136 The Explosive Childworking in school. Anyway, he always seems to have enough
energy for karate...”
“But I suppose it makes some sense that if he’s been in
school for six hours, he might need a break before he
jumps right into homework,” said the counselor. “Sounds
like a valid concern to me, if that’s what his concern actu-
ally is.”
“I suppose so,” conceded the mother.
“So let’s think of what empathy might have sounded
like,” said the counselor. “What could you have said if you
wanted to start Plan B off with empathy? Let’s assume
you’re doing Proactive Plan B.”
“Uhm... you mean something like, ‘You’re tired when
you get home from school’?” the mother volunteered.
“That’s a start,” said the counselor. “Then you can follow
the empathy with your concern. See, then you’ve actually got
a problem to solve. Remember, you don’t have a problem to
solve until you’ve got two concerns on the table.”
“This is hard!” said the mother.
“It takes a little getting used to. But we don’t want you to
miss out on the good stuff empathy brings to the mix. It
keeps him calm and it gets his concern on the table.”
“So how would we have solved the problem?” asked the
mother.
“I don’t know how you would have ultimately solved the
problem. That’s between you guys, but I’m betting there are
lots of possibilities. Of course, we don’t uncover those possi-