The Explosive Child Quotes

“We all want our own way; some of us have the skills to get our own way adaptively, and some of us don’t.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Behaviorally challenging kids are challenging because they’re lacking the skills to not be challenging.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“If the only time a child looks as if he has bipolar disorder is when he’s frustrated, that’s not bipolar disorder; that’s a learning disability in the domains of flexibility and frustration tolerance.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“An explosive outburst—like other forms of maladaptive behavior—occurs when the cognitive demands being placed upon a person outstrip that person’s capacity to respond adaptively.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Diagnoses —such as ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, an autism spectrum disorder, reactive attachment disorder, the newly coined disruptive mood regulation disorder, or any other disorder—can be helpful in some ways. They “validate” that there’s something different about your kid, for example. But they can also be counterproductive in that they can cause caregivers to focus more on a child’s challenging behaviors rather than on the lagging skills and unsolved problems giving rise to those behaviors. Also, diagnoses suggest that the problem resides within the child and that it’s the child who needs to be fixed. The reality is that it takes two to tango. Let there be no doubt, there’s something different about your child. But you are part of the mix as well. How you understand and respond to the hand you’ve been dealt is essential to helping your child.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Challenging kids are lacking the skills of flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, skills most of us take for granted.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Solving problems together? Yes, indeed. You and your child are going to be allies, not adversaries. Partners, not enemies.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Your energy can be devoted far more productively to collaborating with your child on solutions to the problems that are causing challenging episodes than in sticking with strategies that may actually have made things worse and haven’t led to durable improvement.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“It’s crucial to go beyond merely concluding that a student’s challenging behavior gets him something he wants (for example, attention), allows him to escape and avoid tasks and situations that are difficult, uncomfortable, tedious, or scary, and is therefore “working.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“It’s time to stop blaming parents for challenging behavior that occurs at school. While it is true that some behaviorally challenging kids go home to family situations that are not ideal, it is also true that many well-behaved students come from family situations that are not ideal. Blaming parents is a counterproductive dead end, and it makes it much harder for school staff to focus on the things they can actually do something about: unsolved problems and lagging skills. Parents of behaviorally challenging kids get much more blame than they deserve for their kids’ difficulties, just as parents of well-behaved kids get much more credit than they deserve for their kids’ positive attributes.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach For Understanding And Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“He’s manipulating us. This is another popular but misguided way of portraying behaviorally challenging kids. Competent manipulation requires various skills—forethought, planning, impulse control, organization—that behaviorally challenging kids often lack.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“The reason reward and punishment strategies haven’t helped is because they won’t teach your child the skills he’s lacking or solve the problems that are contributing to challenging episodes.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Challenging behavior occurs when the demands being placed upon a child outstrip the skills he has to respond adaptively to those demands.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“because your child isn’t challenging every second of every waking hour. He’s challenging sometimes, particularly in situations where flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving are required.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“When your child has the skills to respond adaptively to demands and expectations, he does. If your child had the skills to handle disagreements and changes in plan and adults setting limits and demands being placed on him without falling apart, he’d be handling these challenges adaptively. Because he doesn’t have those skills, he isn’t. But let there be no doubt: he’d prefer to be handling those challenges adaptively because doing well is preferable. And because—and this is, without question, the most important theme of this entire book— kids do well if they can. ”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach For Understanding And Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“He knows just what buttons to push.
