24 The Explosive Childthe absence of which can set the stage for a child to head
down the path to explosive behavior.
Fortunately, the list of possibilities isn’t terribly
lengthy: executive skills, language processing skills, emotion
regulation skills, cognitive flexibility skills, and social skills.
But there are a few things you should notice about this
list before we jump in. First, notice that all the categories
end with the same word: skills. Pathways can best be
thought of as skills that need to be trained. Second, reward
and punishment programs don’t train the child in any of
these skills. That’s right: You don’t train executive skills,
language skills, emotion regulation skills, cognitive flexi-
bility skills, or social skills with sticker charts or time-
outs. Third, there are no diagnoses on the list. You already
know why: Diagnoses aren’t very useful at helping you
identify the thinking skills your child is lacking. Finally,
“inept parenting” and “poor discipline” are not on the list.
Inept parenting and poor discipline aren’t the reasons
your child is lacking skills in the domains of flexibility
and frustration tolerance.
Identifying your child’s pathways accomplishes sev-
eral crucial missions. First, if you’re able to pinpoint lack-
ing thinking skills that are contributing to your child’s
difficulties, it’s unlikely that you (or anyone else, if you’re
persuasive) will continue explaining his behavior as
attention-seeking, manipulative, or unmotivated. Sec-
ond, identifying your child’s pathways will help make
explosions much more predictable. Finally, if you know