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What Your Explosive Child Is Trying To Tell You: Discovering the Pathway from Symptoms to Solutions
From the author of the groundbreaking The Defiant Child comes the first book to connect explosive behavior—when kids go from Jekyll to Hyde and back in the blink of an eye—with its underlying causes
Does your hitting, kicking, screaming child explode with so little provocation that you can't help but wonder if he’s possessed? Are his extreme tantrums becoming the stuff of playground legend? And are you about to lose your job because his daycare or school repeatedly asks you to pick him up early?
Dr. Douglas Riley’s ear-to-the-ground insights will give much-needed help to desperate parents who have one overriding Why does my child act like this? This compassionate yet no-nonsense therapist explains that explosive behavior is the mere tip of the iceberg. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all strategy, Dr. Riley identifies the eleven most common causes of explosions and accordingly tailors his treatment strategies to address the underlying cause of the behavior.
What Your Explosive Child Is Trying to Tell You is a lifeline for parents who are at their wits’ end.
DR. DOUGLAS RILEY is a clinical psychologist whose practice focuses on children and adolescents who are explosive, oppositional, depressed, or have difficulties with concentration and learning. He is the author of The Defiant A Parent’s Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder as well as The Depressed A Parent’s Guide for Rescuing Kids.
Does your hitting, kicking, screaming child explode with so little provocation that you can't help but wonder if he’s possessed? Are his extreme tantrums becoming the stuff of playground legend? And are you about to lose your job because his daycare or school repeatedly asks you to pick him up early?
Dr. Douglas Riley’s ear-to-the-ground insights will give much-needed help to desperate parents who have one overriding Why does my child act like this? This compassionate yet no-nonsense therapist explains that explosive behavior is the mere tip of the iceberg. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all strategy, Dr. Riley identifies the eleven most common causes of explosions and accordingly tailors his treatment strategies to address the underlying cause of the behavior.
What Your Explosive Child Is Trying to Tell You is a lifeline for parents who are at their wits’ end.
DR. DOUGLAS RILEY is a clinical psychologist whose practice focuses on children and adolescents who are explosive, oppositional, depressed, or have difficulties with concentration and learning. He is the author of The Defiant A Parent’s Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder as well as The Depressed A Parent’s Guide for Rescuing Kids.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 2, 2013
I liked how this book looks beyond how to handle explosive tantrums themselves, looking at what might be causing them, and how to address the different underlying causes. It covers a LOT of possibilities(transitions, food allergies, defiance (and how defiant and explosive are separate things, although sometimes they overlap in kids), ADHD, anxiety, depression, learning difficulties, sensory processing disorder, immaturity, and sleep problems), and the ways of dealing with each one is specific to the issues. There's a few common strategies he employs for multiple situations-praise and positive reinforcement, cognitive and talk therapy, exposure therapy, and addressing the trigger (avoid allergens, fix the sleep issues, getting extra help for the learning difficulties, of course, some cases will need professional help to truly address the underlying issue.) I liked his premise that kids who explode are not exploding on purpose, so what they need most is a parent who is NOT exploding (easier said than done, but I agree with him-once you start getting into a screaming match, nothing good will come of it), yelling and punishment don't address the root issue. There was a lot of examples of having the kid aspire to be a 'big kid', and using that as motivation for making the right choice to not be explosive. I've tried it a bit on Erin, and although I haven't fully implemented all his suggestions, it does make for an good talking point with her when we discuss her tantrums and how she could have handled the situations better, and it's an easy way to quickly remind her before she tantrums with a 'Are you going to handle this like a big kid or a little kid?'.
What I found interesting was that as much as I loved 'Raising Your Spirited Child' in how it helped me to understand my kids better and to accept them for their differing degrees of intensity, sensitivity, etc., that book advocated basically emphasizing how their personality traits can be used positively, and finding ways to manage the different temperaments where they are, setting the stage so that the kids can be successful, rather than changing them, whereas this book advocates deliberately having the kids face their issues, like desensitizing them to transitions by making them go through a lot of them, or facing their fears and anxieties, and teaching them how to get through them without an explosion(with lots of positive reinforcement). I know the books aren't exactly addressing the same thing, one is about temperament, and one is specifically about explosive behavior...but some of the temperaments in the Spirited Child book tend to be ones that are more likely to have explosions. I guess you kinda need a mixture of both. It makes sense to me to expose them to desensitize them to transition issues, because if you don't, they'll never learn to deal with that situation in a calm way if you just try to always avoid those situations. There's always going to be unexpected transitions in life(e.g. suddenly having to turn off the TV when in the middle of a show, or having to stop in on an errand that wasn't previously on the agenda), so better learn to deal with it, rather than having a meltdown every time.
