22 Quotes by Ross W. Greene

We all want our own way; some of us have the skills to get our own way adaptively, and some of us don’t.

An explosive outburst – like other forms of maladaptive behavior – occurs when the cognitive demands being placed upon a person outstrip that person’s capacity to respond adaptively.

Solving problems together? Yes, indeed. You and your child are going to be allies, not adversaries. Partners, not enemies.

In the CPS model, holding a kid accountable means that the kid is participating in a process in which he’s identifying and articulating his own concerns or perspectives, taking yours into account, and working toward a realistic and mutually satisfactory solution.

Your energy can be devoted far more productively to collaborating with your child on solutions to the problems that are causing challenging episodes than in sticking with strategies that may actually have made things worse and haven’t led to durable improvement.

If the only time a child looks as if he has bipolar disorder is when he’s frustrated, that’s not bipolar disorder; that’s a learning disability in the domains of flexibility and frustration tolerance.

QUESTION: Isn’t it the parents’ job to make their child behave at school? ANSWER: Helping a child deal more adaptively with frustration is everyone’s job. The parents aren’t there when the child has challenging episodes at school.

Challenging behavior occurs when the demands being placed upon a child outstrip the skills he has to respond adaptively to those demands.

He’s manipulating us. This is another popular but misguided way of portraying behaviorally challenging kids. Competent manipulation requires various skills – forethought, planning, impulse control, organization – that behaviorally challenging kids often lack.