CHILDREN WITH OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER

[Lori O'Day]

I want to mention one other point... although we have understood our son's oppositional and defiant behaviors as ADHD issues (because he is the 'prickley' personality type, not the day dreamer type), we do 'religiously' attend to his opposition and defiance as suggested because, defiance is defiance and opposition is opposition - if we don't get a hold on those two things now, his ODD will statistically become conduct disorder. Not something we want to ever deal with. We don't want him to end up like those teens on the intervention shows. With lots of education, we have found a system that works for our son... and we are up front with him - he is an active participant in his coping and adapting efforts. I wanted to explain this point because I didn't want someone out there to interpret my prior words as permission to step over oppositional and defiant behaviors. I 100% believe they are not normal and MUST be addressed and worked on. So many folks I have worked with ignore oppositional and defiant behaviors as a 'normal' and usual manor of behavior for young kids and teens. These parents' ignorance always is bad and detrimental and their children do not outgrow these anti-social behaviors, they only get worse.

[charliegirl]

Thanks Lori.

Do you have any suggestions as to the best way for a parent to start taking control and setting their kids up for success rather than letting them turn into teens with conduct disorder? How did you gain your son's respect once you realized that his behavior wasn't normal?

[Lori O'Day]

With my son, I remind myself of KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Meaning, we boil his day down to the must-do's and could-do's. He must get dressed, eat, responsibilities, etc... but he COULD watch tv, computer, read, play outside, etc... if he does what he must. We told him we are no longer monitoring his behavior - he either does what he is supposed to or he gets things/activities taken away. Once we started taking things away and he realized we were serious, he found he missed watching a tv show when he got home from school, became tired of not getting dessert at night (food is a HUGE motivator), and REALLY MISSED his friends on ClubPenguin (what is with that site, anyway???) This process took a few weeks because the boy is stubborn. BUT, when we kept explaining to him that when he chooses to do something he is not allowed to do or refuses to do something he is supposed to do, he is choosing to face a negative consequence. We are not evil villains, like he used to think. Even though, he still gets mad at us when he does something stupid and gets into trouble, but not as often as he used to. AND, we are slowly breaking him of the habit of pummeling his sister when she is annoying him. He thinks that pounding is an appropriate response to the person who has mistreated him.

I guess my suggestions would be to go back to what a lot of experts say about what ADHD is - the inability to regulate one's sense of arousal which stems from a break down in the executive functioning in the brain. ADHD kids need to be taught so many things which other kids just simply acquire and incorporate into their though processes... if we help them to realize that among their strengths which ADHD has handed them, there are challenges which need to be faced, understood, and worked on until the cows come home and leave again.... The have to be taught to put things away in an organized fashion. They have to be taught to put their hands out to catch themselves as they fall down. We, ADHD kids' parents, have to act as our child's executive functioning processes of the brain and interact with these kids constantly to teach them to regulate their ADHD, rid the defiance and oppositional behaviors. We have to be able to predict these kids and stay with them - they can't do it on their own and we have to teach them how to learn to do it on their own.

[katiekat]

How old was your son when you stopped the monitoring and left it up to him? At this point I could never do this with Sean. I read somewhere that this is the way to do things-leave it up to the child and then they have to deal with the consequences. But if I left things up to him...well you might remember the toilet incident. The mornings before school are the worst. I am tired of having to tell and tell him again what he needs to do so we can get out the door when we need to. This year time will be even tighter because I have to drive my older son to school now and get myself ready for school as well. He is not allowed to watch TV, play with any toys, etc until he has eaten breakfast and gotten dressed but still it is quite a project. It takes him 45 minutes to eat a bowl of cereal and getting dressed takes 15 minutes at least. Even though he can't play with anything he makes play out of nothing. I can get a shower, blowdry my hair,put on makeup, and get dressed in the time it takes him to eat. Everything I try with him seems to work for a week or so and then it's back to the same old thing.

[Lori O'Day]

If you haven't, read the book Your Defiant Child by Dr. Barkley. It is amazing to see how defiant kids become defiant. He describes a fantastic 8 step method which absolutely works if you follow it exactly.

Part of the problem with parenting defiant children lies in the parents themselves. Prickly personality ADHD kids tend to also be ODD because we non-adhd parents don't know how to parent this type of kid. We are teaching our children in ways that work for normal kids but not for adhd/odd kids. We have to learn proper ways to deal with adhd/odd kids. Until we do (and the proper methods do seem unnatural) we are not solving any problems - only making heritable issues worse.

To answer your question about the age of my son - he was a young 9 when we started. He was a HUGE management headache when he was 6... we wanted to lock him in a closet. I wish I had read YOUR DEFIANT CHILD back then....

[jill]

My daughter has the official diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder and I wish it would leave for it scares me.

[katiekat]

Jill-What specific behaviors led to a DX of ODD for your daughter?

[jill]

I hate this diagnosis I deal with it weekly, she has good days and bad days. I do not condone spanking but this I understand.

[kc]

lorioday said:

If you haven't, read the book Your Defiant Child by Dr. Barkley. It is amazing to see how defiant kids become defiant. He describes a fantastic 8 step method which absolutely works if you follow it exactly.

Part of the problem with parenting defiant children lies in the parents themselves. Prickly personality ADHD kids tend to also be ODD because we non-adhd parents don't know how to parent this type of kid. We are teaching our children in ways that work for normal kids but not for adhd/odd kids. We have to learn proper ways to deal with adhd/odd kids. Until we do (and the proper methods do seem unnatural) we are not solving any problems - only making heritable issues worse.

To answer your question about the age of my son - he was a young 9 when we started. He was a HUGE management headache when he was 6... we wanted to lock him in a closet. I wish I had read YOUR DEFIANT CHILD back then....

[jill]

katiekat said:

Jill-What specific behaviors led to a DX of ODD for your daughter?

* I am sorry I just noticed this she is defiant strong willed, she is vengeful when she feels she was wronged, will deny or take responsiblity for her actions, will tell us no and try getting us into power struggles. She also blames others for things she has done like once she fell and said someone pushed her down and no one did. Our OT specialist feels when kids blame others for accidents he feels that is there way of saying I wish I did not do that and that does make some sense.