38 The Explosive Childhas the potential to make rational thought much more
difficult. Of course, it’s when we’re anxious about
something—a monster under the bed, an upcoming test,
a new or unpredictable situation—that clear thinking is
most crucial. This combination of anxiety and irrational-
ity causes some children (the lucky ones) to cry. But a
substantial number of them (the unlucky ones) explode.
(The cryers are the lucky ones because we adults tend to
take things far less personally and respond far more em-
pathically to children who cry than we do to children
who explode, even though the two behaviors often em-
anate from the same source.) Also, it seems pretty clear
that many obsessive-compulsive children begin ritualiz-
ing because, in the absence of rational thought, the ritu-
als are the only things they can come up with to reduce
their anxiety.
Let’s use me as an example. I used to be flight-
anxious...that’s right, scared of flying. No, I wasn’t in-
tentionally being anxious (sweaty palms, racing heart,
catastrophic thoughts) so flight attendants would pay at-
tention to me. I was truly unnerved to find myself five
miles above the earth going five hundred miles per hour
in an aluminum apparatus filled with gasoline, with my
life in the hands of people (the pilots and air traffic con-
trollers) I’d never met. To control this anxiety, I used to
engage in a few important rituals to ensure the safe
progress of my flight: I had to sit in a window seat (so I