Collaborative and Proactive Solutions: a parent's guide to CPS for neurodivergent children

If you've ever watched your child melt down over something that seemed minor and thought "there has to be a better way than this," Collaborative and Proactive Solutions is probably the framework you've been looking for. CPS, developed by Dr Ross Greene, starts from one idea that changes everything: your child isn't behaving badly because they won't do better. They're struggling because they can't do better, right now, with the skills they currently have.

That reframe sounds simple. Living it is harder. But CPS gives you an actual structure for getting there, and it's the approach most frequently recommended by the PDA Society and increasingly by clinicians working with autistic children, children with ADHD, and children whose behaviour has been labelled "challenging" by a system that hasn't yet figured out what's driving it.

What is collaborative and proactive solutions?

CPS rests on two principles. The first: challenging behaviour happens when the demands placed on a child outstrip the skills they have to respond. The second: the best way to reduce that behaviour is to solve the problems causing it, collaboratively with the child, before the next crisis hits.

Greene puts it bluntly: "There is zero research telling us that kids respond poorly to problems and frustrations because they're poorly motivated. That study doesn't exist. There's a mountain of research telling us that they're lacking skills."

This matters for parents of neurodivergent children because it reframes the entire conversation. Your child isn't defiant. They aren't manipulating you. They're stuck, and the behaviours you're seeing are what "stuck" looks like when a child doesn't yet have the flexibility, frustration tolerance, or problem-solving skills to handle what's being asked of them.

The three plans: how collaborative and proactive solutions organises every expectation

CPS sorts every adult response to an unmet expectation into one of three categories.

Plan A is imposing your will. It's conventional discipline: insist the child complies, back it up with consequences. Greene reserves this strictly for genuine, immediate safety emergencies (a child running into the road, for instance). He's clear that Plan A "increases the likelihood of challenging episodes" and doesn't solve problems durably. If you've been doing Plan A and it hasn't been working, this is why.

Plan B is the heart of CPS. It's structured problem-solving between you and your child, where you work together to understand what's making something hard and find a solution that works for both of you. More on this below.

Plan C is deliberately dropping or deferring an expectation. This is strategic, not permissive. It's recognising that your child has too many unsolved problems to work on all of them at once, so you set aside the lower-priority ones for now. Greene recommends working on no more than three unsolved problems at a time. Everything else goes to Plan C.

For parents of neurodivergent children, Plan C is often where the biggest immediate relief comes from. Many autistic children, children with ADHD, and children with a PDA profile face an overwhelming number of expectations that don't match their neurological profile. Reducing that load isn't giving in; it's creating the breathing room your child needs to actually engage with the problems that matter most.

How Plan B actually works: the three steps

Plan B follows three steps, always in this order. Rushing or reordering them is the single most common mistake parents make.

Step 1: The Empathy Step. You're gathering information about your child's concern. You're not sympathising, not validating the behaviour, and absolutely not warming up to deliver your own solution. You're genuinely curious about what's making this hard for them.

The opening follows a consistent formula: "I've noticed that [specific problem]. What's up?" For example: "I've noticed it's been hard getting out the door in the morning. What's up?" Or: "I've noticed you're having difficulty with the maths homework. What's up?"

When your child responds, dig deeper:

• Reflective listening: "Can you say more about that?" / "How so?" / "What do you mean?"
• Asking about specifics: "What part of the homework is hardest?"
• Asking about what varies: "You seem fine with reading homework but not maths. What's different about maths?"
• Breaking it into parts: "So writing is hard. Let's think about the different parts. Is thinking of the answer hard? Or is remembering it long enough to write it down the hard part?"
• Hypothesis testing (critical for children who struggle to articulate): "I'm wondering if the reason it's hard to eat dinner at the table is because the chair is uncomfortable. Am I right about that?"

Do not leave this step until you genuinely understand your child's concern. Not what you assume it is. What it actually is.

Step 2: Define Adult Concerns. Now you enter your concern. Briefly. Not as a lecture, not as an ultimatum. Just as additional information. "The thing is..." or "My concern is..."

For example: "My concern is that when you miss the start of lessons, you fall behind and then the work feels even harder." Or: "The thing is, when the morning gets stressful, it affects your sister too."

One or two sentences. Then stop.

Step 3: The Invitation. You and your child collaborate on a solution that addresses both sets of concerns. "I wonder if there's a way to [child's concern] and also [adult's concern]?"

The solution must actually be doable by both of you. It must address both concerns, not just yours. And every agreement ends with: "Let's try this and check back in a few days to see if it's working."

Greene is emphatic: "Don't enter this step with preordained solutions." If you already know what answer you want, you're doing disguised Plan A.

Proactive Plan B versus emergency Plan B

Proactive Plan B happens during a calm moment, after you've already identified the problem. Because most unsolved problems are predictable (you already know the morning routine is hard, you already know homework triggers a meltdown), the conversation can and should happen before the next crisis.

