Opposing Oppositional Defiant Disorder
Your eight-year-old daughter is the perfect angel when she is in school. It’s when she is home that’s a different story. She bites and kicks. She’s even spit in your face. She could have oppositional defiant disorder.
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is characterized by a persistent or consistent pattern of defiance, disobedience and hostility towards authority figures including parents, teachers and caregivers. Children with ODD repeatedly lose their temper, argue with adults and deliberately refuse to comply with requests or rules. They blame others for their mistakes and refuse to accept responsibility. Accepting responsibility means changing things and they refuse to allow that to happen. They are vengeful, spiteful and vindictive. They are easily annoyed and are annoying to others.
ODD is reported to affect 1 to 16 percent of the school age population. Approximately 40 percent of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also have ODD or a related conduct disorder.
ODD is linked to other conditions including depression, Tourette’s syndrome, and anxiety disorders. What caused this pattern of behavior? It could be that your child is overindulged and want things “their way” but regardless of the cause they are going to push back against the ruling adult.
ODD is not a problem you can medicate away, it’s a behavioral disorder. Many times children with learning disabilities become oppositional defiant when they are asked to do something they can’t do.
The more intelligent the child, the worse the behavior becomes. ODD is a psychiatric disorder characterized by two sets of problems: aggressiveness and a tendency to purposefully bother and irritate others.
To diagnose ODD, your child will see a child and adolescent psychologist or psychiatrist who will adhere to how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes the specific symptoms that the child has exhibited for six months.
Treatment for this condition involves parent-management training, psychotherapy and school-based interventions. In parent-management training, parents are taught to identify problem behaviors as well as positive interactions and taught how to dole out punishment or reinforcement when appropriate.
Psychotherapy is a term that describes treatment techniques that help you identify and change troubling thoughts, emotions and behaviors. The two types of psychotherapy that may be helpful are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and family-focused therapy. Through CBT, your child can unlearn negative thoughts and behaviors and instead learn to adopt healthier thinking patterns and habits.
Family focused therapy is designed to help your child and family to use psychoeducation to learn about ODD, problem-solving skills and communication improvement. This therapy is designed to identify factors that contribute to or worsen aggressive behavior.
Some experts stress treating ODD with the tools of good parenting: giving the child structure, discipline, consistency, a sense of limits and consequences. Self-control and raising frustration tolerance are some of the goals in working with families with ODD kids.
These experts also suggest giving consequences that are more moderate. For example, a child may refuse to eat dinner with the family. You can suggest allowing the child to make his own dinner once a week.
Left untreated, ODD can turn into conduct disorder. Conduct disorder is when your child shows prolonged aggression towards others. They also show serious violations of rules and social norms including breaking the law.
With a child who has ODD, control is the name of the game. An ODD child doesn’t like being controlled. Somehow your child has learned how to get attention from negative actions. That reinforces these actions.
The right therapy will teach you to break this pattern of behavior. This disorder is treatable. You just need the tools to unlock your child from ODD.
