Lost at School by Ross W. Greene Page A

work on higher-priority problems or skills and reducing the likelihood of challenging behavior.
    If Liam is sharpening his pencil for the seventh time in the past hour, and it’s the teacher’s expectation that Liam remain in his seat because all that pencil sharpening is distracting other kids or making it hard for Liam to complete his work, and the teacher has already made it clear to Liam that his pencil sharpening is excessive and disruptive, but the teacher chooses to say nothing about the pencil sharpening because she has bigger fish to fry with Liam, then what the teacher chose to do is Plan C.
    If a particular kid says “I’m not doing my homework,” and his teacher has already decided that homework isn’t a high priority right now given other more pressing issues with this kid, then letting the kid know he needn’t do the homework is Plan C.
    You probably still need convincing that Plan C is not the same thing as “giving in.” The definition of “giving in” is when you start with Plan A and end up using Plan C because the kid made your life miserable.
    But when you start with Plan C, your reasoning is: “I understand why this kid is challenging, and I know I can’t fix everything at once. I also know what unsolved problems we’re working on right now, and this is not one of them. I’m going to drop this expectation, at least fornow, so the kid is more available to work on our high-priority problems.”
    Does this mean you’re supposed to drop all your expectations so a kid won’t exhibit challenging behavior? No. But, again you may find it productive to let go of some lower-priority expectations so you and the kid aren’t overwhelmed by the large number of problems that need to be solved. Moreover, sometimes Plan C makes sense as a matter of timing. In other words, you may feel that it would be better to discuss a given problem at a more opportune moment, which sometimes means Plan C now and Plan B shortly thereafter.
    PLAN B
    Plan B involves Collaborative Problem Solving. Plan B helps adults clarify and understand a child’s concerns about or perspective on a particular unsolved problem, be it excessive badgering of other kids, refusing to work, pencil sharpening, incomplete homework, or class disruptions. Plan B also helps the kid understand the adult’s concerns about the problem. And Plan B helps adults and kids work together toward mutually satisfactory solutions so that both parties’ concerns are addressed, the problem gets solved, and, as will become clear as we move forward, lagging skills get taught.
    Is the kid going to need help for the rest of his life? Actually, the reason you’re helping him now is so he won’t need your help for the rest of his life.
    This next part is important. There are two ways to use Plan B: Emergency B and Proactive B. When I first describe Plan B, it’s common for adults to come to the erroneous conclusion that the best time to use Plan B is at the precise moment when a kid is beginning to show signs of challenging behavior. That’s Emergency Plan B, and the timing is actually not the best because the kid may already be upset or heated up and because, if you’re a teacher, you’ve got a lot of other things going on in your classroom at that moment. Few of us do our clearest thinking, resolve difficult problems, and learn new skills when we’re already upset, so crisis management is not your best long-term strategy. You’ll go much further with crisis prevention. As I mentionedearlier, because challenging behavior tends to be highly predictable, you don’t have to wait until a kid is in the midst of a challenging episode to try to solve the problem that caused the episode. The goal is to get the problem solved or the skill taught proactively —before it comes up again. That’s Proactive Plan B.
    When Mrs. Woods threatened to send Joey to the assistant principal because he wouldn’t come up to her desk, that was Plan A. Could she have used