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Joe:
I would like to welcome Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. who has come by to share what he has learned about explosive children. He is the Director of Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology at the Clinical Research Program in Pediatric Psychopharmacology at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he specializes in the treatment of inflexible-explosive children and adolescents and their families. He is also Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Greene, could you tell us a bit about what constitutes "inflexible-explosive" children and what disorders may also been in conjunction with these children?

Dr. Greene:
I have been working with explosive children for over 20 years and it has been found that inflexible explosive behavior may occur in tandem with numerous psychiatric/neurological disorders. These are children who exhibit explosive temper outbursts, defiance, mood instability, volatility, and verbal and physical aggression. In my book, I try to map out an approach to help these children. It is aimed at defusing family hostility, improving interactions between such children and their parents, and enhancing the children’s capacities for flexibility, frustration tolerance, communication and self-regulation. We may see associated conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette’s disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, social skills deficits, language processing impairments, nonverbal learning disabilities, and sensory integration dysfunction.

Joe:
Many of these children are labeled as being "attention-seeking, manipulative, coercive, spoiled," but your innovative approach takes a different perspective on traditional disciplinary methods. Could you elaborate?

Dr. Greene:
You are right that traditional labels are not productive. This thinking leads to traditional counterproductive interventions – rewarding, punishing, ignoring, etc. – which may not be as effective as hoped. I believe that the appropriate intervention consists of two basic avenues: clearing the smoke/setting the stage and training lacking skills.

Clearing the Smoke

Joe:
I dealing with these children, it is very easy for situations to easily spiral out of control like a forest fire. Do you have any specific ideas that a parent can use to help "clear the smoke."

Dr. Greene:
In order to clear the smoke, there are several strategies that one can employ:

• understand the unique difficulties of an inflexible-explosive child
• use different languages for describing his or her difficulties
• assess the specific situations in which inflexible-explosive behavior behavior is likely to occur
• judiciously prioritize the demands being placed on the child
• "read" the early warning signals of explosive episodes
• revise expectations
• restore communication and rebuild relationships

Developing "Thinking Skills"

Joe:
Once the smoke has been cleared, what strategies should be employed to help the child develop new skills.

Dr. Greene:
The key is to help the child develop "thinking skills" – for handling frustration more adaptively. Such help may target any number of skills deficits, including recognizing and communicating frustration, problem-solving and "thinking through" frustrating situations and recognizing the impact of one’s behavior on others. Adults must understand that to be maximally effective such training must go beyond the confines of the therapist’s or guidance counselor’s office. This must be an important part of everyday life in the family and the classroom. I included in the book, numerous real-life anecdotes so that "The Explosive Child" will be a reassuringly hopeful, yet realistic look at the treatment and long-term prognosis of inflexible-explosive children.

Joe:
Thank you Dr. Greene for stopping by and sharing some of your insights with us. I really enjoyed reading your book, which has many more ideas and strategies, than we can share in this short interview. I hope that children and their families get a chance to read this book and enhance their ability to heal the family wounds that this disorder can engender. I also wanted to thank you for graciously allowing us to reprint a small portion of your book on our website, which gives the "Common characteristics of Inflexible-Explosive Children." I think will be a great guide for parents to assess if their child falls in to this category and might benefit from the strategies in your book.

