Problem solving with children

Children will face all sorts of problems and challenges every day.

For example:

• arguments with siblings over a toy,
• problems with their peers at an activity,
• or struggles with homework.

Many children react by crying, arguing, sulking or even withdrawing completely. They may even turn to violence.

Then they find that none of these responses are helpful and they can make their situation worse.

As parents, it’s often tempting to tell our children what they should have done when they had a problem.

Or we go to the other extreme and tell them to solve the problem themselves, especially with siblings!

But most children need to learn the steps of problem solving. They need to practice sorting things out with your support.

This will increase their self-confidence, and teach them to think flexibly and creatively. They’ll be more able to keep going when they find things hard. And they’ll even learn better ways to manage their emotions.

Check out our blog on this topic, where our Programme Leader for Family Work, Judah Racham shares his personal insights on problem solving with his three boys.

Work through these steps with your child, ideally when you are both calm and able to manage your emotions.

● Ask your child to describe the problem from their point of view. This helps them think about what caused it in the first place. For example, say ‘ It looks like you are arguing with your brother. Tell me what the problem is?

● Listen to what they said then summarise the problem. This will help them to understand what the problem is. For example, ‘So you both want to play with the same toy’.

● Show your child that you understand their feelings about the problem. This can help them feel validated. Then they can think about possible solutions - it’s hard to do that when you’re focused on being angry and upset.

● Encourage your child to suggest solutions. Encourage them to be creative. Only offer ideas if they get really stuck, or if you need to get them to think about the words they might use. For example, your child says “I should ask him for the toy”. Then you say “so what might you need to say to him when you ask him”.

● Talk to your child about how their solutions might make the others involved feel. This will help them develop empathy as well as being a great way to find solutions. For example, ask them ‘ What do you think your brother feels like when you take the toy from him without asking?’

● Ask your child to think about what could happen when they try out a solution. This can help them prepare what they will do next. For some children imagining future consequences is hard, so it’s ok to give more direct support in this step.

● Help your child to choose which of their solutions would work best by picking one that is safe, fair and that will lead to good feelings.

● Encourage your child to talk with you about how it went when they tried out their solution.

If your child is between 4-6, you can practice this in play. Use a puppet and pretend the puppet has a problem that children that age often have. Then ask your child to think about some solutions to solve this problem for the puppet.

Your child is unique and we hope there are some takeaways here that work for you. If you’re looking for help parenting children with additional needs, you can get specific advice from specialist organisations. Check out our list of support that we can recommend.