Partial profile · Book Profile — full narrative profile planned
(title unknown)
Children who chronically explode (or implode) are lacking skills—not motivation—and their behavior improves when caregivers stop imposing solutions and instead collaboratively and proactively solve the specific problems that trigger their outbursts.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
The Explosive Child overturns the conventional wisdom that difficult kids are manipulative, attention-seeking, or badly parented, and that firmer limits and consistent rewards and punishments will fix them. Drawing on fifty years of research and the evidence-based Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) model, clinical psychologist Ross Greene offers caregivers 'new lenses': kids do well if they can, so concerning behaviors signal lagging skills (flexibility, frustration tolerance, emotion regulation, problem solving) surfacing when a child struggles to meet a specific expectation. Instead of chasing behaviors with stickers and time-outs, parents and teachers learn to identify their child's lagging skills and predictable 'unsolved problems' using the ALSUP, then solve those problems together using Plan B—a three-step process of empathizing to gather information, defining adult concerns, and inviting the child to co-create realistic, mutually satisfactory solutions. Woven through with the intertwined stories of two families, the book shows how this shift transforms adversaries into partners, reduces meltdowns durably, builds skills, and restores relationships—at home and at school.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A worn-out, worried parent (or teacher/caregiver) of a child whose frequent, intense outbursts have taken over family life, who wants peace, a functioning household, and a real relationship with their child.
- The problem
- A child who explodes or implodes over seemingly small expectations, and strategies like rewards, punishments, and firmer limits that aren't working. Feeling exhausted, humiliated, guilty, scared, isolated, and hopeless—'walking on eggshells' in perpetual survival mode.
- The plan
- Put on new lenses: kids do well if they can—behavior signals lagging skills, not bad intentions.
- Use the ALSUP to identify your child's lagging skills and specific unsolved problems.
- Prioritize your top unsolved problems and set the rest aside for now (Plan C).
- Solve high-priority problems proactively with Plan B: Empathy, Define Adult Concerns, Invitation.
- Craft solutions that are realistic and mutually satisfactory, and revisit them as problem solving is incremental.
- The payoff
- Fewer and less intense outbursts as problems are durably solved. · Your child's flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving skills grow. · Renewed communication and a partnership rather than an adversarial relationship.