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Summary: The Explosive Child
Review: This is a book every person who holds and influencing role in a child's life should read. The discussion of assisting children in developing coping skills will assist every parent, household, family member, etc. Greene does an excellent job of breaking down the most frustrating circumstances into smaller, more managable events, and provides ways of solving problems as they occur.
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Summary: New Way to Look at Anger Management
Review: I have listened to the tape and was fascinated by the approach taken. The key point is that some kids that are prone to explosive outbursts live in a state of chronic frustration that they cannot verbalize. Upon reflection, I strongly believe this is the case with my child. The emphasis is therefore on 'frustration management'. This involves a number of steps including prioritizing issues that I will be willing to cause a meltdown over, indentifying frustrating situations as they are happening to minimize them and finally help my child identify that he is frustrated in the hopes he can learn to better manage this frustration on his own. A great tape and I have bought the book and will read it as soon as I can.
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Summary: Some people just don't get it!
Review: Different folks get different things from this book. We got a new family. I'm amazed that some people think this book is about letting difficult kids do whatever they want. Such a view misses the point completely, although it's true: when you have an explosive child, there are some things you just have to let go (that you wouldn't let go with an ordinary child). But this book is mostly about helping adults teach explosive kids how to problem-solve more effectively and tolerate frustration more adaptively. It's hard work...but well worth the effort! My kid is proof!
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Summary: Of course Dr. Greene's book will help......
Review: If your only goal is to prevent your child from having meltdowns, Dr. Greene's philosophy of creating a "user friendly" environment is for you. This is an environment in which family members and teachers create a universe in which your child is the center and everyone plans and lives their lives with the singular goal of keeping your child happy. As I read this book, I became more and more disappointed. The world is not "user friendly," and simply preventing a child from exploding by indulging him with anything he wants is, unfortunately, not going to prepare him for the real world. How about some useful advice on how to help your child DEAL with frustrating situations and people? I guess I'll have to go to another book for that, after I stop at the dumpster.....
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Summary: my little demon has transformed into a jolly youngster
Review: Oh boy...my child was a frightmare, until Dr Greene saved my son and my marraige. He used to throw fits until the cows came home (this being literal, since we do live on a farm). He would scream at us, kick us, and swear at us for no apparent reason. Little did i realize that my child's explosiveness could actually be treated simply by giving him anything and everything he wants. I learned that ice cream and pizza both have nutrients, and that no matter how much i liked to pretend that there was, there is no set betime. Now my child eats what he wants when he wants, and goes to sleep when he wants. Granted he has gained 20 pounds and constantly challenges me and my wife to meet his every demand, but he is no longer explosive! The fits are gone, the yelling is gone, and the swearing is almost gone. Thank you Dr. Greene, you are a triumph!
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Summary: Is everything you know wrong?
Review: I thought I knew it all. I won't lie. I thought that belts and whips were the best way to take control of my chemically unstable youngster. Dr. Greene showed me that everything I knew was wrong. Timothy, my unruly son, had given my wife and I nothing but Hell since his conception (The Mrs. got a bladder infection that very night.) His behavior was, in a word ... EXPLOSIVE. Sometimes, and I kid you not, Timothy would scream so loudly I worried that his little head would come apart. Sometimes... I wished for his noggin' to pop, and I'm not proud of that. Thanks to Dr. Greene, I no longer wish death on my son. As hard as it was for my wife Olive and I to realize, there really is no set bedtime. We would have pretended there was a set bedtime.... forever. There is no set bedtime. Thank you Dr. Greene
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Summary: Finally some real help for parents
Review: The problem of "tyrannical" or inflexible, excitable children is well-understood in Europe and until now, the only good book I read on the subject was in German. It pretty much described the same things that Dr. Greene does in his book. The combination of inflexible (and often ritualistic behavior especially when eating, dressing or going to bed) are frequently combined with exploding tantrums. Dr. Greene does a tremendous service to parents who have such a child, so that they can get a handle on the problem. Punishment and labelling young children as "bad" does no good. Understanding and proper treatment will save a lifetime of woe. Thanks, Dr. Greene.
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Summary: The Explosive Child
Review: Wow! What an eye opener. My daughter is now 5-1/2 and I have been trying new approaches since she was 6 months old. This book helped reinforce the things I was doing right. One of the most important premises of the book is to change the way you view your child. What a powerful approach. I have shared the info with my teen children, and have gotten my husband to begin reading it as well so that all of us can deal with her more consistently. While I still feel the need for help when we are in meltdown situations, I will continue to use the book as a resource for ideas and approaches until they all become second nature.
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Summary: A wonderful resource for parents and counselors
Review: Addresses raising, guiding, and teaching children who are particularly easily frustrated. Full of helpful examples for understanding the child's experience, strategies for both children and parents to use, and useful explanations of how the child's behaviors relate to the various diagnoses they may also be given, such as ADHD, oppositional-defiant disorder, and so on. Greene's premise is that many of the most difficult parenting challenges involve the mutual attempts of parents and children to deal with a temperamental tendency of children to: 1. Be frustrated more easily by the same things as others (to shift between being ok and being overwhelmed very quickly) 2. To experience frustration more intensely and feel more overwhelmed by it than others 3. To become more cognitively debilitated than others during frustration 4. To rely more heavily on concrete, inflexible black and white thinking than others (not clear whether this is part of cause or effect - probably both) - and which is less responsive to presentation of consequences and either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation 5. To experience emotional overwhelmed and cognitive debilitation particularly often when exacerbated by other things that can serve as sources of persistent frustration such as moodiness, anxiety, hyperactivity, obsessiveness, or social impairment of some kind. Greene's faith is that learning to routinely interpret behaviors of stubborn or difficult children in this light, rather than acts of willful defiance can help provide more resourceful and humane responses to the behavior. In particular, his strategies lean toward temporarily creating an environment where practical where the child's deficits in adaptiveness are less of a handicap, and toward focusing the most on the things parent and child have most control over, helping them to break the escalating cycles of inflexibility and blaming and instead move toward something constructive on both sides. Also, the strategy is to reduce the child's dependence on the tailored environment, but only after gaining some sense of control and receptivity to changes. Discusses both the use and limits of rewards and punishments and how to make them more effective, the role of medication, thoughts on education (treating temperament effectively as a kind of learning challenge like dyslexia and adapting schoolwork to it), and the role of the increasing sense of alienation that appears common to these particularly easily frustrated children (as when alienation and deviation become part of developing adult identity). This book is particularly well-written, with good summaries of each of the richest chapters, realistic examples, and a nice balance heavy on practical help and understanding, and light (but not non-existent) on theory and background. Even those who don't agree with the author's premise about the difficult frustrated temperament will still find many useful ideas here.
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Summary: What we all need to know!
Review: I work for a company that tutors a lot of children. I found Ross W. Greene's book to be extremely useful. This is because like most things in life once we can understand what is going on around us we are then able to work with the situation and perhaps change it for the better! In the first part of the book, inflexibility and explosiveness in children is explored. Greene also discusses biological and chemical factors influencing such behavior. The rest of the book is devoted to what is called the "three basket" intervention method. This technique expores different ways to teach children how to negotiate and cope in frustrating situations. To become more flexible is a quality that we can all learn about and not just teach to our children. So many times we fall into patterns which may or may not be good for us. The beauty of recognizing this is that we can explain this lesson to our children. And hopefully, over time, they can learn that they'll be happier and less frustrated in school, at home, and out in the world if they are able to deal with the frustrations that they face everyday. I highly recommended this book!
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