In this section, various practical and conceptual issues that may arise as people are implementing the Collaborative Problem Solving approach are discussed.

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Is It Working Yet?

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It’s not uncommon for me to hear that an unsolved problem being addressed with Plan B hasn’t yet been solved. This is occasionally followed by the conclusion, “See, it’s not working.” Naturally, I ask for details. And, indeed, it does usually turn out that the problem hasn’t yet been solved. In other words, the ultimate destination of Plan B – solving a problem durably – hasn’t yet been reached. But seldom do I come to the conclusion that Plan B hasn’t started working yet.

I Do This Already

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One of the things I hear said by many people who are just learning about Plan B is, “I do this already.” They often discover that there are important ingredients of Plan B that they’re leaving out. Talking with a kid is not the same thing as Plan B (though Plan B does typically involve talking). “Processing” is not synonymous with Plan B either (though Plan B is certainly a process). You could spend a fair amount of time talking and processing with a kid and never identify his concern or perspective on a given unsolved problem, never communicate your concern or perspective, and never collaborate on a solution that addresses those concerns.

Hibernating Problems

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Unsolved problems tend to come and go. Adults may discuss one “hot” problem with a kid one hour or one week (for example, difficulty getting started on class assignments), and then turn to a completely different “hot” problem the next hour or week (for example, clowning around in the hallway). But if the discussions don’t include the three ingredients of Plan B, then the problem probably isn’t durably solved…it’s just “cooled down” a little, or gone into “hibernation”.

Problems in Living

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These days, if you’re a challenging kid, you’re probably in one of two stages of development: the pre-diagnostic stage or the post-diagnostic stage. If you’re in the pre-diagnostic stage, then adults are still trying to figure out why you’re challenging and still have faith that a psychiatric diagnosis will provide useful information. If you’re in the post-diagnostic stage, then adults have probably come to the recognition that a diagnosis isn’t the holy grail and didn’t really help people understand your difficulties at all.

Incremental Problem Solving

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One of the things I’ve been writing and talking about a lot lately is the fact that Collaborative Problem Solving is an incremental process. In fact, in my book, Lost at School, I made mention of the fact that the model could just as easily have been called Incremental Problem Solving or Progressive Problem Solving. I thought the collaborative aspect of the model was the most important to emphasize, but that doesn’t mean that the incremental component isn’t almost as crucial.

Correlation is Not Causation

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So often, there’s so much information already available about a challenging kid that it’s easy to become overwhelmed by it all. So it’s important to think about what information is most important. With Collaborative Problem Solving, the focus is on the things we can actually do something about, things we can actually work on. No sense in spending a lot of time focusing on things we can do nothing about. However, adults sometimes fall into the trap of taking some of what is known about a kid’s history or background and invoking this information as causal, leading to statements like: