COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING (CPS)

Assignment 1

TWO SIDES TO CPS

• CPS the Process– Steps that can be

followed in supporting challenging behaviour by focusing on specific unsolved problems

– Process can be time intensive and is therefore used with challenging behaviour

• CPS the Philosophy– The philosophy that top

down decisions, punishment and authoritarian styles do not change behaviour in the long term

– Instead, we choose a collaborative process that builds independence and accountability

PART I: DESCRIPTION

Juaquin is a very active grade 5 boy who was reading about Social

Studies on the iPad. Junaquin can't read independently yet and

that's ok. He's very young. The good news is that he sometimes still gets excited about reading

with an adult. The iPad works well because it allows him some

autonomy while it reads to him. Plus it's interactive which is great

because it keeps Juaquin engaged. (Please note that the iPad does

not replace reading with an adult -- it merely supplements).

After he finished the book, I showed him how to take screen shots of his favorite parts of the

book. He placed them in Keynote and, with some assistance, he wrote a couple sentences that explained what was

happening in the picture.

After three pictures and three text boxes, Juaquin made it clear that he was

ready for a break, so I sent him for a walk down the

hall. When he came back I had him choose a little

journal for him to keep. I asked him to write down his name, the date and

something about what he did this morning.

All of a sudden, Juaquin crossed his arms, knitted his brow, hung his head and huffed. It took me all of a half second to see something was wrong. It's at this point that too many adults engage in Plan A. Plan A is where the adult places an expectation on the child and when the child doesn't comply, the adult imposes their will to make them comply.

PART II

In Juaquin's case, my problem was that I wanted him to write in his journal but he wouldn't. Plan A might take any number of forms including threats, bribes, punishments, consequences and other forms of manipulation and coercion.

Plan A solves the problem, right?

Well, sort of but mostly no.Plan A does solve a problem. Plan A is the best way to solve the adult's problem while almost always completely ignoring the child's problem. Because Plan A never bothers to engage the child, the best it can ever gain us is short-term compliance. We gain expediency and efficiency at the cost of sustainability. This is as unacceptable as it is ineffective.

Plan B is where we engage collaboratively with the child to solve problems. Here are the steps:

1. Identify the lagging skill and unsolved problem.

2. Engage the child in an empathetic conversation in an attempt to gather information about their perspective of the problem.

3. Identify both problems (yours and theirs).

4. Invite them to come up with solutions and agree on one that is mutually satisfactory and durable.

Here's what Plan B looks like for Joaquin:

After I resisted Plan A, I quickly identified Juaquin's lagging skill: he has difficulty handling

transitions and shifting from one task to another. The unsolved problem here is that Joaquin is

having difficulty starting his journal writing after reading on the iPad.

Here's how I started the conversation:Hey Joaquin, I've noticed your having difficulty starting your journal writing, what's up? I waited.

Joaquin avoided eye contact.

I waited some more.

Joaquin still looked away.

I waited even more.

Then Joaquin shifted in his seat and dropped his crossed

arms. He wasn't avoiding me. He was thinking. It was really important that I say nothing so that he could think. Joaquin then said

something that made me go aha!

I'm hungry.This aha! moment made sense. It was 20 minutes to twelve and even I was

getting hungry.

There is only one person in this world who could

provide me with this invaluable piece of

information, and that person is Joaquin.

If I don't take the time and effort to engage in a

conversation with him, then I guess I could

hypothesize and theorize why he's having difficulty (he hates writing or me) --

or I could skip all the speculation and just ask

Joaquin for what's up (he's hungry).

If I speculate about what Joaquin's problem is, I'm

likely to unilaterally impose a solution which will likely

solve my problem while ignoring his which will likely

lead to more unsolved problems, leading me to impose more unilateral consequences. In other

words, Plan A begets Plan A.

Once I had my aha! moment, I asked Joaquin:

I wonder if there is a way for you to write in your journal without being

hungry.

I waited.

He said nothing.

I waited longer.

After I watched him think in silence, Joaquin said:

I can wait until lunch.

Sometimes kids are great at telling us what we want to hear. Sometimes this is true because they have grown accustomed to

having their needs trumped by adults. Keeping this in mind, I decided that Joaquin's suggestion was neither mutually satisfactory (I don't

think he really believed he could wait) nor sustainable (I didn't really believe he could wait) so I said:

That's an idea, but are you sure you can wait? What if you got a super quick snack now and then came back and wrote in your journal? His smile told me all I needed to know about whether this solution was

mutually satisfactory. And it was proven durable when three minutes later he returned from his snack and went straight to his journal.

For those who say this sounds like too much work, I'll say this: while it's true that learning how to do Plan B takes a long time, this post took me longer to write than my actual interaction with Joaquin.