Continuing with my month-long series on using elements of various communication approaches to improve your parent-child relationship, this week I’m talking about Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, or CPS for short.
In today’s episode, I give tips for using Collaborative and Proactive Solutions to increase connection and trust in your relationship with your child.
Read more: How to reduce your child's challenging behavior
Project Parenthood is hosted by Dr. Nanika Coor. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Continuing with my month-long series on using elements of various communication approaches to improve your parent-child relationship, this week I’m talking about Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, or CPS for short.
Welcome back to Project Parenthood! I'm your host, Dr. Nanika Coor—clinical psychologist and respectful parenting therapist. Each week, I’ll help you repair and deepen your parent-child connection, increase self-compassion and cooperation from your kids, and cultivate joy, peace, and resilience in your relationship with them.
CPS is a parenting approach that focuses on building trust, connection, and mutual empathy between parents and children. If you want a bit of a CPS deep dive, check out my previous episode called How To Reduce Your Child’s Challenging Behavior—I’ll drop the link in the show notes.
A key principle of CPS is learning to see challenging behavior as a problem to be solved together as a team—rather than a personal attack. This helps to create a more collaborative and supportive environment for problem-solving.
CPS was developed by Dr. Ross Greene as a way to help parents and children communicate collaboratively and work together to identify realistic and mutually satisfactory solutions. Part of the CPS process is using a parent-initiated conversation that has 3 steps: the empathy step, the define-adult-concerns step, and the invitation step.
In the empathy step, you’re asking open and clarifying questions to get a true understanding of your child’s perspective of the problem to be solved. The define adult concerns step is about stating your own concerns about the problem in a respectful way. And the invitation step is where you and your child work together to come up with a solution that works for both of you.
Using the CPS approach is about helping kids feel understood, valued, and heard. Solving problems collaboratively, compassionately, and proactively also improves your relationship with them. Kids come to trust that you’re really going to listen to them and that you’re not a my-way-or-the-highway kind of parent that they need to defend themselves against.
I’m going to break down some components of CPS that can improve your parent-child connection: changing your parental “lenses,” using the empathy step, and the importance of being proactive.
Imagine someone gave you a new pair of glasses and when you put them on, you all of a sudden could only see your child in a positive light—as doing the best they can given their internal and external situation in any given moment. Just looking through these new glasses gives you the ability to see CPS’s foundational premise: “kids do well if they can.”
These glasses allow you to see that your child wants you to feel and act positively in their direction. And that if they’re doing something that results in negative interactions with you, something’s got to be getting in the way of their ability to “do well.” Instead of considering your child’s challenging behaviors to be the result of poor parenting on your part, or lack of motivation or consideration on your kid’s part, you have a more accurate and compassionate understanding of these behaviors of concern. These new lenses allow you to see that your expectations need to be compatible with your child’s existing cognitive, social, and emotional regulation skills in general and in a particular moment.
Changing the lenses through which you see your child and their behaviors that aren’t working for you helps you see beyond the behavior. The behavior is simply a sign that there’s a problem to be solved. Your child is not giving you a hard time, they are having a hard time. Using your new CPS lenses primes you for empathy and compassion, two important ingredients in connecting with your child.
The empathy step is the first step of a CPS problem-solving conversation with your child, and this step focus on being a curious and attentive listener. You’re trying to see the problem like your child sees it—from their point of view. You’re trying to get a crystal clear understanding of why your child is behaving in ways that are concerning to you at these moments when your child can’t (not won’t) meet your expectations.
Pay attention to what your child is saying both verbally and nonverbally and repeat back what you think they’re saying—in your own words. Avoid arguing, interrupting, or making critical or blaming statements. Instead, ask open-ended questions to encourage them to share their thoughts and feelings in more detail. Probe for the who, what, where, and when of the problem you’re discussing, why this problem happens in some circumstances but not others, and what they’re thinking in the moment of the unsolved problem. Your child will also pick up on it if you’re using the empathy step as a tool to eventually get your own way—so be sincere.
It’s also important to be patient. Your child may not feel comfortable opening up at first, especially if you’ve previously had chronic conflict in your parent-child relationship. This step may take several mini-conversations over a period of days. Many kids can be overwhelmed by too much questioning, so depending on your child’s temperament you might need to allow several hours or even days for processing time before drilling for more info—but keep at it. Make sure you firmly press pause on stating your own concerns or talking about solutions until you completely understand your kid’s concern or perspective.
The better you get at the empathy step, the more likely it is that your parent-child relationship will improve, because you’re showing your child that you care about what they have to say. That helps build trust and goodwill between you. It also reduces anger and conflict overall, because the better you understand your child, the less likely you are to lash out at them—and have them lash out right back.
It’s tempting to try to eradicate your child’s concerning behaviors the moment they pop up, but CPS is a communication approach, and communication breaks down entirely when you and your child are stressed, distressed, or angry. Neither of you listens to each other and you’re more likely to interrupt, make emotional rather than logical decisions, or say or do something you’ll regret later. This not only makes CPS-based communication impossible, but it can also damage your relationship so that it’s even harder to solve problems in the future.
Instead, CPS is about taking steps to prevent problems before they happen by identifying problems, brainstorming solutions, and putting those solutions in place. You can’t do those things in the heat of the moment when you’re angry and upset and therefore not thinking clearly. So wait several hours after an unsolved problem occurs when you and your child are calm and connected to initiate a conversation about what happened and how to prevent it in the future. Make sure you choose a time and place to talk where you won’t be interrupted and you can give 100% focused attention to your child.
Being proactive means you’re solving problems ahead of time, which helps to reduce conflict and stress in the relationship and increase “no problem” time. It also helps build trust and cooperation. When your kiddo sees that you’re trying to prevent problems for them, they’re more likely to feel supported and respected.
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When you see your child through new lenses, you see that they’re doing the best they can and that they need your help rather than your admonishment. Leaning into the CPS empathy step helps you understand your child and helps them feel heard and valued. Being proactive means you’re taking steps to solve problems for both you and your child before they happen rather than during or immediately after when emotions are running high.
A focus on these three components of CPS can help you create a more positive and enjoyable home environment. Where you’re not constantly fighting, and everyone can relax and enjoy each other's company. Just remember that it takes time for both you and your child to learn new skills and behaviors. So be patient with your child—and yourself—as you’re learning.
That’s all for today’s episode of Project Parenthood—thanks for listening, and I hope you found this helpful! Be sure to join me live on Instagram @bkparents on Monday, September 18 at 1 pm for a Brooklyn Parent Therapy “Ask Me Anything!” It’s exciting to answer your questions in real time!
If you have a question for me about parent-child relationships, respectful parenting tips and/or parental mental health that you’d like me to cover in a future episode, shoot me an email at parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com, leave a message at 646-926-3243 or leave a message on Instagram @bkparents. And you can learn about my private practice working with parents living in New York State at www.brooklynparenttherapy.com.
Catch you next week!
Greene, R. W. (2021). The explosive child [sixth edition]: a new approach for understanding and parenting easily frustrated, chronically inflexible children. Rev. and updated. New York, Harper.