (Ablon & Pollastri, 2018). Punitive discipline adds more chronic stress which further delays skill development resulting in escalating behavior which is then often met by raising the stakes with even more punitive discipline. Systems of escalating consequences are sometimes called “progressive discipline.” When it comes to curbing challenging behavior, those systems are anything but progressive. In fact, I like to refer to them as progressive dysregulation where both the student and the educators become increasingly dysregulated dealing with one another which leads nowhere good. In fact, it has been well documented that dealing with challenging behavior in the classroom is one of the biggest sources of stress for educators which drives talented, young teachers out of the profession just when we need them most.
What’s the good news here? We have the power to interrupt the cycle of chronic stress and trauma. Proven alternatives exist. Instead of adding stress resulting in further delaying skills and escalating behavior, we can buffer stress, build skills and reduce challenging behavior. These alternatives don’t rely on power and control and are restorative rather than punitive. And they are inclusive alternatives that combat, rather than reinforce, racially biased practices.
Schools represent a remarkable opportunity to help our most vulnerable kids. Where else do we have kids the majority of their waking hours, the majority of their youth surrounded by trained, professionals whose goal is to teach them? So, let’s harness that opportunity and bring school discipline into the 21st century. We need a call to action. It is high time we fix school discipline.
This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.
Ablon, J.S., & Pollastri, A.R, The School Discipline Fix. (2018). Norton: New York, NY.
American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. The American Psychologist, 63(9), 852.
Gilbert, S. E., & Gay, G. (1985). Improving the success in school of poor black children. Phi Delta Kappan, 67(2), 133-37.
Weinstein, C. S., Tomlinson-Clarke, S., & Curran, M. (2004). Toward a conception of culturally responsive classroom management. Journal of teacher education, 55(1), 25-38.
Our understanding of the causes of challenging behavior often do not flow from science. They flow from bias.
We assume that kids who behave in challenging ways do so on purpose, in order to get or avoid things. Stop anyone on the street and ask them why kids misbehave, and you will likely hear some version of this conventional wisdom. These assumptions are what we might call an explicit or conscious bias. They are explicit because we are fully aware of, endorse and knowingly pass these ideas onto others. And they are a bias because the ideas have been completely disproven by science.
More than half a century of research at this point confirms that people who struggle to control their behavior do not do so purposefully, but rather because they struggle with the skills required to behave better. Skills like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. As I’ve written many times, it’s about skill not will. Countless kids have suffered as a result of this explicit bias about their behavior that leads to carrot and stick approaches which typically don’t work and often make matters worse because they are poorly matched to the actual problem.
Tragically, kids of color who struggle to manage their behavior suffer from double jeopardy when it comes to biases about their behavior. They suffer from both explicit bias that has their behavior misunderstood in the first place and implicit bias borne of racism that has them receive far more punitive responses.
Implicit or unconscious bias is what lurks beneath the surface, often outside of our awareness but causes people of color to be subject to far more frequent and severe discipline for lesser infractions. So kids of color with behavioral challenges are both explicitly and implicitly misunderstood and mistreated.
When we focus on the actual problem—skills struggles, rather than a lack of motivation—we can interrupt these two behavior biases and instead set the stage for relational approaches that help kids build the skills they need to succeed.
It’s high time we begin to listen to science—not bias—to spare kids of color from the double jeopardy of behavior bias.
This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.
May 26, 2021
J. Stuart Ablon & Michelle Millben, Esq., Founder of Explanation Kids.
Over the last year, adults have been faced with talking to kids about a pandemic that changed how we live and go to school, a presidential election and the insurrection that followed, and the series of cruel reminders of the deadly presence of racism in our world. Fortunately, many organizations have stepped in, providing guidance about how to talk to kids about such challenging topics. What seems to be missing from this dialog is how to listen to kids during deeply scary, troubling, and traumatic times.
As adults, when we are scared, confused, or angry, we strive for some sense of control. We feel more in control when we have words packaged nicely to pass along to our kids. But this often leads to our conversations with kids devolving into lecturing without allowing space to listen. Every parent has been there—talking away and knowing that kids are tuning out.
Indeed, getting our kids to listen to us is a big hurdle. The challenge is even greater in the digital age as kids are doing more listening and thinking about what is happening around them in the world. Kids are gaining more access to information and misinformation from news cycles and in our communities. Kids, even as young as Pre-K age, internalize much of this information, yet often have a hard time expressing and processing what all of these big issues mean to them. Instead of making assumptions about what kids have heard, seen, and what they think and feel about these events, it is in these times that they need the listening ear of adults perhaps more than any wise words.
Parents and educators have shared with us some of the questions that their kids are asking. What is evident from their conversations is this: The hard work of listening is tough, confusing, and at times heartbreaking. However, kids are leaning on adults to take an interest in what is worrying them.
For example, one parent shared that her 6-year-old son thinks that the police are now the bad guys and he cannot tell the difference when playing “cops and robbers.” Another parent shared that after seeing a picture of George Floyd, his 8-year-old son could not tell whether George Floyd was white or Black. His son said, “He is brown, Dad. Not peach like me. So is he white or Black?”
A mother shared that her 7-year-old daughter raised an obvious but stumping question: “If Mr. Floyd was telling the officer that he could not breathe, why didn’t he get up and let him breathe?” And another 9-year-old kid saw news coverage of the protests from last summer and asked her mother “Why are you not doing anything like protesting or making signs?” Others questions ranged from “Why wasn’t George Floyd treated fairly?” or “Why were those people looting?” or “I don’t understand why everyone is upset.”
When kids are encouraged to share their feelings, they may express anger, upset, and disappointment, and they may even say what seems like the wrong thing. We may feel shocked or uncomfortable by such questions. However, we must challenge ourselves to listen.
How can we equip ourselves to handle these kinds of observations and comments? How can we listen effectively when we are upset and often taken off guard in conversations? How can we develop a healthy practice of allowing kids to lead the conversation from time to time? Thankfully, active listening can actually be reduced to using four “tools” that are relatively easy to learn, remember, and practice:
Listening to our kids is a powerful tool for their development. Not only is being heard reassuring and calming, but from a neurobiological perspective it literally puts kids in a position to hear adults and what we have to share. This is not some touchy-feely theory; it is a truth reflected in how our brains process information: When we are upset, worried, or scared, the smartest part of our brain is less accessible. If, however, we can regulate our emotions, we have more access to the higher-level thinking skills involved in listening, processing, and understanding. Empathic listening is regulating. When we do that first, our kids will hear a lot more of what we have to say. Stated differently: If we want our kids to listen to us, we need to start by listening to them.
A special thank you to Michelle Millben for co-authoring this article.
Michelle Millben, Esq. is a former White House, Justice Department, and Capitol Hill official and Founder of Explanation Kids.
This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.
I was asked to write a blog post about a recent trend in education for K-12 Talk that I find either exciting or concerning. So, I decided to write about a topic that is both exciting and concerning: the impact of trauma on learning and behavior. I’ve re-created that blog post below.
These days, many educators are being trained to understand the impact of chronic stress and trauma on students’ development, behavior, and learning. Schools everywhere are devoting significant professional development time to this topic and prioritizing being “trauma-informed” or “trauma-sensitive.” Thankfully, as a result, educators have far more empathy for how chronic stress and trauma can derail learning and be a primary cause of disruptive behavior in the classroom.
These same schools often still rely heavily on punitive school disciplinary strategies. I recall visiting a school recently where the leadership proudly described their trauma-informed training and then proceeded to show me examples of the behavior contracts they use with their students. These traditional disciplinary strategies (including sticker-charts, time-outs, demerits, detention, suspension, and expulsion) aren’t very successful for the students to whom they are most often applied. Research has clearly shown that such disciplinary actions actually increase the likelihood of further disciplinary measures and are related to higher drop-out rates, as well as lower academic achievement and even eventual juvenile justice involvement (APA, 2008). And to whom are they most often applied? Sadly, to the most at-risk, misunderstood, and marginalized students, including those with histories of trauma and exposure to chronic stress. Students who exhibit challenging behavior are often the students with trauma histories because being exposed to chronic stress or trauma delays brain development, causing lags in skill development which in turn result in challenging behaviors. As a direct result of their trauma, many of these students struggle with skills like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. They don’t lack the will to behave well; they lack the skills to behave well. No wonder traditional school discipline doesn’t work with traumatized students: motivational strategies don’t teach students the neurocognitive skills they lack.
Not only do punitive interventions not work with traumatized students, they can do developmental damage and make matters worse. Nowhere in the trauma-informed practice literature have I seen anyone advocate for the use of power and control to manipulate a traumatized student’s behavior. Using behavior charts and rewards and consequences is doing just that. It is leveraging a power differential to increase compliance. Put more simply, traditional school discipline revolves around rewarding students when they do what we want and revoking privileges when they don’t: a toxic dynamic that many traumatized kids are already all too familiar with in their past relationships with adults. In other words, traditional school disciplinary strategies are about as trauma-uninformed and trauma-insensitive as it gets!
There are additional side-effects of this vicious cycle of chronic stress and punitive discipline (Ablon & Pollastri, 2018). When punitive discipline is ineffective, it adds more stress, which further delays skill development, which results in escalating behavior, which is then often met by raising the stakes with even more punitive discipline. Systems of escalating consequences are sometimes called “progressive discipline.” But this is a misnomer: when it comes to curbing challenging behavior, those systems are anything but progressive. In fact, I like to refer to them as “progressive dysregulation,” since both students and educators become increasingly dysregulated, with dire consequences for everyone, including the teachers. Dealing with challenging behavior in the classroom is one of the biggest sources of stress for educators; it drives talented, young teachers out of the profession just when we need them most.
We have the power to interrupt this cycle of chronic stress and trauma. We don’t have to respond to challenging behavior with punitive discipline. Proven alternatives exist. Instead of adding stress that further delays skills and escalates behavior, we can buffer stress, build skills, and reduce challenging behavior in a truly trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive way (Perry & Ablon, 2019). Effective alternatives, such as Collaborative Problem Solving and restorative practices, are relational forms of discipline that do not revolve around the use of power and control.
Schools represent a remarkable opportunity to help our most vulnerable, traumatized kids. Students spend the majority of their waking hours—the majority of their youth—surrounded by trained professionals who are experts in helping kids build skills. So, let’s harness that opportunity and turn trauma-informed principles into concrete, actionable strategies that transform school discipline.
References
Ablon, J.S., & Pollastri, A.R, The School Discipline Fix. (2018). Norton: New York, NY
American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. The American Psychologist, 63(9), 852.
Perry BD, Ablon JS. (2019) CPS as a Neurodevelopmentally Sensitive and Trauma-Informed Approach. In: Pollastri A., Ablon J., Hone M. (eds) Collaborative Problem Solving. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Springer, Cham
Everyone is struggling now. Parents, teachers, kids—we are all feeling incredibly isolated and stressed. Mass dysregulation is perhaps the best way to describe it. The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to escalating conflict in our homes and disturbing rates of abuse across the globe. And the traumatic effects are just beginning.
Responding to the pandemic is demanding extraordinary flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving skills from us all—much more than we have been accustomed to in our daily lives. Ironically, however, those very skills we need the most right now start to disappear on us under chronically stressful situations like this.
At our program at Massachusetts General Hospital, we specialize in working with people who struggle with flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving skills. And the good news is that there are a lot of lessons to be learned from that work that can be applied directly to today’s challenges. We can handle this together, but we need to do things differently.
First, we need to think differently. We need to realize that we are all doing the best we can right now under these trying conditions. We need to have extra empathy for each other and ourselves. Remembering our simple mantra can help: “People do well if they can.”
Next, we need to establish new routines and expectations. Many of those involve our kids. Rather than imposing new routines on them, we need to work together with our children to set those new routines, expectations and schedules. By making kids co-authors of their new reality, they will feel control, which is something we all need in the midst of a situation that is very much outside of our control. They will also be much more invested in the plans and routines working out well. When some of these new structures inevitably do not work well, it won’t be our fault as parents and teachers. Rather, we will be in it together with our kids and students.
Finally, when our best-laid plans don’t work out well, we need to avoid the impulse to attempt to restore our sense of control by resorting to power and control. Specifically, we need to avoid doling out rewards and punishments to try to make our kids adhere to those new routines. Instead, we need to engage kids in the problem-solving. Fortunately, we have a proven formula for effective problem solving with stressed individuals where flexibility and frustration tolerance are key:
1. Start by listening first to kids’ perspectives of why something isn’t working. Whether it is online classes, physical distancing, bedtime, the need for exercise, you name it—ask what’s getting in the way. What’s hard for them? If they are struggling to explain, try educated guessing. And if they don’t seem to want to talk at all, reassure them that you value their perspective and really want to understand it.
