Book Study: The Explosive Child
May 13 - 27, 2026
Para/Teacher Book Study
How it works:
• Check out the book from the library or purchase it.
• Read the book as outlined and be prepared to participate in a conversation via Zoom
• Join ZOOM using the link provided https://paiu.zoom.us/j/91410791385
*You will receive 4 hours of credit per Zoom session, 12 in total if you attend at 3 dates.
Book Study Meeting Dates:
Wednesday, May 13, 3:30-4:30pm, chapters 1-4
Wednesday, May 20, 3:30-4:30pm, chapters 5-8
Wednesday, May 27, 3:30-4:30pm, chapters 9-12
The Explosive Child
Author: Dr. Ross Greene
Facilitated by: Betsy Cox
No Limit on number of participants
What’s an explosive child? A child who responds to routine problems with extreme frustration—crying, screaming, swearing, kicking, hitting, biting, spitting, destroying property, and worse. A child whose frequent, severe outbursts leave his or her parents feeling frustrated, scared, worried, and desperate for help. Most of these parents have tried everything-reasoning, explaining, punishing, sticker charts, therapy, medication—but to no avail. They can’t figure out why their child acts the way he or she does; they wonder why the strategies that work for other kids don’t work for theirs; and they don’t know what to do instead.
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 attention-seeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren’t passive, permissive pushovers. 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.
Throughout this compassionate, insightful, and practical book, Dr. Greene provides a new conceptual framework for understanding their difficulties, based on research in the neurosciences. 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.