Kids do well if they can

The mantra - kids do well if they can - is one that I have been repeating to myself over the last several days.  The idea that even challening kids have this innate desire to do well, rather falling into behaviours because they don't want to do well, is so refreshing.  But what is getting in the way?  Again, some advice from Dr. Greene...

Rhonda

Why are challenging kids challenging?  You could look to a clinical diagnosis for the explanation - oppositional definance disorder, ADHD, bipolar, etc. - but it doesn't really answer the question.  If we start with Dr. Greene's statement - kids do well if they can - it can help us look at a challenging child a different way. 

The first step in the process is to stop focusing on the diagnosis and start focusing on the skills the child is lacking.  Maybe they are impulsive, have difficulty considering the impact of their actions, or struggle with planning and problem solving.  Maybe the behaviour is not because they don't have the motivation, but because they don't have the skills to deal with certain situations. 

Imagine if you were trying to succeed at work but didn't have the skills to do what you needed to do.  Would you be on time for work every day if you had no sense of time?  Could you take on that big project if you didn't have problem solving or planning skills?  How would you feel if you tried, over and over again, to get job tasks like these like this done, but kept failing - and getting in trouble for it? 

Before we can get to the bottom of what is making any child so challenging, Dr. Greene suggests we must answer the following questions:

• Why are challenging kids so challenging?
• When are challenging kids challenging?
• What are we going to do differently now that we know why challenging kids are challenging?

And less important,

• What do challenging kids do when they're challenging?

Doing well is always preferable to not doing well - another mantra from Dr. Greene.  So let's start with why some kids are so challenging.  What's getting in the way?  Here's Dr. Green's unconventional answer:

Challenging kids are challenging because they're lacking the skills not to be challenging...they are delayed in the development of crucial cognitive skills - often including flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving.  Challenging behaviour communicates that the kid doesn't have the skills to respond to problems more adaptively. 

So you can see why discipline and punishment doesn't work - it's not addressing the root of the problem.  In fact, it's probably making it worse. 

How can we help?  We don't know that until we can get through the rest of the questions Dr. Greene has laid out.  Tomorrow's blog - when are challenging kids challenging?