A new Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated

Administrator: We have to set an example for all our 
students; even if suspension doesn’t help Rickey, 
at least it sets an example for our other students. 
We need to let them know that we take safety 
seriously at our school. 

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248 
The Explosive Child 
Question: What message do you give the other 
students at your school if you continue to apply 
interventions that aren’t helping Rickey behave 
more adaptively? 
Answer: That you’re actually not sure how to help 
Rickey behave more adaptively. 
Question: What’s the likelihood that the students who 
aren’t explosive would become explosive if you 
did not make an example of Rickey? 
Answer: As a general rule, slim to none. 
Question: What message do we give Rickey if we 
continue to apply strategies that aren’t working? 
Answer: We don’t understand you and we can’t 
help you. 
Question: Under what circumstances do we have 
the best chance of helping Rickey learn and 
practice better ways of dealing with his inflexibility 
and low frustration tolerance: in school or 
suspended from school? 
Answer: In school. 
Question: Why do many schools continue to use 
interventions that aren’t working for their explosive 
students? 
Answer: They aren’t sure what else to do. 
Question: What happens to students to whom these 
interventions are counterproductively applied for 
many years? 

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The Plan B Classroom 
249 
Answer: They become more alienated and fall 
further outside the social fabric of the school. 
Question: Isn’t this the parents’ job? 
Answer: Helping a child deal more adaptively with 
frustration is everyone’s job. Besides, the parents 
aren’t there when the child’s exploding at school.