Applying Creative Problem Solving to Family Life
I had just returned from a transformational two weeks at Buffalo State from living in residence and working on my two intro courses to the Creativity and Change Leadership program. It was about 4 pm, I was feeling light and inspired; I swear my body was vibrating from the energy I came in touch with through the CPS process. Seated at the kitchen banquette, Eamon and Harry, my gorgeous sons, were arguing; and it was messing with my calm. It turned out Harry had traded Eamon’s best Pokemon cards for a personal gain to his collection. Eamon, (despite having outgrown his Pokemon cards and only really caring about them so he could bug his brother) was quite upset and lost his temper at Harry. The little brother, refusing to admit he was wrong, was smiling smugly. I was starting to react to the stress, I could feel my blood beginning to boil. They were driving me crazy, but then…
I remembered my training. I pulled out some sticky notes. “We are going to figure out all the ways this can be fixed between you! Get markers, get ready and come sit!”, I announced. I explained the frame-work for stick-em’ up brainstorming. We began. The initial ideas were slow to arrive and punctuated with eye rolls and under the breath comments, but then, the ideas started popping, like popcorn, we were getting excited. “Harry can buy me ice cream, today!” said Eamon feeling proud of himself. The heavy mood in the air was starting to lift. Harry said building on the idea,” We can go to McDonald’s, mom will take us!”. They glanced at each other the way only two brothers can, a team. I bit my tongue, “Keep your attention on the criteria, it has to be something you can provide.” I reminded. My boys generated 30 interesting ideas that we stuck up on the wall in the kitchen.
I had just returned from a transformational two weeks at Buffalo State from living in residence and working on my two intro courses to the Creativity and Change Leadership program. It was about 4 pm, I was feeling light and inspired; I swear my body was vibrating from the energy I came in touch with through the CPS process. Seated at the kitchen banquette, Eamon and Harry, my gorgeous sons, were arguing; and it was messing with my calm. It turned out Harry had traded Eamon’s best Pokemon cards for a personal gain to his collection. Eamon, (despite having outgrown his Pokemon cards and only really caring about them so he could bug his brother) was quite upset and lost his temper at Harry. The little brother, refusing to admit he was wrong, was smiling smugly. I was starting to react to the stress, I could feel my blood beginning to boil. They were driving me crazy, but then…
I remembered my training. I pulled out some sticky notes. “We are going to figure out all the ways this can be fixed between you! Get markers, get ready and come sit!”, I announced. I explained the frame-work for stick-em’ up brainstorming. We began. The initial ideas were slow to arrive and punctuated with eye rolls and under the breath comments, but then, the ideas started popping, like popcorn, we were getting excited. “Harry can buy me ice cream, today!” said Eamon feeling proud of himself. The heavy mood in the air was starting to lift. Harry said building on the idea,” We can go to McDonald’s, mom will take us!”. They glanced at each other the way only two brothers can, a team. I bit my tongue, “Keep your attention on the criteria, it has to be something you can provide.” I reminded. My boys generated 30 interesting ideas that we stuck up on the wall in the kitchen.
I pulled out another trick “With these POWERDOTS, we now get to highlight our favorite ones!” I explained. We targeted our preferences with the red stickers and we chose 10 in total. “Now we pick our favorite ones together”, I challenged them to work as a team. I explained how the card sort worked: we needed to determine our most favorite and least favorite solutions, we continued ranking by picking a favorite and then a less favorite, back and forth until we had all ten lined up in order. Despite having some very workable solutions, we had to remove the options that did not fit our criteria. It was taking a long time. The mood shifted once more, the laughter subsided, frustration set in. Choosing the best option was not easy to do together. Both boys were concentrating. Being rather new to the CPS process, I meddled with the process; I needed it to go faster. I added an incentive, the frozen yogurt from Menchies option being a daily double, if they could decide on a winner and wrap it up in ten. They managed to agree to a solution, I paid up by taking them for yummy frozen yogurt. |
It was exciting to use the CPS tools to mediate a family conflict. It was amazing how different my role was from the usual “referee breaking up the boxing round”, a confused, angry and overwhelmed parent. I had a structure and philosophy to rely on and to guide me. I seemed to know how to direct the conversation. We stopped fighting and started working together to solve a challenge. The tools worked! I am very interested to continue to use these CPS tools to facilitate family discussions.