Lesson 3 - The PICC Model

Welcome back to the third installment of our Coping Power Classroom video series! As a quick reminder, in the last two lessons, your students learned about recognizing emotions and their intensity, and then they started to practice perspective taking by recognizing the thoughts and feelings of their classmates and those around them.

Now that students can recognize the different sides or perspectives in a conflict, they’re learning about a new method for identifying problems, breaking down problems into easily identifiable parts, and developing healthy, effective solutions. To do this, they’ll use something called the PICC model. PICC stands for problem identification, choices, and consequences.

The first step, problem identification, involves breaking down a problem or conflict into small, solvable steps. Students are encouraged to use a set list of questions to do this. If you’re familiar with the antecedent-behavior-consequences model, these questions will look really familiar to you. If not, no worries! We’ve broken the steps down in the remainder of this video, just like your students are learning it.

Students will be asking themselves: When does the problem occur? What are some of the specific difficulties I’m encountering? How often is this problem happening? When is this happening? Is something always happening right before the problem, that could be causing the problem? What is and what is not affected by the problem?

By asking themselves these questions, students will begin thinking about their emotional intensity, the emotional intensity of those around them, and the overall situation surrounding the problem.

Once students understand what the problem is, they can brainstorm all of the different choices they might have as reactions to the problem. They should think about all of their possible options without thinking of certain choices as good or bad. For example, if someone is teasing them on the bus, they could 1) ask that child to stop, 2) sit somewhere else, 3) tell the bus driver, or 4) slap the child who is teasing them. These are just choices. It doesn’t mean they can or should do all of the ideas they’ve listed.

Once they’ve brainstormed all their ideas, they’ll evaluate which choices might actually be healthy and effective, and lead to the best possible outcome for everyone involved. In this example, they might recognize that slapping another child will get them in trouble, so they’ll decide that’s not their best option. Meanwhile, moving seats could stop the teasing and lead to them making a new friend, or telling the bus driver might also stop the teasing.

Once your students have thought through the different consequences of their choices, they’re ready to make a safe and healthy decision!

This week, we encourage you to focus on finding times when you can help your students apply the PICC model, both in their own lives and in stories and the experiences of others. For example, maybe you had a challenging experience recently that you are comfortable sharing with the class. You might ask your students to help you PICC apart your own challenging situation.  Or, you could ask students to PICC apart a situation between two characters in a book that they’re reading.

If students are facing a conflict or challenge in a class, at lunch, on the playground, etc., you could also guide them through the PICC model for their own situation, so that they can better process the problem and make a decision.

We hope you and your students will enjoy this new strategy for effective problem solving! See you next week.