2. Only once we have a sense of their perspective on the issue, should we can share our perspective on the problem we are trying to solve.
3. Finally, once we understand each other’s stances, invite them to come to the table to brainstorm solutions that will work for all of us. Give them the first chance to craft solutions.
This is a process we call collaborative problem solving for obvious reasons. It is widely considered a way to manage conflict that is sensitive to the issues raised by traumatic events. It has been proven effective in the most chronically stressful situations even with kids with significant struggles with flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving skills. We know it can be helpful right now.
Problem-solving like this reduces conflict peacefully, improves relationships, and maximizes skills. Listen first and then invite collaboration, all while trying to maintain empathy for ourselves and others.
These are trying times. Trying times require trying a different way. But let’s try one that we know works.
References
Ablon, JS.Changeable: How Collaborative Problem Solving Changes Lives at Home, at School, and at Work. New York: Penguin Random House; 2018.
Ablon, JS, Pollastri, AR. The School Discipline Fix: Changing Behavior using Collaborative Problem Solving. New York: Norton; 2018
Pollastri, AR, Epstein, LD, Heath, GH, & Ablon, JS. The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach: Outcomes Across Settings. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 2013, 21(4), 188-199.
As originally posted in Psychology Today.
One of the topics that comes up a lot is when people want to solve the behavior rather than the problem. For example, a parent came to us recently and said “Okay I really want to work on her attitude. She is defiant about everything. How are we going to get her to be more agreeable?” While we agree that an ultimate goal is more harmony at home or agreeableness, you can’t “problem solve defiance.” What you can do is look at the situations in which she is defiant and pick one or two to work on. When you solve the problems specific to those situations, you are reducing the defiant behavior–not to mention working on the skills that likely led to the behavior in the first place! So in this case the parent said, “Well, meals are a nightmare, she won’t eat anything I make.” Okay, so let’s choose a particular meal time and have a Plan B conversation around that. This parent choose the most frustrating one for her–dinner time. So then the next step is to talk to her daughter well away from the dinner hour–proactive Plan B.
Parent: “Hey, I noticed when we sit down for dinner it doesn’t tend to go so well sometimes? What’s going on with that?”
Child: “I hate eating dinner with you.”
Parent: “What do you mean?” (taking a deep breath to avoid being furious and saying something flip) “Look, I really want to understand what happens that makes us both miserable?””
Child: “I have no clue….the food sucks.”
Parent: “What don’t you like about it?”
Child: “I don’t know. I just don’t feel like eating that junk!”
Parent: “Well, there’s probably a nice way to let me know that, but what I’m really interested in is whether its that you don’t like what
I cook or that you just don’t feel like eating?”
Child: “I’m just not hungry for anything and then you are all over me that I don’t like your cooking and I can go cook for myself blah
blah blah.”
Parent: “Okay, okay I know I can be short and cranky after work, but my feelings are hurt when you shove away the plate of food I have
made. So you are telling me it’s NOT what I cook it’s that you just aren’t hungry around 7?”
Child: “ Well when I got home from school at 5 I am starving…”
By this time, they’ve come to a better understanding of why the child is refusing to eat and being rude about it (by identifying the
concerns behind the behavior). Now they are poised to be able to work out a solution around the problem of “not eating dinner“ which in turn will certainly decrease the defiant behavior.
The moral: don’t go after the behavior directly – go after the problem leading to the behavior! Solve that problem and the behavior will improve.
A parent presents a struggle he is having with his daughter. Many times, not always, his daughter refuses to wear her seat belt in the car and she’ll say it with a glint in her eye and a smile on her face. “Nope, dad I am not going to wear it.” She is 8 years old so its safe to assume she knows wearing a seat belt is required and dad has stated that repeatedly. Dad says, “Don’t tell me she isn’t intentionally trying to get me going? She knows how dangerous it is, that it’s the law, and it makes me furious when she won’t put it on. I just blow. She’ll even buckle it right up and then when she catches my eye in the mirror unbuckle it and laugh. What the heck is that?”
Sure, kids can sometimes poke fun or do something to make you mad on purpose. Hiding your cell phone, swearing at you, or throwing something are not always chronic problems and can be a rare, random, intentional event. The question becomes if she does it repeatedly, and you blow up repeatedly, and she is given all sorts of consequences repeatedly – why does it keep happening? At Think:Kids we don’t think that kids get their jollies by repeatedly battling with you, although it may feel that way for the parent. We believe if they she could do it a better way she would but she doesn’t know that better way.
So in the case of the seat belt situation there was something the child was not able to say or do adaptively so she kept doing something maladaptive which was refusing to buckle in. We of course encouraged the father to start by talking to his daughter away from the car when the seat belt issue was not imminent. In talking to his daughter several times (the first couple didn’t yield much) he learned that his daughter is furious at him because he and his wife are recently divorced and the girl always feels she is being dragged from house to house, and the car has become an unhappy place that represents the split up. So what skills might this girl lack? The skills to identify or articulate her feelings, shift gears with frequent transitions during the week, handle ambiguity and uncertainty, and seek attention in an appropriate way to name a few perhaps! Of course, many young kids might not have the skills to handle a difficult circumstance like this and might as a result act in similar ways, but the lesson here is that no end of consequences would fix this problem or even help identify it.
Moral:
Sometimes it feels intentional and manipulative when a child’s behavior is annoying, but remember that often buried beneath the behavior is the truth that if the child could behave more adaptively they would…BUT THEY DON’T HAVE THE SKILLS to handle what the world has thrown their way!
We often have parents ask us about doing cognitive-behavioral therapy (“CBT”) with their children, in the hope that we might work with their child around developing better “coping strategies,” to address anxiety, etc. Often they’re uncertain about quite how to think about the relationship between that family of therapy approaches and our own work. So it seemed worth saying a bit about all this.
First of all, as implied above, there is no one version or kind of CBT. Indeed, our approach is often placed under that heading when discussed. Second, while there are some cardinal features of what makes a treatment “cognitive-behavioral,” what it often seems to come down to is that parents are expressing this desire for CBT out of an interest in directly addressing and training some of the thinking skills their child lacks, and doing so in a structured, time-limited, and research-supported fashion (all of which are of course true of our approach itself, by the way).
Such a general approach can be very helpful for many individuals, children included, and there’s certainly good empirical support for CBT of various kinds in the literature. Generally CBT approaches don’t tend to conflict with our own greatly – unless of course the therapist emphasizes the “B” more than the “C” in CBT. You see, our approach is a very Cognitively oriented one since we focus on teaching lagging thinking skills – cognitive is just a fancy word for thinking. But most Behavioral approaches focus on operant procedures to motivate more compliant behavior which you’ll realize does conflict greatly with our approach since we prefer to view challenging kids as lacking skill not will!
What is worth adding, however, is that when one problem-solves collaboratively with a child around specific unsolved problems and unmet expectations, skill development is being addressed indirectly. (It’s also being addressed naturalistically, which is to say in the ordinary environment of a child, with their existing caretakers.) That is, if we’re thinking with a child about what’s getting in the way of tackling homework, and part of the issue is that a child gets nervous that they may not succeed at the task, the adult and child would perhaps be working on a tendency toward anxiety-provoking cognitive distortions and how to keep those in check in the context of homework. (That’s a big part of what a cognitive-behavioral approach involves, and what would in some respects define it.) But we would not be teaching a child, more directly and systematically, to learn to identify different kinds of cognitive distortions and challenge those distortions in a more classic cognitive-therapy fashion. Nor would we be teaching, for example, relaxation or self-talk techniques to use as anxiety around homework builds.
Those latter moves might be quite helpful in many cases. But the takeaway here is this: Just because we’re working on skill development indirectly via problem-solving, don’t assume “indirectly” somehow equates to “less effectively” or in some second-best fashion. And remember that in order to be able to fully partake of some kinds of CBT, you need a child to agree that they have a particular problem or skills deficit, and for them to authorize the therapist to be the one to teach them. That’s not always the case. As we sometimes say to parents, it’s the rare kid who comes to treatment saying, in so many words, as adults more typically do, “Doc, here’s my problem.” This particular kind of buy-in fortunately isn’t needed in order to still make significant progress with our approach. We think that it’s often an advantage!
In our work with behaviorally difficult kids and their caregivers (parents, teachers, milieu staff in hospital or other treatment settings), we are typically helping folks appreciate the role of kids’ lagging thinking skills and how they are implicated in challenging behavior. An unmet adult expectation is often unmet because the child doesn’t have the skills to meet that expectation, to comply, etc.
One domain of lagging skill that comes up over and over again in most cases is that of executive functioning. More and more making its way into the popular culture, it’s an umbrella term that refers to a whole host of skills from planning/organizing, time sense/management, working memory, the regulation of attention, impulse control, and other more specific skills. Of course, one interesting thing here is that it’s now rather well known—and itself gradually becoming a commonplace notion—that the part of the brain responsible for such functioning isn’t done developing, by some estimates, into young adulthood, around about 24 years old! And we don’t expect very young children to have good executive functioning; rather, we realize we have to do much of the executive thinking for them.
What has struck us of late is the fact that sometimes, when adults are clashing with kids over some particular unmet expectation or unsolved problem, the issue isn’t that the child is showing notably lagging executive skills, but that adults may be asking for a degree of functioning that the child simply can’t be expected to show. This gets a bit into the world of cultural commentary here, but we live in a busy society, families work hard, there’s a lot to get done, and, to use a personal example from one of our own homefronts, maybe there’s nothing developmentally troublesome about a kid dawdling in the bathtub, and having trouble shifting gears to get onto the rest of the busy nighttime routine. Maybe it’s not a completely fair expectation that a child move that fast, and it’s not their problem that mom or dad has a night of work still ahead, or the night is very short due to work schedules, or what have you. It’s not always practical, of course, but maybe sometimes what’s most in point, aside from remediating lagging skills in a child, is recalibrating our own expectations and assessing how realistic our own demands are.
Fortunately, Plan B can still play a helpful role here. But occasionally it’s useful to step back and ask oneself, “Are my expectations realistic here?”
At Think:Kids, we spend a lot of time helping mental health professionals deliver more humane, compassionate (not to mention effective) care to kids with behavioral challenges and their families. However, there are times when we are reminded of just how much work we have to do with other health care providers as well, such as pediatricians, dentists and other doctors and nurses. We heard a story recently about a mother who took her 7 year old boy with behaviorally challenges to the dermatologist that was eye-opening.
When the dermatologist was attempting to examine this young boy, he began to get frustrated. She then told him he had to sit still and behave himself so she could do her job. He then kicked her lightly and told her he wasn’t going to let her look at his skin. Sounds like a good opportunity for Emergency Plan B right?
Well, the doctor responded by telling the boy that he was being a “bad kid.” As you can imagine, this didn’t help things and led to his behavior worsening. In front of him, his mother and his two younger siblings, the dermatologist then explained that he was the worst behaved kid she had seen in her 30 years of practice! Mom remarkably was able to stay calm enough to wonder out loud at how it could be the case that she hadn’t encountered other kids with behaviorally challenges in all those years. Before abruptly leaving the office with all 3 kids in tow, mom thought to herself, “And you thought that was bad? That’s nothing!”
The point of this blog is not to vilify the doctor. Dermatologists do well if they can! Clearly, this doctor had an outdated view of what causes some kids to be tougher to manage than others, and clearly she lacked ideas for what to do instead to make things better. The mom in this case brought the story to our attention because she wants to help us develop a certification program specifically for health care providers who would be able to advertise that they’ve received training in how to handle behaviorally challenging kids. That way, parents with a challenging child could seek out a dentist, eye doctor, dermatologist etc who they know would work hard to treat their child with the compassion and understanding they deserve. A great idea huh? And while such a training program would need to be just an introductory exposure to our approach, any health care provider who seeks out such training has already demonstrated the most important ingredient: an open mind and the acknowledgement that there might be a better way to think about and help challenging kids.
This recent NPR story presents a study in which researchers examined in great detail the stages that children go through when having a
tantrum. Consistent with what we know to be the case, the researchers advise not to ask questions during a tantrum, but rather to let the anger pass in order to help the child move fully into the sadness phase where they are more likely to seek comfort. Clearly, asking questions when someone is overwhelmed by emotion is usually not too productive or helpful. But through targeted empathy, sometimes the child can be talked down to the point where they can help you understand what’s bothering them. We of course call that “Emergency Plan B!” And we aren’t proponents of “doing nothing” when a child is struggling. Kids learn to regulate their arousal and emotions from empathic attunement with adults. Ignoring doesn’t teach skill.
