34 The Explosive Childwhose language skills are lagging may have difficulty effi-
ciently accessing past solutions that are stored in lan-
guage. Take George, for example:
Therapist: George, I understand you got pretty
frustrated at soccer the other day.
George: Yep.
Therapist: What happened?
George: The coach took me out of the game, and I
didn’t want to come out.
Therapist: I understand you told him you were very
mad.
George: Yep.
Therapist: I think it’s probably good that you told him.
What did you do next?
George: He wouldn’t put me back in, so I kicked him.
Therapist: You kicked the coach?
George: Yep.
Therapist: What happened next?
George: He kicked me off the team.
Therapist: I’m sorry to hear that.
George: I didn’t even kick him that hard.
Therapist: I guess it wasn’t important how hard you
kicked him. I’m just wondering if you can think of
something else you could have done when you
were mad besides kick the coach.
George: Well, I didn’t think of anything else then.