The foundation of the ICPS method teaches your child how to think and communicate. The hardest — and final — part is having your child actually learn how to solve his own problems when you’re not around. This involves finding alternative solutions and considering the consequences.
Finding Solutions
It’s best to begin this process using pretend children and circumstances; this introduces the idea in a nonthreatening way. Use puppets, pictures and role playing. Then follow these steps to find out information.
- Have you or your child state the problem.
- Say that the idea is to think of lots of different ways to solve this problem.
- Write down all the ideas. (Even though your child may not be able to read, he will like seeing you write down what he says.)
- Ask for the first solution. If the solution is relevant, repeat it and identify it as one way to solve the problem. Remind your child that the object is to think of lots of different ways to solve the problem.
- Ask for another solution, and so forth.
- If solution ideas run out too quickly, probe for more by asking “What can you say to solve this problem?” or “What can you do to solve this problem?”
Here’s a sample of what the dialogue might sound like:
Mom: Let’s pretend that a 6-year-old girl wants her brother to let her use his video game. To help this girl get a chance to play with the video game, let’s think of lots of DIFFERENT ways to solve this problem. Can you think of a way this girl can get her brother to let her use the game?
Sam: She could tell her mother.
Mom: Okay, I’ll write that down. What’s a DIFFERENT way?
Sam: She could let him play with her toys.
Mom: She could tell her mom OR she could let him play with her toys. Good. Let’s fill up this paper with more DIFFERENT ideas.
Continue making a list, and then read it aloud after you have at least five ideas. It will be tempting to tell your children why one idea is better than another. But at this point it’s important to let the child be free to think.
Recognizing Consequences
Consequential thinking helps your child evaluate the impact of his solutions on himself and others. It’s difficult for a child to think simultaneously about what he could do and what might happen if he does something. But children as young as 4 are capable of becoming quite good at this.
Consequences make sense only when a child knows that events follow one another in a certain order. Review the idea of BEFORE and AFTER while doing an activity such as brushing your teeth. Story-building — beginning a story about making cookies or planting a garden and letting a child complete the story — also helps a child give thoughtful consideration to the question “What happens next?”
Just like when you made a list of solutions, pose a problem to your child and ask for solutions. Once you’ve made a list of ideas, ask, “What MIGHT happen IF…?” Now make a list of possible outcomes to go with various solutions. Ask your child which outcome seems to be the best choice.
Your child may come up with undesirable solutions, but don’t worry. Research shows that when kids learn to think the ICPS way, they are, in time, less likely to act on the kinds of solutions that don’t really solve the problem. If your child offers an inappropriate response, you can get him to re-evaluate his idea by asking questions such as:
- What else MIGHT happen IF you do that?
- How would you feel IF that happened?
- What is something DIFFERENT you can do so that won’t happen?
These activities prepare your children for real-life circumstances in which they find out if a solution they’ve decided on will really solve the problem. Encourage your child to come up with solutions and then try one. If it doesn’t work out the way he planned, don’t let him get frustrated to the point of giving up. Work through the process together.
Adapted with permission of Pocket Books from Raising a Thinking Child. Copyright © 1996 by Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