In addition, from our point of view, some very important additional information was missing from the discussion on NPR: why did the tantrum occur in the first place and how could that be addressed proactively in order to come up with a durable solution?
It is important to remember that maladaptive behavior (in this case, the tantrum) results when a demand is placed upon a child that he or she does not have the thinking skills to handle. Tantrums such as these are opportunities to identify two things: the problem to be solved and the underlying lagging skill(s). In doing so, we can then proactively solve that problem, using Plan B, ideally before the next time it is likely to arise. And in the course of that problem solving discussion, we are teaching the child the skills they need to better handle those demands.
So, although it is definitely important to help a child through a tantrum, it is even more important to make sure that the tantrum does not go to waste. After the tantrum is over, make sure that you identify the lagging skills, triggers, and unsolved problem so that you can solve this problem once and for all before the next tantrum occurs.
One last word: read the comments on the NPR blog and you’ll see how much we still have to do when it comes to better understanding and
helping challenging kids (and their parents!) in a humane, compassionate way.
Over the years, a substantial amount of research has begun to document the damage that constantly yelling at a child can cause. For most parents in the busy and stress-filled world we live in, it can feel awfully hard to curb. We hope the work we do at Think:Kids offers parents a way to avoid raising your voice with your child, and instead to solve problems in a proactive and durable way and foster calm and connection. After all, just reading an article telling you how damaging yelling can be, without giving you a better way forward, is only likely to leave you feeling like a bad parent, and that doesn’t tend to help.
Now not to turn around and make you feel bad, but we did come across a song by the children’s musician Alistair Moock that may at least inspire you to avoid this kind of behavior with your child. It’s a song called “Three Like Me.” Take a listen. We think it captures very poignantly the confusing experience it can be for a child to be yelled at. Maybe it’ll inspire you to try something new—Plan B—and set a different course for you and your child.
Of course, more poignant yet is the fact that, for the kids we work with, they’re often not only well beyond age 3, but the experience of having elicited parental disapproval is a much more common one!
My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.
While this rich Washington Post article focuses on a young man and his family’s struggle with emerging schizophrenia particularly, the lessons learned apply to all kids with social, emotional or behavioral difficulties. This quote caught our eye especially:
“we didn’t realize how important it would be to create collaborations among educators, primary-care clinicians, mental-health professionals, social-services providers, even members of the criminal justice system, to give people … a reasonable chance of living successfully in the community.”
We couldn’t agree more. Our experience, however, is that all these types of systems would love to collaborate if they could and often actually share the same goals. But true collaboration is impossible if agencies are speaking different languages flowing from different philosophies that lead to different approaches that often work across purposes. There is good news though. Systems of care work shows that entire communities of practice can come together to achieve better outcomes for these kids if they adopt a common philosophy, language and approach – which is where CPS comes in. CPS is one of the very few approaches that can supply that common platform and has demonstrated positive outcomes across all these types of settings. This is exactly what’s happening in Oregon and Ottawa right now and what we are hoping to get off the ground in New York City as we speak. Of course it’s impossible to know whether such a coordinated approach might have prevented the developmental trajectory that led to schizophrenia and homelessness for this young man, but we won’t know until we try.
The most important first step toward helping you parent your challenging kid is helping you understand your challenging kid. At Think:Kids, we have a certain perspective on how challenging kids come to be challenging, and it’s a far cry from how many folks think about challenging kids. (Of course, the way most folks think about challenging kids often isn’t very helpful, but you already knew that.) Once you understand your child better, how you help him overcome his challenges becomes much clearer.
Research in the neurosciences has proven that challenging kids lack important thinking skills. Researchers have learned a lot about children’s brains over the last 30 years, and a lot of that research suggests that challenging kids came up on the short end of the stick when it comes to certain skills…for example, flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem solving (and a bunch more). So in the same way that kids who have trouble reading lack skills related to reading, kids who are challenging lack skills related to handling life’s social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. That’s why your child is crying, sulking, withdrawing, screaming, swearing, spitting, hitting, destroying property, and all the other things challenging kids do when they don’t have the skills to do any better.
Now, this is a very different perspective for a lot of folks. In fact, some of the books you’ve read…and TV shows you’ve watched…and mental health professionals you’ve consulted…might have convinced you that your child isn’t motivated to behave adaptively, simply “knows what buttons to push,” is manipulating you, is testing your limits, and is seeking attention. You may also have become convinced that your child’s difficulties are the result of your poor parenting, and that the best way to fix that problem is to teach your child who’s the boss and give him or her the incentive – through sticker charts, time-outs, and other rewards and punishments – to behave more adaptively.
Don’t believe it. At Think:Kids, we know if your child could do well, he or she would do well. We know that poor parenting isn’t why most challenging kids are challenging. And we know that reward and punishment programs don’t teach challenging kids the skills they lack and often don’t durably get the job done.
At Think:Kids we are thinking about whether and how we might create some services in our clinic for siblings. Parents often voice their concerns about the impact of challenging behavior on siblings, especially when maladaptive behaviors are directed towards a sibling. Another commonly asked question involving siblings centers around parents’ concerns about having different expectations of siblings versus the child with challenging behavior. Because we have siblings on the brain, several members of the Think:Kids team attended a training a few weeks ago by Don Meyer, the founder of Sibshops.
Sibshops was started 30 years ago by Meyer for the brothers and sisters of children with emotional and developmental needs. In recent years, there has been growing interest in also including brothers and sisters of children with mental health needs. The goal of Sibshops involves offering these brothers and sisters an opportunity to meet other siblings in a recreational setting. Facilitators come up with group games and creative activities which they use as vehicles around which to offer psychoeducation, talk about the joys/concerns brothers and sisters face, and to talk about different ways of handling situations. Meyer is explicit that the focus of Sibshops is not therapeutic—instead the emphasis is on wellness and play.
Meyers’ big take-home point is that siblings’ experiences are often marginalized in family treatments, if considered at all. He makes the case for making space for siblings experiences because:
Meyers says that any “family” intervention is not truly a systems intervention without actively incorporating siblings in some way.
We find this point by Meyers compelling. What would it look like to carry this idea over to what we are doing at Think:Kids. Would Sibshops as a model make sense in our clinic? Would more of a psycho-education group for siblings of children with challenging behavior be helpful to families? What about a group that brings siblings and the child with challenging behavior together and teaches them in real-time about problem solving with each other? We think there is at least one fundamental difference between being the sibling of a child with challenging behavior and a child with a developmental or medical need—there doesn’t seem to be the same confusion about lack of motivation and will that children with challenging behavior so often face. I would expect this fundamental difference in our societal understanding of children with challenging behavior to impact the siblings of children with challenging behavior in a unique way.
We think there are some immediate ways we could work to incorporate siblings more into what we are already doing in the clinic. We could invite siblings to be part of the intake process as a matter of course, and listen to their perspectives. We do this sometimes, especially if the problems to be solved center around interactions with a sibling– but we don’t to this as a matter of course. We could also think more consistently about letting siblings know during intake that we’d be happy to share information about what we’re doing with their brother/sister and parents. This would invite siblings in from the periphery.
It is exciting to think about the opportunities to incorporate another perspective into our problem solving and to think about ways we can offer more and more children the opportunity to learn about CPS.
At Think:Kids we often wonder who our “clients” are. Are they the kids we serve? Or are they the adults who raise, teach, and help them? Of course, the answer is yes! This video from our colleagues on the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard could not make a stronger case for CPS and our work. Their theory of change is in fact the strategy we have been using to accomplish our mission. Think:Kids helps adults across settings learn a common philosophy and evidence-based process (that we call Collaborative Problem Solving) to build kids’ executive functioning, emotion regulation and problem solving skills. As Dr. Ablon has focused on in recent trainings with Dr. Bruce Perry of the Child Trauma Academy, the mindset and process of Collaborative Problem Solving also helps fosters co-regulation and builds helping relationships between adults and kids which leads to exactly what the Center on the Developing Child advocates for: a better environment of relationships essential to improving outcomes in kids’ lifelong learning, health, and behavior.
On June 3rd 2013, the White House hosted a day-long conference with experts in mental health and many administration officials to kick off a national conversation about mental health in the United States. Obama spoke about the often sited problem of the prevalence of mental health, and that the stigma associated with having mental health problems prevents adults from sharing their situation, and therefore help is not sought or offered.
At Think:Kids we struggle to get our model to those who need it. There are many kids out there who are behaviorally challenging who don’t get help because parents are embarrassed or ashamed that their child doesn’t behave. They believe their child’s poor behavior is a “mental health problem” and therefore an embarrassment. We see behavior problems as an issue of skills not necessarily mental health. Some of the kids we see do wrestle with more classic symptoms of depression and anxiety, but many just struggle with three crucial thinking skills: flexibility, frustration tolerance and problem solving.
Think:Kids believes behaviorally challenging kids lack the skill not the will to behave well. It is so sad to think that a child suffers and parents suffer and that neither are to blame! We believe some kids are wired in a way that makes flexibility, frustration tolerance and problem solving hard for them. The result is awful behavior when they are confronted with situations that need those skills. These skills CAN BE TAUGHT and these lacking skills are not due to poor parenting but simply wiring. Our model offers a view of poor behavior as a learning disability and like most learning disabilities it is NOT THE FAULT of parent and child but IS something that can improve with the right help
Obama said;
“The brain is a body part too; we just know less about it. And there should be no shame in discussing or seeking help for treatable illnesses that affect too many people that we love. We’ve got to get rid of that embarrassment; we’ve got to get rid of that stigma.”
We agree. Parents need to seek help for better ways to cope with the suffering they and their kids experience. You can help us on the front lines. Not enough pediatricians and teachers know about Collaborative Problem Solving, how we perceive behaviorally challenging kids and how we can help. Simply getting these front line folks, who witness or hear about behaviorally challenging kids, to send parents to check out our website can shift the parents’ understanding of their child and make a difference!
Eminent pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton had published a short opinion piece that we thought was of interest and worth reading.
In it as seen here, he advocates, as he has done for so very long, for an investment in high-quality supports and services for babies, toddlers, and their families to foster optimal social, emotional, and intellectual development.
Here at Think:Kids, we’re aware that our work is not always automatically considered to have a role in the years of early childhood and preschool, although thankfully that’s begun to change. We get many more inquiries from groups working with children “zero to 3,” who appreciate the role that our work can play at this age. Brazelton’s piece makes reference to some very interesting recent research that’s documented the astonishing finding that “a child from a high-income family will hear 30 million more words within the first four years of life than a child from a low-income family.” While, as he says, it’s crucial to listen to babies, it’s equally crucial to talk to them.
Collaborative Problem Solving may surely need certain kinds of adaptations for the younger set. But here’s a hypothetical bit of talking that hopefully one could imagine doing with a toddler:
A child is trying to build something with blocks, having trouble, and getting evidently frustrated:
“You really want to be able to build a castle with these blocks, but they just keep falling down!”
“I really want you to enjoy this playtime and have fun.”
“Hmm, what could we do?”
“I know! We could work on it together. Or we could draw a castle instead. Or we could build something different that’s a little easier! What should we try?”
That’s 63 words right there, not counting the “hmm,” and of course it involves some real “listening,” not just talking. Hopefully you can also “hear” the underlying structure of what we call a Plan B conversation: empathizing with a child’s concern or perspective, sharing an adult concern, and brainstorming to find a solution to the problem at hand.
We believe that if parents tap into Plan B from the earliest beginnings, it’s not only a wonderful foundation for making our children feel heard and understood, and not only an obviously advantageous exposure to our words, but also a terrific chance to institute Collaborative Problem Solving as a key aspect of one’s parenting. No need to “wait” on getting going!
This recent article in the New York Times highlights a positive change that we are seeing in schools across the nation. Zero tolerance policies have not only been shown to be fairly ineffective, but they also disproportionally impact our students of color. The vast majority of students who misbehave, particularly the ones that do so over and over, lack the skill, not the will to do better. We know that punishment-based approaches not only do not teach children the crucial thinking skills which are lagging, but they rarely solve the problem in a durable manner. The word discipline itself actually means “to teach.” What should we teach? Why, skills, of course. And how can we teach these skills? By engaging the child in a problem solving process in which we are as invested in hearing the child’s concerns as we are in sharing ours. Although not mentioned in this particular article, we are finding that many schools are beginning to incorporate Collaborative Problem Solving into their alternative disciplinary responses. As a result, not only are they seeing reductions in disciplinary referrals, but reductions in problematic behaviors AND reductions in teacher stress. When school staff and students collaborate to solve these problems, everybody wins.
