Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Explosive Child and/or Nurtured Heart approach

hi everyone
i have a 2E MG DD7 and a HG+ DD5 who appears to be developing oppositional defiant disorder...Today I am seeing a therapist who likes to implement the "collaborative problem solving" from Ross Green (who wrote The Explosive Child)..

However after i made this appointment i found a copy of "The Nurtured Heart Approach" by Howard Glassman and (though sketchy on details) i found it to be a home run when it came to describing my DD5 and i've implemented some of the basic pieces of it to great succcess over the past few days.( Not sure if it'll work with DD7 who is non-oppositional.)

I am now confused whether i should be willing to switch to a method recommended by the therapist, or stick with Nurtured Heart. Does anyone know how they compare, and whether they are comaptible if i want to do pieces of each.

The great attraction to the Nurtured Heart is the understanding that my child can not "accept praise" and needs to learn to do that with "active noticing".. and the fact that she needs to be timed out "in place" due to the fact that i can't physically enforce a timeout for her.

Sorry to take the lazier approach -i should have got the "explosive child" by now but my library does not have it and want to hold off purchasing until i know what i'm doing! if anyone can nutshell it or compare the two methods, i'd be very grateful.

thanks

irene

I personally really like the explosive child method. The idea is that you teach your children to learn how to resolve problems by modelling that behavior yourself. With intelligent children, I think this particular approach works very well, but unfortunately I have no experience with the Nurtured Heart approach.

thanks artana
my conern with the explosive child approach is that it might not be good for kids who seem to thrive on "drama" and fear that if its a lot of talking about problems and issues with them, it might fuel them into being negative (does that make sense???).. my son, especially, seems to be the type of kid that you try not to engage too much when he's in a funk..but i could be way off on this because i am just imagining what the method is about.. off to my therapist appt.. will update!
irene

When I was dealing with intense meltdowns from my middle daughter (between the ages of 3-5.5), I came across the Explosive Child book that was highly recommended on two other different message boards I'm on.

Looking into it, I came across this caregiver handout designed to be a quick overview of the techniques to give daycare providers (or husbands who don't want to read the whole book etc) for the Explosive Child book that really gives a great overview of the book. I think it will help you decide whether or not it's worth it. I like it because it helps understand what's going on in the mind of the child, but I didn't implement the techniques.

Mostly it was by emotion coaching my daughter that helped with her multiple meltdowns a day and anger issues.

I created a Kid's Problem Solving Binder to help with picture social stories and other ideas to work on helping her to identify what she's feeling and help give her a voice rather than acting out her extreme frustrations.

I think, with the asynchronous behavior of gifted children, there's a lag in both cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation skills. The more highly gifted the child, the more emotionally intense the child tends to be (I don't have facts, just speaking from my own observations.

It can LOOK like ODD, but it is really not at all. It's simply not being able to identify and cope with INTENSE feelings of frustration. Sometimes the HG children also have sensory over-sensitivities too. The good part is that THEY NOTICE EVERYTHING, and the bad part is that THEY NOTICE EVERYTHING (either physical or emotional) stimuli. How many times has your daughter catches you or anyone else being hypocritical (even inadvertently)? Nothing slips past the HG child and you learn to NEVER, EVER even remotely make any statements you make sound like a promise because the inflexible HG child will make you live to regret it !

Living With Intensity is another good one to help understand the emotionally intense child.

It's not a problem that needs to be fixed as much as it's an experience of the world we need to help them manage. Emotion coaching and teaching the child to reduce their stresses (through something like ballet, or yoga) and PLENTY of exercise.

I'd also like to add, that if your daughter is anything like mine, she was an "emotional barometer" of me. If I was angry, or tense or snappish, or sad, or happy, so was she.

I can tell you, having my own sensitivities triggered by her high pitched meltdowns and angry outbursts, I found it incredibly hard to deal with her. And so did my husband. We all slipped down a downward spiral of anger and frustration. It was up to me and dh to work on our responses to dds meltdowns/tantrums while we helped her not have so many of them.

The Explosive Child book also helps to remind us that we parents need to intervene before the frustrations are high. It's easier to manage everyone's emotions when they are small.

