Lost at School by Ross W. Greene

this book. More on Plan A soon—but not much more, since it won’t be our primary focus.
    Plan C involves dropping an expectation completely, at least temporarily. At first glance, Plan C may sound like “giving in,” but, as you’ll read below, that’s not the case. More on Plan C soon—but not much more, since it won’t be our primary focus, either.
    Plan B refers to Collaborative Problem Solving, in which the child and adult are engaged in a process of resolving a problem or unmet expectation in a realistic and mutually satisfactory manner. As you’ll soon discover, this is the Plan with the greatest potential for durably solving the problems and teaching the lagging skills giving rise to kids’ social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in a way that is fair, respectful, humane, and effective. As you may have guessed, Plan B is what the rest of this book is about.
    Let’s take a closer look at each option.
    PLAN A
    If a kid isn’t meeting a given expectation, one way to approach the problem is by imposing your will. Let’s say a kid is badgering one of his classmates and causing the classmate to become agitated, and the teacher has already asked the kid to stop badgering. The teacher would be using Plan A if she said, “Rodney, go stand in the hallway now! Come back when you’re ready to treat people kindly.”
    Or if a kid says, “I’m not doing this assignment unless I can work with my friend,” and the teacher has already made it clear that he expects the kid to partner with a different student, then a potential Plan A response would be “Elena, you’re not working with Hector. Let me know if a detention is necessary to help you understand that.”
    Or if a kid is distracting his classmates because he doesn’t understand an assignment and the teacher says, “Joey, let’s talk about it at my desk so we don’t disturb your classmates,” and Joey refuses to comply, then a potential Plan A response would be, “Joey, if you don’t come up to my desk now, I’ll have to send you to the office.”
    At first glance, these probably sound like perfectly ordinary, reasonable responses. However, there are a few problems with responding in this manner to kids who aren’t meeting expectations. The first is that Plan A greatly heightens the likelihood of challenging behavior in challenging kids. When we “rewind the tape” on most of the challenging episodes that occur in schools (and homes), we discover that the vast majority of these episodes are precipitated by an adult responding to an unmet expectation using Plan A. The second problem is that Plan A doesn’t help us figure out why the kid isn’t meeting our expectations in the first place. Third, Plan A doesn’t teach lagging skills or durably resolve problems giving rise to challenging behavior. In view of these shortcomings, it’s not clear that Plan A qualifies as fair, respectful, humane, or effective treatment.
    Are you thinking that you do a lot of Plan A? If so, you’re not alone. Most adults use Plan A when kids aren’t meeting expectations. Are you wondering if it’s still Plan A if you impose your will nicely? Yes, that’s still Plan A (it’s called Gentle A, but it’s Plan A all thesame). Are you thinking that Plan A usually “works” with “ordinary” kids? If so, you’re right. But, once again, it depends on your definition of “works.” If, by “works,” you mean that the kid ultimately complied when you imposed your will, then yes, Plan A usually works with ordinary kids. But even ordinary kids have skills that need to be taught and problems that need to be solved, and Plan A doesn’t teach skills or solve problems.
    PLAN C
    Plan C involves dropping a given expectation completely, at least temporarily. When you’re using Plan C, you’re not solving any problems or teaching any lacking thinking skills. But Plan C can help adults remove low-priority expectations, thereby helping a kid to be more “available” to