The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically I

The Plan B Classroom 249

Answer: They become more alienated and fall

further outside the social fabric of the school.

Question: Isn’t this the parents’ job?

Answer: Helping a child deal more adaptively with

frustration is everyone’s job. Besides, the parents

aren’t there when the child’s exploding at school.

Question: Isn’t this the job of special education?

Answer: No, special education really has very little to

offer many explosive students.

Time for Plan B. But let’s make sure the wagon is packed
before we start heading into the wilderness. We’re going
to need a few things:

• A Philosophy: Most schools don’t have a philosophy
  about children. What they have instead is a curricu-
  lum and a school discipline code, neither of which is
  of much use when trying to figure out why a student
  is exploding and how to teach him the skills he needs
  to stop exploding. Your philosophy about children is
  what guides and governs your response when a stu-
  dent is not doing well. What’s your new philosophy?
  You might want to consider children do well if they
  can. That way you won’t waste a lot of time trying to
  “teach him a lesson” or find ways to give a student the
  incentive to do well. Good teachers know that al-