A new Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated

Child (in a car): Dad, this isn’t the way we usually 
go home. 
Father (driving): I thought we’d go a different way 
this time, just for a change of pace. 
Child: But this isn’t the right way! 
Father: I know this isn’t the way we usually go, but it 
may even be faster. 
Child: We can’t go this way! It’s not the same! I don’t 
know this way! 
Father: Look, it’s not that big a deal to go a different 
way every once in a while. 
Child: 
(Kaboom) 
If you’re guessing that Jennifer (star of the waffle 
episode in chapter 1) was a black-and-white thinker 
stuck in a gray world, you’d be right. Can the Jennifers of 
the world be helped to approach the world in a more 
flexible manner? You bet. But not if the adults around 
them are busy being inflexible themselves. 

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44 
The Explosive Child 
SOCIAL SKILLS 
There are few human activities that require more flexibil-
ity, complex thinking, and rapid processing than social in-
teractions. Researchers have delineated a set of specific 
thinking skills—known as social information processing 
skills—that come into play in practically all social interac-
tions. A brief review of these thinking skills will help you 
understand just how frustrating social interactions can be, 
especially for children who aren’t good at them, and how 
lagging social skills can set the stage for explosions. 
Let’s say a boy is standing in a hallway at school and 
a peer comes up and, with a big smile on his face, 
whacks the boy hard on the back and says, “Hi!” The 
boy who was whacked on the back now has a split sec-
ond to attend to and try to pick up on the important 
qualities of the social cues of this situation (“Who just 
whacked me on the back? Aside from the person’s 
smile, is there anything about his posture or facial ex-
pression or this context that tells me whether this was a 
friendly or unfriendly smile and whack?”). At the same 
time he must connect those cues with his previous ex-
periences (“When have other people, and this person in