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Living > Public Health, Safety

Problem-Solving Skills

This activity can help your child think of ways to solve their problems. Using your child’s imagination and your practical suggestions, a lot of possible solutions can be found for everyday stressful situations. It is important for parents and caregivers to remember to remove their own feelings from the problems and remain compassionate and understanding.

Problem-Solving Model

What is the Problem?
Identify with your child what the problem is.

How big is the problem?
e.g. To help you understand how big of a problem the child is having, trace a hand on a piece of paper, number each finger and write out: 1) Not much; 2) A little bit; 3) Quite a bit; 4) A lot; 5) A whole lot

For children aged 3 to 5, just use a scale of 1 to 3.
1) Not much; 2) A little bit; 3) Quite a bit

Ask your child, "How big is the problem?" Then you can hold up your left hand, or use the traced hand on the paper to show them so they can choose a finger.


 

What could you do?
Help your child come up with a number of possible solutions to the problem.

 

What might happen?
Talk with your child about the different solutions and what the consequences of each would be.

What would be a good choice?
Let the child decide which solution to use.

 

How well did it work?
After the problem has been solved, talk to the child about how well the solution worked.
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