Emergency Plan B uses the same steps but in the heat of the moment. Greene describes it as less likely to work than Proactive Plan B, but far more likely to work than Plan A. If most of your problem-solving is happening mid-crisis, that's itself a sign something needs to shift; conversations associated with distress become harder over time.

The ALSUP: figuring out what's actually going on

The Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) is a free discussion guide available at livesinthebalance.org. It's not a test. It's a structured way to identify which specific skills your child is still developing and which predictable problems those skill gaps produce.

The ALSUP lists 18 lagging skills, including:

• Difficulty handling transitions
• Difficulty managing emotional response to frustration
• Concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking
• Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, or novelty
• Difficulty attending to or interpreting social cues
• Difficulty shifting from an original plan
• Sensory/motor difficulties

If you're a parent of an autistic child reading that list and thinking "that's half of them," you're not wrong. Several ALSUP lagging skills map directly onto common autistic cognitive profiles, which is precisely why CPS tends to resonate so strongly with neurodivergent families.

For each lagging skill, you list the specific unsolved problems connected to it. These must be free of judgement ("difficulty completing the word problems on the maths homework," not "screams and swears during homework"), specific (including who, what, where, and when), and split into individual problems rather than clumped together.

Once you've done that, you prioritise. The top one to three problems become Plan B priorities. Everything else goes to Plan C.

What does the evidence say about collaborative and proactive solutions?

Three clinical trials have compared CPS with Parent Management Training (the gold-standard for oppositional behaviour). All three found CPS matched it, and one also improved the parent-child relationship. In psychiatric inpatient settings, restraint events at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital dropped from 263 per year to 7 after CPS implementation, with no compromise in safety.

Honesty matters here: nobody has yet run a proper trial of CPS specifically with autistic children. The underlying logic is confirmed (autistic children with weaker executive function and emotion regulation do show more challenging behaviour, which is exactly the skills-gap model CPS is built on), but the autism-specific treatment trial hasn't been published yet.

CPS is widely recommended for autistic children by the PDA Society, clinicians, and parent communities — based on how well the approach fits and on clinical experience, not autism-specific trial data. NICE guidelines do not currently reference CPS, so you're unlikely to encounter it through CAMHS or NHS pathways.

How to adapt collaborative and proactive solutions for autistic children

Several modifications help Plan B work better with autistic children:

• Use declarative language instead of open-ended questions. "I noticed brushing teeth is really tricky for you" works better than "Why won't you brush your teeth?" for a child who thinks literally or finds open-ended questions overwhelming.
• Allow significantly more processing time. Silence isn't failure. It's processing. Get comfortable with long pauses.
• Break problems into component parts more frequently. Rather than "What's hard about getting ready for school?", try: "Getting ready has lots of parts. Is getting out of bed the hard part? Or is choosing clothes the hard part?"
• Use hypothesis testing. Many autistic children struggle to identify or name what they're feeling: "I'm wondering if the reason this is hard is because the noise in the corridor is too much. Am I right?"
• Explore sensory drivers specifically. Unsolved problems may be driven by sensory factors the adult hasn't considered.
• Use Plan C aggressively. Autistic children often face an overwhelming number of expectations that don't match their neurological profile.

Greene addresses verbal ability directly: "Yes, we do this with kids who are nonspeaking. Yes, we do this with kids who haven't talked to a caregiver for eight years." For children with limited verbal communication, alternatives include observation, hypothesis testing, and drawn or written communication. For younger children, Pivotal Response Treatment applies similar principles specifically to building verbal communication.

CPS and PDA: why it works, and where to be careful

CPS treats the child as an equal partner, prioritises understanding over compliance, and actively reduces the demand load through Plan C — which is why the PDA Society describes it as "a helpful way to support PDAers." But Plan B itself can feel like a demand for a child with a PDA profile, and demands trigger anxiety in PDA.

What you can do:

• Use Plan C far more aggressively than you might with a non-PDA child
• Frame Plan B as curiosity: "I was just curious about something..." rather than "We need to solve this problem"
• Always use Proactive Plan B; Emergency Plan B introduces a surprise demand, which is precisely what many PDA children find most threatening
• Offer specific options in the Invitation Step rather than open-ended questions: "I wonder if we could try [option A] or [option B]?" rather than "What should we do?"
• Work on one unsolved problem at a time, gradually, over days or weeks

CPS and ADHD: what to adjust

Children with ADHD bring specific challenges to Plan B conversations: working memory limitations make it hard to hold multiple concerns in mind, impulsivity can derail the structured steps, and emotional dysregulation may mean the child becomes too activated to continue.