Student background
Felix is a 10 year old 5th grade Native American male student. Felix has a physical disability that causes him to miss school for medical appointments. He is an empathic student. Sensitive about his own disability, he recognizes suffering in others more easily. Felix has few friends, but is close to them as well as his four or five cousins. Felix is quiet, but responds to questions after careful thought. Felix possesses excellent problem solving skills and came up with solutions after I gave him the invitation. Felix is a lover of animals and recognizes the reciprocal power of the human-animal bond. Felix is highly intelligent, articulate and could potentially be a “Gifted and Talented” student, but poor attendance has precluded this official identification. Felix relies on his mother to organize his things before school, to see him off to bed and to wake him up in the morning, but this year, family stressors have taken mom away from home significantly more, particularly on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Reflection
Attendance has been a concern for school officials since Felix’s Kindergarten year. The person who held my job before was not a social worker and practiced “Plan A” approaches like threatening social services and court involvement to no avail if a student’s attendance remained poor. Historically, school attendance and western time-keeping/promptness for Felix’s family have not been of great cultural value.
The past power struggles between school officials and Felix’s mom have left her reluctant to deal with the school. Mom missed two appointments we had set up and would not respond to messages I left on her phone. With patience and persistence, and nearly a month after starting to reach out to her, I was able to meet with her. I found a neutral territory to meet as the principal’s office seemed to put mom off.
We met for nearly two hours. Instead of threatening mom or starting off the conversation with the school’s concerns, I listened to what was going on in her and her family’s life. Recent deaths and health problems had put a lot of stress on the family.
Mom told me that since this last summer she needed to be away from Felix a few days out of the week and late into the night, whereas before she was with him most of the day outside of school and was always at home at night to put Felix to bed. This separation was taking some getting used to. Felix has had to take up more responsibility and has been struggling to go to bed at night. Mom would get home sometimes around midnight on Sundays and Wednesdays and find Felix still up and not having any of his stuff ready for school the next day. Mom would manage to get Felix to bed, but often would be too tired to help him get his stuff prepared for school and would not fight him the next morning when Felix kept hitting snooze or sleeping through his alarm.
I easily empathized with mom because I myself have been adjusting to getting my own son ready for Head Start, as his mom is starting a new job; change is draining, and as it turns out, neither mom, nor Felix or I are rise and shine types. We would rather stay in bed on these chilly fall mornings.
Felix’s mom had found herself in “Plan A” attendance conversations before, and was quite familiar with the school’s attendance policies and consequences for missing. I think this was why she had dodged me for so long. Fortunately, in the time I was waiting to meet her, I had gathered enough information about Felix so that my stated concerns were less about legal consequences and more about some specific academic and social impacts of Felix’s poor attendance. His teachers are impressed with how Felix manages to keep up his grades despite his absences; they think he is very bright and probably a student who would test as “gifted and talented” if he didn’t miss so much.
I also told mom that I saw Felix coming into class one morning looking very tired and was unresponsive to his teacher’s questions about math facts that she was sure he knew. His teacher said this was becoming more common and that they noticed Felix looked embarrassed when she or others, including students, asked about how his mornings were going. Felix simply shrugged his shoulders when I had asked him how his morning was going when I observed him in class that day. I told mom what I had observed and relayed the teacher’s concerns, including how Felix’s tardiness was becoming a distraction to her and others in the classroom.
Mom appreciated the concerns I mentioned. No one had told her before that Felix could possibly get the official designation of being “gifted and talented,” but this was not shocking either; she knows how bright he is. His mom expressed how she would like Felix to get ahead in school and not play catch up. She also apologized for the distractions Felix’s tardiness may be causing.
When I asked mom if she had any ideas on how we could solve this problem, she thought for a while and said maybe it would be a good idea if Felix stayed with his cousins and Auntie on Sundays and Wednesdays. Felix’s Auntie is sterner and has her own kids in bed by 8 and to school on time the next day. I checked on the cousin’s attendance and they had only missed a couple of days and were never late. Mom’s idea seemed pretty solid and I told her I would still like to meet with Felix and hear some of his concerns and ideas too. Mom said she didn’t have time to meet with Felix and me, but would love it if I would talk to him alone. I said the next day would be great and asked if she would give him a heads up and summarize for him what she and I had discussed. She happily agreed and we parted ways.
The next day I met with Felix and it was probably the easiest Plan B I had with a student so far this year. He had talked to his mom the night before and was thrilled at the prospect of staying with his cousins regularly. I asked him what was up with his attendance and he told me how hard it had been with his mom being away so much more these days. Felix plays Xbox late into the night, instead of getting homework done and preparing himself for school the next day. Felix likes to hit the snooze button many times and sometimes his alarm stops. Mom tries waking him up every morning, but does not fight him when he tells her to come back later and let him sleep. When Felix does wake up, he likes to spend some time with his cat before leaving his house and does not like eating breakfast until he has been awake for a couple of hours.
I told Felix I too have a hard time getting up in the morning, but that it helps me get out of bed when I think of how embarrassed I would feel if I showed up late. I mentioned the morning I had observed him coming in late and asked him if he felt embarrassed that day and if he thought that might be distracting to other students and his teacher. Felix said it was pretty upsetting to come to school late, but that it was still too hard to get up in the morning on his own. He said his Auntie would make sure he gets to school. I said that was a great idea and asked him if he had thought of any other ideas, since he wasn’t going to be staying with his Auntie on Mondays, Tuesdays or Thursdays. We agreed that his attendance was a problem on any given day of the week.
What happened next was surprising for a couple of reasons. Firstly, when I have offered the invitation to most students, they do a lot of shoulder shrugs. Like Lost at School suggests, students are more used to having adults assert their will and not consider the student’s unresolved problems, concerns or possible solutions. Because power struggles are more common, many of us do not have ample opportunities to develop some of our cognitive abilities.
Felix, however, has some pretty solid skills, and he demonstrated these when he said, “Maybe my cat can help.” We had talked earlier about our mutual love for animals and Felix had recalled that discussion and was now suggesting that his mom’s struggles to get him out of bed in the morning would be made easier if she just sent the cat into the room early in the morning to claw at Felix’s chest. The cat would jump on Felix sleeping sometimes, and her purring and clawing would always get him out of bed. Felix had not shared this with his mom before. I instantly fell in love with the idea and I hope I didn’t scare Felix with my excitement. This Plan B stuff had become rather fun.
The second reason what happened surprised me is that it actually appears to be working! I guess dealing with attendance for the last year has left me apathetic. It’s been over a month now and Felix has only been absent two days due to a documented medical reason. And he hasn’t been late at all!
The relationship piece I believe has been crucial to Plan B’s success. Normally, I like to give positive phone calls to parents when I see any kind of improvement, but with Felix’s mom, I have been on the receiving end of the calls. She called me the day after we met to say how awesome her and Felix’s plan was working. I was excited too, but knew it was only the first day. But then, she sent me a text that read, “Yeah! We made it a whole week!” This was followed by similar messages in the coming weeks, and the last one read, “Yeah! A whole month!”
Of course, I told Felix personally how happy and pleased I was with his efforts, and I implored him, “Please thank your cat, too!
Usually when you send your child to school you don’t expect to get a call to head to the emergency room. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal, “Parents Protest Emergency Calls” writes about a group of New York City parents who are taking legal action to prevent public schools from using the ER to cope with their child’s severe temper tantrum. The article states that more than 22% of the 15,130 calls for ambulances placed by NYC schools in 2011-12 were related to disciplinary infractions. Wow, that’s a huge number of kids (3,329 to be precise) ending up in the ER for “bad behavior”. The attorney representing the parents feels that schools are using hospital ER’s as time out rooms. For example, a parent says one time her son was taken to the ER for “not listening and refusing to sit on the rug.” The attorney says the law states that “children can be transported by EMS ONLY when a child’s life is at stake or it’s clear that a small delay will jeopardize the child’s health.”
The problems are numerous with this “behavior management approach.” It’s costly to the city, it’s hugely time consuming for parents, it threatens job security for parents, and it causes all sorts of psychological damage to the child. The article quotes a mother who says her son is now afraid of hospitals, police officers and doesn’t want to go to school. Can you blame him? And even more troubling to us at Think:Kids is “he feels like he is always a bad kid and he’s always in trouble.” We aspire to help kids, parents and teachers understand the lagging skills and teach them so kids don’t have the sense they are all bad and that they are stuck in this punishment loop which leads to school failure and often severe psychological problems such as anxiety and depression.
Two questions arise; are children, preschoolers in New York City, becoming more violent, unmanageable and dangerous causing the rise in ER visits or are teachers receiving poor or little training in managing disruptive behavior? At Think:Kids we feel it is the latter and see a huge opportunity for the Department of Education to help teachers better understand and identify why kids melt down.
For Think:Kids we see this as a huge opportunity for better training of teachers. The first step has been taken! The New York City School Safety officers who work in the schools have a contract with Think:Kids, and are receiving CPS training on just the sort of issues that land kids in ER’s. Hopefully, teachers will want to join in and learn a better way to manage tough kids in their class rather than hitting 9-1-1.
There is renewed interest in the effects of chronic, overwhelming stress and trauma on children’s development. So-called trauma-informed care is emphasized more than ever. Yet, parents, educators, clinicians, mental health workers and law enforcement alike still struggle to understand the impacts of trauma on brain development in a concrete and tangible way. Perhaps even more so, adults trying to help these children and adolescents long for concrete strategies that operationalize what brain science tells us will be helpful to facilitate development arrested as a result of complex developmental trauma.
The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) and Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS). NMT is a developmentally sensitive, neurobiology‐informed approach to clinical problem solving. NMT is an evidence‐based practice and not a specific therapeutic technique or intervention. It is an approach that integrates core principles of neurodevelopment and traumatology to aid in the selection and sequencing of therapeutic, educational and enrichment activities that match the needs and strengths of the individual. CPS offers an evidence‐informed approach to assist parents, teachers and mental health providers identify children’s skill deficits that lead to challenging behaviors. It helps adults teach children flexibility, problem solving, and emotion regulation skills.
Last week, Think:Kids hosted Bruce Perry, MD, of the Child Trauma Academy for a joint training on how brain development is affected by trauma, and how the Collaborative Problem Solving approach addresses these neurobiological deficits. Dr. Perry and Dr. Ablon spoke for two days about the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) and Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS), and attendees walked away with a better understanding of tools that can be used to assess and address challenging behavior in children affected by trauma.
One phrase that has stuck with me from this training, and that can be a helpful anchor for all of us when we are working with challenging children, is “Regulate, Relate, Reason.” The order here is critical! Until a child is regulated (i.e., feeling physically and emotionally settled), he is unlikely to be able to relate to you (i.e., feel connected and comfortable). And until a child is related, he is unlikely to have the mental capacity to fully engage with you in the higher level cognitive processes that are critical for problem-solving, like perspective taking, predicting the future, and considering multiple solutions. This is not just true for traumatized children, but for all children (and all adults too)! So in honor of Dr. Perry, let’s pay special attention this week to our CPS regulating tools (reflecting and reassurance) during all three ingredients of our Plan B conversations. If you take the time to make sure your child is regulated, you’ll have a better chance of relating, and then ultimately, a better chance of reasoning!
Often times in our workshops, when we discuss the limitations of external motivators, we get a common question. It goes something like this: “But the world works on external motivators. After all, I go into work because I get a paycheck. Incentives ARE motivating. So, why shouldn’t we be doing the same thing with our children?” Well, it turns out that the truth is a bit more complicated, and that incentives can actually have negative repercussions under certain conditions. Watch this short clip from Dan Pink to learn more about when incentives may actually make things worse (we’ll give you a hint – think about our Thinking Skills Inventory) and what actually motivates people to do well.
There is renewed interest in the effects of chronic, overwhelming stress and trauma on children’s development. Trauma-informed care is emphasized more than ever. Yet, parents, educators, clinicians, mental health workers and law enforcement alike still struggle to understand the impacts of trauma on brain development in a concrete and tangible way. Perhaps even more so, adults trying to help these children and adolescents long for user friendly and accessible strategies that operationalize what brain science tells us will be helpful to facilitate development arrested as a result of complex developmental trauma.
Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) is a practical, evidence-based process that all adults can follow in any setting to ensure trauma-informed intervention. CPS has been used effectively across systems to provide concrete strategies that operationalize fundamental principles of neurodevelopment.
