Problem Solving Skills for Children

Solving a problem has four stages, and children get stuck at different ones. Knowing which one your child stalls at is more useful than general encouragement to keep trying.

Stage one: noticing there is a problem

Sounds trivial and is not. Some children push on with an approach that is visibly failing because they have not registered that it is failing.

Built by: asking is that working, rather than pointing out that it is not. Over time the question becomes internal.

Stage two: working out what the problem actually is

The stage adults skip most often on children's behalf. A child says the tower keeps falling; the actual problem is that the base is too narrow. Getting from the symptom to the cause is most of the work.

Built by: asking why they think it is happening, and waiting. Not supplying the answer, which is very tempting because you can see it.

Stage three: trying something

Where children who are afraid of being wrong get stuck. A child who will not attempt anything until they are sure is not lacking ideas; they are avoiding the visible failure.

Built by: a household where attempts that fail are unremarkable, and where adults visibly try things that do not work.

Stage four: adjusting

The one that separates persistence from repetition. Some children try the same thing eleven times with more force. Trying something different is the skill.

Built by: asking what else could we try, and by explicitly naming the shift when it happens: you changed your approach there.

What to do when they are stuck

Wait longer than is comfortable. Count to twenty. Most children solve it in the silence, and every time an adult fills that silence the child loses a repetition of the entire cycle.

If they are genuinely stuck, ask rather than tell. What have you tried? What happens if you do that bit first? Which part is the hard bit?

That last question is unusually useful, because narrowing a problem to its difficult part is itself the skill.

Where it gets practised

Building things that fall down. Cooking something that goes wrong. Games with a strategy. Fixing a bike. Getting somewhere without directions. Any situation with a real obstacle and no adult removing it.

Screens are poor for this specifically because the feedback is instant and the retry is free, which removes the part where you have to think before acting.

What undermines it

Rescuing, which is the main one. Praising quick answers, which teaches that speed is the measure. Correcting the approach rather than letting the approach fail. And doing the difficult part yourself to keep things moving, which is nearly always the part worth leaving.

A child who has been allowed to be stuck, repeatedly, with somebody nearby but not intervening, is building something no worksheet provides.