What Is Collaborative Problem Solving?

Whether you're a parent, educator, physician, or mental health clinician, helping kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges can be frustrating, draining, isolating...and really hard. A lot of what people say about these kids – that they’re attention-seeking, manipulative, coercive, unmotivated, and limit-testing – doesn't help. And a lot of what's said about their parents – that they’re passive, permissive, inconsistent, noncontingent disciplinarians – doesn't help either.

Fortunately, we’ve learned a lot about challenging kids in the past 40 years. We now know that they’re lacking skills, not motivation...skills like flexibility/ adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving. That knowledge makes it possible for us to help these kids in ways that are much more humane, compassionate, and effective.

If you're new to the CPS model, this is a good place to start. First, below, you can watch streaming video of Dr. Greene describing important tenets of the model in logical sequence from top to bottom (filmed at a presentation in Regina, Saskatchewan, in April, 2009).

Then, watch videos showing what the Collaborative Problem Solving process looks like in the Plan B in Action section of the site (CLICK HERE).

And if you want to download (and print) a one-page description of the model...just CLICK HERE.

Kids Do Well If They Can

This is the most important theme of Collaborative Problem Solving: the belief that if kids could do well they would do well. In other words, if the kid had the skills to exhibit adaptive behavior, he wouldn’t be exhibiting challenging behavior. That’s because doing well is always preferable to not doing well.

What's Your Explanation?

Your explanation for a kid's is challenging behavior has major implications for how you'll try to help. If you believe a kid is challenging because of lagging skills and unsolved problems, then rewarding and punishing may not be the ideal approach. Solving those problems and teaching those skills would make perfect sense.

Being Responsive

The definition of good parenting, good teaching, and good treatment is being responsive to the hand you’ve been dealt. Notice, the definition isn’t “treating every kid exactly the same”.

Check Your Lenses

Challenging behavior occurs when the demands of the environment exceed a kid’s capacity to respond adaptively. In other words, it takes two to tango. But many popular explanations for challenging behavior place blame on the kid or his parents. Not Collaborative Problem Solving.

Three Options for Solving Problems

There are three ways in which adults try to solve problems with kids: Plan A (which is unilateral problem solving), Plan C (dropping the problem completely), and Plan B (that's the one you want to get really good at).

Plan B

Once you’ve identified the unsolved problems that are precipitating challenging episodes, and determined the two or three high-priority unsolved problems you want to solve, you're ready for Plan B. Don't forget, timing is everything. This one may be worth watching more than once.