“Children do well if they can,”
explained Ross Greene in his book, The Explosive Child. Children do not choose
to be explosive. Explosive outbursts occur when the cognitive demands being
placed upon the child (or person) outstrip that person’s capacity to respond
adaptively. Explosive children need to develop flexibility and frustration
tolerance. Mastery of these skills is crucial to a child’s overall development.
In order to adapt and interact in the world, children require the ability to
solve problems, work out disagreements, and control the emotions experienced
when frustrated.
Most parenting books work on the
belief that “children are capable of behaving appropriately; but they don’t
want to”. And the usual explanation is “their parents are poor disciplinarians”.
Popular strategies aimed at motivating compliant behaviour and “teaching the
child who’s boss” won’t lead to a productive outcome. In fact, behaviour
management programs actually increase the frequency and intensity of a child’s
explosions and cause interaction with the child to worsen. Why? Because reward
and punishment programs don’t teach the skills of flexibility and frustration
tolerance. They actually teach inflexibility! Being inflexible yourself (by
sticking to a behaviour management program) doesn’t help your child be more
flexible. And getting punished and not receiving an anticipated reward makes
kids more frustrated, not less.
Your child is already very
motivated to do well; he/she needs to develop new skills. Dr. Greene calls
these skills “pathways”. These are specific thinking skills, the absence of
which leads to explosive behaviour. These skills need to be trained; without
reward and punishment programs; no sticker charts and time-outs. The skills
required for flexibility and frustration tolerance are executive skills,
language processing, emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, and social
skills. A list and description of these skills is available in Table 1:
Pathways. Note that there are no diagnoses on the list and inept parenting and
poor discipline aren’t on the list either!
Table 1: Pathways
Thinking Skills
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Description
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Executive skills
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Shifting cognitive set- from one mind-set to another
Organization and planning – organizing a coherent plan to
deal with a problem or frustration
Separation of affect – separating your emotional response
to a problem from the thinking you need to do to solve the problem. And guess
what, these skills don’t actually develop until age 10! So expecting your child
to have a skill that he/she isn’t developmentally ready for is just asking
for more explosive outburst and sets the stage for low self-esteem and
low-confidence.
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Language processing skills
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Language skills are important in helping humans reflect,
self-regulate, set goal, and manage goals.
The three specific language skills:
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Emotion regulation skills
“Many
children’s irritability and anxiety can be traced back to chronic problems
that have perpetually gone unsolved.” Dr. Greene
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Children who are in an irritable, agitated, cranky, and
fatigued mood most of the time (for whatever reason) are compromised in the
capacity of flexibility and frustration tolerance.
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Cognitive flexibility skills
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Children think in black and white and only as they develop
do they learn that, in fact, most things in life are “gray”. Some children do
not develop this as readily as we might wish.
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Social skills
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Social interactions require flexibility, complex thinking,
and rapid processing. Social interactions are frustrating for children who
lag in these skills.
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How do we train our children to
develop the skills necessary for flexibility and frustration tolerance? The
first step is understanding that a child’s behaviour is not planned, intentional, goal-oriented,
and purposeful. We stop labeling
children as stubborn, willful, manipulative, attention-seeking,
controlling, out of control, and defiant.
We must also understand that the behaviour is not the problem; it is a symptom of the underlying problem. We
are not looking to solve the behaviour. We need to solve the problem. By
solving the problem, we will ultimately change a child’s behaviour. Dr. Greene
suggests that the problem is the triggers or events that precipitate explosive
outburst.
Most explosions are highly
predictable and Dr. Greene suggests that parents identify these triggers or
events that precipitate explosive outburst. Problems or unmet expectations can
be solved three ways; using Plan A (by imposing your will….and we know that
will just heighten the likelihood of an explosion), B (collaborative problem
solving), or C (dropping the expectation). Table 2 contains brief explanations
for Plan A and Plan C. Parents need to avoid Plan A, consider using Plan C to
reduce explosions and help stabilized your child and, finally, use proactive collaborative
problem solving (Plan B).
Table 2: Three plans for problem solving
Plan A
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Plan B
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Plan C
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Handling a problem or expectation through the imposition
of adult will. So if your child isn’t meeting a given expectation, you
respond by imposing your will; saying things like, “No,” “You must,” or “you
can’t”.
Plan A greatly heightens the likelihood of an explosion.
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Collaborative Problem Solving
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Plan C involves dropping an expectation completely and
helps prevent an explosion. Many kids can be stabilized and helped to be more
available by temporarily reducing expectations through the use of plan C.
Plan C is not the
equivalent of giving in. Giving in is what happens when you start off by
using Plan A and end up using Plan C because your child made your life
miserable. When you intentionally use Plan C, you are proactively deciding to
drop a given expectation.
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With Collaborative problem
solving, the parent (or adult) and child discuss and work out mutually satisfactory
solutions to the problems that have been causing the child to behave
maladaptive. Your role is to do the thinking for your child that he/she is incapable
of doing on his/her own; serve as your child’s tour guide through frustration.
In this way, you will help him/her learn the skills (that your child is lacking
from Table 1) to successfully navigate frustrations and demands for
flexibility.
Collaborative problem solving can
be used two ways; emergency Plan B and Proactive Plan B. Emergency plan B is
used when a child is becoming frustrated. But this is not the best way to
approach plan B as few of us do our clearest thinking when we are heated up.
