Quotes from Ross W. Greene

We have forgotten that those skills on the more positive side of human nature have to be taught, have to be modeled, have to be practiced.

If we're being unilateral, then communication does not happen, the relationship does not happen.

A kid shouldn't need a diagnosis to access help.

The long-term answer to a kid not caring about your concerns is to care more about his.

We all want our own way; some of us have the skills to get our own way adaptively, and some of us don't.

The reality is that well-behaved students aren't behaving themselves because of the school discipline program. They're behaving themselves because they have the skills to handle life's challenges in an adaptive fashion.

Behaviorally challenging kids are challenging because they're lacking the skills to not be challenging.

If the only time a child looks as if he has bipolar disorder is when he's frustrated, that's not bipolar disorder; that's a learning disability in the domains of flexibility and frustration tolerance.

An explosive outburst—like other forms of maladaptive behavior—occurs when the cognitive demands being placed upon a person outstrip that person's capacity to respond adaptively.

The essential function of challenging behavior is to communicate to adults that a kid doesn't possess the skills to handle certain demands in certain situations.

Challenging kids are lacking the skills of flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, skills most of us take for granted.

Your energy can be devoted far more productively to collaborating with your child on solutions to the problems that are causing challenging episodes than in sticking with strategies that may actually have made things worse and haven't led to durable improvement.

Solving problems together? Yes, indeed. You and your child are going to be allies, not adversaries. Partners, not enemies.

It's crucial to go beyond merely concluding that a student's challenging behavior gets him something he wants (for example, attention), allows him to escape and avoid tasks and situations that are difficult, uncomfortable, tedious, or scary, and is therefore "working.

The reason reward and punishment strategies haven't helped is because they won't teach your child the skills he's lacking or solve the problems that are contributing to challenging episodes.

Challenging behavior occurs when the demands being placed upon a child outstrip the skills he has to respond adaptively to those demands.

because your child isn't challenging every second of every waking hour. He's challenging sometimes, particularly in situations where flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving are required.

If you respond to a child who's having difficulty putting his emotions aside so as to think through solutions by imposing your will more intensively and "teaching him who's the boss," you probably won't help him manage his emotions. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Half of teachers leave the profession within their first four years, and kids with behaviour challenges and their parents are cited as one of the major reasons.

He's manipulating us. This is another popular but misguided way of portraying behaviorally challenging kids. Competent manipulation requires various skills—forethought, planning, impulse control, organization—that behaviorally challenging kids often lack.

When is challenging behavior most likely to occur? When the demands being placed on a kid exceed his capacity to respond adaptively.

Challenging behavior occurs when the demands and expectations being placed upon a child outstrip the skills he has to respond adaptively.

In the CPS model, holding a kid accountable means that the kid is participating in a process in which he's identifying and articulating his own concerns or perspectives, taking yours into account, and working toward a realistic and mutually satisfactory solution

QUESTION: Isn't it the parents' job to make their child behave at school? ANSWER: Helping a child deal more adaptively with frustration is everyone's job. The parents aren't there when the child has challenging episodes at school.