Week 1 Group Topics and Review

Week 1 of 8

Week one of the Collaborative Problem Solving Parent Group offers parents an overview of CPS as developed by Ross Greene and Stuart Ablon and a detailed description of the Empathy step.

If you are reading this as a therapist, teacher, or other professional working with the child or family, background knowledge of the model is recommended.

Key Points for Week 1:

“Kids do well if they can” is the philosophy of CPS, as opposed to the common wisdom that “Kids do well if they want to.” (Just because it’s common, doesn’t mean it’s always wise!)

“Your explanation guides your intervention…”

If you believe that kids do well if they want to, then your job as a parent/educator/therapist is to devise ways to make them want to. Usually, this takes the form of sticker charts, point systems, time outs, earning rewards, etc… 

If you look at the daily life of a kid with behavioral issues, you will often find a long history of unearned rewards, repeated punishments, escalated time outs, missed recesses, dropped levels, and unmet goals along with continued behavioral difficulty. Ask yourself: “If my child had a way to get out of all those punishments, consequences, and disappointments; wouldn’t they have done it by now?” Kids who don't do well are some of the most motivated kids around-we have been providing mountains of motivation... (Check out the link at the bottom of the page to Daniel Pink's talk on motivation.)

If you believe that kids do well if they can, then your job as a parent/educator/therapist is to figure out what is getting in the way. CPS looks at behavior in the same way a Special Education Teacher looks at math. CPS stresses delays in the development of crucial thinking skills; in brief, Flexibility/Adaptability, Frustration Tolerance, and Problem Solving. In math, a teacher might focus on specific operations or lower level skills, starting at the level of the child, to build math competency. CPS focuses on the development of the skills needed to do well.

An Overview of Plans, or, Ways to Handle a Problem

Plan A: Imposition of adult will

Plan A meets parental expectations, increases the likelihood of explosions, and teaches no thinking skills.

Plan C: Adult decision to remove an expectation of the child

Plan C does not meet adult expectations, decreases the likelihood of explosions, and teaches no skills.

Plan B: Adult has a thought out, planned, Plan B conversation with their child when the problem is not at hand and everyone is calm.

Plan B meets parental expectations, decreases the likelihood of explosions, and teaches thinking skills!

Plan B: Empathy plus Reassurance: Reflective listening or “I hear you” followed by reassurance that your are not using Plan A. Empathy is used a a tool to gather information about the child’s concern or point of view.

Effective ingredients of the Empathy step:

Curiosity

Clarifying questions (Who, What, Where, When)

Restating

Paraphrasing

Reflected thinking and asking about thinking

Reflecting feelings (be careful of mad, sad, and glad

Summarizing

Resisting the urge to problem solve

Remain nonjudgemental and nonthreatening

(We mentioned but did not get into the next 2 steps of Plan B… Defining the Problem and Invitation… as we will cover those a later time.)

Parent homework this week:

•           Read chapters 1-4 of The Explosive Child by Ross Greene

•           Practice empathy with your child. (Come back next week with examples of how it works!)

•           Track episodes of frustration and/or meltdowns using the provided “Managing Meltdowns Predictable”        worksheet handed out in class.

Links to Learning:
Daniel Pink on Motivation, a fantastic 20 minute video on new research on what really motivates people

Some more on Empathy from Collaborative Parent

Recommended Reading book list is on the right hand side of the Collaborative Parent blog

This page is a living draft and will be modified over the coming months!