1. The child has difficulty managing and controlling the emotions associated with frustration and has difficulty "thinking through" ways of resolving frustrating situations in a rational, mutually satisfactory manner. Thus, frustration (caused by disagreements, changes in plan, demands for "shifting gears") often leads to a state of cognitive debilitation in which the child has difficulty remembering how to stay calm and problem-solve, has difficulty recalling the consequences of previous inflexible-explosive episodes, may not be responsive to reasoned attempts to restore coherence, and may deteriorate even further in response to limit setting and punishment.
2. An extremely low frustration threshold.
   The child becomes frustrated far more easily and by far more seemingly trivial events than other children of his or her age. Therefore, the child experiences the world as one filled with insurmountable frustration and has little faith in his ability to handle such frustration.
3. An extremely low tolerance for frustration.
   The child is not only more easily frustrated, but also experiences the emotions associated with frustration more intensely and tolerates them far less adaptively than do other children of the same age. In response to frustration, the child becomes extremely agitated, disorganized, and verbally or physically aggressive.
4. Remarkably limited capacity for flexibility and adaptability; the child often seems unable to shift gears in response to commands or a change in plans.
5. The tendency to think in a concrete, rigid, black-and-white manner. The child does not recognize the gray in many situations ("Mrs. Robinson is always mean! I hate her!" rather than "Mrs. Robinson is usually nice, but she was really in a bad mood today!"); may apply oversimplified, rigid, inflexible rules to complex situations; may impulsive revert to such rules even when they are obviously inappropriate ("We always go out for recess at 10:30. I don’t care if there’s an assembly today, I’m going out for recess!").
6. The persistence of inflexible and poor response to frustration despite a high level of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. The child continues to exhibit frequent, intense, and lengthy meltdowns even on the face of salient, potent consequences.
7. Explosive episodes may have an out-of-the-blue quality. The child may seem to be in a good mood, then fall apart unexpectedly in the face of frustrating circumstances, no matter how trivial.
8. The child may have one or several issues about which he or she is especially inflexible – for example, the way clothing looks or feels, the way food tastes or smells, the order or manner in which things must be done.
9. The child’s inflexibility and difficulty to frustration in an adaptive manner may be fueled by behaviors – moodiness/irritability, hyperactivity/impulsivity, anxiety, obsessiveness, social impairment – commonly associated with other disorders.
10. While other children are apt to become more irritable when tired or hungry, inflexible-explosive children may completely fall apart under such conditions.

"I have used Dr. Greene's book with amazing results"
from Carolynne
Thank you for featuring Dr. Ross Greene on your website. I don't think any book has impacted me as much since I came across Dreikurs 25 years ago. I am presently teaching a primary behaviour special education class in Toronto, Canada. Since Christmas, I have used Dr. Greene's book with amazing results!
I would certainly have raised my 'inflexible-explosive' son differently if I had Dr. Greene's book 25 years ago. Last week I attended a workshop on his book and was told he conducts a 5 day seminar in the summertime.

I want to thank him and shake his hand!
Review by: Bonnie
I would like to recommend a book that I have found to be extremely helpful in understanding and coping with my aggressive child. It is called, The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. If I ever meet the author, I would definately want to thank him and shake his hand! I have a 3 1/2-year-old son who has always been "more" intense. My son has always craved a considerable amount of stimulation since he was an infant, and has been evaluated and labeled as "gifted." This book has given me better insight into the frustrations my son is experiencing, and offered ways to cope with his behaviors. This is a great read!

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"Environmental Sensitivity in the Gifted"
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As parents of gifted children, we are all too familiar with the intense - even volatile -- reactions of our children. Most of us have never heard that extreme physical sensitivity is "normal" in gifted children. One typically finds in gifted individuals an extreme sensitivity-- to emotions, sounds, touch, taste, etc. Find out more about this and how to identify, understand and cope with these challenges in our children.

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hosted by Joe Spataro
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He speaks to us about a variant on ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) called the "The Good Kid Disorder." As an educator, he has taught everything from grade school to graduate school. His interest in working with emotionally troubled youngsters motivated him to earn a doctorate in psychology. Today, Dr. Sutton addresses the needs of young people as a consulting psychologist, an author, and an accomplished speaker. Find out more.

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AS is defined as a form of autism. It was "discovered" by Hans Asperger's back in 1944. It is stressful for kids with AS to interact with other kids and adults. Though they may desperately want to have friends they find that it's very hard to "read" and understand what others mean. It's as if they are "emotionally blind". Find out how to recognize AS in your child, what experts in the field have to say about this condition, and what you can do help make you life better.

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