"The Explosive Child" by Ross W. Green, Ph.D. was the first book I read about Collaborative Problem Solving.  It is written in an easy to read, understandable and spirited way for any lay person to start to understand the philosophy behind the CPS approach.  You will find stories about real parents and kids who had their own challenges and start to understand how to make the mental shift from old-school rewards and punishers to a new way of thinking about kids.  You will learn some of the basic foundational ideas behind using Collaborative Problem Solving, including some language that you will hear me using.  For example, when I say Plan A or Plan B or Plan C.  I am talking about specific ideas developed in this book.  When I am teaching or using Collaborative Problem Solving and you hear me say, "Did Plan A lead to an explosive response?" I am talking about when adults "impose their will" upon a child.  Sometimes a Plan A, even though it is intended to bring a child into compliance and reduce challenging behaviors, actually makes the behavior worse!  Parents or Adults and kids find themselves in an upward spiral of dysregulation, worsening interactions, and ultimately an "Explosive Child" 

I am here to tell you that there is another way.  How do I know? For a few reasons; first, I have been using Plan B for about 15 years, second, I have read the neuroscience research which is evidence based and founded in a scientific approach, and third, I have witnessed first hand how parents or adults and children start using Plan B instead of Plan A and miraculous things happen!

I will be talking much more about what Plan B is... in a nutshell it is the collaboration between the adult and the child.  You might hear me using the Term "Plan B" and Collaborative Problem Solving interchangeably, but for now, suffice to say that there is a big difference between the way many of us were raised and/or many of us were taught to parent, and the new ideas about collaborating with your children, encouraging them to think together with you and using co-regulation to avoid the explosions. 

There is so much that I am so happy to be sharing with you!  But I wanted to start you off the same way I started, by reading this book, "The Explosive Child" and looking forward to the day when you no longer have an explosive child, but rather, you will have a child who learns from you how to think about things, talk about things with you, collaborate with you and together you will come up with real-world WIN-WIN solutions that solve problems for both you and your child and that do not require rewards and punishers and ultimately prevent explosions! 

If this sounds too good to be true... believe me, this is one time that it is not!  It is true, it is real and it works!!!  Stay tuned to learn more about CPS, how it can help you.  Please leave a comment and I will try to address it in my next Blog Post! 

Use the link below for your copy of "The Explosive Child"
https://amzn.to/488iC8i

Hello Parents, Teachers, Counselors, Grandparents, Therapists, Psychologists, Social workers, and anyone interested in children!  I am so glad you found my page and I hope this will be the first of many posts talking about Collaborative Problem Solving!  First, I would like to introduce myself.  My name is Dawna Andronico Donaghey.  I was born, raised, married and raised my own children on the South Shore of Massachusetts and live in the beautiful seaside community of Squantum, MA.  I am blessed to be greeted by bright sunrises over the water to the east overlooking Boston Harbor and gorgeous sunsets to the west overlooking the bay with a view of the John F. Kennedy Library and the famous painted gas tanks you will see driving by on the Southeast Expressway.  

My college experiences started at Bridgewater State University where I explored so many topics that interested me.  I have always been curious about what makes us all so different from one another and yet so much the same. Are all babies afraid of heights and loud sounds?  Why are some of us extroverts and some shy?  I still have so many questions today and over the years I have looked for answers to questions big and small.  Some of my favorite courses at Bridgewater were in Special Education, Speech Therapy, Theater, Music.  It was a course on the Theory and Development of Play that lead me to spearhead a playground and tree planting project in my neighborhood and later become interested in Community Organizing, which lead me to Boston University School of Social Work.  Once there, the pull  toward Education lead me to a Master's in Counseling and the beginning of a career in schools.  

Once I saw the struggles of students, especially the kids who were often disciplined, I began again to search for answers.  How can we care for kids in a compassionate and loving way, instead of relying on rewards or punishers described by B.F. Skinner!  Surely there is more to us than a pigeon pecking for food and clearly, no one would suggest electric shocks to teach a child!  Preposterous!!  However, that is exactly the doctrine many of us have been lead to believe.  What if I told you that using rewards and punishers to teach children to behave well was simply WRONG!  Yes, I said it.  It is wrong.  Let me explain.  

In 2008, after leaving education because of the problems I witnessed with supposed discipline of kids, which once included expulsion of a Special Education 10th grade minority student for whom a "Manifestation Hearing" determined that her poor behavior was not related to her disability, and after seeing this child literally expelled from her school, and left with no options but to drop out, the horror of witnessing this lead me to try to change things once again, but I knew I needed more power.  I learned early on from Community Organizing courses at BU that there are 3 sources of power:  Money, People or Knowledge!  Seek knowledge and truth I told myself and set out once again to find it.  

Eureka!  I did find it!  ... and it changed my life!  I was working now in a mental health setting trying to help kids from the inside out, within their families and communities with wrap around services that allowed me to advocate for them inside and outside of schools, inside and outside of families.  One family was struggling with outrageous behaviors form an pre-teen who had been adopted along with her younger brother.  I had heard about a book, "The Explosive Child" and this seemed to fit with the behaviors I was seeing.  I saw that one of the authors, Stuart Ablon, was giving a training in Vermont, so myself and the mom decided to go together to see what we could learn.  That was it!  I was hooked.  I discovered Collaborative Problem Solving!  We immediately started using the philosophy and the approach with this child and a near catastrophe was averted.  

I started learning as much as I could about the model, and began using it in Family Therapy.  I told everyone who would listen about this miraculous approach and started taking more and more courses from Think:kids at Mass General.  I became Certified, and then became a Certified Trainer!  I am now not only using CPS every day in my work, but I am blessed to be able to share it with more and more people!  I am hoping to provide a training with a very, very special community supporting foster and adoptive families and foster grandparents soon and I am so excited!  

Stay tuned for tips, updates, discussions, thoughts, and lots of information about how you too can start to use a compassionate, evidence based, well researched, loving, kind, thoughtful, skill building approach to child rearing, teaching and raising kids!  You won't be sorry and it might even change the life of a child you know.  

Thanks for visiting my page and for getting to know me a little bit.  I can't wait to see what the future holds for my blog and for all of you who are reading, watching and listening about Collaborative Problem Solving!  Have a wonderful day filled with sunshine and happiness.  Bye for now!