Collaborative and Proactive Solutions: Successfully Treating Oppositional Behavior in Children

Collaborative Proactive Solutions, from Ross Greene\u27s groundbreaking book The Explosive Child, provides a practical, realistic problem solving methodology for children with oppositional and behavioral disorders. Moshe Manheim, a psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience working with kids and families is certified by Dr. Greene in the CPS methodology. The presentation will discuss the application of CPS for typically developing as well children with special needs. The CPS methodology relies on careful communication with the child to define the problem; the use of empathy to align with and engage the child; a review of the child’s and parent’s (or teacher’s) concerns and inviting the child to collaborate with teachers (and/or) parents to collaboratively develop a solution to address the concerns of the child as well as of the adult. The method was recently validated in a 5 year NIMH grant Greene has recently published in The Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychology in March 2015; “Parent Management Training and Collaborative and Proactive Solutions: A Randomized Control Trial for Oppositional Youth.” Unique to the CPS method is the careful avoidance of shaming or embarrassing the child, and the avoidance of dead end “why” questions and even avoiding focus on the child’s behavioral challenges. Instead, the focus is on what is difficult for the child. Thus, the child can trust the relationship as one that is truly concerned with his/her experience and concerns