So overall, it was a very thorough book, and it may or may not fix the explosive behavior, but it's got a lot of different paths to look into, in hopes of discovering what it is that the explosive child is really going through, so you can better address the root cause.
What I found interesting was that as much as I loved 'Raising Your Spirited Child' in how it helped me to understand my kids better and to accept them for their differing degrees of intensity, sensitivity, etc., that book advocated basically emphasizing how their personality traits can be used positively, and finding ways to manage the different temperaments where they are, setting the stage so that the kids can be successful, rather than changing them, whereas this book advocates deliberately having the kids face their issues, like desensitizing them to transitions by making them go through a lot of them, or facing their fears and anxieties, and teaching them how to get through them without an explosion(with lots of positive reinforcement). I know the books aren't exactly addressing the same thing, one is about temperament, and one is specifically about explosive behavior...but some of the temperaments in the Spirited Child book tend to be ones that are more likely to have explosions. I guess you kinda need a mixture of both. It makes sense to me to expose them to desensitize them to transition issues, because if you don't, they'll never learn to deal with that situation in a calm way if you just try to always avoid those situations. There's always going to be unexpected transitions in life(e.g. suddenly having to turn off the TV when in the middle of a show, or having to stop in on an errand that wasn't previously on the agenda), so better learn to deal with it, rather than having a meltdown every time.
So overall, it was a very thorough book, and it may or may not fix the explosive behavior, but it's got a lot of different paths to look into, in hopes of discovering what it is that the explosive child is really going through, so you can better address the root cause.
October 31, 2010
One of the best books for discipline of hard to manage children. my favorite part of this book is the discussion of road maps and how they pertain to a child's acting out behavior. I use this in my home and teach it in my graduate level education classes.
March 23, 2025
A rare find. A book that is very psychological and lays out clear causes for explosions and strategies for how to treat them. This book is a book that is worthy of mental health professional reading material.
June 26, 2020
Gear read if you have an explosive child
Helped me see my child in a different light. Does a great job of describing different reasons for an explosive child.
Helped me see my child in a different light. Does a great job of describing different reasons for an explosive child.
October 16, 2012
I loved this book!!! It was amazing to read because it so PERFECTLY described our six year old. She's always been temperamental, but lately it has been overwhelming. And she snaps between happy to RAGING in a blink of an eye. Anyway, I checked out several books, including: The Challenging Child, and The Everything Parent's Guide to the Defiant Child, and this one. The Challenging Child's chapter on the defiant child was useful, but really didn't exactly fit my daughter. And the Everything Parent's Guide mostly had info I had read online and was advice that seemed more commonsense to me, so a waste of my time reading it in a book. But this book, by Riley was great because it gave step by step ways to help your child. I read the book and then read aloud to my husband all the pertinent chapters to our child. We plan on implementing many of his techniques.
October 19, 2016
I started to read another book on explosive children, and I didn't like the approach of the author. It seemed really harsh. I liked this one a lot. It helped me see my child differently and I am hoping I can try the suggestions in this book and get them to work. I really get the road map and changes. That really seems to fit her, along with being tired. Thanks for this book!
February 15, 2012
I may never get around to finishing this book, but I have learned a lot! We have four kids, and the middle two are sooo...explosive! This has really opened my eyes to the WHY, and how I can help them better.
March 20, 2013
Very interesting book. It explains may different reasons why a child may be explosive, what to do and examples. Excellent read for parents and teachers of children that are defiant/argumentative and challenging.
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August 11, 2014Practical advice especially for Autism-spectrum and disturbed children--and adults. Also useful ideas that can be applied to geriatric patients. Caveate for strategy on p 140-143: screen for sexual abuse before applying this strategy successfully.
August 8, 2012
I read specific chapters of this book (as recommended by my lovely wife) and found them all to be very enlightening and useful when trying to manage our own little explosive child.
December 30, 2012
Very instructive. I will think twice before labeling the screaming kid in the grocery store as a "brat", ,now that I know there could be multiple reasons for his explosiveness.
April 30, 2013
Closer to 4 and 1/2 stars/
January 19, 2014
I started using the techniques in this book right away with my adopted explosive child and saw immediate results.
February 19, 2014
I found this book really helpful in giving useful strategies for parenting an explosive child.
July 12, 2015
Helpful in dealing with my 2 year old all though the book is geared to 3-10 year olds. I like the way he breaks down the chapters, offers examples and ways to address the situtation.
February 28, 2015
This was not very helpful because it dealt with the younger child.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews