Explosive Child - has the book made a differenc

[penstemon]

I read this recently and so much of it made sense regarding 5yo DS. But I am struggling to put it into practise. Is it worth persevering? DH thinks DS should just be left to get on with things, my parents think we should be firmer with him, DD just wants him to be "nice" and for it to be "fair", I'd like to stop worrying!

Well, it was a life-saver for me in the short term because it helped me stop doing things that were unproductive and only made DS flare up. Recognising that DS was a proper "explosive inflexible" and using "baskets" to decide what was essential and worth a tantrum (like physical safety), what could be negotiated (not much to begin with) and what could be left alone (nearly everything to start off with!) was a big immediate help.

But it's not a cure-all and getting my DS to do his own problem solving didn't happen til much later, I had to do it for him for a long time. Have you identified what triggers your DS' temper? The videos on Ross Greene's Lives in the Balance are quite good backup for the book.

Have you had any professional assessments or advice - psychologist, parenting group, etc? Most of the kids in Explosive Child have serious underlying issues even if they don't all have an exact diagnosis. (My DS had an autism-spectrum condition.) And "Explosive Child" isn't the best approach for all children. It's generally best for children who don't respond to conventional attend/reward/ignore/punish even when they're done well. I used it in combination with more conventional parenting - Incredible Years was recommended by the children's hospital and I could use that very effectively for some things. For example rewards were a great way to teach DS little steps towards positive social behaviours which (in the long run) would help him blow up less.

But for generally keeping life calm and low stress so that DS could (slowly) begin to learn self control, the Explosive Child approach of avoiding triggers / slow gear changing / baskets and problem-solving is what worked.