Specifically, CPS first helps adults understand how children exposed to chronic overwhelming stress and trauma do not lack the will to behave well, they lack the skills to behave well. CPS helps adults understand how toxic stress and trauma arrests brain development by identifying the specific skills they children lack in areas like flexibility, frustration tolerance and problem solving. Then CPS provides clear guideposts for adults to use in order to engage children in problem solving discussions which build helping relationships with the children while fostering a relational process that develops flexibility, problem solving, and emotion regulation skills. All the while, CPS avoids the use of power an control which is re-traumatizing and instead aims to help reduce the power differential which traumatized children find so dysregulating.
The latest neuroscience research has shown that facilitating brain change is not about erasing old associations in the brain resulting from trauma, but about creating new associations in the brain – in other words, new neural pathways. Exposing children repeatedly to small, digestible doses of novel experiences with a different, more positive emotional quality to them creates these pathways. The challenge is that the brain processes information from the bottom up. So with traumatized children, one must help regulate them at the level of the brainstem before you can engage their limbic system to relate to them and finally then teach them the kind of higher order problem-solving skills that are located at the level of the prefrontal cortex or top of the brain. The CPS process respects this awareness of the sequence of engagement at the level of the brain by recruiting the brainstem first, then the mid-brain and finally the cortex. It begins by teaching adults how to help children stay regulated through the use of empathic listening and curiosity. Once a child is regulated, CPS then helps the adult relate to the child by sharing their adult concerns. Finally, the child is then asked to reason with the adult to collaborate and brainstorm solutions. The entire process is built to help adults expose children to these small, digestible doses of “good stress” needed to foster brain change.
Check out this great article from Dan Siegel whose work resonates with ours, He presents a neurobiological argument for an alternative to time-out. Trouble is most of us parents would love to do something else … but don’t know what. This is especially true in the heat of the moment when the child is likely not the only one getting dysregulated and having a hard time thinking straight! Dysregulation is contagious and we parents do well if we can, but we too can get awfully dysregulated quickly in the face of our child’s meltdowns.
The good news? The ingredients of Plan B provide a simple and clear stricture for what to do and say during a “time-in.” And in the heat of the moment reassurance and reflective listening are your best bet to help regulate your child so that they will be available for a teachable moment.
“I know you’re mad that I said you can’t go, but that doesn’t give you the right to speak to me like that! (SLAM!) If you slam that door one more time, I’m taking your iPad! (SLAM!) That’s it, iPad is out, and the TV is next!” (SLAM! SLAM!) Whoaaaa… How can your gentle, loving child seem so UNREASONABLE sometimes, and when did you turn into that kind of parent?
Think about that word: unREASONable. To be able to REASON (for example, to think, “I know I wanted to go to that event, but I guess it does make more sense that I should attend my sister’s graduation party”), your child needs to be able to access skills like controlling impulses, thinking through options, and predicting outcomes. The problem is, the access door to those skills is closed when your child is upset, or “dysregulated,” so talking to your child when s/he is already upset is nearly doomed to fail.
At times like this, remember this alliterative phrase: Regulate, Relate, Reason. Get your child calm and REGULATED first (younger kids may calm with a hug or rocking, older kids may do better with some time alone). Then try to find a way to RELATE to the child and his or her concern (e.g., “I’m sorry I yelled earlier; I know that didn’t help. I wonder if we can talk about the event that you were hoping to go to. I’d like to hear why it’s important to you.”) Then, with a REGULATED and RELATED child… you’re ready to REASON together to discuss the problem and see if there is a good solution (“I understand that you want to see your friends, and I think it’s important that we support your sister. I wonder if we can find a way to do both of those things.”).
Back in May, we blogged about a possible federal ban on seclusion and restraint in schools. (See that post, which includes a lot of information about why this initiative is important, by clicking here.)
We are thrilled to see that changing regulations related to seclusion and restraint is getting both federal and state attention.
In fact, in Think:Kids’ home state of Massachusetts, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is proposing changes to state regulations related to seclusion and restraint. And the Department of Education (DOE) wants to hear what you think.
This process couldn’t be easier: Take a look at the regulations on this page; you can see a version with proposed edits included. Then e-mail comments (including simple comments of support for the changes) to: restraintcomment@doe.mass.edu.
Move quickly- The deadline for submission of public comment is Monday, November 3, 2014.
Please send your comments, then spread the word to student advocates, friends, and family members through social media. Let them know that restraint and seclusion are ineffective for solving problems durably, and can be traumatic and physically harmful to children. Encourage others to send in their comments to support and strengthen the proposed regulations too. Together we can make a difference!
“My daughter avoids her weekend chores by sleeping the whole weekend away; I can’t get her up before noon!”
“My son stays up ‘til all hours playing video games or texting his friends, then can’t wake up for school in the morning! I end up having to yell and threaten him just to get him out of bed.”
It’s easy to think that your teenager is being lazy or just plain defiant when he or she stays up late and then can’t get up in the morning. However, the recent policy statement about teen sleep that was issued in August by the American Academy of Pediatrics reminds us that teens are biologically wired to go to bed and wake up later. This issue is getting increasing national attention, like in this NY Times feature, and the take-home message is this: Around the time of puberty, there is a shift in human circadian rhythm that makes it harder -and sometimes biologically impossible- to fall asleep early enough to meet recommended sleep hours in time for typical high school start times.
These difficulties may be exacerbated if your teen also struggles with other executive functioning skills such as difficulty planning ahead (“I know it’s hard for me to get to sleep by 11, so I’m going to put all my electronics away by 10,”) and difficulty switching gears (“I’m working on this project now, but I can stop now and then start again after school tomorrow”).
So what are the results of this? Many teens drag themselves out of bed, slump to school, and nod off through the first couple classes. Others, including some of the adolescents we work with at Think:Kids, find it impossible to get to school on time and end up engaging in frequent morning-time battles with parents.
The good news is that there is a national movement to consider later start times for high school students. This movement is picking up steam, and now includes schools in the Boston area, near the home of Think:Kids.
But if your child’s school isn’t making the switch to start later, remember the mantra: Skill not Will. If you are having morning-time struggles with your teen, consider his or her biology, consider what other skill struggles may be exacerbating the issue, and then try to work with your teen to problem-solve it together.
And don’t forget… wait to have that conversation until you’re both fully awake!
A core part of our mission here at Think:Kids is to help schools rethink discipline, and to offer them a detailed approach to implement to achieve this goal. We’re glad that we’re not alone in trying to facilitate and lead this mindset-shift. Take a look at this article about work being done in some California schools toward this end, which sounds very promising.
There are many good suggestions offered to staff that are described in this piece, and it’s exciting to see the tide turning against the conventional wisdom about challenging kid. That said, we think that these efforts take hold most firmly when what is involved is a comprehensive approach to thinking about the underlying contributors to maladaptive behavior, and when staff have a overarching model to guide their efforts.
Let us know what you think!
What a powerful ending to 2-1/2 days of intensive training.
The day was winding down. We had just met as groups to discuss the challenges we all will face when trying to implement the Collaborative Problem Solving model into our systems of care. By now we had spent nearly 20 hours together—all 100 of us—and thoughts were starting to shift toward traveling home and returning to work the following day. A young man respectfully called for the floor and offered a few words of encouragement to the group.
He stated that he knew we were going to face challenges from here on out, but that we should be encouraged to fight past those obstacles. He then made a statement that silenced the room and will likely stick with everyone in attendance for a very long time: “Plan B saved my life.”
He shared that he was once a “Kyle”—one of the fabricated individuals with challenging behaviors we trainers use to practice the model—and that he was headed toward incarceration if it hadn’t been for the one adult who took that extra step and reached out to ask him what was going on–modeling true empathy and a desire to understand his situation without judgment.
He went on to say that although we might not see the fruits of our labors immediately—or even ever—that one question posed to him had changed his life around for the better, and it can do the same for others. He’s now looking to pay it forward, and is excited to use the skills he practiced over the course of the training to be that person who reaches out to those youth with extremely challenging behaviors; providing them with a life-line of empathy and understanding.
I felt honored to have him share his story with us. He demonstrated great courage and vulnerability, and his words will stick with me and motivate me as I continue to spread the word that “Kids do well if they can.”
It was pretty incredible to hear the story first-hand. There was another young guy that I was near when the trainee was sharing his story, and afterward the other guy jokingly said, “Hey, I don’t come to these things to cry.”
This week’s episode of This American Life is called “Not It.” In this episode, reporters relay three true stories in which instead of solving a problem in the community, officials simply shuttled that problem off to someone else. While the specific stories aren’t directly relevant to youth with challenging behaviors, as I listened I couldn’t help thinking of this report/toolkit that was released last week from the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA), a national organization focused on improving juvenile correctional services so youth can be successful when they return to the community. This toolkit was created to provide very concrete strategies that corrections officials and staff can use to reduce the use of isolation in their facilities.
The disturbing fact is that in many correctional facilities, instead of being used as a last resort to protect youth, isolation is often used as part of a behavior management plan. But isolation does nothing to improve behavior, and does not teach the skills that youth need to be successful once released; in many cases it can exacerbate the negative dynamic between adults and youth. Furthermore, youth with histories of abuse or neglect can be triggered by isolation practices, such that behavior and other symptoms deteriorate rather than improve as a result of this practice. Over-using isolation is just one more example of officials “shuttling off” problems to someone else rather than putting in efforts to fix the underlying problem. Holding a detained child in isolation whenever challenging behavior arises means that when that child is released back into the community, the child’s behavior and skills deficits become the problem of a school, a family, a mental health provider, and a community. And high re-offense/recidivism rates tell the rest of the story.
As this report says, “Research has made clear that isolating youths for long periods of time or as a consequence for negative behavior undermines the rehabilitative goals of youth corrections.”
At Think:Kids, we are proud that Collaborative Problem Solving was named in this toolkit as a strategy for reducing isolation and returning to the goal of rehabilitation in youth corrections. If you work in corrections, or if you work closely with others in corrections, please use and share this toolkit. Our youth are depending on you.
This NBC News report on calm rooms featuring Dr. Ablon stating that there are “proven alternatives.”
WARNING: This video may be disturbing to some viewers.
This is a guest blog post by Certified Trainer, Randy Jones.
Looking back I can now see that my families’ expedition into Collaborative Problem Solving actually began over two decades ago.
My wife and I have provided services to those living with cognitive disabilities for over 20 years now. In the beginning we worked with developmentally challenged adults and later began working with mental illness.
We have seen the systems and models of care evolve over those years, bringing with it improved quality of life for everyone. I went from providing services that “protected” the community to actually assisting people in overcoming difficulties in living and achieving efficacy. In the beginning of our careers a good day was defined by little to no negative events occurring with little concern for any practical skill building.
Over those years we have had the opportunity to provide services in many different programs and locations. We have changed locations, from Oregon to Nevada, and have worked in environments from one extreme to the other. We have been a mom and pops foster care home, we have built and operated a corporation with many homes and apartments and we have worked in secure lock down facilities for the adjudicated. We have worked as direct care, as “behavior specialists”, as consultants and as trainers.
During these times I have felt and experienced many different emotions and mindsets, including feeling burnout, overwhelmed, under-appreciated and superfluous. Often it seemed we were providing ineffectual services to people that didn’t want them anyway and then explaining why no “results” were achieved and brainstorming on how to get those served to “want and accept” the services.
In a field where five years is the expected length of most caregivers employment we have not only stayed engaged, but are still enthused to be able to provide support and assist people in overcoming the exact challenges that I assisted people with, in the very beginning of my career.
In the past mustering hope and encouraging others to do the same seemed to be the most difficult part of my day. Seeing how easily people can meet the criteria for a Mental Illness and how difficult it is to become “recovered”( in fact there is no criteria for being recovered), has ended the desire to help in many care givers.
CPS has provided the frame work in which we may articulate to everyone the true nature of being mentally disabled. I see it as the calculus of the human mind. Just as Newton gave us a means to explore our world, a way to disseminate information into its basic elements, understand the order and process of those elements, and then manipulate those elements to produce a desirable outcome; CPS does this for our minds and strengthens those elements through practice.
My family has grown over these years as well; we now have a son that operates his own foster home serving developmentally delayed with a focus on Autism. Our daughter operates a foster home serving those living with mental illness, our nephew and niece in-law are caregivers. My wife and I assist, consult and train caregivers, providers, government agencies and businesses.
Today each of us will tell others when they ask what we do for a living that, we get to assist people in overcoming challenges and difficulties in their own lives. We “get to”. After all these years we are still enthused.
