The Explosive Child Quotes

“How the problem is affecting the kid (health, safety, learning) How the problem is affecting others (health, safety, learning)”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“My concern is . . .” or “The thing is .”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Some adults, having now made some headway toward understanding their kids’ concerns, have difficulty resisting the temptation to revert to form by being dismissive or offering solutions, thereby ending the problem-solving process.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Strategy #6: Making a discrepant observation. This is where you’re making an observation that differs from information that the child has already provided in the Empathy step.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Strategy #5: Breaking the unsolved problem down into its component parts.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Strategy #3: Asking about the situational variability of the unsolved problem; in other words, why is the child meeting the expectation sometimes and not other times?”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Strategy #1: Reflective listening—simply saying back to the child whatever they just said to you—often followed by clarifying statements, like “How so?” or “I don’t quite understand” or “I’m confused” or “Can you say more about that?” or “What do you mean?” This is your default drilling strategy, and the one you’ll be using most often.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“the child’s initial response seldom provides a clear understanding of their concern or perspective, so you’re going to need to probe for more information. I call this probing process “drilling,” and there’s no doubt that drilling is the hardest part of all of Plan B.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“I’ve noticed that it’s been difficult for you to stick with the thirty-minute time limit on playing video games. What’s up?”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“I’ve noticed that . . .” and ends with the words “What’s up?”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Kids who are accustomed to having their concerns dismissed tend to be far less receptive to hearing the concerns of their caregivers. Over time, such kids also become far less receptive to talking to their parents.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“The goal of the Empathy step is to gather information from your child to understand what’s making it difficult for them to meet a certain expectation. If you don’t gather that information, the problem will remain unsolved. Just like the rest of us, kids have legitimate concerns: hunger, fatigue, fear, the desire to buy or do certain things, the tendency to avoid things that are scary or that make them uncomfortable or at which they don’t feel competent.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Plan B consists of three steps, each containing ingredients that are crucial to the collaborative resolution of problems: the Empathy step, the Define Adult Concerns step, and the Invitation step.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“The problem is not that caregivers sometimes use Plan A. The problem is that caregivers use Plan A a lot and stick with it even when it’s not working.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“With Plan A, you’re trying to solve the problem through the use of power. Power causes conflict. If you teach power, you’ll get power back. In other words, being unilateral is a good way to get your kid to respond in kind.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Solutions arrived at through Plan A are not only unilateral, but they’re also uninformed. With Plan A, you’re not trying to find out what’s making it hard for your child to meet a particular expectation, and you’re not trying to address those factors. Uninformed solutions are shots in the dark. Better to take aim.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Now, these adult responses to unsolved problems might sound fairly ordinary. That doesn’t mean Plan A is the ideal way to solve problems with your child. While you may feel that you are exercising parental authority by using Plan A, you are also inducing frustration. And your child doesn’t handle frustration very well. Frustration sets in motion your child’s concerning behaviors. And that’s not ideal at all. The paradox is that the kids least capable of handling Plan A are the ones most likely to get it, and lots of it. And if a kid is getting lots of Plan A, then Plan A isn’t working.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“There are basically three options for handling unsolved problems. I call those options Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. Plan A refers to solving a problem unilaterally. This is where adults decide upon and impose a solution. Plan B involves solving a problem collaboratively. And Plan C involves setting aside an unsolved problem,”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“QUESTION: What about natural consequences? ANSWER: Natural consequences aren’t all that different from adult-imposed consequences. Both adult-imposed consequences (e.g., stickers, time-outs, losing privileges) and natural consequences (e.g., if you don’t share your toys with your friend, he won’t want to play with you; if you touch the hot stove, you’ll get burned) are very powerful and very persuasive. Both types of consequences teach kids how you want them to behave and motivate them to behave adaptively. But if a kid is lacking skills rather than motivation, and if the kid already knows how you want him to behave, then neither type of consequence is going to get you very far. Again, the vast majority of kids with concerning behaviors I’ve worked with over the years had already endured more adult-imposed and natural consequences than most of us will experience in our lifetimes. If all those consequences were going to work, they would have worked a long time ago.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“The vast majority of kids I’ve worked with over the years had already endured more than their fair share of consequences. If all those consequences were going to work, they would have worked a long time ago.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“behaviors simply indicate that your child is having difficulty meeting certain expectations”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“renowned psychologist, Thomas Szasz, the term problems in living is far preferable to the term mental illness, for it points us in the direction of what really needs to be done to help kids with concerning behaviors: solve the problems that are causing those behaviors.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“She’s Making Bad Choices She’s choosing to exhibit concerning behaviors instead of adaptive behaviors? Why would she do that? Her life would be a lot better if she had the skills to make good choices.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Competent manipulation requires various skills—forethought, planning, impulse control, organization—that, as you’ve read, are typically found lacking in kids with concerning behaviors.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“if her concerning behavior is instead communicating that she’s having difficulty meeting a particular expectation, then simply ignoring the behavior will cause us to miss the boat on what’s really getting in the way.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“we all just want attention, so that doesn’t really distinguish your child from anyone else. If your child had the skills to seek attention adaptively, she would.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“INFLEXIBILITY + INFLEXIBILITY = MELTDOWN”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“In a perfect world, the child would respond with something like “See, guys, I have a little problem. Actually, it’s a pretty 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 and things not going the way I thought they would with great ease. 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 it 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

“Unfortunately, for some children, “gray” thinking doesn’t develop readily. These are the kids who sometimes end up with diagnoses on the autism spectrum, but regardless of diagnosis they’re best thought of as black-and-white thinkers living in a gray world. They often have significant difficulty approaching the world in a flexible, adaptable way and become extremely frustrated when events don’t proceed in the manner they had originally conceived. More specifically, these children often have a strong preference for predictability and routines, and struggle when events are unpredictable, uncertain, and ambiguous. These are the kids who run into trouble when they need to adjust or reconfigure their expectations, the ones who tend to overfocus on facts and details and who often have trouble recognizing the obvious or “seeing the big picture.” For example, a child may insist on”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Difficulty seeing the “grays”; concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking Difficulty deviating from rules or routine Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, or novelty Difficulty shifting from original idea or solution Difficulty adapting to changes in plan or new rules Difficulty taking into account situational factors that would suggest the need to adjust a plan”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children