Now we have "The Explosive Child" by child psychologist Ross W. Greene. Originally published in 1998 and released this year in paperback, the book offers, as its subtitle suggests, "a new approach for understanding and parenting easily frustrated, chronically inflexible children." While Greene's approach may be valid for some extreme cases, "The Explosive Child" overpathologizes difficult children and is likely to have a pernicious effect on our already-lax culture of parenting. (Expect the publication next year of "The Lethal Child" and perhaps by the end of this decade "The Thermonuclear Child.")

The weary parents of extremely difficult kids deserve our compassion, but Dr. Greene's book does them no favors. Less a strategy than a means of surrender, it is a 326-page letter of permission to follow the path of least resistance -- even if it frequently involves prescription drugs and constant cajoling.

It is true that, in the last two decades, I have witnessed a rise in the level of children's problems (younger children referred with more serious behavioral and emotional issues). And I, like many other doctors and practitioners, have responded more frequently with a strategy that involves, among other approaches, the prescription of medicines like Ritalin.

But I have also seen an attendant plunge in the confidence and competence of the parents of very difficult children -- and an equally disturbing trend on the part of caregivers to reflexively regard drugs as the remedy of first choice. While it is important to recognize the plight of these mothers and fathers, it is dangerous to suggest that -- except in the most extreme cases -- they will do themselves or their children any good by opting for psychotropic drugs and negotiation as a substitute for discipline, rewards and spending enough time with their kids. And yet, even with the best of intentions, this is what Greene, and a growing number of colleagues, have begun to advise.

	The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children By Ross W. Greene Harper-Collins 326 pages Nonfiction Buy it Print story E-mail story

The discipline of children has been eroding in this country for 150 years, starting with the departure of families from the farm for the factories of the city. The development of public compulsory education -- about 100 years ago -- played a role in decreasing the power of parents. By the '20s, routine attendance of high school brought teens together for the first time separate from their families, and specifically empowered youth at their parents' expense. The midcentury power of the "child guidance" movement further diminished the cultural legitimacy of discipline espoused by behaviorists and religious leaders. It also shifted "expertness" from grandmothers and clergy to child psychiatrists, psychologists and pediatricians.

In the '60s and '70s, child abuse and spousal abuse were brought out of the closet and informed the rallying cries of both children's rights advocates and feminists. The aforementioned self-esteem movement, which became prominent in the '80s, along with self-help and 12-step ideology, gave any adult conflict with children a negative spin. Books that ostensibly taught parents to "talk to your kids so they will listen" implied that if you used these approaches you could successfully avoid arguments with your children.

The response to the excesses of the child sexual abuse hysteria of the early '90s, epitomized by the McMartin day care fiasco, was only a temporary break in the continuing relaxation of limits and expectations in the name of protecting children. By the late '90s, American psychiatry had medicalized most coping behavior. And with Ritalin and Prozac in the mix, American doctors and parents appear more ready to address children's bad behavior with a pill rather than a swat. "The Explosive Child" is the latest manifestation of this trend.

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