The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

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If the child is given the skills he needs so that he doesn’t explode anymore and so he doesn’t need help anymore, he can be held accountable . Empathy: To solve a problem, you need to first sit down with your child and gather information to find out what is getting in his or her way of meeting an expectation. Expectations outstrip skills. The clash between expectations and skills occurs often in behaviorally challenging kids, and their reactions tend to be more extreme. But these kids aren’t always challenging: their problems are situational, limited to certain conditions and expectations.

Because of policies of inclusion, typical classrooms have a range of students with both behavioural and cognitive special needs. I highly recommend this book to all parents, and those who work with children. Particularly if your child has episodes of behaviours which challenge, but actually this approach will (I think) be good for all children. I know what you're thinking. "Really? Four whole days? It's a Christmas miracle." If I were there in front of you, I'd reply, "These are the first 4 days that have even teetered on the brink of replicating normal parent-child interactions that I have experienced in 3 years. Asshole." Executive Skills — planning, organisation, shifting cognitive set and separation of affect — using Proactive B can help with thisDefine your problem and the child’s problem. If you only define the child’s problem, you are using Plan C. We are in the midst of a societal and public health crisis. We are losing our most vulnerable kids, largely due to perspectives that are outdated and counterproductive, and disciplinary practices that are punitive and exclusionary.

At first blush, this collaborative approach can look a bit like “giving in” to bad behaviour or relinquishing parental authority, but Dr. Greene argues that it isn’t really about that. It’s about proactively dealing with problems which just aren’t getting resolved through more traditional avenues. This problem focused approach is grounded in years of research with behaviourally challenging children. It takes practice but it’s worth the work! Parents who want a few strategies (rather than dozens of unrelated tips) to help their explosive child would likely enjoy The Explosive Child. Who would not enjoy this book? Now in a new 6th edition, the groundbreaking, research-based approach to understanding and parenting children who frequently exhibit severe fits of temper and other challenging behaviors, from a distinguished clinician and pioneer in this field. When I try to collaborate with my child, he answers, “I don’t know.” How can I get my child interested in teaming up on solution? When we think in terms of Pathways being explanations, the door opens to the process of thinking about how to help the child.

I want to give this book a bad review because it really goes against everything I hold to be reasonable. But, I have been implementing it for 4 days now and getting some pretty amazing results. Results that I am certain are directly related to following the plan set out by the authors. Not only does this sequence break through the parent-child clash, it also models the problem-solving that the child will need to employ when trying to solve a problem or navigate an impasse themselves. I was persuaded and indeed touched by two of Greene's key premises: 1) that a child manifests a behavior problem when their skill set does not yet meet the demands set on them in that moment, and 2) that a child will rise to the occasion if they can rise to the occasion. Explosive behaviors, to resort to the titular language that I'm uncomfortable with but don't have an easy alternative to, are not about permissive parents or willful children, but rather about a gap between the situation at hand and the child's current emotional/social skill set. For some children, switching mindsets (from play time to dinner time or what have you) is overwhelming. To reflect with them on how those situations could be made easier is to improve your family dynamics and to strengthen their skills at the same time. It’s often useful to implement a 0–5 ranking system, in which 0 denotes “not frustrated at all” and 5 denotes “really, really frustrated”. The same can be done with colors (Green — Red) for younger children.

Teachers have different expectations for different children. ‘Fair does not mean equal.’ That’s why some students receive special help in reading while others are not; some students participate in other programs. “ everyone in our classroom gets what he or she needs. If someone needs help with something, we all try to help him or her. And everyone in our class needs something special.” It is no different when a child needs help with flexibility and frustration tolerance. If a child in the class challenges why an explosive classmate is receiving special accommodations and assistance, the response can be “ Everyone in our classroom gets what she or he needs. If someone needs help with something, we all try to help him or her. Because you are very good at handling frustration, I bet you could be helpful to ? next time he gets frustrated.” Many people believe that accountability is a code for punishment. Some believe that if consequences the child has received for his explosions haven’t stopped him exploding, it must be because they didn’t cause the child enough pain. The majority of explosive kids experienced a great deal of pain. It is the assumption of this book that the child already knows what is right and wrong and is motivated. Many explanations for the child’s behaviour are clichés such as: This advice came from “Beyond Rewards & Consequences: A Better Parenting Strategy for Teens with ADHD and ODD,” ADDitude webinar lead by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D., in June 2018 that is now available for free replay here . People who are punishment-oriented and blame children for their outbursts would not enjoy this book. Parents who feel that their authority is undermined when they try new things or give their children an opportunity to problem solve would not likely enjoy this book. Conclusion The book was recommended to me by a number of people, but I must say the title put me off a little. I advocate for neurodiversity, I'm autistic and ADHD myself and have been subjected to people calling me "dramatic" or "over-reactive" in the past, so a book called "The Explosive Child" made me feel like a child was being blamed for their responses to things. However, I trust the people who recommended it to me, and over a year after buying it I started to read. I now know why you should never judge a book by its cover (or its title).

Psychology and psychiatry are imprecise sciences, and different mental health professionals have different theories and interpretations of explosive behavior in children. Try a new parenting plan. Many caregivers try to solve behavior problems unilaterally by imposing rules on their child — called Plan A in the CPS model — but you’ll be more successful if you and your child solve those problems together instead (Plan B). When you solve problems together, you become partners — teammates — not enemies or adversaries. Behaviours which challenge aren't designed to manipulate, and they're not because a child 'can't be bothered' to do what's being asked of them. This may sound a little strange, but there’s never been a better time to be living or working with a behaviorally challenging child. That’s because an enormous amount of research on behaviorally challenging kids has accumulated over the past 40-50 years, so we know a lot more about why they’re challenging and how to help them than at any other point in human evolution. The research provides us with new lenses through which to view their difficulties, and those new lenses can help caregivers respond to and help these kids in ways that are more compassionate, productive, and effective. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the new lenses can take some getting used to (after all, you may have been wearing different lenses for a very long time) so seeing things through those alternate lenses will require an open mind. Also, the strategies contained in this book can be hard to implement (early on), may be different than the ones you’ve been using, and may represent a departure from the way you were parented. So you’ll need an open mind there, too, along with some patience (with yourself and your child) as you’re practicing new ways of interacting and solving problems together. Solve problems collaboratively (rather than unilaterally) and proactively (rather than reactively).