The Explosive Child [Sixth Edition]: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

I just had to write a review for this book so I can share with others how wonderful it is. I ordered a few 'parenting' books to help me with my child who has ODD. This stands out by a mile and I wish I hadn't bought the others.The author will take your hand and guide you through why your child is behaving in such difficult ways. He then guides you through the solution. It's changed the entire way I think of my child and his behaviour. He's 13 and I wish I had this book at least 5 years ago. It would have saved a lot of screaming, shouting and destruction. And more than that, it would have helped me to really understand my child. To be on his side, rather than against him. It would have helped me to brush off criticism about me being a bad parent and to shrug off people telling me to punish him harder (punishments don't work with children like this, and they make things worse as you'll probably know).This book is kind. It doesn't make you do anything that instinctively feels wrong as a loving parent. It's kind to the parents and it's kind to the children.I'm already putting into practice the steps he guides you through, and it's already helping.I'm so grateful to have found this book and I think just in the nick of time, as I was about to spend a lot of money on therapy which tbh my child was refusing to go to anyway!Buy this book and reclaim your relationship with your child. I can't put it clearer than that.

This is a great book for anyone who works with children but especially for parents, particularly those who have a child who does not meet the criteria for being 'normal' - whatever that is?I have three daughters, one of whom is dyslexic and was diagnoised with learning and cognitive difficulties when she was 7-years old, although now the professionals seem to think she is showing all the signs of a child with ADD. Either way, no great advice has ever come from the so called professionals on how to handle my daughters difficult and explosive behaviour. In some cases what advice has been given has more often than not exacerbated the problem for her and the whole family.This is the only piece of literature I have come across that has made any great sense to me both as a parent and as a human being. The writer has a great deal of compassion and respect for both children and parent by telling you there is no such thing as a difficult child or an attention seeking child. The techniques used within the book deals directly with the brain and its learning pathways and explains the scientific basis for the theories behind the methods. The solutions work on learning to understand the child and coaching them to grow the missing ‘cognitive’ pathways they lack rather than ‘managing’ the behaviour via reward or punishment – which never really works particularly on children like my daughter. It has helped us see that our expectations as parents are sometimes too high for her, and that re-focusing our priorities are helping her deal with life in a much healthier way. We think more in terms of compromise and understanding, exploring her decision making rather than sticking to a mind set of "it’s my way or the highway". In return we are starting to see a reduction in her ‘difficult’ behaviour such as the stubbornness and the screaming tantrums and their duration. Our daughter feels she has more control over her decisions even though sometimes those decisions are not always the correct ones. It has helped us to see that she's not a difficult child, nor are we failing as parents. She has a processing disorder, and instead of trying to bend her to our will and trying to get her to meet the expectations of others, we are teaching her the skills to reason through her frustrations and decision-making. It isn't easy, and it's very slow going and frustrating at times, but thanks to this book we no longer operate from a place of hopelessness. It is also helping us to better communicate with our teenage daughter who at times seems to have a bigger behavioural issue than my 10-year old!

Overall, this was a really helpful book to have read. It helped me to see that "normal" approaches were pretty much worthless at this point, and that I was going to have to plan things more. Also, that some of the things I was doing that seemed to "work", would be even better with some refinements. It gave really good examples (eventually!) on what to do.I did begin to worry at one point that, like some other books, it was describing my child really well, but wasn't going to get on to concrete actions. It did get there though! Maybe a really good test of these is that, while I've read the book, my wife hasn't yet, and her interactions are unchanged while mine have gotten much better.If I had one or two criticisms to make, I guess the first would be the in-book stories, the fictional accounts of the parents. One reason I don't like them is that they are very easy, and make progress really quickly...the book makes it clear that this is a journey and won't just fix relationships overnight, but the examples more or less yield immediate results. I get that they are a fictional narrative to aid in applying the techniques, but it still stuck out.The other thing about the stories...the men are completely useless, aggressive morons, who scream and hit their kids. And the women want to fix everything and are just caring by nature, while manipulating people around them in to trying new things, instead of explaining their value or presenting their need clearly. It's more than a little out of date with the gender roles.Ignore the stories, pay attention to the techniques, and do your best to prioritize problems and build up these skills with your kid...and it will be really good.One final note - the examples are aimed at kids around 12 to 16, though the techniques do seem to apply to all age groups. That wasn't super clear for me. My son just turned 5, so I feel like starting this so early will mean the 12+ ages will be...smoother. Maybe not smooth, just not as bad as they could have been!

Excellent book

It was fast and easy to read, and totally transformative. The author's clear identification of classic ODD behaviors, and careful contextualization / explanation / unpacking, is very different from anything else I've encounter on the topic, and oriented around immediate, actionable work to try to make things better ASAP. I've only just set it down so I have not started solving problems yet, but I feel more hopeful and better equipped than I have since before the pandemic, and maybe ever.

would buy again

Increible

Chiaro, semplice ed immediatamente azionabile, con un po' di pratica e dedizione.Vale con i bambini, ma anche con gli adulti, che non sono altro che bambini cresciuti.

Ok