We are enthused because we have seen CPS work for those whom practice it. We have witnessed people overcome their disabled status. Though they may always live with a disability they are no longer disabled. This is CPS.
The journey to this point was not always (if ever) easy. Changing minds is the most difficult undertaking a person can embark upon. Because as people, we do well when we can, and we also believe that what we are doing is well.
Just as in the early days of my career, I was doing well by protecting the community from potential impacts that those I served may cause. Thus, I spent a great deal of time proactively ensuring that the community was not negatively affected, meaning those I served were expected to follow rules, cooperate and comply with my decisions. I was very good at convincing those I served that they “wanted” to do as I directed. I was very good at “feel good” behavior plans and token economies that focused exactly on what would motivate each of those I served.
Still, our shift was less complicated than most, I think for a couple of reasons. Having already finished 16 years serving those with disabilities, having been trainers for most of that time as well, we had already stumbled onto a perspective based approach. When we were introduced to CPS our culture was fertile soil.
Secondly, our programs are family operated. Though we have employees, we use CPS as our HR model (Human Resources) and our relationship to each person becomes priority, much as it is in my family. With the mindset that all problems will eventually need to be worked out, less time is spent on deciding consequence and punishment for missed work expectations and more on building systems that foster accountability and skill development. This is CPS.
Though implementing CPS into our program had exceeded all expected times, it was still a rigorous process. We had our token economy that evolved into a “talking point” program with no focus on providing motivations. We definitely had our growing pains as each new situation arises and we practiced viewing it through a CPS lens. I believe that each of us had our own moment of realization that CPS is the way.
Mine came when I was serving an individual that began smoking in his room while living with me in my foster home. After reporting the event his support team reacted like most would, informed him that was against house rules, unsafe and unwise, and etc. We tried threats like your rep will instruct the program to divvy out your smokes and finally threatened to evict.
Staying true to our faith that we all are doing the best we can given the challenge we face and the skills we posses, we decided not to evict and rather we would discuss it as a matter of program……”so I noticed that sometimes you decide to smoke in your room, can we talk about that?”. We had already accepted that this person has difficulty with expressing himself, so we approached each event as an opportunity to practice those skills.
Despite some serious misgivings from certain supports and feeling as though “nothing was being done to address” the behavior, we were able to eventually discuss with the person that he felt belittled and disrespected, so he didn’t care to explain why he was smoking. After addressing these concerns we realized that he was using the best solution he had, as the house rules stated the doors were to be locked after 11pm and caregivers did not want him going out.
Again, I had to bring out my CPS lens and this time point it at the house rules. The homes rules were mostly agreed upon by the residents, but why 11? After a few plan b’s with everyone it was concluded that; the doors were only locked to help people feel safe, one person in particular. The final solution was the smoker could smoke when he liked and would try to remember to lock the door when he came in, and the scared persons solution was a lock on her door with a peep sight.
Because we are family owned I could easily have the program provide the lock and install the peep sight. For $25.00 and some empathy, we were able to avoid evicting a person and starting a cycle all over again.
By the way, this person completed the program, moved into an apartment with supports that he later did not require. He now lives without caregiver support, is driving again, has gotten married and is taking care of his aging parents. This is CPS.
Collaborative Problem Solving has permeated every aspect of our lives and we are better for it. From communicating with each other and our children; to operating our business and interacting with our staff. We practice CPS and strive to use it when we are at our worst, because it builds our brains.
Most of our immediate family members are Tier 2 trained and are continuing on their course to becoming consultants and trainers. We are always interested in exploring new ways to spread the culture of CPS. For example, in order to develop her skills and learn to cope with possible resistance during trainings, my wife turned to the internet.
By reposting a viral video of a child during a “tantrum” and asking for a respectful debate, she was able to start a week long discussion from our local community as to the value of punishment and what it actually accomplished. She then addressed every post through a CPS lens and began to generate support for the philosophy.
We have since began work on our website to include a link to “The Viral Video of the Week” for each of us to switch off answering posts using our philosophy and practicing our skills. Imagine a world that everyone in the community used a CPS lens to solve problems.
Thanks for your time,
Randy Jones
https://www.thecheoregon.org
Jessica Lahey’s January 13th Parenting Blog post in the New York Times is an excellent example of what we call “conventional wisdom,” the common belief that when kids aren’t meeting our expectations, they are just trying to avoid something or get something. We get this message all the time, and it can make both kids and parents feel incapable.
At Think:Kids, we are trying to push parents, educators, and helping professionals to think more deeply about those situations in which a child isn’t doing what we asked. The child described in the article could do laundry last week but suddenly is jabbing at buttons and wailing that it is “too hard…” Could he have actually forgotten the order of buttons and need a patient refresher? Could he be nervous or distracted about tomorrow’s test, and this task, menial to you but new to him, suddenly seems overwhelming today? We contend that no child would choose to wail, flail arms, and be thought incompetent by his parents if he had the ability to meet the expectation calmly and competently. Research indicates that kids (and all of us!) seek autonomy, competence, and good relationships with others… In short, kids do well if they can!
A refreshing voice among the others in this article, Dr. Bryson calls for some perspective-taking and flexibility in cases like this. Kudos, we say! So how do we do that? One way is with Plan B. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this article, whether you agree or disagree; feel free to post them to our Facebook page.
Often times, parents are advised to tell their children, “My job is to be your parent, not your friend.” This is often said as a justification for the use of severe consequences. We agree that the job of a parent is to be a parent rather than a friend. However, when stated this way, it suggests that the opposite of friend is parent. Of course, we know that the opposite of friend is enemy. So, although your job is not to be your child’s friend, that does not mean you should be your child’s enemy.
Being a parent means teaching your child the skills they need to navigate life’s challenges. Consequences do not teach those skills, especially for a child who is exhibiting significant skill delays. Imposing consequences for a child who has skill delays can often make you feel like enemies. So, be your child’s parent, by collaboratively solving problems, and help them learn the skills they need to become the independent, self-reliant, and confident person you want them to be.
Why is it so hard to change problem behavior—in our kids, our colleagues, and even ourselves?
The answer is actually quite simple. Our understanding of how to change problem behavior comes from our understanding of why the problem behavior exists in the first place. And our explanation for why people behave poorly is typically wrong! When someone doesn’t behave or perform as we would like them to, our default assumption is that they must not be trying very hard; they just don’t want it badly enough. This is true whether we are talking about a child in our home or school, our friend, relative, or partner, an employee whom we manage, or even a professional athlete on our favorite team. As a result, when people fail to meet our expectations, we typically respond with incentives intended to make them try harder in the future. Unfortunately, these conventional methods often backfire, creating a downward spiral of resentment and frustration, and a missed opportunity for growth.
But what if people don’t misbehave because of a lack of desire to do better, but because they lack the skills to do better? What if changing problem behavior is a matter of skill, not will?
Interestingly, neuroscience research has shown for decades now that people who struggle to meet others’ expectations (and even their own!) have challenges with specific thinking skills. It is time to listen to this research and accept the fact challenging behavior is the result of a lack of skill, not will—skills in areas like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving.
For the last 20-plus years, I have been teaching an approach called Collaborative Problem Solving to parents, teachers, clinicians, managers, and entire organizations interested in behavior change. The approach is predicated on the simple philosophy that skill, not will, determines behavior. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the toughest settings to try to change some of the most challenging behavior, and I have seen firsthand how powerful and effective this shift in mindset is. The simple but powerful skill, not will philosophy puts us in a far more compassionate and helpful place as a parent, teacher, friend, partner or manager. And the good news is that skills can be taught! We’ve shown that by practicing problem-solving skills, as opposed to resorting to incentives and punishments, you can improve just about anyone’s behavior. So the next time someone’s behavior frustrates you, remind yourself that we are all doing the best we can to handle what life is throwing at us. And if we aren’t handling it well, it’s probably more about skill than will. In fact, people who struggle with these skills are likely trying harder than anyone else to behave themselves—because it doesn’t come naturally to them.
I’m excited to announce the arrival of my new book, Changeable,which starts shipping June 5th! In the book, I review the research behind this way of understanding challenging behavior and describe the simple and remarkably effective framework that Collaborative Problem Solving provides for helping anyone in your life (even yourself!) build skills related to flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. I describe my experience applying the approach in some very tough settings, including state psychiatric hospitals for chronically mentally ill adults, prisons, residential treatment centers working with traumatized youth, and with police officers working in schools in the poorest congressional district in the United States. Regardless of setting, the basic tenets of the approach are the same. I then detail the implications for anywhere there is conflict between us humans, whether or not there is a power differential present—parent-child interactions, teacher-student interactions, relationships with friends, partners, and family members, as well as with employees and supervisees. Perhaps the furthest-reaching implications apply to problems on the world stage. In the book, I make the case that we all might benefit from a more compassionate and empathic stance towards others and legitimate attempts to solve problems in mutually satisfactory ways.
I hope you will join me here in the future as I go into more detail on different aspects of the model and tackle all kinds of related topics with some guest experts as well. For now, remember these 3 key take-aways:
References
Ablon, JS. Changeable: How Collaborative Problem Solving Changes Lives at Home, at School, and at Work. New York: Penguin Random House; 2018.
Greene, RW, Ablon JS, Monuteaux, MC, Goring, JC, Henin, A, Raezer-Blakely, L, Edwards, G. Markey, J & Biederman, J. Effectiveness of Collaborative Problem Solving in affectively dysregulated children with oppositional defiant disorder: Initial findings. JCCP, 2004; 72(6): 1157-1164.
Pollastri, AR, Epstein, LD, Heath, GH, & Ablon, JS. The Collaborative Problem Solving approach: Outcomes across settings. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 2013, 21(4), 188-199.
Pollastri, AR, Lieberman, RE, Boldt, SL & Ablon, JS (2016) Minimizing Seclusion and Restraint in Youth Residential and Day Treatment Through Site-Wide Implementation of Collaborative Problem Solving, Residential Treatment for Children & Youth, 33:3-4, 186-205
This article originally appeared on Psychology Today – “Help Anyone Change Their Behavior—Even Yourself!”
RVTS South in Oslo, Norway interviewed Dr. Bruce Perry and Dr. Stuart Ablon as part of their 2018 Children’s Conference in October 2018. This interview is translated and excerpted from: RVTS Organization; Interview by Siri L. Thorkildsen
Dr. Bruce Perry of The Child Trauma Academy has worked for years with children who have experienced long-term, complex trauma and gross neglect. Dr. Perry has developed a neuro-sequential model that is based on the stresses the child has experienced. His model helps those impacted by trauma by understanding what brain functions have had been interrupted in development, and seeing their challenges in the context of when in life the trauma occurred.
Dr. J. Stuart Ablon in Think:Kids at Massachusetts General Hospital has researched how the Collaborative Problem Solving approach helps children – and adults – build good relationships, create security, and develop the brain. With this model the child and you problem-solve, together, through empathetic listening and cooperation. Dr. Perry and Dr. Ablon want to inspire helpers meeting with children who face challenges, and help provide tools and information that are developmentally beneficial for these children.
What is the most important message to those who are meeting with or are parenting children who are facing challenges?
Dr. Perry: “My main message is that you make a big difference. You play a big part, and it is so incredibly important that you are with these children. The most important thing to keep in mind is that, while it is difficult, these meetings will have a meaning and this will make a difference for these children. These meetings provide opportunities for neural pathways to be repaired and new pathways can be created.”
Dr. Stuart Ablon: “Sometimes a meeting is much stronger than you might even understand, even when the meeting lasts only a few seconds. These meetings can have a huge impact on development. Those who are in the main position to help these children are the ones who are most with them. At the same time, these adults are often times the ones who have the least resources, lowest pay, and hardest jobs. When they, in fact, have the most important job.”
Dr. Perry, you have said that love is the most important and strongest change agent. What is the meaning of this when working with children who are having trouble?
“When I talk about “love,” it’s because I want to recognize the emotionally-minded element that is about being able to stand the pressure at its worst. When you can recognize the child for who he or she is although he or she may be very challenging. It is the love that allows you to be present, attentive, thoughtful, and responsive in these healing moments.
One of the things we know is that being associated with someone is one of the most important things to be healed. Ideally, this means that someone shows you love. “Love” means so many things, and it has different meanings in different relationships. But, what I think is important in a healing relationship is that you look at the person in a positive way, no matter what happens. And that you want to be there for them, even if you may not understand them or know what to do. You show that you are there and that you do what you can to help. It’s love that has a real therapeutic effect,” says Perry.
