Raising Human Beings

Raising Human Beings

-a talk with child psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Ross Greene

Tuesday, March 30, 4:00 pm  ~  Online: us02web.zoom.us

Ross W. Greene, Ph.D., is the New York Times bestselling author of the influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost and Found, and Raising Human Beings. As a clinical psychologist, he’s been working with children and families for over 40 years. His influential work is widely known throughout the world.

Join Dr Greene to learn and discuss:

• How to think differently about children’s challenging behavior
• How “Collaborative & Proactive Solutions” can foster a non-punitive, non-adversarial relationship with children that helps children learn problem solving, perspective-taking, and honesty.

The CPS model is based on the premise that challenging behavior occurs when the demands and expectations being placed on a kid exceed the kid’s capacity to respond adaptively, and that some kids are better equipped (i.e., have the skills) to handle certain demands and expectations. So the emphasis of the model isn’t on kids’ challenging behavior, which is – whether it’s whining, pouting, sulking, withdrawing, crying, screaming, swearing, hitting, spitting, biting, or worse – just the manner in which they’re expressing the fact that there are expectations they’re having difficulty meeting. Nor does the model focus on psychiatric diagnoses, which are simply categories of challenging behaviors. Rather the model focuses on identifying the skills a person is lacking and the expectations they’re having difficulty meeting. (In the CPS model, those unmet expectations are referred to as unsolved problems.) Then the goal is to help them solve those problems, rather than trying to modify their behavior through application of rewards and punishments.

In the CPS model, the problem solving is of the collaborative and proactive variety. This is in contrast to many of the interventions that are commonly applied to kids, which are of the unilateral and emergent variety. The goal is to foster a problem-solving, collaborative partnership between adults and kids and to engage kids in solving the problems that affect their lives. As such, the CPS model is non-punitive and non-adversarial, decreases the likelihood of conflict, enhances relationships, improves communication, and helps kids and adults learn and display the skills on the more positive side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one’s behavior is affecting others, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another’s perspective, and honesty.