As you'll discover on the Resources page, there are lots of help available to figure out what skills your child is lacking, what problems are precipitating his worst moments, and how to decide what to start working on first. And later on this section there are even video examples of the approach in action.

You see, once you've identified the lagging skills and unsolved problems contributing to your child's difficulties, you're ready to start using the approach described in the book, Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach. This approach is how we help parents - a lot of parents - solve problems, teach skills, restore communication, and improve relationships. It is something you do with your child, not to him.

So how does the approach work? Well, instead of helping adults get better at imposing their will and giving kids the incentive to comply, our approach helps kids and parents learn how to solve problems - homework, bedtime, teeth brushing, coming in from outside, waking up in the morning, turning off the computer or TV and coming in for dinner, interactions with certain people - together. We help parents and kids figure out why these are problems in the first place. And then we help parents and kids work toward solutions that are mutually satisfactory. Along the way, kids - and sometimes adults, too - are learning how to be more flexible, better tolerate frustration, solve problems, and a whole bunch of other skills crucial for handling life's challenges. 

You can read the basics of the approach, but hopefully you'll be interested in learning more. You may not need a clinician to teach you the model. In many cases, you can do it on your own. On the Resources page, you'll find all kinds of resources to help you and your child begin to collaborate on solving the problems that have been causing conflict and acrimony for a long time - including actual video examples over common household problems on one of the next pages. You're on your way.