"Collaborative Problem Solving for Parents and Their Teens" featuring Dr. Stuart Ablon

The Glenbard Parent Series: (GPS) Navigating Healthy Families presents “Collaborative Problem Solving for Parents and Their Teens” featuring Dr. Stuart Ablon at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 26 in the auditorium at Glenbard West, 670 Crescent Blvd. in Glen Ellyn.

Behaviorally challenging kids can exhibit intense temper outbursts and manifest both verbal and physical aggression during confrontations. Behavioral difficulties like these can tear families apart. Conventional wisdom blames parents for their children’s difficulties, but Dr. Stuart Ablon, author and director of “Think: Kids” at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, will provide an alternative conceptualization of the difficulties of these kids -- namely, that their difficulties are a byproduct of lagging skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. Based on this conceptualization, Dr. Ablon will introduce an approach to transform discipline called “Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS)”. CPS helps parents build helping-relationships with their children while fostering a relational process that develops flexibility, problem solving, and emotion-regulation skills. The CPS model has helped parents teach these lagging cognitive skills while reducing the frequency and intensity of challenging behavior.

Dr. Ablon will also present an extended CASE workshop “Rethinking Problem Kids: Collaborative Problem Solving “ on Friday, Feb. 27 from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Glenbard South, 23W200 Butterfield Rd. In Glen Ellyn.

Students’ behavioral difficulties as described above are the leading cause of teacher stress and burnout as well as the primary reason for departures from teaching the academic curriculum. Yet, traditional disciplinary strategies tend not to work with the youth to whom they are most applied.

At the same time, there has been renewed interest in the effects of chronic, overwhelming stress and trauma on children’s development, learning and behavior. We strive to provide a trauma-informed discipline. Yet, we often still struggle to understand the impact of trauma on brain development in a concrete and tangible way.Using the CPS model Dr. Ablon will assist participants to strength students’ cognitive skills while reducing the frequency and intensity of challenging behavior . In the course of this training, Dr. Ablon will make complicated neurodevelopmental concepts accessible and provide a practical evidence based process for trauma-informed care that everyone can follow.

No advance registration is required for the 7 pm Feb. 26 event which is free and open to the public.

Participants for the CASE morning workshop on Feb. 27 must register at www.casedupage.com

GPS is generously sponsored by the Cebrin Goodman Center, Cooperative Association for Special Education (CASE), College of DuPage, DuPage Medical Group, the Emmy Gaffey Foundation, and Trust Company of Illinois.

For information regarding GPS programs, visit www.glenbardgps or contact Gilda Ross, Glenbard District 87 student and community projects coordinator, at 630 942-7668 or by email at gilda_ross@glenbard.org.