Now Is the Time 273ing the name of the approach described in this book—
Collaborative Problem Solving—thereby pursuing your
expectations, reducing the likelihood of explosions, and
teaching your child skills so that eventually he can do
well in the real world without your help.
You read that there are two forms of Plan B: Proactive B
and Emergency B. Because explosions are actually highly
predictable, you learned that you should be solving most
problems by doing Proactive B. We also reviewed the man-
ner by which Plan B can be applied to sibling interactions,
examined family communication patterns that can inter-
fere with successful implementation of Plan B, and briefly
discussed medications that are sometimes useful in ad-
dressing some of the pathways. And we took a look at how
Plan B can improve life in school classrooms (in an era
where the news media reports on preschoolers being sus-
pended from school and elementary school children being
taken from school in handcuffs, surely the time has come
for a new way of doing things).
If you’ve been trying to implement this model in your
home or classroom, you’ve probably been working pretty
hard. That’s OK—you were working hard already—let’s
just make sure you have something to show for all that
hard work. Just remember, it can take a while. You don’t fix
a reading disability in a week, and you don’t fix this learn-
ing disability in a week either. But if things aren’t going as
well as you’d hoped, seek out someone who can help you.
Someone who knows that children do well if they can.