Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) Support Group
Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures that goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behavior. When a child cannot seem to control his anger or frustration, even over what seems to be trivial or simple to others, the child will often react in violent or negative ways to his own...
Hi...New here..never been in a support group before...but I am feeling so lost that i thought I try and see if this could help me.
My story is a very long one, but I will try and shorten it the best I can. I am raising my grandson, he is almost 11 and I have had him since he was 5 weeks old. I have been having trouble with him from around the age 4 or 5...things first started showing up at school. It just kept getting worse. At school they have tried all kinds of things to help, but nothing seemed to work. About 3 yrs ago it was suggested that we take him to a doctor...and he was put on meds. At first the meds seemed like they were helping bug then things would start to get bad again and thd meds would get changed. He has been on probably 6 or more different meds. About 2 yrs ago he started to see a child psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with ODD and ADHD. He is on meds to help with these, but still things are not great.
I am so mentally and emotionally drained because I get no break from this. He is home here with me all the time because last year he got kicked out of school for hurting a teacher. He goes to school 1 and 1/2 hrs a day and he has a tutor that comes to the house everyday for 2 hours. My grandson hates that he has to have a tutor, son that is also a big struggle.
Really I could go on and on, but I won't. I just thought if I could talk to some other parents going through the same kinda things, it might help me cope a little better.
P.S. Oh by the way, this is not my first time going through all this...my son, my grandsons dad, also had most of all the same issues as a child, except back then he was diagnosed differently because I guess they didn't know as much about the brain then as they know now.
Thanks for listening.
Sincerely,
so defeated
I am in the same boat with my youngest adopted daughter. That is the reason I joined as well. Needed some support as no one really can understand unless they are dealing with a o.d.d kid. Therapy and all the wrap around services from school don't seem to help much. I just keep reading and researching hoping to find something that will click with her but so far not yet. She is 8 so there is some time left to see a change. But she had two horrible tantrum today and destroyed her sister's dictionary and managed to smash my hand against the door. Yesterday was a great day. Guess it was wishful thinking hoping I could get a good weekend.
Sincerely,
In the same boat
First you must know that you are not alone. Secondly, you need to hear that you are enough.
I am the mother of a 12 year old son who has ODD, and like your son I had it when I was a child, except back in the early 80's they called it being 'strong willed'. Well, as anyone who has an ODD child knows, 'strong willed' is an understatment. What makes this difficult to manage it that there is no medication for it. Generally ODD presents with ADHD, so they will treat ADHD in the hopes that it will lessen the severity of the ODD episodes but it rarely does in our experience. Additionally, this 'disorder' seems very random because as another commenter said you can have a great day with no outburst or meltdowns and then the next day can be horrific. I generally find, with my son, that the days that are great are the ones where he isn't asking a lot of me. He is self-entertained, he is content in his activities, or he has something/someone that he is interacting with. As long the interactions with him are generally pleasing to him (i.e., he asks to do something and is allowed, he asks for a particular snack and I approve) then there is no issue. The combative behavior comes when he gets an answer he doesn't like or is told to do something he doesn't want to do. It doesn't have to be about anything Earth shattering. It could be that I ask him to wear a coat that day, or to put his clothes in the hamper.
I should mention also that we noticed these tendencies at 18mos. We tried everything you could think of; reward charts, positive rewards for extended good days, a point system where if he earned enough points he got something special, time-outs, writing sentences (when he was old enough), taking away special events like going to bday parties. You name it, we did it. To the point that when we finally did speak to his pediatrian and they started suggesting things to try every response we gave was 'tried it'. We tried medication but my son doesn't have ADHD so we saw no change and determined it was unnessary. Another caveat to our situation is that my son is extremely well behaved in school. So we 100% know that he can control himself, but in a home environment feels unconditionally loved enough to let his true colors show.
ODD is unpredictable. ODD is constant psychological warfare. ODD makes you feel like a failure as a parent/caretaker. ODD is exhausting. ODD is hard to explain because those with 'normal' children will say "Oh, every child throws tantrums (to which I respond: When you get stitches from a matchbox car being thrown at your head then we can talk). ODD will break your heart because children with it can't get out of their own way and no matter how many times you tell them something they will always have to experience it to believe it.
There is a book called The Strong Willed Child. It might not be 100% applicable to every ODD child, but I found it to be helpful and you might also.