Raising a Thinking Child Workbook: Teaching Young Children How to Resolve Everyday Conflicts and Get Along with Others

An evidence-based parenting workbook based on the highly acclaimed I Can Problem Solve (ICPS) violence prevention program for children. This unique workbook, available in English or Spanish, serves as the ideal ICPS parent involvement component but also stands alone as an essential parent resource for dealing with typical parent-child and child-child difficulties. Workbook pages are filled with dozens of inviting activities that help parents guide and children ages 4–7 to play games and color as they learn develop cognitive skills and social-emotional awareness. Situations include everything from a child’s wanting attention while the parent is busy to teasing and fighting over toys to going to bed on time. The workbook also covers many positive situations–helping with household chores, sharing, comforting a hurt friend, and more. By engaging in these activities and using a special kind of problem-solving talk called ICPS dialoguing, parents help children learn how to think, not what to think. With practice, children learn to think about what they do and why they do it, choose solutions based on consequences, negotiate for what they want, cope with frustration, and understand their own and others’ feelings.

Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Drexel University (formerly MCP Hahnemann University) in Philadelphia. Her I Can Problem Solve (ICPS) programs and her pioneering research with George Spivack have won three national awards, including the Lela Rowland Prevention Award from the National Mental Health Association. Dr. Shure is author of six books and numerous book chapters and journal articles. She also consults with the media on issues relating to social adjustment and interpersonal competence in our nation's youth. Her books for parents, Raising a Thinking Child Workbook (Research Press), Raising a Thinking Child (Simon & Schuster), Raising a Thinking Preteen (Henry Holt) show parents how to use the ICPS model to teach their children skills for social-emotional competence.