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Book
Reviews ... Recommended Reading
The Explosive Child,
A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated,
Chronically Inflexible Children
by Ross W. Green
I have to admit, I often have to psyche myself up
to read books by doctors. It’s not that I don’t respect their knowledge,
it is just often difficult to read through their wordy scripts. But this
book came so highly recommended, I decided it was worth the effort and I
am so thankful that I made that decision.
I was expecting the same old “structured
discipline” advice as if that would explain why these children couldn’t
seem to be molded. The last thing I was expecting was a renowned doctor
thinking “out of the box”.
First though, let me give you some
characteristics of the explosive and chronically inflexible children:
Common characteristics
- Difficulty managing and controlling the
emotions associated with frustration.
- Difficulty thinking through way of resolving
frustrating situations in a rational manner
- Trouble remembering how to stay calm and
problem solve
- Difficulty recalling the consequences of the
previously explosive episode
- Deteriorate even further in response to limit
setting and punishment.
- Extremely low tolerance for frustration.
Trivial events are frustrating
- Quickly overwhelmed
- Feels emotions of frustration more intensely
- Becomes extremely agitated disorganized and
verbally or physically aggressive
- Remarkably limited capacity for flexibility
and adaptability (not able to shift gears in response to commands or
changes)
- Tendency to think in concrete and rigid, and
black and white manner.
- Continues intense frequent behavior in spite
of great motivation or potent consequences.
- Explosive episodes may have an out of the blue
quality.
If you have a child that fits most of these
characteristics, then this is a book that will show you a whole new way of
dealing with them. When we read something that doesn’t fit our own mode of
thinking, the first tendency is to reject or argue with it as you read it.
So I would caution you to bring to this book an open mind.
When working with inflexible children, we try
almost anything to insure cooperation. There simply comes a point we have
to admit that no matter how well intended our actions are—they simply are
not working and bringing the results we long for in our hearts. This is
the moment we open our minds and read a book that will require you to
learn and grow as much as the child.
On the Explosive child web site (http://www.explosivechild.com)
they talk about the Collaborative Problem Solving or CPS. They state:
The impetus for the Collaborative Problem Solving
(CPS) approach came from an awareness that behaviorally difficult children
and adolescents are frequently poorly understood; that standard approaches
to treatment often do not satisfactorily address their needs (and often
worsen their difficulties); and that, as a result, many such children have
very adversarial interactions with parents, teachers, siblings, and peers
and are at risk for poor long-term outcomes. This scenario causes immense
distress to all concerned. Standard approaches typically conceive
difficult behavior as willful and goal-oriented, suggest that inept
parenting practices are the primary factor giving rise to such behavior,
and rely heavily on use of reward and punishment programs to induce
greater compliance with adult directives.
The CPS model – which was first articulated in
the book, The Explosive Child – proposes that difficult behavior should be
understood and handled in the same manner as other recognized learning
disabilities. In other words, difficult children and adolescents lack some
crucial cognitive and emotional skills essential to handling frustration
and mastering situations requiring flexibility and adaptability. The
guiding philosophy of CPS – “Children do well if they can” -- epitomizes
this view. Naturally, if a child is lacking crucial cognitive skills, the
goal of intervention is to teach those skills. CPS helps difficult
children and their adult caretakers, classmates, and siblings, learn to
work toward mutually satisfactory solutions to problems, thereby enhancing
flexibility and frustration tolerance in both interaction partners.
I know, I know, that sounds very technical! But
this is a great site for those who enjoy research studies. Thankfully, the
book is written in a style that brings you into the child’s and therapist
world. Maybe it is the use of the stories of these families that allows us
to look from a distance at the problems. You find yourself saying things
like “yes, I know that look, uh huh, that is one stubborn child!” Then Dr.
Green brings you to the side of the child and you later wonder why you
never thought of it that way. Or maybe you will be like me. My gut feeling
told me many of the things written in the book but I had put them on the
shelf because they were so different than what the “experts” were telling
me at the time. Later, when the experts had proved mostly useless, I took
them down and started listening to my heart more often. That is usually
when we were the most successful in coping with behavior. Here was a
person telling me some of the things my instincts whispered to me long ago
were right on target.
The one thing that grabbed me early on was their
philosophy that all children desire to please and it made no sense to
assume children deliberately set out to aggravate people. There had to be
a reason why children did not learn from past mistakes and continued to
have mind sets over the same issues. I thought about that for awhile
before I continued to read. By the time I came back to the book, I was
eager to know what could help these children change their behavior.
I realized as I read this book that even today,
there would be counselors shaking their heads! And of course there in lies
one of the problems not addressed in this book. If you need a counselor to
help the family through the maze of changing behavior, where do you find
the ones not afraid to emotionally connect to the child and the
family—someone who believes in this out of the box thinking method? The
second major obstacle is making sure both parents are in complete
agreement. In the book, we always see both parents involved even if it
takes one longer than the other to come around to a new way of thinking.
In every day life, I think this is hard to achieve. Yet, sometimes the
real reason families seem always on the edge of success but never in the
midst of it, is simply only one parents is putting in the work. That may
work with some learning problems, but when working with these types of
children, total teamwork is essential.
Rather than outline the book and the methods used
here, I would rather urge you to read the book on your own. The case
studies/methods help you to see common problems/solutions and hopefully,
inspire you to think out of the box too.
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