I am sure most of you are familiar with these
words of desperation. I agree that talking does not help, but because the wrong
people are doing the talking and listening. Kids should be doing the talking
and reflecting and we the listening, guiding and challenging them with our
questions.
The CPS - Collaborative Problem Solving approach process
promotes relationship and many cognitive skills. But what happens if you try to
gather information about his concerns and perspectives and the kid answers – I
don't know. Here we need 'Drilling down techniques' to help us get a
clear understanding of the kid's concerns. And what happens if the kid tells
you to shut up or he does not want to talk about it, and then the CPS process
would begin with ' I have noticed that when I want to talk to you about
'homework' you are not keen to talk to me about it- what's up? And if the kid
still does not want to talk, we can focus on non-emotive general chatting. Here
we can build trust and connection and also introduce the CPS language of
concerns, perspective taking, mutually satisfactory solutions, family and
individual goals. Kids don't talk because it may be a trust issue, they see the
process as another way of parents imposing their will or find it difficult to
articulate or even define their concerns.
Some parents complained to the
Barbara Coloroso that their son used to listen to them, but know he is
involved in a bad crowd and he now listens to them. She answered – nothing has
changed – he used to listen to you, now he is listens to them. When kids do the
talking and reflecting they develop their own values. So let's listen to them
so that they will talk to us.
