218 The Explosive Childto him that you can control yourself during discussions,
stay on topic, recognize when discussions aren’t going
anywhere, get the discussion back on track, and deal
more adaptively with things that are frustrating to you
both. This is very hard to do, and it’s made even harder
by the fact that you probably have very powerful feelings
of your own that influence the way you react to your
child. But things can change; you may just need a little
help to make them change.
PARENTSNeedless to say, living with an explosive child is a lot eas-
ier when adults communicate well enough to implement
Plan B. At the least, the adults need to reach a consensus
on how they want to approach specific problems or un-
met expectations. If you’re unable to reach such a con-
sensus, your child will have to continue to handle two
completely different sets of expectations, and we already
know that boat won’t float.
While an explosive child can put pressure on adults’
relationships with each other, troubles between a couple
can make life with such a child much more difficult to
deal with. For partners who aren’t even very good at col-
laboratively solving problems with each other, working
things out with a child may be even more challenging.