The best way to do Plan B is proactively. Since most explosions are highly
predictable, identify triggers and solve the problem proactively; before it
comes up again.
Collaborative problem solving
requires three steps; Empathy (plus reassurance), define the problem, and the
invitation. In order to successfully accomplish Plan B, all three steps must be
completed in the order described. Table 3 summarizes each step and contains an
example on how it’s used on a common trigger.
Table 3: The three steps in Plan B
Empathy
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Define the problem
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Invitation
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Empathy keeps the child calm and ensures the child that
his concern is on the table. You empathize by repeating the child’s concern
back to him, sticking closely to his exact words (i.e. reflective listening).
Child: the
medicine is making me sick to my stomach
Adult
(empathy): the medicine is making you sick to your stomach.
Usually the child will not verbalize his concern; he will
simply state his solution, “I am not taking my medicine.” You need to find
out what the child’s concern is by asking, “what’s up?” Also, try not to make
assumptions about what the child wants. If he asks for Pizza, don’t assume
he’s hungry. And sometimes empathy isn’t enough to calm him down; offer
reassurance.
Child: I want
pizza
Adult
(initial empathy): You want pizza. What’s up?
Child: I’m
hungry
Adult
(refined empathy, plus reassurance): You’re hungry. I’m not saying
you can’t have pizza.
Try to use Proactive Plan B as much as possible:
Adult
(empathy, Proactive Plan B): I know that your medicine has
been making you sick to your stomach and that you are not too happy about that.
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Adult places his or her concern on the table. The problem
is the two concerns (the child’s and the adult’s) that have yet to be
reconciled. Note that adults are just as prone to placing solutions on the
table (instead of concerns).
Adult
(empathy, Proactive Plan B): I know that your medicine has
been making you sick to your stomach and that you are not too happy about
that.
Child: Yeah.
Adult
(define the problem): I’m not too happy about it either. The thing is,
I’m a little worried about what will happen if we just yank you off the meds
without talking to the doctor. Plus, the medicine seems to be helping you
control your temper a little better.
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The child and adult brainstorm potential solutions to the
problem. It is called the invitation because the adult is actually inviting
the child to solve the problem collaboratively.
Adult: “Let’s
think about how we can solve this problem” or “Let’s think about how we can
work that out.”
The invitation lets the child know that solving the
problem is something you’re doing with him, rather than to him. After he’s been invited, give him
first crack at generating a solution, “Do you have any ideas?”
The
solution must be mutually satisfactory, doable and realistic.
Note: If you already know how the problem is going to be
solved before the discussion takes place, then you are not using plan B –
You’re using plan A.
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If your child doesn’t have the
skills to participate in Plan B, you can guide him through the process. Table 4
addresses some of the skills your child may lack and how to address them.
Table 4: Three Skills Needed to participate in Plan B
Identifying and Articulating Concerns
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Considering a range of possible solutions
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Reflect on the likely outcomes of solutions and the
degree to which they are feasible and mutually satisfactory
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Some kids truly don’t know what their concern is; others
simply do not have the language skills to articulate their concerns. Try to
help your child identify his concern.
Adult: I’ve
noticed that the labels in your clothing bug you a lot.
Child: Yeah.
Parent: And
I’ve noticed that it’s not so easy for you to say that the labels are bugging
you.
Child: It’s
not?
Parent: Well,
when the labels are bothering you, sometimes you scream and say words that
aren’t very nice.
Child: Oh,
yeah.
Parent: So I
was thinking that maybe we could come up with a way for you to say that the
labels are bugging you without you saying words that aren’t nice. Can you
think of any ideas for what you could say?
Child: No
Parent: I have
an idea. Would you like to hear it?
Child: OK.
Parent: How
about “The label’s bothering me.”?
Child: Uhm…OK.
Parent: Do you
think you might be able to say that instead of the other things you usually
say?
Child: I
think so.
Parent: If you
forget, how about I remind you?
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Teach you kids that the solution to most problems fall
into three categories:
So when a child (or adult) gets stuck and cannot think of
a solution, ask “can we solve the problem by asking for help” or “can we meet
halfway?” or “can this problem be solved by doing things differently?”
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You can help the child with these skills by describing the
likely outcomes of the solutions that have been generated: “well, here’s what
I think would happen if we choose that solution, and here’s what I think
would happen if we choose the second option. Which of those outcomes do you
think would work the best?”
If the child is having difficulty thinking about whether
solutions address both concerns, adults can respond as follows: “I know that
solution would make you happy, but it wouldn’t make me very happy. Let’s try
to think of a solution that would make both of us happy.”
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Table 5 addresses other issues
that may compromise the collaborative problem solving technique.
Table 5: Other things to consider
Language Processing Skills
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Basic vocabulary of feeling words: Happy, Sad, frustrated (or angry, mad, upset if
he can’t say the word frustrated). Once a child becomes comfortable with and
begins using this rudimentary vocabulary, more sophisticated feeling words
can be added.
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Siblings
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Fair
does not mean equal!
So do not be concerned if the explosive child requires a
larger share of the parents’ resources. Help siblings understand why their
explosive sibling acts they way he does, why the behavior is so difficult to
change, how to interact with him in ways that reduce hostility and the
likelihood of aggression and explosion, and explain what you are actively
doing to try to improve things.
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