Latest Ross W. Greene Quotes from Interviews

• For a very long time, people have been saying to me, "What if you want to do this approach with every kid?" For a behaviorally challenging kid, you're parenting this way just to help bring the kid's behavior under control and to greatly reduce conflict. But you want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.

  Ross W. Greene

  Honesty, Kids, People

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• My advice to educators is collaborate with parents; they know a lot about their kids.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, Parent, Advice

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Be your kid's collaborative partner, but also be a collaborative partner with the folks at school. Schools can be pretty unilateral too. Show them you know how to collaborate. Show them this is not about power. Let them know detentions and suspensions and paddling don't solve the problems that are affecting kids' lives. Those problems can be identified and solved but not by being punitive.

  Ross W. Greene

  School, Kids, Paddling

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• We have forgotten that those skills on the more positive side of human nature have to be taught, have to be modeled, have to be practiced.

  Ross W. Greene

  Skills, Taught, Sides

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• We never get to see that our kid is capable of solving problems on her own. We never start to build up the faith that they can actually do it.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, Problem, Problem Solving

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• If we're being unilateral, then communication does not happen, the relationship does not happen.

  Ross W. Greene

  Communication, Doe, Ifs

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Over 18 years of us solving problems together, my daughter has shown me that she's got a good head on her shoulders, that she is pretty good at solving the problems that affect her life. If she wants my input, she gets it.

  Ross W. Greene

  Daughter, Years, Together

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• If a solution isn't mutually satisfactory, it's not going to stick.

  Ross W. Greene

  Sticks, Solutions, Ifs

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Solutions can't be imposed. That just fosters resentment.

  Ross W. Greene

  Resentment, Solutions

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• If we're sitting at dinner and there's no conversation going on because everybody's got their head someplace else in their iPhone, that's a family problem that needs to be solved.

  Ross W. Greene

  Iphone, Needs, Sitting

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• No kid should be getting three or four hours of homework a night. There's no breathing time, there's no family time, there are just extracurriculars and homework and then go to bed.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, Night, Breathing

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• School is very demanding these days.

  Ross W. Greene

  School, These Days

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Kids are overprogrammed these days.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, These Days

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• It's so crucial to really get a good handle on what's getting in the way of the kid completing a homework assignment. It can be so many things.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, Way, Homework

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• People don't scream or swear or pout or sulk when there's compatibility. But most growth occurs when there's incompatibility. When it comes to resilience, when it comes to pulling yourself up when you've fallen down, you don't learn those things when things are going well. You learn those things when you're struggling.

  Ross W. Greene

  Struggle, People, Growth

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• When there's a good fit between skills and expectations, there's what we call compatibility, and we would expect a good outcome. When there's a poor fit between expectations and the capacity of the kid, there is incompatibility, and that's when we see people exhibit challenging behavior.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, Skills, People

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• It's a whole lot more productive to be in problem-solving mode than it is to be in behavior modification mode.

  Ross W. Greene

  Problem, Behavior, Modification

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Everybody is talking about the behavior. Behaviors float downstream to us. We need to paddle upstream. The problems that are causing the behaviors, that's what's waiting for us. It's a crucial paradigm shift.

  Ross W. Greene

  Talking, Waiting, Needs

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Challenging behavior is just a signal, the fever, the means by which the kid is communicating that he or she is having difficulty meeting an expectation.

  Ross W. Greene

  Mean, Kids, Expectations

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Parents are much more likely to be attuned to what they don't like than they are to the expectations that the kid is having difficulty meeting.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, Expectations, Parent

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• The vast majority of things parents and kids get in conflict over are highly predictable. We're disagreeing about the same expectations the kid is having difficulty meeting every hour, every day, every week. Because it's predictable, we can have these conversations proactively. That is very hard for people.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, People, Expectations

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• When people are rushed, they're stressed and you greatly increase the likelihood of being punitive and unilateral just because you're trying to grasp control.

  Ross W. Greene

  People, Stressed, Trying

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Most parents are accustomed to dealing with problems in the heat of the moment.

  Ross W. Greene

  Parent, Heat, Problem

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• People still look askance at a kid in the supermarket who's pitching a fit and think the parent is not sufficiently in control or not being sufficiently punitive. That's an issue for a lot of parents as well.

  Ross W. Greene

  Kids, Thinking, Issues

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• The idea that we can take this lump of clay and mold it into a form of our choosing is absolutely ludicrous.

  Ross W. Greene

  Ideas, Clay, Mold

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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