86 The Explosive Child- Conventional explanations for your child’s
explosions—inept parenting, poor motivation, atten-
tion seeking, and the lack of appreciation for who’s
boss—may not be accurate, so conventional parenting
practices and motivational programs flowing from
these explanations may be mismatched to his needs.
Your child may require a different approach. - As you’ve probably already discovered, it’s unlikely
that the explosions you’ve been inducing and endur-
ing have taught your child anything productive or led
to any meaningful positive change in his behavior.
A FEW IMPORTANT THEMESBefore we get to the actual nuts and bolts of Collabora-
tive Problem Solving (often referred to henceforth sim-
ply as CPS), let’s take a few pages to discuss how to
create an atmosphere that is more “user-friendly” for
your explosive child, so as to set the stage for the hard
work that lies ahead. First, it’s going to be important to
make sure that all the adults who interact with your child
have a clear understanding of his difficulties. One child
with whom I was working had been melting down far
less frequently at home and school, and his parents and
teachers and I had started thinking we were on Easy