What is my approach and how can I help you?
Welcome! I’m Amanda Priestley, parent coach, educator, and teen supporter. I am an educator of 20 years and a parent of three, including a teen of my own in a blended family. I am trained in the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions method, which is a revolutionary way to solve problems with teens.
“Kids do better when they can.” Dr. Ross Greene said that and he is right. No one wants to be the cause of major conflict. No kid wants to be getting all of the negative attention, even those teens with major ‘tudes. As humans, we don’t meet the expectations around us because we can’t.
As parents and educators, if we can adjust our lens and see all behavior as a reaction to a simple equation (skills + expectation = behavior), we can stop personalizing the way kids act. If a teen lacks some key skills, when he comes up against an expectation that he can’t meet, his behavior will be negative. Our job, as partners with our teens, is to navigate through expectations and help them build their skills.
The more lagging skills (difficulty transitioning from one activity to another, difficulty empathizing with others, difficulty focusing on one task without internal distraction), the more “difficult” we perceive the kid to be. Like all of us, these kids have many strengths and gifts that are often the flip side of their lagging skills (I’m thinking of the super regimented, conscientious student who can’t handle a change in the schedule). If we can accept that these kids are more challenging in certain situations, we can begin to adjust our own thinking about what their behavior means.
All kids can do well, if we treat them as partners whose input adds value to the relationship.