The Explosive Child Audiobook By Dr. Ross W. Greene cover art

The Explosive Child

A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

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The Explosive Child

By: Dr. Ross W. Greene
Narrated by: Dr. Ross W. Greene
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About this listen

Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren't attentionseeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren't passive, permissive disciplinarians. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they require a different approach to parenting.

The Explosive Child is the highly acclaimed, lifechanging parenting guide in which Dr. Greene first delineated the Collaborative Problem Solving approach. Dr. Greene explains why kids exhibit challenging behaviors, why traditional behavior management strategies may not be effective for many kids, and how to use Plan B to solve problems collaboratively and teach your child the skills he or she is lacking.

As the model has evolved over the years, so has The Explosive Child, and it is available here in an abridged and updated fourth edition narrated by Dr. Greene.

Throughout this compassionate, insightful, and practical book, Dr. Greene provides a new conceptual framework for understanding their difficulties. He explains why traditional parenting and treatment often don't work with these children, and he describes what to do instead. Instead of relying on rewarding and punishing, Dr. Greene's Collaborative Problem Solving model promotes working with explosive children to solve the problems that precipitate explosive episodes, and teaching these kids the skills they lack.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2011 Dr. Ross Greene (P)2011 Dr. Ross Greene
Children's Health Conflict Resolution Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Inspiring School Psychology Emotional Child

Featured Article: The 10 Best Parenting Audiobooks


As many parents know all too well, there’s no official guide on how to raise your child. From all the ways you can show love and affection to the more difficult acts of helping them grow through discipline, each kid—and each family—is unique in what they need. A one-size-fits all approach doesn’t exist, which is why finding the advice and resources that best speak to you are so important. We’ve pooled together the top resources on parenting for all different styles and families, and parents looking for a wide breadth of advice.

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Skip the Full version Audio. Buy the book.

So I started off with the Full version audio book. Do yourself a favor and skip that version entirely and buy the book. The content is absolutely amazing and describes what my wife and I deal with in our oldest every day, but when it came to finishing the audio I just couldn't make it work. It was halting, broken up, lacked proper punctuation vocalization and made me have to stop frequently and relisten just to understand what was said. It literally sounded like the reader was a computer.

This version though abridged, is far superior in audio listening and relistening value, the author is a much better reader. The accompanying pdf is invaluable! The full book is worth the extra information but skip the audio version and just buy the book. The abridged version, which this is, covers most of the points and so allows you to skip the full audio version and then you can buy the full version book to keep on your bookshelf for a reference.

I recommend this audio version highly for those who need a quick listen to help them get going on the content right away, then buy the book to refer to for the higher detail points you need on the extra content on as a regular reference tool. Then play and replay this abridged version to solidify and train your mind to make the content present in your responses all the time.

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41 people found this helpful

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A solution...

A solution offered to parents by a professional who actually realizes that the typical parenting approach doesn't work, not because you're a bad or lazy parent, but because it simply doesn't work for your child. This book is concise, helps you understand your child better, and teaches you to stop doing what doesn't work, and replace it with it's an approach that will likely be more effective.

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11 people found this helpful

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Short and sweet but helpful!

I was hoping to get a revelation on children that I had never heard of or thought of before. In contrast, I heard rather common sense information that I had not realized was so important. My son has what I would say, an anger issue coupled with no patience. Practicing the simple techniques in this book actually helped! I'm glad I purchased this book and will continue to use these practices as my children age. :)

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Well worth listening to

I liked this book because it helped me understand my adopted daughter better even though I raised from birth her birth mother had used during the pregnancy which caused her to have several delays as she has been getting older.

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Phenomenal book for all stakeholders

Great! So practical and useful. I just wish it wasn't abridged. Fascinating insights into problems facing those teaching/ raising troubled kids.

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Extremely helpful with my teen

We have a 16 yo daughter. She had been very defiant, impulsive, anxious, depressed, and had some learning learning gaps. We had done years of different therapies, , pharmaceuticals, reward/punishment & rewards strategies. Nothing was helping long term.

We sent her to a wilderness therapy camp for 12 weeks. While it was helpful, the camp (really wanted us to set up more reward/consequences for strict boundaries as we planned the transition home. That was increasing the anxiety for her, and made it more likely that she couldn’t/wouldn’t be successful, which would mean an epic fail and huge waste of time and money for the time spent at camp.

Our new therapist at home, after reading daughters new diagnosis ( mild autism, severe impulsivity/disruptive disorder, moderate anxiety, with depression as secondary) recommended this book.

We laid the groundwork for expectations, and used the advise in this book to collaborate with daughter on more specifics, and opted not to try to tackle everything at once.

This has been very helpful in giving her more control and us having our needs met on both sides collaboratively.

While we haven’t finished our agreements, we are off to a good start, with less explosiveness or emotional outbursts.

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practical guide to collaborative problem solving

This is a great guide for parents who have kids who don't respond to typical behavior consequence strategies. I love that it has a practical steps and homework to try.

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Finally an alternative to behavior management!!

Dr. Greene offers an alternative solution that makes sense. I had been searching and praying for an alternative to behavior management..which only made things worse. Thank you Dr. Greene!!

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Great Book!

Very informative book. I can see myself applying some of the recommendations the author suggests.

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100%

our house 100% very Scarry but excellent source of help. ty very much very much needed.

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