The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically I

102 The Explosive Child

Sometimes empathy alone isn’t completely sufficient
for keeping the child calm. He might need some reassur-
ance as well. Reassurance about what? Reassurance that
you’re not using Plan A. You see, it’s a pretty safe bet he’s
had a lot more Plan A in his life than Plan B, so he’s prob-
ably still betting on the Plan A horse. Which means that,
early in your attempts to use Plan A, he may still get
heated up because he’s not yet accustomed to your trying
to collaborate with him to solve problems. So he’s going to
need some reassurance on that count. But since he doesn’t
know what Plan A is, you can’t say, “I’m not using Plan A.”
Instead, you should say something like, “I’m not saying you
have to” or “I’m not saying no.” Of course, you’re not say-
ing “yes,” either. Empathy is neither “yes” nor “no.” It’s nei-
ther agreeing nor disagreeing. It simply keeps the child
(and you) calm and gets his concern on the table. So here’s
the whole empathy step, from start to finish:

Child: I want pizza.

Adult (Initial Empathy): You want pizza. What’s up?

Child: I’m hungry.

Adult (Refined Empathy, plus Reassurance): You’re

hungry. I’m not saying you can’t have pizza.

One last point, before we move on to the next step. All
of the dialogues above are actually examples of Emergency
Plan B. But since explosions are highly predictable, it’s
likely that the child’s concerns over taking his medicine