3 Shifts to support your child when they are telling you "I am stuck!"
For our organization (Shift Your Thinking) it was incredibly fitting that in Dr. Ross Greene’s live call he talked about SHIFTS. Was he speaking our language or what?!?
Dr. Greene, Bestselling Author of Raising Human Beings and The Explosive Child, and Founder of the non-profit Lives in the Balance, provided us with some incredible strategies and insights that focussed on three different shifts with respect to challenging behaviours and problem-solving.
Let’s jump in because we love to share with you...
Shift #1
We need to not focus on kids’ challenging behaviours, we need to focus on the problems creating the behaviours.
We need to look at the behaviours that we are seeing AS the SIGNAL (or what the child is communicating - could be whining, hitting, sulking, fighting, outbursts etc.). If we could hear what the signals were actually saying, they might sound a little like “I am stuck” or “There are expectations I am having difficulty meeting”.
When we are focused on behaviour only, we are missing the fact that the child is having difficulties meeting expectations. Instead, if we are busy solving the problems causing those behaviour signals, the signals subside.
Shift #2
We need to focus on collaborative problem-solving processes with our kids, instead of just unilateral, adult-imposed ones.
Adult-imposed consequences don’t often work because someone important is missing from those solutions (the kid!). When we are not collaborative with our kids, the intended beneficiary of our wisdom that we are trying to teach from the consequence, is missing from the equation! Involve our kids and the process becomes more interactive and will have buy-in.
Shift #3
We need to solve problems proactively and not reactively.
Dr. Greene stated that a lot of adults deal with issues with kids primarily in the heat of the moment and reactively. Instead, we need to try to be planned and proactive with our responses. Most behaviour is not unpredictable, you know exactly when the kid will be upset if answer two questions (a “why” question and a “when” question!):
Why are challenging kids being challenging? The reason is that they lack the skills to not be challenging. Dr. Greene has a tool (The Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems) that provides us with information about lagging skills and unsolved problems in a child, which shifts our view and helps us to change our lens on what we are seeing from our kids.
When do the behaviours happen? We know the answer to this as well: when expectations outstrip skills. Again, by seeking out the lagging skills, we can better understand when these behaviours are going to happen.
So how do we handle the lagging skills and unsolved problems? Dr. Greene provides three different plans...
Plan A is one that should not be used often, although it is popular because we think we know what is getting in the way for our kids. It is imposing solutions and not including kids in the problem-solving process. It is a plan about adult power over our kids, which causes conflict.
Plan B is all about solving problems collaboratively with our kids. Taking into account their thoughts, ideas and insights. Information is gathered directly from the child, the adult shares their concerns, and then they collaborate on a solution.
Plan C is about removing the expectation, at least for now. It is about setting certain expectations aside while you solve higher priority problems. It is about both prioritizing and stabilizing the situation, and returning to those expectations once other ones have been addressed.
There is so much to digest, and so much more that Dr. Greene shared with us, but here are a few key take-aways:
We need to focus on the problems that are causing the behaviours, not the behaviours themselves.
We need to understand what are the lagging skills and unsolved problems within our children
We need to be collaborative and proactive in our solutions
Dr. Greene stated that as an adult: “It is not your job to know, it is your job to know how to find out.” This resonated with me because it is not about trying to be an expert, it is about being curious and understanding your child, then working to SEE them, UNDERSTAND them and SUPPORT them the best way that you can. As always, we are here to help with those shifts!
If you are interested in hearing the SYT Live Call Replay with Dr. Ross Greene, click here.