Quotes from Ross W. Greene

There are a lot of different people to get on the same page. And there's a big dinosaur in the building: the existing school discipline program.

Kids who exhibit concerning behaviors are compromised in the global skills of flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, emotion regulation, and problem solving. These are skills most of us take for granted. And most kids are blessed with sufficient levels of those skills. Your child was not so fortunate.

Diagnoses can also be counterproductive in that they imply that the problem resides solely within the child and that it's the child who needs to be fixed. And, since diagnoses are simply categories containing lists of concerning behaviors, they may not be telling you anything about your child that you didn't already know.

But whether a child's concerning behavior is lucky or unlucky, it's communicating the exact same thing: I'm stuck . . . there's an expectation I'm having difficulty meeting.

Some educators believe that the expertise necessary for understanding and helping behaviorally challenging students is well beyond their grasp. Not true.

Other parents feel that lagging skills are too negative. Those lagging skills don't diminish your child's many positive attributes, but they do explain why your child has been responding to problems and frustrations so maladaptively. And, compared to many of the other things that have been said about your child, perhaps accurate is more apt.

It's crucial to go further than simply concluding that a student's concerning behaviors are working at getting them something they want (for example, attention) and escaping and avoiding tasks and situations that are difficult, uncomfortable, tedious, or scary. A good functional assessment needs to explain why a student is going about getting, escaping, and avoiding in such a maladaptive fashion (lagging skills) and when that is occurring (unsolved problems).

Your child is lacking skills, not motivation.

Some are so impulsive that, even if they could think of more than one solution, they've already done the first thing that popped into their heads. The bad news is that the first solution is often the worst one, the one that required the least amount of reflection and thought, which probably explains why some kids are notorious for putting their worst foot forward

that your child is already very motivated to do well and that his challenging episodes reflect a developmental delay in the skills of flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem solving.

Moreover, there are many kids who can't think of any solutions at all. So, the problem remains unsolved. And the concerning behaviors being caused by that problem persist. Difficulty expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words

There's an excellent video of full-class Plan B on the Lives in the Balance website.

the skill of putting one's emotions on the shelf so as to think through solutions to problems more objectively, rationally, and logically—a skill called separation of affect—is really important. Kids who are pretty good at this skill tend to respond to problems or frustrations with more thought than emotion, and that's good.

Because it can get in the way of rational thought, anxiety can have the same effect as irritability.

Difficulty seeing the "grays"; concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking Difficulty deviating from rules or routine Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, or novelty Difficulty shifting from original idea or solution Difficulty adapting to changes in plan or new rules Difficulty taking into account situational factors that would suggest the need to adjust a plan

Moving from one environment (such as playing outside) to a completely different environment (such as doing homework inside) requires a shift from one mind-set (When I'm playing outside, it's okay to run around and make noise and socialize) to another (When I'm doing homework, I need to sit at my desk and concentrate on my schoolwork). If a kid has difficulty with this skill, there's a good chance he'll still be thinking and

And it's a lot easier when your kid is your partner instead of your enemy.

INFLEXIBILITY + INFLEXIBILITY = MELTDOWN

we all just want attention, so that doesn't really distinguish your child from anyone else. If your child had the skills to seek attention adaptively, she would.

But let there be no doubt: he'd prefer to be handling those challenges adaptively because doing well is preferable. And because—and this is, without question, the most important theme of this entire book—kids do well if they can.

What behaviors does your child exhibit when that happens? Some kids cry, or pout, or sulk, or withdraw. While that's the "easy" end of the spectrum, those kids still need our help. Some hold their breath, scream, swear, kick, hit, have panic attacks, or destroy property. Some run away, bite, cut themselves, vomit, use weapons, or worse. This end of the spectrum is much more concerning and dangerous.

if her concerning behavior is instead communicating that she's having difficulty meeting a particular expectation, then simply ignoring the behavior will cause us to miss the boat on what's really getting in the way.

Competent manipulation requires various skills—forethought, planning, impulse control, organization—that, as you've read, are typically found lacking in kids with concerning behaviors.

She's Making Bad Choices She's choosing to exhibit concerning behaviors instead of adaptive behaviors? Why would she do that? Her life would be a lot better if she had the skills to make good choices.