The Book: “The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children” (affiliate link)
Author: Ross W. Greene, Ph.D.
What it’s about
Greene offers a new strategic approach to children who regularly react with anger outbursts, threats, tantrums and other challenging behaviors when asked to do something they do not want to do, transition to another activity when they are not ready or are disciplined for their behavior. Greene notes that “explosive” is not the best way to describe this behavior, but instead to think of children who are chronically inflexible and easily frustrated.
Greene’s theory is that these children a lagging in their skills to be able to cope with these situations. He recommends parents think of these as problems that need to be solved. He then outlines three ways for parents to approach these problems:
- Plan A is the “traditional” way of disciplining and giving “orders” through parent-imposed “solutions.”
- Plan B is a collaborative way of solving problems where the parent works with the child to come up with a solution that addresses both of their concerns and appeases both the child’s and parent’s need to solve the problem. (Heads up that if the first Plan B doesn’t work, then the parent and child work together to adjust it.)
- Plan C is the parent ignoring particular “problems” to focus on higher priority problems they would like to solve first.
Greene walks parents through the steps to developing a Plan B with their child, including detailed scripts and example situations.
What I liked about this book
I liked Greene’s approach in “The Explosive Child,” and my husband and I are starting to use the Plan B process with our kids, including our son J. We have certainly been guilty of too many Plan A solutions. Greene is realistic in letting parents know that it takes time and practice to get Plan B to work better. You may have to revisit several adjustments to the solution to find the one that works well for both you and your child. Also, knowing the Plan C is a good option so that you can prioritize the problems to work on is really helpful too!
What I didn’t like about “The Explosive Child”
Sometimes, I felt like Greene was a bit hard on parents who used Plan A. Most of us probably grew up with parents ourselves who solely used Plan A, so that is what we know. I have intuitively used a version of Plan B at times with my kids (not knowing that I was!). I felt like he could have acknowledged that a bit more to give us parents a bit of slack and instead focus more on just encouraging parents to give his approach a try to lead to better outcomes.
Would I recommend “The Explosive Child”?
Definitely for any parents who are struggling with a child that has extreme outbursts like both of ours can have. This has given me a practical strategy and tools to help avoid these challenging behaviors and better handle them when they occur.
My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars*
*(1 being the worst and 5 being the best)
