152 The Explosive ChildI’m not that quick on my feet. I can’t always decide
what Plan to use on the spur of the moment.All the more reason for you to be solving problems
proactively rather than emergently. It’s only with Emer-
gency Plan B that you have to be real quick on your feet. If
you find yourself in an emergent situation and you can’t de-
cide what Plan to use, your default option is Plan B.
By the way, some children will tolerate the uncer-
tainty of a delayed Plan decision for a few minutes while
their parents sort through the three options. In other
words, it’s not always critical that a decision be made im-
mediately. If you think your child can handle a brief de-
lay, you can say something like, “I need to think about
whether I have any concerns about that. Can you give me
a minute?” Other parents feel the need to delay a Plan
decision because they’d prefer not to have such a dia-
logue in the car, supermarket, or shopping mall (places
where their capacity to deal with their child’s worst—if
it happens—may be compromised).
A mother came in for a session one night hoarse from all the
screaming she’d been doing at her daughter on the drive to
the therapist’s office.
“What were you screaming about?” the therapist
asked.