A new Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated

Child: The medicine is making me sick to my 
stomach. 
Adult (Empathy): The medicine is making you sick to 
your stomach. 
Child: I’m worried that the movie will be too scary. 
Adult (Empathy): You’re worried that the movie will 
be too scary. 
Child: I’m too tired to do my homework. 
Adult (Empathy): You’re too tired to do your 
homework. 
Sounds pretty straightforward, yes? Actually, it turns 
out that, for a lot of adults, empathizing isn’t nearly as 
easy as it seems. And empathy is made more difficult by 
the fact that children are seldom highly specific about 
their concerns. In fact, children (like adults) are more 

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100 
The Explosive Child 
likely to put a solution on the table than a concern. 
Your job? Make sure it’s the child’s concern that ulti-
mately makes it onto the table. If you don’t know what 
the child’s concern is, you’ll need to find out, generally 
by asking, “What’s up?” If he doesn’t know what his 
concern is, you’ll have to take educated guesses (as dis-
cussed in detail in Chapter 8). Let’s practice again. 
Child: I’m not taking my meds. (This isn’t a concern; 
it’s a solution to a concern.) 
Adult (Initial Empathy): You’re not taking your meds. 
What’s up? 
Child: It’s making me sick to my stomach. (Ah, now 
we have a concern to put on the table, and a 
good one at that.) 
Adult (Refined Empathy): It’s making you sick to your 
stomach. 
Child: I’m not going with you to the movies. (Again, 
a solution, not a concern.) 
Adult (Initial Empathy): You’re not going with us to 
the movies. What’s up? 
Child: It might be too scary for me. (We wouldn’t 
want to blow that concern off the table.)