Problem Solving

A child (8 yrs) would always leave his room untidy. Whatever the parents tried, seemed to fail. Listen to their conversations for the simple steps towards problem solving:

Mother: You dislike cleaning your room.
Son: Not really.
Mother: But still not a pleasurable task to you.
Son: Kind of.
Mother: However, I like cleanliness, and feel disturbed when I see your things lying around.
Son: I know.
Mother: I would like to sit and discuss this with you
Son: Its not required, mummy, I will clean my room.
Mother: I would like that we sit together and work out something that is acceptable to both of us.
Son: OK
Mother: Lets put together lots of possible solutions. We will not comments on any of these, just write them down.
Son: OK
Mother: One idea is that you keep back whatever you take immediately after you finish with it.
Son: Oh, mummy that’s too much ……
Mother: We are not supposed to comment on any ideas. We will write everything down first.
Son: Ok, I will clean my room before I go to bed in the night.
Mother: I will write that down.
Son: Otherwise you clean it in the morning, I will clean it when I come.
Mother: Written. You can clean it after you finish one task and move to another. Before going to school, before going to play, before going to bed.
Son: Can I just stuff everything in the cupboard and sort them once a week, say on Sunday?
Mother: I will write that. I can also provide you with more storage space.
Son: So what do we decide.
Mother: If you are through, we can go over the list and see what is acceptable to both of us. Maybe we can combine some ideas.
Son: I am not too keen on doing it every few hours.
Mother: I am also not keen that you leave your room dirty.
Son: Maybe I just have a big drawer, where I stuff that days things so room doesn't look dirty and before going to bed sort them out.
Mother: Sounds, Ok. What will you do to remember doing this?
Son: You can check when I say good night to you.
Mother: I would not like to do that – you are responsible enough to check your own work. Maybe you can make a sign (Room is now Clean) and hang it outside your door every night.
Son: That sounds fine with me!

The reason this approach works is that it conveys that if there is conflict between us, we don’t have to fight or struggle for power – but look at win – win. We are putting our energy together and that helps us find mutually acceptable solutions.

Lets review the steps:

STEP 1
Acknowledge the child’s feelings and needs (An attitude of I have to try and understand his needs, feeling and intentions is most important here. Spend time on this.

STEP 2
Express your feelings (keep this short. This is not the time to lecture.)

STEP 3
Invite child to work together to find solution. Critical to success of the whole exercise is that both of you DO NOT evaluate or judge the ideas. Simply write them down (writing makes it ten times more effective). Look forward to solutions coming out of ideas that child gives.

STEP 4
Together decide which idea, or modification or combination is acceptable to both. Again avoid commenting on the idea per se. Simply tell what and why it is not acceptable or acceptable to you.

STEP 5
Decide on the final action plan. Put specific time limits, action points. If required put up the final solution in a prominent place.

The process is actually quite simple. What is more challenging is to have the attitude that my child is NOT the problem. Also to think that sometimes the best answer lies with the child (not necessarily with the parent). Please take it out of your mind that if we are not tough child will take advantage of you. We have to believe that child wants to find an acceptable solution.

Overall the process takes lot of discipline on our part and also great faith in the child. We need to be accepting and understanding towards both feelings and ideas. We need to stay away from judgments and lectures or even convincing the child to our solution. If we do not find a solution, we should believe that either it will come after some days or we just live with the problem.

Key word here is respect – respect the child, respect yourself, respect ideas and respect for the fact that when two people put heads together it normally results into exciting possibilities.

By Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur
For www.geniekids.com

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