What you can do:

• Keep conversations shorter and more focused; break the three steps across multiple brief sessions if needed
• Write down or visually represent concerns as they emerge, so working memory isn't overtaxed
• Summarise frequently during the Empathy Step
• Choose timing carefully (when medication is active if applicable, when distractions are minimal)
• Check in more frequently on whether agreed solutions are working

CPS addresses the oppositional overlay that commonly accompanies ADHD, but core hyperactivity and impulsivity may need separate support (medication, for instance). CPS solves the "won't cooperate" part; it doesn't change the "can't sit still" part.

How CPS compares with low demand parenting

CPS and low demand parenting are highly complementary. CPS's Plan C (dropping expectations) is essentially what low demand parenting does as its primary strategy; CPS then uses Plan B to actively solve the remaining priority problems through structured conversation. Many families use both: low demand provides the baseline environment, while CPS provides the structured tool for tackling specific unsolved problems when the child is regulated enough to engage.

The nine most common CPS mistakes parents make

1. Rushing or skipping the Empathy Step. Parents assume they already know the child's concern and treat empathy as a formality before delivering their solution. This is universally cited as the number one error.
2. Leading the solution. Entering the Invitation Step with a preordained answer. Children detect this instantly.
3. Trying to solve too many problems at once. Complete the ALSUP first. Prioritise ruthlessly. Use Plan C for everything else.
4. Over-relying on Emergency Plan B. When CPS only happens in crisis, the steps become associated with distress.
5. Reverting to Plan A mid-conversation. If the child is escalating, pause: "Let's take a break and come back to this." That's strategic Plan C, not surrender.
6. Framing unsolved problems with judgement. "I've noticed you're having difficulty sharing the TV with your brother after school" works. "I've noticed you've been terrorising your brother" doesn't.
7. Expecting immediate results. CPS practitioners report two to four weeks for initial improvements, two to three months for significant changes in explosive episodes, and potentially years for full relationship repair where trust has been deeply eroded.
8. Sermonising during the Define Adult Concerns step. One or two sentences. Then move on.
9. Using Plan B as manipulation. If your empathy is a performance rather than genuine curiosity, your child will disengage.

When your child won't engage with Plan B

If your child says "I don't know," check: was the unsolved problem worded neutrally? Was it specific enough? Are you using Proactive rather than Emergency Plan B? Does the child genuinely not know (break the problem into parts)? Do they need time to think?

If your child shuts down or walks away, do not chase or force. That converts immediately to Plan A. Note the topic and return proactively at a calmer time. Greene's advice: sometimes you need to have a conversation about what makes talking hard before you can talk about anything else.

If your child escalates during Plan B, stop. A nervous system in meltdown cannot learn, reason, or cooperate. De-escalate. Return to the problem later using Proactive Plan B.

When co-parents or family members disagree about CPS

Greene's advice: use Plan B on your partner. Empathise with their concern ("I hear that you're worried this is too permissive"), define yours ("My concern is that what we've been doing isn't working"), and invite collaboration ("I wonder if we could try this for a month and see what happens").

Start from shared frustration — most reluctant partners agree the current approaches aren't producing results. Share resources gradually: a short video, not an entire book. Even one parent using CPS can produce meaningful change. For extended family, focus on the fundamental reframe ("kids do well if they can") rather than technical details.

How to introduce collaborative and proactive solutions to your child's school

Greene wrote Lost at School specifically for this. Practical steps:

• Share the ALSUP with the school team as a neutral starting document. It helps teachers identify lagging skills and unsolved problems without requiring them to adopt the full model.
• Direct teachers to the free Lives in the Balance Educators Tour at livesinthebalance.org, which includes video demonstrations.
• In EHCP annual reviews, request CPS-informed strategies in Section F (Special Educational Provision). The PDA Society explicitly recommends this wording: "Use Dr Ross Greene's Collaborative & Proactive Solutions model to identify lagging skills and solve problems together once they are calm."

Teachers commonly object that they can't do this with 30 children. Greene's response: you don't need to. Start with the children who are repeatedly disruptive, removed, or referred. Identify no more than three priority unsolved problems per child. Conduct brief Proactive Plan B conversations at a mutually agreed time.

Where to find CPS resources in the UK

UK-based CPS practitioners are scarce but exist. Sasha Bemrose of Connected Parenting UK (connectedparenting.co.uk), based in Devon, is an Advanced Practitioner in CPS. At least one HCPC-registered educational psychologist in London is listed on the CPS Connection directory. All formal CPS training goes through Lives in the Balance's virtual programmes.

What you can do right now:

• Download the free ALSUP from livesinthebalance.org
• Map your child's lagging skills and unsolved problems
• Place all but three problems on Plan C
• Begin practising the Empathy Step with those three
• Read The Explosive Child (Ross Greene) for the full framework, or Lost at School if school is the primary battleground

Greene's own assessment: "This Plan B stuff is hard." It is. But solving problems collaboratively is consistently more durable than imposing solutions unilaterally. And it treats your child as the capable, if struggling, person they are.