Problem Solving

What are the Making Choices Problem Solving Steps?
The Making Choices program teaches students a problem solving sequence they can use when confronted with difficult social situations (a situation involving 2 or more people).  We provide this overview of the Making Choices Problem-Solving Steps for your reference.

Step 1: Find the clues.  What's going on?

  1. How many clues can I find?
  2. What do people's faces look like?
  3. What are their bodies doing?
  4. How do their voices sound?
Social clues indicate how a person is feeling in a social situation.  Examples include facial expression, body language, and tone of voice.  A child noticing these clues may think, “He looks mad.”  Aggressive children tend to notice fewer clues and pay more attention to the clues that suggest they are threatened.  By missing important clues, they are more likely to jump to the wrong conclusion about what is happening in the situation.  By teaching them to look for more clues you are helping them to build important cognitive skills.

Step 2: Interpret the clues

  1. What do the clues mean to me?
  2. What do I want to happen?
  3. If someone has made me sad or mad, did he or she hurt me on purpose or by accident?
Being able to understand the emotions and intentions of others is an important aspect of social development.  The research evidence suggests that children who act aggressively tend to interpret social situations in a negative way by assuming that others are intentionally being mean to them or trying to make them feel bad.

Step 3: Set the goal and figure out what kind of goal it is

  1. What do I want to happen?
  2. Is my goal helpful or harmful?
Healthy relationships with peers depend, at least in part, on children’s abilities to generate and evaluate their social goals.  Children who are well-liked by their peers are able to generate friendly goals and decide whether their goals are appropriate to the situation. Alternatively, children who are disliked by peers tend to generate fewer goals and are less able to judge the nature of their goals.

Step 4: Generate possible actions

  1. What different things can I do?
  2. What should I do first, what next?
Children who generate fewer choices of actions for meeting their goals are more likely to have aggressive or inappropriate responses to social situations.  As a result, they provoke their peers in negative ways and increase their risk of being rejected and disliked by classmates.  Therefore, it is important that children learn how to come up with different ways to reach their goals so they have more options and are able to respond with more flexibility in social situations.

Step 5: Evaluate the actions

  1. Is this a helpful or harmful thing to do?
  2. How would I feel if someone did this to me?
  3. Am I ready and able to carry out the necessary steps?
  4. What would happen if I acted this way?”
This step is about teaching children how to evaluate the action choices they have generated to reach their goals (e.g., weighing consequences, anticipating how others might respond).  Teachers often use the phrase “What Happens Next?” as a prompt to help children evaluate the outcomes of different actions.

Step 6: Making a choice

  1. “Do it!”
In this step, children synthesize all of the skills they have learned in Making Choices to solve social problems and “make a choice.” This review should energize students and reinforce what they have been working on all year.  When they finish the steps and make an appropriate choice, praise your students to show your appreciation for all of their hard work!

**Through all the steps it’s important to “Stop and Think” and ask:

  1. How do I feel? How are others feeling?
  2. What can I do to calm myself down?
When children are able to understand their internal states and name their feelings, they are better able to manage their emotions and solve their problems. They are also more likely to behave in a way that maintains positive relationships with others.