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

168 The Explosive Child

on identifying pathways and triggers would be exactly the

same. Kids respond to being understood and to a collabora-

tive approach regardless of age.

My explosive child has siblings who are nonexplosive

and respond to Plan A. Am I supposed to have two

different types of discipline going on in my house-

hold at the same time?

Kids who respond to Plan A also tend to respond to Plan
B, so if you want to be consistent, do Plan B with your non-
explosive kids, too. But here’s another angle: There isn’t a
household in the world where all the children are treated
exactly the same. In all households, one child is getting
something another isn’t getting. Fair does not mean equal.
Your nonexplosive children want your explosive child to
stop exploding more than they want everyone to be treated
exactly the same. More on siblings, though, in chapter 9.

How come my child explodes at home but not at

school? Doesn’t that prove he can hold it together

when he feels like it?

Well, more likely it proves something we already knew:
that he explodes only under certain conditions. Schools
have a few advantages over homes. The schedule is more
predictable (that’s helpful for some explosive kids),
there’s less unstructured time (that’s helpful for some ex-