A new Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated

Mother: So I blew it, right? 
Therapist: No, you didn’t blow it . . . this is really hard. 
Your understandable knee-jerk instinct is to 
punish your kid when he swears at you, and I’m 
asking you to do something different because 
punishing him isn’t working. It’s hard to do. 
Mother: Yes, it is. How will he learn that swearing’s 
not OK? 
Therapist: First of all, I think he knows swearing’s not 
OK. He swears under only one condition: when 
he’s frustrated. If he thought swearing was OK, 
he’d be swearing at other times, too. But even if 
he did think swearing was OK, you’re still letting 
him know it’s not by giving him different words to 
use. I think it’s worth pointing out that Derrick did 
something very adaptive in the incident you 
described. 
Mother: He did? What? 
Therapist: Instead of going toe-to-toe with you in the 
kitchen, he detached himself from the situation. In 

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The Explosive Child 
other words, he left. He went into the other room. 
That’s something he would never have done 
before. But you followed him. 
Mother: I did, didn’t I. 
Therapist: So we have some more work to do. But 
we’re getting there. 
For children with linguistic impairments, language 
therapists can also be very helpful at facilitating many of 
the pragmatic skills discussed in this and the preceding 
chapter; specifically, helping children label their emo-
tions, identify and articulate their frustrations, and think 
through solutions. 
Executive Skills 
Let’s think back on some of the executive skills re-
viewed in chapter 3: organization and planning, shifting cog-
nitive set, and separation of affect. How does Plan B address 
difficulties a child might be having in these domains? 
Well, Plan B provides your child with an organized, struc-
tured, predictable framework for solving problems and 
helps him consider a range of possible solutions (besides 
the first thing that pops into his head) and anticipate the 
likely outcomes of alternative solutions. Proactive B can 
help you and your child solve the predictable problems 

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Teach Your Children Well 
195 
that arise with respect to the shifts or transitions that are 
required throughout the day in your household (for exam-
ple, from sleeping to waking, getting dressed to eating 
breakfast, eating breakfast to catching the bus, school to 
home, free time to homework, and TV time to dinner or 
bedtime). And of all the things Plan B does well, helping 
your child suspend his emotional response to a problem so 
that he can stay calm enough to think (separation of af-
fect) would be high on the list. Many children who have 
difficulties with executive skills are also hyperactive 
and/or inattentive, and, as described in Chapter 10, these 
children may also be helped by medication. 
Emotion Regulation Skills 
As you read in Chapter 3, kids who have difficulties 
regulating their emotions are often more irritable or anx-
ious than other kids. And, as you also read, irritability 
and anxiety can make it hard for any of us to think 
clearly under duress. There is a very strong tendency (es-
pecially in the United States) to use medication to re-
duce children’s irritability and anxiety, and for some 
children medication is truly indispensable. But one rea-
son such medications are overused is that a lot of pre-
scribers don’t know about the pathways and haven’t 
really gotten to the bottom of a child’s irritability or anx-

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196 
The Explosive Child 
iety. Can Plan B reduce a child’s anxiety and irritability? 
Absolutely—by helping parent and child solve the prob-
lems that are contributing to the irritability and anxiety 
in the first place. In other words, many children’s irri-
tability and anxiety can be traced back to chronic prob-
lems that have perpetually gone unsolved. Might the 
child be less anxious if we finally found a way to solve 
the problem of the monster under the bed? Might the 
child’s anxiety be reduced and mood be enhanced if the 
problem of being bullied at school was finally durably 
solved? If the problem of an unrecognized learning dis-
ability that has been adversely affecting his academic 
performance was finally durably solved? If his father’s 
alcoholism was finally acknowledged and addressed? 
Medicine doesn’t solve these problems, and neither do con-
sequences. Only solving problems solves problems. 
Cognitive Flexibility Skills. 
As you may recall, children whose difficulties stem 
from the cognitive flexibility pathway typically approach 
the world in a very black-and-white, literal, rigid manner. 
They have difficulties with grayer aspects of living, such 
as problem solving, social interactions, and unpredictable 
circumstances. In different ways, each of the three steps 
of Plan B can be extremely useful in helping these chil-

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Teach Your Children Well 
197 
dren handle demands for flexibility and frustration toler-
ance more adaptively. 
The first step—Empathy/Reassurance—is crucial for 
such children, since they often overreact when faced 
with the realization that their rigid notions about how 
events should unfold will not be fulfilled. In many in-
stances, these children are putting rigid solutions on the 
table rather than concerns, so clarifying their concerns 
can free up some wiggle room in the solution depart-
ment. But because the concerns of these children can 
seem quite unreasonable—even bizarre—to the un-
trained listener, these children have grown accustomed 
to having adults (and often peers as well) instanta-
neously blow their concerns off the table. Rule number 
one: No matter how bizarre or illogical their concerns 
may be to you, they’re not bizarre or illogical to the 
child, so it’s extremely important to make sure that the 
child’s concerns make it onto the table. This can be very 
reassuring to a child who’s become convinced that his 
concerns are never taken into account. 
The second step of Plan B—Define the Problem— 
helps the child do something he’s never been very good 
at: taking another person’s concerns into account. Once 
again, the child doesn’t have to own your concern to as-
sist in solving the problem, and he doesn’t have to care 
about it; he merely needs to take it into account. Some-
times, helping a rigid, inflexible child simply hear some-

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198 
The Explosive Child 
one else’s concern without instantaneously exploding is a 
major achievement. 
Finally, the third step of Plan B—the Invitation— 
helps the child do something else he’s never been very 
good at: adjusting to the idea that there might be some 
shades of gray somewhere between black and white and 
that there might be a variety of ways to solve a problem 
besides the way he originally configured. Early on, this 
often requires massive doses of reassurance (that the 
child’s concern will be taken into account). And such 
children often benefit from being reminded about how 
they have solved similar problems in the past. 
Social Skills 
In Chapter 3, the different social skills that contribute 
to a child’s capacity for flexibility and frustration toler-
ance were reviewed, including attending to appropriate 
social cues and nuances; accurately interpreting those 
cues; connecting cues with past experience; having a 
broad repertoire of responses; and recognizing how 
they’re coming across and appreciating how their behav-
ior is affecting others. These skills can take a very long 
time to learn. Just remember, teaching these skills always 
takes less time than not teaching them. 
We won’t cover all of the above skills, but let’s sample 

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Teach Your Children Well 
199 
a few, starting with accurately interpreting social cues. 
Some kids trip into some very automatic but inaccurate 
interpretations of their experiences and the intentions of 
others, including “It’s not fair!,” “You always blame me!,” 
“Nobody likes me,” and “I’m stupid.” These interpretations 
can cause spontaneous combustion if left unattended.