The Explosive Child Quotes

“Because it can get in the way of rational thought, anxiety can have the same effect as irritability.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“the skill of putting one’s emotions on the shelf so as to think through solutions to problems more objectively, rationally, and logically—a skill called separation of affect—is really important. Kids who are pretty good at this skill tend to respond to problems or frustrations with more thought than emotion, and that’s good.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Moreover, there are many kids who can’t think of any solutions at all. So, the problem remains unsolved. And the concerning behaviors being caused by that problem persist. Difficulty expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Some are so impulsive that, even if they could think of more than one solution, they’ve already done the first thing that popped into their heads. The bad news is that the first solution is often the worst one, the one that required the least amount of reflection and thought, which probably explains why some kids are notorious for putting their worst foot forward”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Your child is lacking skills, not motivation.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Other parents feel that lagging skills are too negative. Those lagging skills don’t diminish your child’s many positive attributes, but they do explain why your child has been responding to problems and frustrations so maladaptively. And, compared to many of the other things that have been said about your child, perhaps accurate is more apt.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“So, we have some important things to figure out about your child. What skills is he lacking? The answer to that question will help you understand why your child is responding so poorly to problems and frustrations. What expectations is he having difficulty meeting? That’s going to help you know when your child exhibits concerning behaviors. If you identify those unsolved problems proactively, they become highly predictable. And if they’re highly predictable, they can be solved proactively rather than in the heat of the moment.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“But whether a child’s concerning behavior is lucky or unlucky, it’s communicating the exact same thing: I’m stuck . . . there’s an expectation I’m having difficulty meeting.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Diagnoses can also be counterproductive in that they imply that the problem resides solely within the child and that it’s the child who needs to be fixed. And, since diagnoses are simply categories containing lists of concerning behaviors, they may not be telling you anything about your child that you didn’t already know.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“So, if you’re not focused on behaviors—rewarding the ones you like and punishing the ones you don’t like—how will your child’s behavior improve? By focusing instead on the expectations your child is having difficulty meeting. I’ll be referring to those unmet expectations as unsolved problems and, in this book, you’re going to learn how to solve them. Solving problems is a task ill-suited to time-outs, stickers, berating, lecturing, ignoring, taking away privileges, sending a child to his room, spanking, and a lot of other things caregivers do with the best of intentions. Once a problem is solved, it doesn’t cause concerning behavior anymore.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Kids who exhibit concerning behaviors are compromised in the global skills of flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, emotion regulation, and problem solving. These are skills most of us take for granted. And most kids are blessed with sufficient levels of those skills. Your child was not so fortunate.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“While it’s tempting to focus on your child’s behaviors, in this book we’ll be focusing instead on the expectations they are having difficulty meeting that are causing those behaviors. That crucial distinction is going to make a world of difference.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“kids do well if they can.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Just like the rest of us, they do poorly when life demands skills they’re lacking. What behaviors does your child exhibit when that happens? Some kids cry, or pout, or sulk, or withdraw. While that’s the “easy” end of the spectrum, those kids still need our help. Some hold their breath, scream, swear, kick, hit, have panic attacks, or destroy property. Some run away, bite, cut themselves, vomit, use weapons, or worse. This end of the spectrum is much more concerning”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“In schools, as in homes, there’s a tendency to work on the hot-button problem that precipitated a challenging episode on a particular day. But because unsolved problems wax and wane, the hot-button unsolved problem that was the focal point on one day is often replaced by a different hot-button unsolved problem the next.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“An adult’s mentality or philosophy about children is what guides and governs his or her response when a student is not doing well. Many schools have adopted a kids do well if they can mentality. Regrettably, many are still stuck in the kids do well if they want to rut.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“He’s making bad choices. This suggests that the kid already has the skills to be making good choices. Of course, if he had those skills, we wouldn’t be wondering why he’s making so many bad choices! He has a bad attitude. He probably didn’t start out with one. “Bad attitudes” tend to be the by-product of countless years of being misunderstood, over-corrected, over-directed, and over-punished 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

“He’s making bad choices. This suggests that the kid already has the skills to be making good choices. Of course, if he had those skills, we wouldn’t be wondering why he’s making so many bad choices! He has a bad attitude.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“He’s not motivated. If it’s true that kids do well if they can, then the kid is already motivated and needs something else from us besides rewards and punishments. Remember, if the kid could do well he would do well, so poor motivation is unlikely to be what is truly keeping him from doing well. Rewards and punishments don’t teach lagging thinking skills and don’t solve the problems that precipitate challenging episodes.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“He just wants attention. This common cliché is often invoked to explain why kids are behaviorally challenging . . . but, since we all want attention, it doesn’t help us understand what’s really getting in a child’s way, and it doesn’t answer the more critical questions: If the kid has the skills to seek attention adaptively, then why is he seeking attention in such a maladaptive fashion? Doesn’t the fact that he’s seeking attention maladaptively tell us he doesn’t have the skills to seek attention adaptively?”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“Moving from one environment (such as playing outside) to a completely different environment (such as doing homework inside) requires a shift from one mind-set (When I’m playing outside, it’s okay to run around and make noise and socialize) to another (When I’m doing homework, I need to sit at my desk and concentrate on my schoolwork). If a kid has difficulty with this skill, there’s a good chance he’ll still be thinking and”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“that your child is already very motivated to do well and that his challenging episodes reflect a developmental delay in the skills of flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem solving.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“What behaviors does your child exhibit when that happens? Some kids cry, or pout, or sulk, or withdraw. While that’s the “easy” end of the spectrum, those kids still need our help. Some hold their breath, scream, swear, kick, hit, have panic attacks, or destroy property. Some run away, bite, cut themselves, vomit, use weapons, or worse. This end of the spectrum is much more concerning and dangerous.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

“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

“Challenging kids are lacking the skills of flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, skills most of us take for granted. How can we tell that these kids are lacking those skills? One reason is that the research tells us it’s so. But the more important reason is this: 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. Try to think of the last time your child had an outburst and those skills were not required.

Complying with adult directives requires those skills. Interacting adaptively with other people—parents, siblings, teachers, peers, coaches, and teammates—does too. Handling disagreements requires those skills, so does completing a difficult homework assignment or dealing with a change in plan. Most kids are fortunate to have those skills. Your behaviorally challenging child was not so fortunate. Because he’s lacking those skills, his life—and yours—is going to be more difficult, at least until you get a handle on things. Understanding why your child is challenging is the first step.”
― Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child: A New Approach For Understanding And Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children