Kids don't go bad -- they get lost

There's a big difference between believing "kids will do well if they can" and "kids will do well when they want to".

If we believe kids do well when they want to, we will likely engage in manipulative schemes filled with rewards and punishments. The problem with rewards and punishments is that the kids who have the most troubling behaviours are those who have already had their share of bribes and threats. It should be more clear now than ever that doubling the dose of carrots and sticks isn't working.

In short, this form of discipline is broken.

If we believe kids do well if they can, then we understand this isn't a motivation problem -- it's a lagging skills problem. When a child has trouble reading, we engage in teaching them the reading skills they need in order to read -- and so, when a child has trouble behaving, we engage in teaching them the emotional, social and thinking skills they need in order to behave.

If a kid is illiterate, we figure out what skills they are lagging and we teach them those skills. We don't see illiteracy as a motivational problem, we see it as a lagging skills problem. And yet, when we see a kid misbehaving, conventional wisdom tells us to bring in the reinforcements in an effort to spur on their motivation to behave.

It's time we taught behaviour like we teach literacy. It's time we saw misbehaviour for what it truly is -- a lagging skills problem.

Kids don't go bad -- they get lost.

And it's our job to help them find themselves.

For more on this, I totally recommend Ross Greene's book Lost at School.

Ross Greene's Lost at School

Dr. Ross Greene

I am reading Dr. Ross Greene's book Lost at School and I am fascinated by how progressive and practical the Ross Greene approach is for helping teachers to help the most troubled students.

At the heart of Ross Greene's philosophy is that kids will do well if they can. The point being is that we all aspire to be successful, but sometimes we lack the skills in order to be so.

Some of the hardest children to like are the ones who need us the most. They need us because they lack the necessary emotional, social and thinking skills necessary to navigate their home and school environments successfully.

Far too often, the conventional wisdom around troubled kids is that they lack the motivation to be successful -- or in other words, too often our philosophy is built around the misassumption that kids will do well only when they want to. When misbehaviour is framed as a motivation problem, we assume that it makes perfect sense to bring in the reinforcements which include rewards and punishments and bribes and threats.

If rewards and punishments worked, we would have solved misbehaviour a long time ago. But alas, this flavour discipline is broken -- we need a new narrative.

I'm looking forward to using Greene's Assessment for Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) as a means for identifying the underlying lagging skills that are creating unsolved problems.

While it is true that many adults feel absolutely certain that they know exactly how to solve misbehaviour problems, most adults do not spend the necessary time and effort collecting information to establish the underlying causes of misbehaviour. Hence why so many adult interventions for misbehaviour are solutions in search of problems.

Because I teach in an inpatient children's psychiatric unit, I can see Collaborative Problem Solving becoming an important part of my work with children.

If you have any experience using any of Ross Greene's work in your interactions with children, I would love to hear from you.