Quotes About Challenges

Human society is ninety percent muck that won't disperse to the appropriate location that's why I chose the profession of plumber.

He fell over frequently, but he never cried, though the ice was hard, the hardest surface his bones had ever met. He taught himself to laugh instead. Laughing was a bit like crying. It was a strange convulsion; it just came from a different bit of your mind. The trick was to move the crying out of that bit and let the laughter in. And so he'd pick himself up and carry on, laughing.

I'm never going to get married again. Three strikes you're out. I think if I would try to get married again in California I have to go to prison don't I? I think you only get three.

Rosemary Sullivan

The harsh world unjustly reserved its most severe punishments for women.

Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial.

The school discipline program isn't working for the kids who aren't doing well and isn't needed by the kids who are.

He knows just what buttons to push. We should reword this one so it's more accurate: when he's having difficulty being flexible, dealing adaptively with frustration, and solving problems, he does things that are very maladaptive and that adults experience as being extremely unpleasant.

Now you know: these skills don't come naturally to all children. We tend to think that all children are created equal in these capacities, and this assumption causes many adults to believe that behaviorally challenging children must not want to do well. Now you know better.

QUESTION: What if my child and I agree on a solution and then she won't do what she agreed to? ANSWER: As you've read, that's usually a sign that the solution wasn't as realistic and mutually satisfactory as you may have first thought. That's not a catastrophe, just a reminder that the first solution to a problem often doesn't get the job

If your child isn't following through, it's probably not because she won't but because she can't.

The problem is not that caregivers sometimes use Plan A. The problem is that caregivers use Plan A a lot and stick with it even when it's not working.

The goal of the Empathy step is to gather information from your child to understand what's making it difficult for them to meet a certain expectation. If you don't gather that information, the problem will remain unsolved. Just like the rest of us, kids have legitimate concerns: hunger, fatigue, fear, the desire to buy or do certain things, the tendency to avoid things that are scary or that make them uncomfortable or at which they don't feel competent.

it's good for the kid and adult to acknowledge that the problem may require additional discussion, because there's actually a decent chance that the first solution won't solve the problem durably.

While it's tempting to focus on your child's behaviors, in this book we'll be focusing instead on the expectations they are having difficulty meeting that are causing those behaviors. That crucial distinction is going to make a world of difference.

Adults sometimes become impatient in the midst of Plan B and head for Plan A or Plan C.

In schools, as in homes, there's a tendency to work on the hot-button problem that precipitated a challenging episode on a particular day. But because unsolved problems wax and wane, the hot-button unsolved problem that was the focal point on one day is often replaced by a different hot-button unsolved problem the next.

it's common for adults to be incorrect in their assumptions about what's making it hard for a child to meet an expectation. If you enter the Empathy step quite certain that you already know his concern, you're at risk for perfunctory drilling and/or for steering the ship toward a predetermined destination. But

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.

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.

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

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

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.