“I Figured It Out!”: Helping Kids Become Tenacious Problem Solvers | Deborah Farmer Kris

May 27, 2021

Few things fascinate my five-year-old daughter more than ice and snow. Unfortunately for her, we live in Texas.

One day, after weeks of wishing for a winter wonderland, she poked around the kitchen drawers, looking for a solution to her problem. When she discovered that wax paper felt “slippery like ice,” her eyes lit up — she strapped some to her feet with duct tape and spent the afternoon “ice skating” on our tile floor.

Few skills will serve our children better than the ability to solve problems creatively. Agent Olive and Agent Otto from Odd Squad are delightful role models because they find challenges motivating, and they tap into their imagination and creativity to come up with solutions.

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Deborah Farmer Kris is a senior parenting columnist at Intrepid Ed News. This piece was originally published on PBS KIDS on April 17, 2017. Click here to read the rest of the article.

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Deborah Farmer Kris

A writer, teacher, parent, and child development expert, Deborah Farmer Kris writes regularly for PBS KIDS for Parents and NPR’s MindShift; her work has been featured several times in The Washington Post; and she is the author of the All the Time picture book series (coming out in 2022) focused on social-emotional growth. A popular speaker, Deborah has a B.A. in English, a B.S. in Education, and an M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology. Mostly, she loves finding and sharing nuggets of practical wisdom that can help kids and families thrive — including her own. You can follow her on Twitter @dfkris, contact her at [email protected], or visit her website: Parenthood365 (https://www.parenthood365.com/)