“Size of the Problem” has been part of behavior and SEL instruction for a loooong time. Yes, there’s rightful criticism, but there is also a reason it stuck around.
Kids do need to learn how to assess a situation, figure out what they can do about it, and decide when they need help. A broken pencil usually requires a different plan than being threatened by another student. Forgetting your homework calls for a different response than realizing you don’t feel safe getting on the bus.
Where we can get into trouble is when “size of the problem” becomes shorthand for telling a child that something shouldn’t feel like a big deal to them.
“That’s a tiny problem.”
“You’re making this way bigger than it needs to be.”
“Does your reaction match the size of the problem?”
Even when we have good intentions, that language can turn a problem-solving lesson into an adult deciding whether a child’s feelings are justified. We can teach this skill better!!
The goal is problem solving, not convincing kids that something doesn’t matter
One of the biggest shifts I’ve made in how I think about Size of the Problem is separating the impact of the situation from the intensity of the feeling.
A student can have a very strong emotional response to something that is relatively easy to solve. Those two things can exist together.
A child whose pencil breaks might be absolutely furious. We don’t need to convince them that they aren’t furious. We can acknowledge the feeling and still help them recognize that the actual problem has a pretty accessible solution.
“You are really frustrated that your pencil broke. Let’s look at the problem itself. Is anyone hurt? Is anyone unsafe? Can this be fixed? Is there something you can try?”
Now we are teaching analysis instead of compliance. Sometimes when we actually listen to the student, we discover that the “small problem” wasn’t very small after all.
The pencil broke during a test the student was already anxious about. Another student snapped it intentionally. The student asked for another pencil and was embarrassed in front of the class. It was the fourth frustrating thing that happened that morning. Context matters.
Our job is to give them a framework for figuring out what happened and what to do next.
Start with concrete questions
“Is this a big problem?” is actually a pretty abstract question. Instead, teach students to look for information.
Questions like these are much more useful:
- Is someone hurt or in danger?
- Do I feel safe?
- Is someone else being hurt, threatened, bullied, or targeted?
- Is this something that needs an adult right away?
- Can the problem be fixed?
- Do I know something I can try?
- Have I already tried to solve it?
- Is the problem continuing even after I tried?
- Do I need help?
These questions give students something concrete to evaluate. They also make room for an incredibly important message: asking for help is a problem-solving skill. Independence should never mean teaching children that they are supposed to handle everything themselves. I also like the idea of attaching size of the problem instruction alongside responsible decision making. They absolutely go hand in hand and can be such a great crossover with SEL instruction and social skills instruction.
Be careful with “small problems”
This is where I think we need to be especially thoughtful. Adults have more life experience, more power, and usually more perspective than children do. Of course a missing marker or a squishy with a tiny hole in it feels insignificant to us!!!! Our perspective isn’t the objective truth.
Something can feel enormous to a seven-year-old and still have a fairly simple solution. Instead of debating whether the problem deserves the emotion, we can help the child recognize both pieces:
“This feels really big right now. Let’s figure out what kind of help this problem needs.”
That tiny language shift changes the whole interaction.
We aren’t asking kids to prove that their feelings are reasonable before we help them. That’s actually incredibly rude and demeaning. We’re teaching them how to move from something happened to: what can I do now?
Practice when nobody is upset
Like most regulation and problem-solving skills, this is much easier to learn outside of the actual moment. Scenario practice is still one of my favorite ways to teach it.
Give students situations they genuinely encounter:
- Someone cuts in front of you in line.
- You forgot your Chromebook charger.
- Your friend tells you they don’t want to play with you today.
- Someone keeps making comments about your family after you told them to stop.
- You can’t find the assignment you finished last night.
- Someone threatens to hurt you after school.
Then talk through more than simply whether each problem is “small,” “medium,” or “big.”
Ask:
- What happened?
- How might you feel?
- Is anyone unsafe?
- What could you try?
- Can you solve this yourself, or is this a time to get help?
- If your first strategy doesn’t work, what comes next?
That is where the learning happens.
My Size of the Problem Digital Scenarios include 100 situations that can be used for exactly this kind of discussion. When I used these during morning meetings in a therapeutic behavior setting, the conversation around the scenarios was always more important than getting everyone to land on the same answer.
In fact, disagreement can be useful. Two students might interpret the same situation differently, and talking about why helps reinforce that context matters.
Teach it explicitly
Some students will pick up problem-solving skills through everyday experiences. Plenty of kids need us to teach them directly. That might happen during SEL instruction, counseling, resource time, centers, morning meeting, or a few minutes with a trusted adult. You can use sorting activities, scenarios, games, task cards, role play, or examples from books and shows students already know.
My Size of the Problem Activities and Size of the Problem Task Cards were designed to give students repeated practice with the concept in different formats. Whatever materials you use, I would encourage you to go beyond having students simply categorize problems. The category is the starting point. The real skill is figuring out what to do about it.
Debrief without grading the reaction
I used to think a big part of debriefing was asking students whether their reaction “matched the size of the problem.” I look at that differently now.
After a difficult situation, I’m much more interested in helping a student understand what happened.
- What was the problem?
- What were you feeling?
- What did your body tell you?
- What did you try?
- Did it help?
- Was there a point when you needed adult support?
- What could we put in place if this happens again?
A restorative debrief should help a child make sense of an experience. It shouldn’t become a second consequence where the student has to admit that they “overreacted” before everyone can move on. There is absolutely room to talk about behavior that was unsafe or harmful. Validation does not require us to pretend every response was okay.
“You had every right to be angry. Throwing the chair wasn’t safe. Let’s figure out another way you can handle that much anger next time.”
Kids deserve both parts of that sentence.
Make sure the adults are using the skill ethically, too
Consistency across settings still matters. Teachers, paraprofessionals, related service providers, administrators, and families should understand what we are actually trying to teach. I would take common language one step further than I did years ago. Adults need common guardrails, too.
“Size of the Problem” should never be used to shut down reports of bullying, harassment, discrimination, threats, abuse, safety concerns, or repeated peer conflict. It should not become a way to discourage students from seeking adult help. It 100% should not become code for, “Stop reacting because this is inconvenient for the adults around you.” If a student repeatedly brings us something we consider minor, that is information.
Maybe the student needs more explicit problem-solving instruction. Maybe they don’t feel confident handling peer conflict. Maybe their regulation skills are lagging. Maybe there is context we don’t know yet. Maybe the supposedly tiny problem is part of a much larger pattern. We should stay curious long enough to figure that out.
Independence includes knowing when you need someone else
Ultimately, this is the piece I want students to walk away with. We aren’t teaching kids to tolerate every uncomfortable thing that happens to them. We aren’t teaching them that strong feelings are reserved for adult-approved “big problems.”
What we ARE teaching them is to notice what happened, assess safety, consider their options, try strategies they have the skills to use, and recognize when a problem requires support.
Sometimes independence looks like taking a breath and grabbing another pencil. Sometimes it looks like trying a different strategy after the first one doesn’t work. Sometimes it looks like walking directly to a trusted adult and saying, “I need help with this.”
That is problem solving, too.
If you want a visual tool to help walk students through this process, I also have a free Size of the Problem Flowchart. Rather than expecting kids to automatically know how “big” something is, a decision-making tool can give them concrete steps for figuring out what kind of response and support the situation actually requires. Our goal isn’t to raise kids who never make mountains out of molehills (PS It won’t happen because everyone’s personal definition of a molehill is quite different).
We want to raise kids who can look at the mountain in front of them, figure out what they’re dealing with, and know what resources they need to get to the other side. Sometimes, they’re going to need us to climb it with them 🙂
