46 The Explosive Childacross or appreciating how their behavior is affecting oth-
ers; and may lack the skills for handling the most basic of
social interactions (starting a conversation, entering a
group, sharing). Such children—who suffer from what
Daniel Goleman has referred to as emotional illiteracy—
are likely to find social interactions extremely frustrating.
This can, at the least, contribute to the child’s general
level of frustration; at worst, it may lead to a chronic pat-
tern of explosions.
Can these children be helped to develop more adap-
tive social skills? Yes, usually. It does take a while. But
only if adults recognize that trying hard to motivate a
child who’s already motivated to do well wouldn’t be the
best way to go about teaching the social skills that are
lacking.
Just in case you were wondering, children are often defi-
cient in skills that cut across multiple pathways. Perhaps
the most important thing the pathways can help us un-
derstand is that flexibility and frustration tolerance are
not skills that come naturally to all children. We tend to
think that all children are created equal in these capaci-
ties, and this tendency causes many adults to believe that
explosive children must not want to be compliant and
handle frustration in an adaptable way. As you now
know, in most cases this simply isn’t true.