Some of the issues that kids have with ODD is anger, becoming overwhelmed & not knowing appropriate behavior. These kids need to be taught problem solving skills. There is a book that I would strongly recommend you read. It has helped me to start to turn my sons behavior around. There are psychologists that can work with your son that can teach him skills that he needs to deal with his frustration. I have started a reward chart. On it I have written down what I expect him to do & when he follows though he gets a sticker & when gets 5 or more he gets an reward like computer time. I hope this helps! The book is called Transforming your child.

Thanks, tink. I can't find the book with that exact title though, do you have the author?

It's by James Lehman.... I got it off of amazon.

It's Transform your child sorry.

My son does everything he can to avoid homework, unless its something easy. He's in 1st grade and for him writing is a challenge and understanding what he is reading. Both causes him to explode and get ugly. Luckily he does not use those types of words. James Lehman has a website it's part of his total transformation program in which my husband and I are both doing, with minimal success, but we just started it. The website my be helpful to you--empoweringparents.com since James passed away back in 2010 I'm not sure who is backing the website--most likely his wife or family. It's been very useful to my husband and I.

Sowle have you read the book? I don't know anything about the program but the book as helped me so much! I have only been working with my son for about a week but he is already improved so much! My boyfriend and I had just taken away video games for 5 weeks which I believe helped a lot because when I started working with him this is what I did. Everyday is a fresh day and he gets to earn computer time if he does what I expect of him. He is going great so far!

This is typical. I have not had to institutionalize my daughter yet but I've met parents who have. One day she put the school on lock-down. When I got there the cops had her and we all sat down with the principal. The whole time we were there (about an hour and a half to two hours) we were basically just trying to calm her down. Every chance she got she would throw punches at me. Told the cops that she was going to kill me in my sleep. Picked up one of those high back chairs and threw it across the room. Each time someone said something like "thats not nice" she would start laughing or say she don't care. It took me 30 minutes to convince the cops that I had this under control and to release her to me. I did this because 1. I didn't want her to come down from this "high" and be alone. 2. I wanted to be the one to dish out the consequence.
Drastic consequences for drastic behavior. Sometimes you have to do it to get your point across.
For this situation. I threw her in the back seat of the car. Child locks on the door and windows. and I started driving down the interstate. I told my husband what was going on and told him I was coming to him. SHE FREAKED! "you don't love me anymore"... "I hate you"... then the longer I was driving.. "I'm sorry mommy", "I love you mommy", "I promise not to be bad anymore". But once you set a consequence.. you have to fulfill it. I drove from middle georgia that night to Tenn because thats where my husband was currently at and I dropped her off with him. He is an OTR driver and she hated it. She had to do what he had to do. If he was up, she was up. She couldn't go potty when she wanted. She didn't have a t.v. or radio. NOTHING. When she was finally able to sleep it was for only a few hours before they had to start moving again. Crazy part.. this was for only one night because he was already on his way home. But now, she is scared that she is going to have to go back in that truck.
Drastic consequences can sometimes help. When you get to that point you'll realize what consequence will work. Go ahead and discuss with your wife now what might work. But try to think of something that they won't like but won't last forever.
Another example. I have a friend that lives in the country. Mel was giving me such a hard time. She showed up one morning and told me she was going to take Mel for the day. She and her husband put her to work all day. Nothing crazy... but sweep, help them with the yard work. But the point was she did not have fun and her anger wasn't directed at me. By the time I came to get her I was the most awesome person and she acted good for quite some time!

Tink no I have not read the book, I am not much of a reader unless I'm out with my NOOK, then I can read up a storm. I have a book list and I will add it to the list.

I wasn't sure if I should start a new post with this link, but since it has to do with school work, I thought people might see it here. Here's a link for a video that talks about people with learning disorders and how they perceive the school challenges. It's long but has links to the side that short cut to specific areas. I watched the whole thing and found it very informative. I hope people will check it out. I share this because I truly believe that empathy, compassion for what our kids struggle with, is a vital component to being the parents we need to be for our kids. The video does not talk about ODD, but more broad learning difficulties that I believe can be applied to our kids.

digital.films.com/play/8JBT6Z

Just copy and paste this into your browser and it should take you to the site. Enjoy!

Thanks Pamelala, I'll take anything that can be useful!

Tauzinger, I don't think it'll be a tremendous amount of help to your present situation. It mainly allows you to see through your child'd eyes. I can share my own experiences for having dealt with homework in the past and see if any is helpful. In a nutshell, I didn't do homework with my son. It was a matter of picking my battles. Evenings were so stressful I decided homework wasn't going to be a battle. I let the school know that they weren't to expect any work to be done. They'd still send stuff home but all I'd do was discuss it with my child. I might model for him how it was to be done. But I had to find a way to restore peace in my home. The school was very respectful of my choice. There are numerous studies that advocate against homework for ANY child, let alone kids such as ours with school difficulties. My son has a lot of demands placed on him during his school day and he deserves to be able to leave that behind when his "work day" is done. Now that my son is older, and demands at school are increasing, we do have the occasional night of homework but I work with my son, as a team player and together we do what is required. I never want my son to feel I am part of the problem, I always want to be involved in the solution.

I see that others has commented about the "TOTAL TRANSFORMATION" series. I have had this for 6 years and still have not gotten through the 2nd cd. I think this is an awesome tool to be able to use if you can. I know you would have 30 days for online help from a counselor and then you can subscribe to do it. I called 2 times when I first started watching it and my son who is also adhd/odd and something else me and my husband is not sure of, knew the call was about him and would not go away and continued to band on the door the whole time I was talking to the lady. I was so upset and she couldnt believe he was doing thatand asked me call her back well that has been almost 2 years ago. My son does not have those behavior characteristics but I know plenty of other people with children that do. I really believe that the TOTAL TRANSFORMATION would be an awesome way to correct a child. I also have adhd and my son and I clash so bad most of the time and he know just how to work my buttons to keep me off of my schedule so the time for me and my husband to sit down by ourselves have been limited to finish the whole series but plan to one day. I would not allow that type of behavior from our son. Just like he put his hands on me a few weeks ago to shove me out of the way because he was wanting something I had of his and for years I threatened him that I was going to call the law on him....well this time I did. he seemed to be remorseful even though he did not hurt me but we are just back to the same old thing again. We carried him to a neurologist last week n he was quick to say that he is not against sending him to a school. I really feel that him being away from me, my husband and daughter and whatever family may be the only way he is going to realize he has to get with the program. Good Luck