Teach Your Children Well 197dren handle demands for flexibility and frustration toler-
ance more adaptively.
The first step—Empathy/Reassurance—is crucial for
such children, since they often overreact when faced
with the realization that their rigid notions about how
events should unfold will not be fulfilled. In many in-
stances, these children are putting rigid solutions on the
table rather than concerns, so clarifying their concerns
can free up some wiggle room in the solution depart-
ment. But because the concerns of these children can
seem quite unreasonable—even bizarre—to the un-
trained listener, these children have grown accustomed
to having adults (and often peers as well) instanta-
neously blow their concerns off the table. Rule number
one: No matter how bizarre or illogical their concerns
may be to you, they’re not bizarre or illogical to the
child, so it’s extremely important to make sure that the
child’s concerns make it onto the table. This can be very
reassuring to a child who’s become convinced that his
concerns are never taken into account.
The second step of Plan B—Define the Problem—
helps the child do something he’s never been very good
at: taking another person’s concerns into account. Once
again, the child doesn’t have to own your concern to as-
sist in solving the problem, and he doesn’t have to care
about it; he merely needs to take it into account. Some-
times, helping a rigid, inflexible child simply hear some-