You want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.

Everybody is talking about the behavior. Behaviors float downstream to us. We need to paddle upstream. The problems that are causing the behaviors, that's what's waiting for us. It's a crucial paradigm shift.

When people are rushed, they're stressed and you greatly increase the likelihood of being punitive and unilateral just because you're trying to grasp control.

If a solution isn't mutually satisfactory, it's not going to stick.

Challenging behavior is just a signal, the fever, the means by which the kid is communicating that he or she is having difficulty meeting an expectation.

People don't scream or swear or pout or sulk when there's compatibility. But most growth occurs when there's incompatibility. When it comes to resilience, when it comes to pulling yourself up when you've fallen down, you don't learn those things when things are going well. You learn those things when you're struggling.

It's a whole lot more productive to be in problem-solving mode than it is to be in behavior modification mode.