Parenting, Teaching and Treating Challenging Kids

This Workshop is being sponsored by: Arlington Special Education Advisory

Committee and Arlington Youth Counseling Center. For more information call: AYCC: 781-316-3255

Description of Workshop:

This two hour workshop provides an overview of the approach described in the book: Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach. The innovative, evidence based approach provides a new way of understanding and helping these kids. Challenging behavior has traditionally been thought of as willful and goal oriented. This has led to approaches that focus on motivating greater compliance through the use of consequences. Think:Kids has some very different ideas about why these kids struggle. Research over the past 30 years, demonstrates that for the majority of these kids, their challenges result from a lack of crucial thinking skills. Our approach focuses on identifying and teaching the specific lacking skills that account for each child’s struggles. The latter is accomplished largely through helping children and adults learn to solve problems and resolve disputes collaboratively and in a mutually satisfactory manner.

The workshop will provide an overview of the approach, provide resources for further study and suggest some ways adults can begin to shift their thinking and approach to foster positive relationships with these children and encourage growth in areas of self-regulation, communication and problem solving.

Presenter: Dr .J. Stuart Ablon

J. Stuart Ablon, Ph.D., is the Director of Think:Kids in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ablon co-founded the Center for Collaborative Problem Solving where he also served as Co-Director from its inception until 2008. Dr. Ablon is co-author of Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach and author of numerous articles, chapters and scientific papers on the process and outcome of psychosocial interventions. Dr. Ablon's research has been funded by, amongst others, the National Institute of Health, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the International Psychoanalytic Association, the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Institute, and the Endowment for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. Dr. Ablon received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and completed his predoctoral and postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ablon trains parents, educators, and clinicians and consults to schools and treatment programs throughout the world on the Think:Kids approach.