The Explosive Child

A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

By: Dr. Ross W. Greene

Narrated by: Dr. Ross W. Greene

Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren't attentionseeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren't passive, permissive disciplinarians. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they require a different approach to parenting.

The Explosive Child is the highly acclaimed, lifechanging parenting guide in which Dr. Greene first delineated the Collaborative Problem Solving approach. Dr. Greene explains why kids exhibit challenging behaviors, why traditional behavior management strategies may not be effective for many kids, and how to use Plan B to solve problems collaboratively and teach your child the skills he or she is lacking.

As the model has evolved over the years, so has The Explosive Child, and it is available here in an abridged and updated fourth edition narrated by Dr. Greene.

Throughout this compassionate, insightful, and practical book, Dr. Greene provides a new conceptual framework for understanding their difficulties. He explains why traditional parenting and treatment often don't work with these children, and he describes what to do instead. Instead of relying on rewarding and punishing, Dr. Greene's Collaborative Problem Solving model promotes working with explosive children to solve the problems that precipitate explosive episodes, and teaching these kids the skills they lack.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2011 Dr. Ross Greene (P)2011 Dr. Ross Greene

This book saved my family

I couldn't stop crying. After countless counselors, therapists, evaluations and doctors finally I've got an answer. The author describes my son my struggles even my inner conflicts to a t. Just before I completely gave up you gave me the tools to save our family.

Almost an A+

This book really helped me see our explosive child in a new light and started to help from the beginning when I only had a rough idea of how this all worked. It comes with a PDF to help you work through the process, which is invaluable. It really outlines a great approach for helping explosive kids—and even those who aren't. If you want to have a kid who comes to you with their problems when they're a tween or teen, this seems like the way to go!

My only complaint is that it doesn't talk about what emergency plan B really looks like. It can take a long time to never for a kid to become explosion free. This book does not talk about how to weather the storm while you're in it. It is great for trying to work out how to prevent 1 kind of explosion at a time and give your kid some great skills. But, I need to know how to get through it in real time as well. Information on how to get through it real time while also parenting a sibling would also be helpful.

Felt like they understood my son!!

What made the experience of listening to The Explosive Child the most enjoyable?

For the first time, I felt like someone totally understood what it's like to parent my son. It was great to hear someone say, he's not a bad kid, he just needs help figuring out how to manage his emotions.

Powerful tool to put into action

As a classroom assistant working in special education at an alternative school, I look forward to collaborating with my supervisors and and other classroom assistants who have also read this book.

actionable solutions

Good info in the book, especially if you're just starting to learn. I will probably be gifting this book to teachers throughout my kids' lives.

I've heard some of this before in different ways, but the actionable solutions and word for word examples will help regardless of where you are on your parenting journey.