“And it’s really hard to love a child when they behave at their worst. And that’s the biggest challenge, because it’s these kids who need it most. Unfortunately, their behavior makes it difficult because it’s typically viewed as reprehensible. Dr. Perry has helped us understand how this behavior is a result of trauma and this has given people an opportunity to look at these children and the behavior in a whole new light. This also helps change the attitude of the children they meet and meet them on a much more humane and kind level, which makes it possible to actually treat these children with respect – something they rarely experience, but is exactly what they need,” adds Ablon.
When you, Dr. Ablon, say, “Skill, not will,” that “children do as well if they can”: How do we combine that with Dr. Perry’s view of love?
“They are incredibly complementary,” says Ablon.
“Dr. Perry’s research shows that these children do not behave badly because they want to, they actually are doing as well as they can. If they could do well, they would do well. And if they’re struggling, then there is something in the way that makes them unable to do well. What Dr. Perry gives us is an understanding of why it is so, developmentally, while Collaborative Problem Solving provides some practical tools to do something about this,” explains Ablon.
“Yes, they fit like hand in glove because what we try to understand about the child is: Where are they in terms of development?” says Perry.
“Too often we have an expectation for the child based on age. But because of neglect, trauma, or other things that have stood in their way, they are often emotionally, socially and cognitively behind. It is a persistent mismatch that creates conflict, so the moment you can understand where your child is, in terms of development, you can actually meet the child at the right level. And if you use Collaborative Problem Solving, then we can meet the child where he or she is. Then we can create small, glorious doses with challenges that can help them succeed and get them into a good developmental path again. It’s really beautiful when you think of it!” explains Perry.
Why does the world need Collaborative Problem Solving?
“Many parts of the world still misunderstand why children do not behave well or why they do not do what we want them to do. As a result, we are not particularly pleased when it comes to children and youth who challenge us.
What our research shows is that challenging behavior is the result of lagging skills; not because they do not want to behave well. We see this reflected in flexibility, frustration tolerance and problem solving in the child. But this can be learned. And if we build the ability to cope with this, in a loving, understanding environment, we can facilitate development and reduce challenging behavior without having to resort to power and control – something we usually consider as a solution, when we face challenging behavior,” Dr. Ablon answers.
Is it always really so, that children are doing the best they can? Anyone who has experienced bedtime with young children may have other thoughts.
Dr. Ablon laughs, and answers that sometimes the will is not always in place. “But I do not always trust that adults understand the difference between will and skill, especially in the toughest moments when it is most important to understand the difference. Because in those moments we are angry, frustrated, stressed. You are tired yourself, have plenty to do. You may not be in the best mindset to decide if the child does not do what you say because it does not work, or because they simply don’t want to. So then it’s better to take the safest solution, namely to assume that the child is unable to do what you ask for. You do not lose anything by treating a child empathically with the understanding something they are we are asking them to do may be difficult for them. But treating the child as if it does not want to do as you ask, that sends you down a dangerous road. So it is always safest to assume “skill, not will.”
You work has revolutionized the subject and contributed to a paradigm shift, where we fundamentally change how we look at and relate to children who are having a hard time. What do you think of this?
“I think people realize that this change in how we look at behaviorally challenging children makes sense. But change is really difficult. How do we help a child’s brain heal and change? You also have to change the brain of the adult so we can think and behave differently around these children. All these adults are often stuck in a structure, in systems where we have done things in a special way for a long time. It requires a lot of restraint, work – and honestly, discomfort – to change this for us adults too,” Ablon answers.
“We have talked about these concepts for thirty years, but it’s only now that these are ideas are making their way into the professional life without too much resistance and negative reactions. So it takes time,” Perry adds.
“The more I do this work, the more I see that what we must help adults keep calm in difficult situations. Being regulated when the pressure is really on. It’s about the adults, and their ability to stay regulated. If we adults can stay regulated; half the job is done. Most of the time, it’s our own unregulated behavior that creates escalating behavior – and that is when we do not use “common sense” and we do not have access to our own thinking brain.
This is also where an understanding of the brain’s structure is useful. It helps us understand that our feelings and unregulated behavior “infect” others. Learning Collaborative Problem Solving provides concrete strategies that help us to retreat, self-regulate and re-enter the situation in a quieter way,” explains Perry.
Dr. Ablon agrees and emphasizes Dr. Perry’s work in connection to this principle. “Something I’ve always thought you’re doing in a wonderful way, Dr. Perry, is to emphasize that: If it is “contagious” to be unregulated, then the good news is that it is also “contagious” to be regulated. So if adults manage to keep regulated, we will help children regulate themselves too.”
Conventional wisdom leads many adults to believe that spanking is an effective way to discipline children. At Think:Kids, we believe that a critical part of rethinking challenging kids is to rethink the ways in which we discipline children. We believe that any kind of physical violence directed at a child is ineffective, inhumane and harmful, and we stand by the American Academy of Pediatrics most recent policy statement warning against the harmful effects of corporal punishment in the home. NYTimes.com: Spanking Is Ineffective and Harmful to Children.
We know that there are healthier and more humane ways to help discipline children than to resort to corporal punishment. A previous study by the American Academy of Pediatrics showed that children whose parents used physical discipline are more likely to end up with depression, anxiety, substance abuse or other mental health disorders. It’s also been shown that children whose parents hit them for discipline are more likely to develop aggressive behaviors, may have more trouble controlling their temper, and as a result, may be more likely to hit other children.
Corporal punishment as a disciplinary strategy not only doesn’t teach kids the skills they need to succeed, it also simply does not work. The effects of corporal punishment are transient – in one research study, within 10 minutes of being punished, 73% of children had “resumed the same behaviors for which they had been punished.”
We often say to parents and professionals that it only takes one caring adult to make a meaningful difference in the life of a child. But, what are we demonstrating when we show our children that it’s okay to hit others? What skills are we building when we lose self-control, and resort to physical aggression in the wake of challenging behavior? When building relationships with children, it’s important that we think about the messages we send to them whenever we discipline them.
What we teach is to build caring relationships, develop skills, and reduce challenging behaviors without the use of corporal punishment, or over-reliance on other ineffective approaches like suspensions, physical restraints, detention, and solitary confinement for disciplining children. Just like we believe that “kids do well if they can,” we also believe that adults do well if they can. We know we adults are trying our best with the skills and tools we have to deal effectively with challenging behavior. If we knew better methods to use when facing challenging behaviors, we would use them. And thankfully we have one that is a proven, and healthier option over resorting to physical punishment.
We have helped thousands of adults rethink challenging behaviors and have helped many families, schools, and programs transform their disciplinary practices through our Collaborative Program Solving model. And, when it comes to spanking, we will continue to challenge the status quo and continue to work towards changing conventional wisdom about disciplining children.
Now that bullying-prevention programs are required in our schools, students who are the victims of bullying are finally getting the empathy and attention they deserve. The work, however, shouldn’t stop there.
Behind most bullying programs is the fundamental assumption that students who bully are choosing to do so in order to get something they want (for example, social status or attention), and that these students could behave more kindly if they wanted to. Because of this assumption, students who bully are frequently punished via exclusionary practices like detention, suspension, or even expulsion. The punishment, the logic goes, should teach bullies that their behavior gets them bad stuff instead of good stuff, and when they realize that, they will stop bullying and be kind instead. But if that logic is correct, why do bullies come out of detention, or return from suspension, and bully again?
Research actually tells us that students who are aggressive, oppositional, or otherwise behave in difficult ways are actually doing the best they can with the skills they have. All of us would like to have social status and attention; students who bully are lacking the skills they would need to attain status and attention in adaptive ways; skills like emotion regulation, self-regulation, communication, and social thinking. As a result, they seek status and attention in ways that prove harmful to others. Yes, bullies would like to avoid detentions and suspensions and they would if they could. But detention and suspension don’t teach skills; the bully returns with no more skills than she had when she left and so cannot behave any differently.
While not a popular view, it is clear that bullies lack the skill, not the will, to behave better. So if we want to effectively address bullying, we need to focus on helping bullies develop the skills they need to not bully. Our underlying assumptions about the cause of the bullying leads us to punish the bullies; ironically, it is only by having compassion and understanding for the bullies that we best help future students avoid being victims.
Listening to the other person’s perspective is a key ingredient in the Collaborative Problem Solving approach and in today’s digital era, listening to your child can help adults better understand some of the confusing, social pressures kids face online. With the rise of social media where web-based challenges can go viral and reach millions in an instant, children are sometimes confronted with messages and ideas that may have negative behavioral results.
Dr. Ablon, Founder & Director of Think:Kids, a program of the Massachusetts General Hospital, was recently asked by a parent about how to address this modern-day problem that is being shared across many households. One important point is that a lot can happen on the internet; use these opportunities to listen, create conversation, and find out what your child is feeling and thinking about these situations.
As a psychologist specializing in working with kids and adolescents with very challenging behavior, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to help kids stay “regulated,” which in essence means calm in the midst of frustration or over-excitement. I have the great fortune of doing a lot of teaching with my good friend and colleague, Dr. Bruce Perry, who often reminds us that dysregulation is contagious! Nothing like a dysregulated kid to get the adults and other kids around them dysregulated too. As a parent or teacher, I’m sure you have experienced this firsthand. When a child becomes dysregulated, they invariably lose a slew of IQ points, and we are quick to follow. At that point, we then have two humans not operating at their best which can lead to some pretty ugly moments. It would stand to reason then that one of the best ways to keep kids calm is to remain calm ourselves. Easier said than done, right? Well, one of the most effective strategies isn’t what you think it is. It’s not deep breathing, mindfulness, or some other technique per se. It’s our mindset.
Mindset matters because how we think about things impacts how we feel about them. For example, if you believe that a child is purposefully escalating in order to try to get you to give in, then it makes sense that you would feel angry and resentful. And, of course, feeling angry and resentful breeds that physiological state we refer to as dysregulation. However, if on the other hand, you viewed the child escalating through a more compassionate and understanding lens, you would be less likely to escalate yourself. This is why we spend a lot of time teaching adults a basic philosophy that underlies all of our work: “Kids do well if they can!” This philosophy is simply meant to mean that if a child could do well, they would do well. If they could handle a situation without escalating, they would. No child wants to become dysregulated. It is not a lack of desire to remain calm that gets in their way. Rather, it is a lack of skill at being able to do so. Reminding yourself that dysregulation is a matter of skill, not will, may be the most effective way to help yourself stay calm when a child is struggling to do just that. We often encourage adults to view kids’ difficulties staying regulated as akin to a learning disability. This mindset also has the advantage of not only being more compassionate but also being more accurate! 50 years of neuroscience research has shown this to be true. Bearing this in mind will help you manage your own emotional reaction.
Teaching this mindset to adults caring for, teaching, and protecting people who exhibit some of the most challenging behavior in some of the most challenging places in the world has repeatedly shown dramatic results. So we know that focusing on your mindset can work in your home, classroom or workplace as well. The next time you feel yourself teetering on the edge of dysregulation, remember and repeat to yourself the simple mantras of “kids do well if they can” and “skill, not will.” And if you forget and lose your cool too, don’t be too hard on yourself. Adults do well if they can too!
As originally posted in: Psychology Today
Now that bullying prevention programs are required in our schools, students who are the victims of bullying are finally getting the empathy and attention they deserve. The work, however, shouldn’t stop there.
Behind most bullying programs is the fundamental assumption that students who bully are choosing to do so in order to get something they want, such as social status or attention, and that these students could behave more kindly if they wanted to. Because of this assumption, students who bully are frequently punished via exclusionary practices like detention, suspension, or even expulsion. The punishment, the logic goes, should teach bullies that their behavior leads to bad outcomes instead of good outcomes, and when they realize that, they will stop bullying and be kind instead. But if that logic is correct, why do bullies so often come out of detention, or return from suspension, only to bully again?
Research actually tells us that students who are aggressive, oppositional, or otherwise behave in difficult ways are actually doing the best they can with the skills they have. All of us would like to have social status and attention; students who bully are lacking the skills they would need to attain status and attention in adaptive ways—skills like emotion regulation, self-regulation, communication skills, and social thinking. As a result, they seek status and attention in ways that prove harmful to others. Yes, bullies would like to avoid detention and suspension, and they would if they could. But detention and suspension don’t teach skills; the bully returns with no more skills than she had when she left and so cannot behave any differently.
Fortunately, there are evidence-based approaches that help kids who exhibit challenging behavior build skills they lack, like self-regulation and social thinking skills that are linked to social aggression. Those approaches include things like Restorative Practices, Social Thinking, and our Collaborative Problem Solving model.
