1) Who is this course for? The 6 week course is designed for parents with children ages 6 and up who demonstrate challenging behaviors. No students attend the course and there is no childcare.
2) How much does it cost? It is free! We ask that those who enroll commit to attending all 6 weeks, however, as there is usually a wait list.
3) What is CPS?! As applied to challenging kids, CPS holds two major tenets: first, that challenging behaviors are best understood as a result of lagging thinking skills (rather than, for example, as attention-seeking, manipulative, limit-testing, or a sign of poor motivation); and second, that these challenges are best addressed by teaching children the skills they lack (rather than through reward and punishment programs and intensive imposition of adult will).
While challenging kids let us know they’re struggling in some fairly common ways (screaming, swearing, defying, hitting, spitting, throwing things, breaking things, crying, running, withdrawing, and so forth), they are quite unique as individuals when it comes to the mix of lagging thinking skills that set the stage for these behaviors. This means that prior to focusing on the teaching of cognitive skills one must first identify the skills that are lagging in each individual child or adolescent. We will examine these in class.
The teaching of these skills may be accomplished in a variety of ways, but primarily through helping challenging children and their adult caretakers learn to resolve problems in a collaborative, mutually satisfactory manner.