We should reword this one so it’s more accurate: when he’s having difficulty being flexible, dealing adaptively with frustration, and solving problems, he does things that are very maladaptive and that adults experience as being extremely unpleasant.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach For Understanding And Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Our overview of lagging skills is now complete. Of course, that was just a sampling. Here’s a more complete, though hardly exhaustive, list, including those we just reviewed: > Difficulty handling transitions, shifting from one mind-set or task to another > Difficulty doing things in a logical sequence or prescribed order > Difficulty persisting on challenging or tedious tasks > Poor sense of time > Difficulty maintaining focus > Difficulty considering the likely outcomes or consequences of actions (impulsive) > Difficulty considering a range of solutions to a problem > Difficulty expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words > Difficulty understanding what is being said > Difficulty managing emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally > Chronic irritability and/or anxiety significantly impede capacity for problem-solving or heighten frustration > Difficulty seeing the “grays”/concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking > Difficulty deviating from rules, routine > Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, novelty > Difficulty shifting from original idea, plan, or solution > Difficulty taking into account situational factors that would suggest the need to adjust a plan of action > Inflexible, inaccurate interpretations/cognitive distortions or biases (e.g., “Everyone’s out to get me,” “Nobody likes me,” “You always blame me,” “It’s not fair,” “I’m stupid”) > Difficulty attending to or accurately interpreting social cues/poor perception of social nuances > Difficulty starting conversations, entering groups, connecting with people/lacking basic social skills > Difficulty seeking attention in appropriate ways > Difficulty appreciating how his/her behavior is affecting other people > Difficulty empathizing with others, appreciating another person’s perspective or point of view > Difficulty appreciating how s/he is coming across or being perceived by others > Sensory/motor difficulties”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“See, guys, I have a little problem. Actually, it’s turning into a big problem. I’m not very good at being flexible, handling frustration, and solving problems. And you—and lots of other people—expect me to handle changes in plans, being told what to do, and things not going the way I thought they would as well as other kids. When you expect these things, I start to get frustrated, and then I have trouble thinking clearly, and then I get even more frustrated. Then you guys get frustrated, and that just makes things worse. Then I start doing things I wish I didn’t do and saying things I wish I didn’t say. Then you sometimes do things you wish you didn’t do and say things you wish you didn’t say. Then you punish me, and it gets really messy. After the dust settles—you know, when I start thinking clearly again—I end up being really sorry for the things I did and said. I know this isn’t fun for you, but rest assured, I’m not having any fun either.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“If you respond to a child who’s having difficulty putting his emotions aside so as to think through solutions by imposing your will more intensively and “teaching him who’s the boss,” you probably won’t help him manage his emotions. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“QUESTION: Isn’t it the parents’ job to make their child behave at school? ANSWER: Helping a child deal more adaptively with frustration is everyone’s job. The parents aren’t there when the child has challenging episodes at school.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“There are three options for dealing with those unsolved problems: Plan A refers to solving a problem unilaterally, through the imposition of adult will. Plan B involves solving a problem collaboratively. Plan C involves setting aside an unsolved problem, at least for now. If you intend to follow the guidance provided in this book, the Plans—especially Plan B—are your future.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“A common belief about behaviorally challenging kids is that they have learned that their challenging behavior is an effective means of getting their way and coercing adults into giving in, and that their parents are passive, permissive, inconsistent disciplinarians. If this view hasn’t led to improvements in your child’s behavior, you may want to try on some different lenses: your child is lacking skills rather than motivation.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Now you know: these skills don’t come naturally to all children. We tend to think that all children are created equal in these capacities, and this assumption causes many adults to believe that behaviorally challenging children must not want to do well. Now you know better.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“thought than emotion, and that’s good. Children whose skills in this domain are lacking tend to respond to problems or frustrations with less thought and more emotion, and that’s not good at all. They may actually feel themselves “heating up” but often are unable to stem the emotional tide until later, when the emotions have subsided and rational thought has kicked back in. Then they’re often remorseful for what happened when they were upset. They may even have the knowledge to deal successfully with problems and can actually demonstrate such knowledge under calmer circumstances. But when they’re frustrated, their powerful emotions prevent them from accessing and using what they know.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“She Has a Bad Attitude She probably didn’t start out with one. “Bad attitudes” tend to be the by-product of countless years of being misunderstood, overcorrected, overdirected, and overpunished by adults who didn’t recognize that a kid lacked crucial thinking skills. But kids are resilient; they come around if we start doing the right thing.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“The words “I’ve decided that . . .” are usually a good indication that you’re in the midst of using Plan A:”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“And it’s a lot easier when your kid is your partner instead of your enemy.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“QUESTION: Are there some students who are so volatile and unstable that academics should be de-emphasized until things are calmer? ANSWER: Yes. Some kids simply aren’t “available” for academic learning until factors that are impeding their learning—and perhaps stability—have been addressed. Plunging forward with expectations a student clearly can’t meet is usually an exercise in futility and often results in detentions, suspensions, expulsions, paddling, restraints, and seclusions”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“QUESTION: I’m a teacher, and I’m a little worried about having different sets of expectations for different kids. If I let one kid get away with something, won’t my other students try to get away with it as well? ANSWER: Plan B isn’t about letting students get away with something. Teachers have different expectations for different students already. That’s what initiatives like differentiated instruction, personalized learning, and universal design are all about (not to mention special education laws).”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“great potential exists for productive collaboration between parents and teachers. When parents and teachers are able to exchange highly specific information about a child’s lagging skills and unsolved problems, they start trusting each other. Parents become convinced that they are being heard and that the teacher sees, knows, and cares about their child. Educators become convinced that the parents are eager for information, eager to collaborate, and eager to help in any way possible. Both parties need to be part of the process of working toward a mutually satisfactory action plan. You’re on the same team.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children