Another good book for understanding the value of emotion coaching is Kids, Parents And Power Struggles by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.

I think, the more we can teach our children about emotions and what they CAN do when they are angry/frustrated when they aren't in the midst of frustration and stress, the better they are able to make good choices when they are feeling badly.

Most traditional behavioral extinction techniques (ie Time Out, Spanking, etc) address the issue too late. It's important to teach the kids who don't intuitively understand how to manage themselves.

You know the old adage - give a man a fish, feed him for a day...Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.

hey everyone
just got back from my appt. and the therapist was wonderful- i laughed and cried.. I feel a lot of hope. I still am not sure about Nurtured Heart vs. Explosive child, but just having a therapist who listened and GOT IT.. was amazing. He agrees that the tough part will be to find ways to parent that will work for both my children, who have hugely different needs.... So I picked up a copy of the Ross Green book today and am starting to dig in...

and kcab, i agree with oyou that there is just somethign different and purely "humane" the way Glassman presents his approach- i would love to find a therapist around my area that uses it, as i don't think i can do it without someone to go to for help.

but the Explosive Chlld does seem more researched and rich in detail, and probably more in line with what my DS7 needs.

but in any case, a very good morning, and thank you to all- i felt so great seeing all teh responses as soon as i got back home today huge thanks.

Hi Irene -
I found the nurtured heart approach books this July and I am thrilled out of my mind. I would definitly encourage you to cancel the 'explosive' orriented therapist and if the NHA speaks to you, 'do it as if your life depended on it' as they say.

I read 'explosive child' and I think it's great for
a) kids who really have communication disabilities
b) adults who really can't control themselves around their children, who need to be told that scarcasm and revenge-seeking and all the other adult kinds of tantrums aimed at kids might make them feel better short term, but won't help long term.

I recently read 'explosive' and was so deflated that it reccomended all the stuff that I had already been doing, but really didn't seem to be creating the kind of family life I had dreamed of. I think that my son and I, as you mention above, were hooked on the 'thrill' of the drama of it all. For me, the nurtured heart approach was truly radical, (who ever heard of interrupting a child quietly at play to praise them? or complimenting a tantruming child for not using swear words or breaking anything) and got me over the hump of 'don't just do something, sit there!' which is so difficult for me.

My guess is that all the parenting books work for someone - and for that person, they sound dramatic and exciting and radical.

Irene, I'm wondering which NHA books you have read...My favorite is 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' which is available online for the price of a $20 monthly subscription over at energyparenting.com. They also have podcast and videos so you can see it in action. They also have a 'parent's forum' where you can post and read the other parent's posts. I haven't paid any of their coaches, but by posting intensely on their forums I've gotten enough handholding to make a go of it. The website also has a listing of their 'consultants' and you might find one locally, or use distance coaching.

I'm sure that this isn't the answer for everyone, but I do think that lots of gifted children are what the NHA people call 'intense' and that beyond understanding your child better, this particular approach is a way to actually 'grow' my child in the right direction.

For so many years I went with 'understanding and loving and waiting for him to mature' that it is very thrilling to have a gameplan. It is just now starting to feel natural to me, but it is a long way from automatic!

PM me if you have any more questions!
Grinity

hey grinity..
we must have been writing at the same time!! i read the basic "transforming the difficult child" book and bought the video of the 6 hour seminar. I am definitely thinking about what you are saying, though i can't respond in detail yet until i read a bit of the Explosive Child, but i think NH is definitely a home ron for DD5.

One of my favorite parts of Nurtured Heart was it finally explained what to do when she did not accept praise, and argued that she didn't derseve it. So now i just notice and notice things and its a different story. However, i am just so in need of a therapist to guide me. I feel very alone in it. On the positve side , the therapist i saw today is not JUST doing Explosive Child. HE seemed to really like what i'd been reading in NH and encouraged me.. seems he wants to put together a plan that will work for everyone in teh family. we really need it. In the meantime i 'm going to try a little harder to find a NH therapist (i'm in long island , ny) if anyone out there knows of one.

irene

irene

oh grinity i just re-read your post and noticed you already mentioned the link to consultants. thanks!
irene

I responded in red to some of the points.