74 The Explosive Childthe lessons we were trying to teach her would sink in
eventually. Sometimes she wouldn’t stay in the time-out,
and she’d try to kick us and bite us when we tried to hold
her there. When we’d confine her to her room, she’d be-
come destructive. We couldn’t figure out what we were
doing wrong.
“So we went from doctor to doctor looking for an-
swers. One doctor said Amy’s tantrums were just her
way of getting our attention and told us to ignore the
tantrums and give her lots of attention for good behav-
iors. But ignoring her didn’t help her calm down when
she was frustrated about something. I don’t care what the
experts say, you can’t just ignore your kid while she’s be-
ing destructive and violent.
“Another doctor—this was around when she was
eight years old—told us Amy had a lot of anger and rage.
Amy spent the next year in play therapy, with this thera-
pist trying to figure out what she was so angry about. He
sort of ignored us when we told him Amy wasn’t angry
all the time, only when things didn’t go exactly the way
she thought they would. He never did figure out why she
was so angry.
“The last person we went to was a child psychiatrist.
We weren’t all that enthusiastic about the idea, but she
thought medicine might help Amy hold it together bet-
ter. We figured we had nothing to lose. But when the first
medicine didn’t get the job done, she added another...