By Danna Hayes
Libery University Psychology Student

Having two 11-year-old girls (one my natural daughter and one my step-daughter), I have to admit that the title of this book caught my eye, especially because in a big yellow star at the top right corner states, “Featuring a Step-by-Step Plan for Conflict Resolution.”  I do not think it is any kind of secret that pre-teen girls certainly have their share of conflicts, and since having two of them have increased this number, I was certainly willing to find out the information and suggestions that Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D.,  had to offer in her book, and honestly I was not terribly disappointed.

The main purpose of the book is to teach parents how to teach their children to think ahead and problem solve and to do this eventually on their own.  The author asserted that when children are able to do this many positive changes will occur in their behavior.  Some examples she gives from actual parents who follow the ICPS or I Can Problem Solve method claim their children become less selfish, less afraid of situations involving other children.  Some claim their children now think more clearly and that this method builds character and trust.  

She begins with direction for the parents by informing them about parenting styles and the possible effects each style will have on children.  She labels these styles, or parenting approaches as the Power Approach, the Suggesting Approach, the Explaining approach, and finally the the Problem-Solving Approach.  The Power Approach seems to advocate trying to change the behavior of children by the parents imposing their will onto their children through yelling; belittling; the famous rhetorical question, “how many times do I have to tell you…;” or physical punishment such as a slap or spank.  This approach, she suggests, will simply prove to be disempowering of the children’s own well-needed sense of self.  The Suggesting Approach, though seemingly much more reasonable than the Power Approach, still stifles a child’s self-expression and makes them reliant on someone else to problem solve for them.  In this approach parents will offer suggestions to solve problems.  One example she uses is a parent telling a child to tell her brother that she is doing her homework and she will play with him later, in response to her complaint that he bugs her relentlessly. 

With the Explaining Approach parents take suggesting further, realizing that they want their children to understand reasons problems can be solved in certain ways.  They explain feelings of others, reasons that others may have done things a certain way, why a punishment is being handed out, and so on.  But again, parents are taking the active approach and children are remaining passive.  The author then explains the Problem-Solving Approach.  She states that this approach is different from the other approaches because it teaches and allows children to take part in the role of solving their own problems.  It coaches children, often through a series of questions, to come up with possibilities as to the nature of conflict or struggles and encourages them to solve their problems using their own ideas thus empowering them to problem-solve, something that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

Once Shure explains the importance of problem-solving, she begins to explain how.  The first step, she offers, is teaching the child how to understand someone else’s feelings and point of view.  She describes the importance of first teaching children to pay attention to their own feelings and then directing that approach towards the feelings of others.  This includes learning to put a label onto feelings as they feel them.  When an event happens in their lives, parents should ask them how they feel about it, even when those events produces different or conflicting feelings—letting the children know this is a possibility is important.  The author suggests “games” that you can play with your children to help them label.  In this she presents different possible feelings in the form of questions, “what makes you feel happy?  Sad?  Worried or Relieved?” And so forth.  She encourages parents to have children write “what-if” stories and describes other games such as writing index cards with feeling words on them and having children think of scenarios for points.  This, she explains, can easily translate into real-life experiences when the occasions arise.

The next step is to understand others’ motives.  This is done by building listening skills which will, in essence, help to avoid coming to false conclusions as to another’s behavior.  She describes the use of “silly skits” in which she demonstrates a fake dialog between two children that are obviously not listening to each other.  This exaggerated example can be used in real life application when a child responds to a situation in a way that may not be accurately depicting the intention of the other person involved.  This is done by reminding them of the “silly skit.”  In this section she also explains how to teach a child to hone in on cues, such as facial expression or tone of voice.  Using these observations, it is the next step to teach a child to find alternate solutions.  Again she offers the use of fictitious dialogs as demonstration and suggests a series of questions that will help the child find alternative solutions to certain problems.  This again can be then directed to real-life situations. 

After the above skills are in place, teaching children to consider consequences to their behavior, such as how it will affect themselves and others, follows.  Shure describes the importance of taking this process past thinking only of external consequences, such as being grounded or having something taken away, on to guiding them through internal consequences thus teaching them to sympathize with others.  Again, the use of fictitious situations begins this process.  Here it is important to use questions to guide children past the external and hone in on the internal, or feelings.  When applied to real life, once a child comes up with their own ideas or solutions, this step takes them further and asks them what they think the outcome of each will be.  I thought the most important suggestion for parents at this point was to let go and let them.  Even if the parents can think of better solutions, or if they know the outcome will be different than the children think, if it will not cause harm to the child or someone else, it is important to allow the child to follow through with their own plans.  That will teach them that you respect their point of view, which in turn builds confidence within the child to make their own decisions.

The last step teaches sequential planning.  This equips the children with a sophisticated process of thought that directs them toward a specific goal.  This process includes facing and overcoming obstacles, thinking about timing of actions, learning patience, and sequentially putting these parts together.  This chapter teaches the parent to teach children to better define their goals and make a plan by recognizing what steps to initially take, considering how long each step may take, determining the best time to implement each step, realizing there may be obstacles, and changing the plan if needed.  As with the other steps, the author suggests fictitious scenarios to go over with children as they follow the sequential process. 
The book concludes with a series of quiz questions for each chapter and finally with a chapter on dealing with extreme problems during the teen years such as smoking, alcohol, and pregnancy.  She offers ways to get children to think about these issues before they arise, making them aware of the consequences and outcomes of each possibility. 

I did enjoy reading this book.  I have to admit that although in print, the ideas seem to flow and make sense, I had my doubts about real-life application.  I absolutely agree with her submission on parenting styles, and further agree that getting the child to actively participate in problem-solving for themselves is essential.  As the author suggests, prompting questions also would seem to prove the most effective way in having children consider points that they may not have before.  The part I am curious to experiment with is the role playing.  I think the acceptance of this stage will have a lot to do with the relationship that the parent and child already have.  From the point of view of imagining myself sitting in a “counseling” setting with future children clients, I believe that the role playing will be easier, since that is part of the process.  Many of the questions and techniques she taught, I do believe, were very insightful and will certainly help with my future practice.  Since I do think her reasoning makes logical sense, I am going to begin to try these steps with my daughters and see how effective they are.  The idea of equipping my daughters with the skills to problem solve on their own certainly intrigues me, since I believe this to be the deep-down ultimate goal of parents for each of their children.  I am sure that each of us, my daughters and myself, will take something from the experience.

References
Shure, M. B. (2000). Raising a Thinking Preteen:  The “I Can Problem Solve” Program for 8- to 12-Year-Olds. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

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