Parenting: Collaborative Problem Solving
I am watching: Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph.D. Dr. to improve my parenting skills.
In episode about anger, Dr. Kennedy-Moore talks about Dr. Ross Greene’s Three Plan System for dealing with children:
- Plan A - parent exerts will
- Plan B - parent and child works together
- Plan C - parent relaxes will
Plan A
This plan is all about authority, where the parent exerts their authority over the child and forces them to do will.
Plan C
This plan relaxes all expectations the parent has about the child, I like to think of this plan as cancel all expectations you have of the child. Only deal with the child in front of you - not their siblings, their peers, or an imaginary version.
Plan B
This plan is most interesting as there are specific steps to reach a middle between exerting total authority and canceling all expectations:
- Listen to child.
- Ask to clarify their concern.
- State their concern and raise your concern with their behavior.
- Invite child to find a solution that addresses both concerns.
Repeat step 4 until you and the child find a good solution to the situation.
Practicing Collaboration
This method is great because as a parent, you need to have a range of tools to raise a better child. This gives parents a tool to help the child practice collaborative problem solving in a structured way.
There may only be four steps listed, there are more than four skills needed:
- listening
- perceiving
- expressing
- analyzing
- creativity
- iterating
- and more.
I know of plans A and C first hand. Now knowing plan B, I want to start implementing it in my own life.
More information
I found a video by Dr. Ross Greene that speaks about this topic in detail: