The explosive child

Useful for parents of non-explosive children as well. Useful for non-parents. I'd expect the advice in this book works for structuring effective collaborative solutions with adults and not just children. Use this in the workplace.

Thought experiments: If I could have read only one book on parenting, I'd have been best served to pick this one.

The thesis of the book is: Children do well if they can do well.

So if they're not doing well, not meeting your reasonable expectations as a parent, not thriving, it's because they can't. In their present context. With their present skills.

It's not because they don't want to do well. So adding incentives and rewards won't help. They're already incentivized to do well. Doing well is its own reward. Adding punishments won't help either. Doing poorly is its own punishment and they're probably already made miserable by the gap between expectations and reality.

It's because they can't do well. Probably because of lagging skills in flexibility, problem solving, adaptability. Like any other skill (reading, algebra), these skills come easier to some kids than others. Some kids pick up these skills seemingly effortlessly. Some pick them up with a lot of visible effort, through instruction, through your explaining and modeling. And some kids don't pick them up in those ways, and so the skills lag. That's why they're exploding. Because they have unsolved problems they cannot solve. Because they're unable to be flexible in the face of changes and differences from their expectations. Because they're not adapting to the demands of their environments and situations.

The solution is to prioritize and reduce your expectations ("plan C"). To free up capacity to focus on the most important and urgent problems, and then collaboratively address those most urgent and important problems ("plan B"), in a way that discovers unmet needs and unsolved problems, discovers and articulates both your and your child's needs, and arrives at an agreed upon, realistic, feasible shared solution.

As problems are solved, capacity increases and is freed, so some of those expectations that were deferred (plan C) can be pulled in and addressed via plan B as well.

Of course, where absolutely necessary, you can still try to apply "Plan A" (impose your parental will unilaterally). This is appropriate and effective in true emergencies and true matters of dire safety. Of course grab your kid and bodily haul him out of the way of the oncoming truck, don't pause to have a discussion to get him on board with that.

And then have a discussion about it, moving it into "Plan B", collaboratively observing the problem, the unmet needs, and collaboratively coming up with a feasible, realistic solution that will meet the needs to everyone's satisfaction.

A key insight is that this works and is important because it teaches the lagging skills that will serve your child well for their entire life. Empathizing with needs and coming up with shared, agreed upon solutions that meet everyone's needs will be useful, essential, to their future thriving. Adaptability and flexibility will be essential in an uncertain and ever changing world. These are skills your child needs long after you may no longer be available to help them directly. So the project of parenting is to instill these skills in childhood. And thus it is essential, unavoidable, and very desirable that you solve problems collaboratively with your child, involving them and allowing them as much agency as possible.

Includes example conversations that I found helpful.

This book is less about the psychology and behaviour of "explosive children" and it's really a handbook for using the "problem solving" method for resolving conflicts before or as they occur. It lays out why some kids have a hard time coping with situations that others breeze through (mostly lagging skills), shows how the traditional command and punishment/reward approach doesn't work and lays out how to use the problem solving strategy to try and eliminate the inciting issues and help develop some of the skills that are lagging. There are lots of Q&A sections and it's all illustrated with stories of families coping with behaviourally challenging kids.

I think the book is mostly targeted at the parents of school age kids, but the principles seem like they should adapt to pre-school kids and adults as well. It's a little dismissive of traditional diagnoses, suggesting that a general process for managing behaviour might be more useful that specific treatments and medications for developmental disorders. Despite this there's no obvious reason the books advice won't work along side more specific treatments as the goal is to collaborate with the child to develop solutions that work well for them and their parents.