Dr. Ross Greene

If you're the parent or relative of a child or adolescent with social, emotional, or behavioral challenges, this is the program for you. New to the CPS model? Just getting started with Plan B? Trying to find time for your other kids when your challenging one demands so much of your energy and attention? Having trouble getting a co-parent/ grandparents/teachers/coaches on board? This is a great opportunity to call in an ask questions...or listen to other parents who are dealing with similar real-life issues. And, in recorded form, this is a very good way to learn more about the CPS approach.

Solving problems collaboratively is messy... choppy...uneven...hard. In today's program, two moms called in to talk about some of the problems they're running into in trying to do Plan with their kids (and, in the case of one mom, with the folks at school). So we did some trouble-shooting, and some familiar themes seemed to apply: being really specific about the unsolved problems you're working on (so the child can give you the information you're seeking in the Empathy step); trying to get a good handle on other factors (attention-span, hyperactivity, lagging communication skills) that may be making it hard for the child to participate in Plan B; and being as proactive as possible in terms of timing. As always, the devil's in the details, and this is a good program to listen to in recorded form to sort through those details so Plan B is as productive as possible. (We ran out of time at the end, so the program ends suddenly, but we'll pick up where we left off next week.)

In this program, Dr. Greene responded to a variety of different questions parents have submitted through the Contact form on the Lives in the Balance website (www.livesinthebalance.org). And then a dad who had called in for some help a month ago phoned in to provide an update on the progress he's making with his two kids, and described some of the difficulties he's having getting his significant other (and co-parent) to use Plan B as well. Listen to the archive!

In this program, Dr. Greene spoke with a mom who called in to get some help in using Plan B with her challenging 5-year old son. The mom was struggling with some of the key aspects of using Plan B, especially identifying the specific unsolved problems that were reliably and predictably setting the stage for challenging episodes. But it turned out that the boy's challenging behavior (hitting, throwing) was indeed highly predictable, and very specific unsolved problems were identified: being interrupted when speaking, having things not go the way he anticipated, morning routine, being picked up at daycare in the afternoon, going into school in the morning. These unsolved problems set the stage for the Proactive Plan B the mom will try to do this weekend. A great example of the difficulties parents run into in using Plan B and how to overcome them. Listen to the archive!

On this program, two parents called in to discuss difficulties they were having in getting the teachers of their challenging kids on board with Collaborative Problem Solving. The solution: if possible, find ways to collaborate with the teachers on the kids' lagging skills and unsolved problems and try to achieve a consensus on the best ways to go about helping.

In this program, Dr. Greene discusses whether diagnoses are useful in understanding and helping kids with behavioral challenges. He then talked about some of the characteristic ways in which the Empathy step of Plan B can go awry, and discussed how Plan is not only applicable to adult-child problem-solving but also to problem-solving interactions between adults, including parents and teachers.

During this program, Dr. Greene discussed a variety of issues, including the difficulties people encounter when trying to "drill" in the Empathy step (and how to overcome those difficulties); whether one should let a kid know that you're trying to do things differently when you're starting to use Plan B (you can, but the proof is in the pudding); whether a kid's lagging skills are taught through mere use of Plan B or whether some skills need to be taught more directly; and whether Plan B is helpful for kids who are very "black-and-white thinkers".

In this program, Dr. Greene provided an overview of the three ways in which adults solve problems with kids -- Plans A, B, and C -- and a general description of the steps or "ingredients" of Plan B. More time will be spent on each of these ingredients in coming weeks. The discussion of Plan B was helped along by a father who called in to describe some of the difficulties he was having in using Plan B with his two young sons, and potential "fixes" for those difficulties were discussed.

In this inaugural edition of Collaborative Problem Solving at Home, Dr. Greene describes how challenging kids come to be challenging: they're lacking the skills not to be challenging. This perspective represents a dramatic departure from viewing challenging kids as manipulative, attention-seeking, unmotivated, coercive, and limit-testing. Dr. Greene also describes how to go about figuring out what skills your kid is lacking, through use of the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP). He discusses the fact that challenging behavior occurs under highly predictable conditions, called "unsolved problems," and describes how to go about identifying these unsolved problems in your child. A great introduction to Collaborative Problem Solving for parents!