Family Matters
215
Billy: Stay out of my damn business! That’s what’s
best for me!
What a shame, because there may actually be ways
in which Billy’s mother could
be helpful to him with
his homework or at least get some of the reassurance
she was looking for about his compliance with home-
work assignments. Not by starting
the discussion with
an overgeneralization, though. While other children are
sometimes able to get past their parents’ overgeneral-
izations to address the real issues, many explosive chil-
dren often react strongly to such statements and may
lack the skills to respond appropriately with corrective
information. Phrasing things tentatively should help
you overgeneralize less often (“Oscar, I wonder if we
can talk about this without screaming at each other” or
“Billy, you’ll let me know if there’s anything about your
homework I can help you with?” or “Myrna, I don’t
want to bug you about your homework; can we figure
out some way for me to know if it’s actually getting
done?”).
In
perfectionism, parents
fail to acknowledge the
progress their child has made and demonstrate a tendency
to cling to an old, unmodified vision of the child’s capa-
bilities. Perfectionism is often driven less by the child’s
lack of progress and more by the parents’ own anxiety.
Wherever it’s coming from, perfectionism is usually coun-
216
The Explosive Child
terproductive with a child who may actually have been
trying hard to stay on track or who may feel enormously
frustrated by his parents’ unrealistic expectations:
Father: Eric, your mother
and I are pretty pleased
about how much better you’re doing in school,
but you’re still not working as hard as you ought
to be.
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