Topic Overview
Kids do well when they can — and when they don't, something is getting in the way.
Traditional school discipline operates on a simple premise: if we make the consequences uncomfortable enough, students will choose better behavior. Decades of research — and the experience of every teacher who has cycled through consequences with the same students — tells us this premise is wrong. Students with challenging behavior are not choosing to fail. They are lacking the skills to succeed in the demands being placed on them. Punishment addresses the symptom. Collaborative & Proactive Solutions addresses the cause.
Dr. Ross Greene's CPS model — developed over 30 years of clinical and school-based work, including more than two decades on the faculty at Harvard Medical School — gives educators a concrete alternative. Rather than responding to behavior with consequences, CPS asks educators to identify the unsolved problems driving the behavior, and to solve those problems collaboratively with the student. The result is not just improved behavior. It is a school where the students who have been hardest to reach finally feel heard.
Why traditional discipline doesn't work for the students who need it most
The students who receive the most disciplinary consequences are overwhelmingly the same students: those with unmet social-emotional needs, learning differences, trauma histories, or lagging skills in flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. For these students, escalating consequences don't change behavior — they accelerate disengagement. Research confirms that suspension and expulsion are among the strongest predictors of future suspension, expulsion, and dropout. The students most in need of skilled support are receiving exclusion instead.
Challenging behavior is not the problem. Challenging behavior is a symptom of an unsolved problem. Until you solve the problem, the behavior will persist — regardless of the consequence.
The three approaches — and why Plan B is the one that works
Dr. Greene's framework identifies three approaches to responding to challenging behavior. Plan A is unilateral adult-imposed solutions — the traditional approach, which often triggers the most explosive responses. Plan C is dropping the expectation entirely. Plan B — the CPS approach — involves adults and students working together to understand the concern and find a realistic, mutually satisfying solution. Plan B is the only approach that solves the problem and builds the student's lagging skills simultaneously.
Kids do well if they can. If they can't, we need to figure out what's getting in the way — and fix it together.
Dr. Ross Greene
Identifying lagging skills and unsolved problems
The CPS model provides two diagnostic tools that are central to everything else. The Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) helps educators identify the specific cognitive skills a student is lacking — not their behavioral deficits. The Unsolved Problems list identifies the specific situations in which the student's behavior becomes challenging. Together, these tools replace reactive guesswork with proactive, collaborative planning.
The empathy step — the most important conversation skill
Every Plan B conversation begins with empathy: the adult's attempt to understand the student's concern or perspective about the problem. This is not agreement. It is gathering information. Dr. Greene's research shows that most adults skip or rush through this step — and that doing so is the single most common reason collaborative problem-solving fails. When students feel genuinely heard, their capacity for collaborative problem-solving increases dramatically.
CPS and equity
Traditional discipline disproportionately harms students of color, students with disabilities, and students from low-income households. Black students are five times as likely as white students to lose school days to suspension. Students with disabilities are twice as likely to receive out-of-school suspension. These disparities are not random — they reflect a discipline system that punishes kids for lagging skills rather than teaching them. CPS is an evidence-based alternative that reduces these disparities by addressing behavior at its source rather than through exclusion.
Where to start
Begin with the ALSUP for one student who is currently consuming the most of your time and energy. Identify the unsolved problems driving the behavior — not the behaviors themselves. Then use Dr. Greene's official free CPS tools from Lives in the Balance to review the model, prepare for a single Plan B conversation, and build shared practice over time.