Plan B 87Street—until his physical education teacher, whom we
had neglected to enlighten, demanded that the child
wear a sweatshirt outside on a fifty-five-degree day. After
about three minutes of what might best be called recip-
rocal inflexibility, the child put his fist through a window.
The point here is that getting everyone on the same
wavelength is crucial. If that’s not possible, then getting
as many people as possible on the same wavelength is the
goal. Better to have some people being responsive to your
child’s needs than none.
Second, it may be necessar y to put some of your parent-
ing agenda on the back burner, at least temporarily.Your
child has proven beyond a doubt that he can’t handle all
the frustrations presently on his radar screen. If you clear
the screen of some unnecessary frustrations and (per-
haps unrealistic) goals, his global level of frustration
should decrease and he should be able to more success-
fully work with you to deal with the frustrations and
goals that remain. If your child is exploding less often,
the general level of tension and hostility in your family
should diminish as well. While many parents and teach-
ers can appreciate the wisdom of reducing the overall
demands for flexibility and frustration tolerance being
placed on a child, they often need help understanding
how to do it. They also want reassurance that the child
will not come to view them as pushovers. Here’s your re-
assurance: There is absolutely nothing about Collaborative