You can help when you communicate your high expectations of kids and focus on their strengths. Your challenges is to focus on strengths, rather than dwell on deficits. Young people become stronger when you help them solve their own problems. These four questions let children know they share the responsibility for solving their own problems. And, by using these questions you imply kids aren't helpless victims, but can take control of many aspects of their lives.
Children always have reasons for acting the way they do.
They're often confused, however, and their inappropriate behaviors usually reflect their misguided attempts to feel better about themselves and control their situations. When children must be held accountable for their actions, it's necessary to look behind their behaviors. You're most likely to improve young people's inappropriate behaviors by forming a caring relationship with them. This means connecting with kids at a personal level by discovering as much about what they feel as what they know. It means focusing on kids one at a time, asking about things other than problems, knowing their interests and finding something in common.