88 The Explosive ChildProblem Solving that will have you feeling like a pushover.
Third, if you haven’t already, you may have to come to
grips with the fact that your child is a little different.Yours
is not a “business as usual” child. So if you were hoping
for the standard, easygoing child, it’s not in the cards.
Luckily, the definition of good parenting (and good
teaching) is “being responsive to the hand you’ve been
dealt.” Chapter 3 provided you with a better sense of the
hand you’ve been dealt. The rest of this book is about
how to be more responsive to that hand.
Fourth—and this was mentioned in passing earlier
but is about to become very important—explosions are
actually highly predictable. Not all explosions are pre-
dictable, but most are. And if they’re predictable, you
can solve the problems that cause them proactively—in
advance. In each child and family, there are usually
somewhere between five and ten triggers that contribute
to explosions on a weekly basis. In Chapter 3 these were
referred to as problems that have yet to be solved. Once
these problems are durably solved, they won’t cause ex-
plosions anymore.
So here’s your first homework assignment: For the
next week, keep a record of the problems that caused your
child to become frustrated. This is your list of problems to
be solved; it may include things like waking up and get-
ting out of bed in the morning, getting ready for school,
sensory hypersensitivities, doing homework, getting ready