While not a popular view, bullies lack the skill, not the will, to behave better. If we want to effectively address bullying, we need to focus on helping bullies develop the skills they need to not bully. Our underlying assumptions about the cause of the bullying leads us to punish the bullies; ironically, it is only by having compassion and understanding for the bullies that we best help future students avoid being victims.
As originally posted in Psychology Today
As a child psychologist, who specializes in helping kids with challenging behavior, I hear how often we parents take the blame for our kids’ behavior, whether the behavior happens at home, at school or anywhere else. I can’t really blame folks for fingering parents because the blame should really reside with my field. Psychology and psychiatry has a long history of blaming parents (or more specifically, mothers!) for things we later learn they have less to do with than we thought. Take the example of what was referred to as the “schizophrenigenic mother” whose parenting style was thought to cause schizophrenia! Fast forward to the 21st century and we realize what an absurd notion that is (Neill, 1990). And there are examples that are just as astounding and have persisted even longer. The phrase “refrigerator mothers” was coined to describe cold, unempathic moms who were thought to cause ….. autism (Kanter, 1943)! Really. Of course, now we know that autism spectrum disorders are complicated neurodevelopmental challenges. Sorry moms for throwing you under the bus for decades!
My experience tells me that challenging behavior may be the latest example of the damage done when we inaccurately blame parents. We think that parents being passive, permissive and inconsistent leads to their children exhibiting challenging behavior because the kids learn that they can get things or get out of things by behaving this way. But is it really that poor parenting causes challenging behavior? Or is it actually the reverse – namely that challenging behavior causes us parents to look pretty bad?
Over the years in my clinical practice, I’ve noticed some patterns that suggest maybe the latter is more accurate. Many families come to see me for help with one of the children who exhibits severely challenging behavior, and I often observe that those very same families frequently have other children who not only aren’t particularly challenging, they are actually incredibly well-behaved! How do we explain that? Same parents, but different kids. I often say that if I could take a kid from my practice with very challenging behavior and transport them into the home of the ideal parents, those same parents quickly would start to look a lot less consistent and a lot more lenient. Likewise, show me a parent who is described as being too lenient and inconsistent and give them a really well-behaved kid and all of a sudden they will start to look a lot more consistent and less permissive. But unfortunately when we parents have well-behaved kids, we assume that it must be what we are doing that is working so well. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that probably has less to do with us as well! Easy kids are easy to parent. Kids with challenging behavior are really challenging to parent.
So who is really to blame then for challenging behavior? Or more accurately, what is to blame? Skills deficits – (Pollastri, 2019; Wang, 2018). Tons of research in the neurosciences have shown beyond the shadow of doubt that kids who exhibit challenging behavior struggle with skills in areas like flexibility, frustration tolerance and problem-solving. To be more specific and technical, they have a hard time with things like language and communication skills, attention and working memory skills, emotion and self-regulation skills, cognitive flexibility and social thinking skills.
So just like we’ve come to understand autism more accurately through a neuro-development lens, its high time to do the same when it comes to challenging behavior. Let’s learn from past mistakes and stop playing the blame game. Let’s start having empathy for parents whose job is already tough enough. They could use our support, not our judgment.
I’m a bit of a stickler for language. I often have to resist my urge to irritatingly correct people’s grammar. But one thing I try not to resist correcting is lazy language that harms kids.
When kids behave poorly, we often throw around pat phrases as explanations. Here are some common ones you might recognize:
“He just wants attention”
“She just wants her own way”
“He just wants control”
“He’s an expert manipulator”
“She’s got a bad attitude”
“She’s making bad choices”
“He won’t cooperate”
Unfortunately, when someone utters one of these explanations, the typical response is nodding in agreement. But are we really sure these statements are accurate? Because if they aren’t, they reinforce inaccurate, derogatory views of these kids. And if they are even accurate, are they helpful? Let’s examine them together.
Because the definition of the word “cooperate” means to collaborate or come together. It does not mean do what I say now! See how we adults have literally changed the definition of the word to fit our assumptions? Imagine if instead we said that he had a time responding quickly to requests? Then perhaps we would be curious about whether he just needs more time to process things or whether has difficulty shifting gears in general. That is to say, we would be more likely to be curious, not furious with him. And that’s a big difference because it opens the door to more compassionate and helpful responses.
So, let’s work harder to use more accurate and helpful language when we describe kids with challenging behavior. Wait! I am guilty myself. Maybe we aren’t being lazy with our language. Maybe we just lack some awareness. I’m hoping this blog will help all of us rethink the words we choose. Our kids deserve better from us.
As originally featured on the Changeable blog in Psychology Today
As schools across the country open their doors to our children, we hear a lot about back-to-school supplies – binders, notebooks, mechanical pencils, graph paper, calculators, maybe even a lock to keep things safe in lockers. I know it was one of my favorite rituals at the start of each elementary school grade when I was fortunate enough to be taken to the stationary store with list in hand to stock up on school supplies. Crisp, clean, new notebooks seemed to promise a fresh start to the school year ahead. Last night, I took my kids to the big box store that has all but replaced the local stationery store and felt a little of that same nostalgia as I watched my daughter try to find her favorite color notebooks to match her binders while my son was more focused on finding the right planner to keep his assignments straight. Having had the opportunity to work with new staff in a local charter school earlier that day, I also found myself reflecting on what I think might be the most important school supply with which to begin the new year. I realized that it is something all teachers, parents, and kids will need this year, but you can’t buy it. And sometimes these days it seems like it is in short supply: Empathy. When teachers struggle to manage their classroom, parents struggle to get their kids to school on time or to do their homework, or kids struggle to meet the expectations of the new school year, too often the blame game begins: Let’s all try to start this school year off with empathy for each other. With the recognition that we are all doing the best we can – teachers, parents, and kids alike. No kid wants to struggle at school. No parent wants their child to be “that kid” at school who is disrupting the class for others and whom everyone is talking about. No teacher wants to feel the overwhelming stress of trying to manage an out-of-control classroom. Blame puts people on the defensive and only makes matters worse because it shuts down our curiosity. Empathy, on the other hand, helps us stay calm or what we psychologists call “regulated.” Empathy is the greatest human regulator. Feeling understood and supported is calming. Calm people are much better problem solvers. This is true partly because empathy encourages curiosity and understanding a problem is required before you can solve it! Assuming the best of each other helps us connect, relate and collaborate more effectively. Instead of the blame game, empathy in those same situations might sound more like this: So, at the start of this new school year, let’s remember that we are all in this together. Let’s remember that we are all doing the best we can and that with a little empathy we can help each other do even better. As the school year marches on and what were once fresh, new notebooks become a bit frayed at the edges just like us, let’s try not to run out of the most important school supply: Empathy. Ablon, JS, Pollastri, AR. The School Discipline Fix: Changing Behavior using Collaborative Problem Solving. New York: Norton; 2018. Perry BD, Ablon JS. CPS as a Neurodevelopmentally Sensitive and Trauma-Informed Approach. In: Pollastri A., Ablon J., Hone M. (eds) Collaborative Problem Solving. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Springer, Cham; 2019. As originally posted in Psychology TodayAugust 23, 2019
References
As parents, we hear a lot about the need to be consistent—consistent in how we treat each of our children and consistent with our co-parents as well. This emphasis on consistency goes back to the idea that kids are looking for some way to exploit a lack of consistency, and if we just toe the line without any exceptions it will lead to better behavior and compliance with our wishes. We also work hard to treat our kids the same so as to not engender any uprisings caused by a perceived lack of fairness, especially since the call of “that’s not fair!” is especially piercing to our adult ears. The same is true at school where teachers often work hard to achieve consistency for the same reasons but with perhaps even more urgency, given the dozens of kids they have to contend with all at the same time.
But is our striving for consistency effective or perhaps even misguided at times?
Parents with multiple children often remark on how different their children are—how they must have “come out wired differently.” I know this stands true for each of my three kids: same parents, same household, same siblings, even same schools and yet very different kids. So why would we ever try to parent or teach kids in the same way if they are so different? In fact, doesn’t treating every kid the same ensure that no one really gets what they need? You see, the fact that kids are so different is precisely why we should strive to do things differently with them. Different kids need different things. In fact, the only way to make sure that each child gets what they need is to give them different things.
We’ve learned this lesson over time in our schools. We used to expect that all kids should learn the same way and at the same pace. If they didn’t, we certainly didn’t want them getting in the way of the learning of the other students. Thankfully, we have realized over time that “differentiating” our instruction (customizing our teaching to the specific styles and needs of individual learners) was not only helpful but necessary, and that doing so helps us to reach all students most effectively. While we have come a long way in that arena, the notion of differentiating our discipline is still a tough reality for folks to accept.
In our schools, I see teachers worry that if they make exceptions or offer individualized support to certain students, all students will want those accommodations. I encourage them to think about behavior as if it were a learning issue. One would never hold back offering support to a child with dyslexia for fear that every student in the class would then claim to have dyslexia! And we would have no problem telling the other students that we only differentiate when needed. In other words, we give help where it’s needed but not where it isn’t! It’s time for us to do the same with behavior and discipline—to not be shy about doing different things for different students and being confident in our rationale for doing so.
Next time we hear “It’s not fair!” in our homes or classrooms, let’s respond with a very clear pronouncement, “Yes, it is. Because fair doesn’t mean equal. It means giving everyone what they need, and different people need different things.”
Let’s let go of one-size-fits-all parenting and teaching. Let’s embrace the messy, remarkable and exciting individuality of our kids and give each other the permission to respond differently to their needs and challenges.
As originally featured in Psychology Today
For a long time now, we have known that therapy works. In fact, all kinds of different therapies work for different reasons, and they often tend to be equally effective with not a lot of differences in outcomes. This finding has been termed the “Dodo bird effect” – alluding to the line from Alice in Wonderland, “Everybody has won and all must have prizes.”
In graduate school and the years after, I was fascinated by the question of what makes different types of therapy successful. When I analyzed video recordings of individual therapies intensively using across 100 different variables, I often did find interesting dynamics specific to that particular patient-therapist dyad that predicted the outcome of the therapy (Ablon et al, 2002, 2006, 2011).
But when I analyzed dozens or hundreds of different therapies together, I repeatedly found that what has been termed “common factors” predicted outcomes. The most powerful of those common factors have been referred to as the “therapeutic alliance,” referring to the bond between client and therapist. Study after study has shown that the quality of the relationship between client and therapist is the only reliable and the most powerful predictor of a positive outcome. This construct has also been referred to as the helping alliance, the working alliance or the collaborative alliance. Whatever name you use to describe it, it refers to the bond between helper and helpee as they work together towards a common goal, a bond marked by non-judgmental acceptance and empathy.
During the 20-plus years since I left graduate school, I’ve focused on helping kids and adolescents with challenging behaviors, and things have come full circle for me. The helping relationship is the key to change. This is true wherever I’ve worked, whether it is a therapist-client, parent-child, or teacher-student relationship. The quality of the helping relationship determines success. And just to be clear: a helping relationship does not simply mean a nice or friendly relationship. A helping alliance is characterized by digging in and working on hard things together, but always punctuated by empathy, acceptance and a lack of blame.
The real struggle when it comes to helping kids with behavioral challenges is that it is very hard to build and maintain an empathic, non-judgmental stance when their behavior is so frustrating and disruptive. The more we feel triggered and disrespected by their behavior, the harder it is to maintain that helping alliance. This is why helping adults to have compassion for kids with behavioral challenges is more than half the battle. The approach we teach tries to instill an empathic and hopeful mindset while giving adults concrete tools to partner with kids to work on the challenges together (Ablon, 2018). In other words, the approach helps adult foster a therapeutic alliance with kids despite their challenging behavior. Our research has shown that the better the adults are at using the approach, the higher their alliance is with the kids, which given all we know about therapeutic alliance undoubtedly translates into better outcomes for kids.
So, what’s the bottom line here? The most powerful vehicle of change we have is relationships. Not surprisingly, our success in helping kids is entirely dependent on the relationships we build with them.
References
Ablon JS, Jones EE, Katzenstein T. Psychotherapy and controlled clinical trials: A square peg and a round hole. Psychoanalyst Psychologist, 2002.
Ablon JS, Jones EE. Validity of controlled clinical trials of psychotherapy. AJP, 2002;159:775-783.
Ablon JS, Levy, RA, Katzenstein, T. Brand names of psychotherapy: Identifying empirically supported change processes. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 2006; 43(2), 216-23
This article was originally featured in Psychology Today.