by ElectricFly » Thu Apr 23, 2015 9:02 pm
I wish that people would return to update when sharing personal stories. I can totally relate to this situation. I was told that my daughter has ODD when she was in Kindergarten. One thing I noticed is that the teacher was always very frustrated sounding, in how she spoke of the behaviors and they used the term ODD which sounds like an insult. As you can imagine, I was not interested at all in their school psychologist getting involved.
But what I have learned in the time since then is that I have ADHD. I am not diagnosed yet, but I am coming up on my evaluation in late May. I am actually so encouraged and feel enlightened by reading about ADHD because I realized that this makes sense to explain my life experiences and also that my general family is very ADHD. My dad was a very successful Social Worker who supported me and my family, yet he was totally an undiagnosed ADHD (emphasis on hyperactivity) but he was HIGH FUNCTIONING! See a lot of people with ADHD are both intelligent and actually do CARE. They make huge efforts to cope with their areas of cognitive problems by going into major hyper-focus while studying or doing activities that are enjoyable to them.
I can't say what's going on at all with someone else, but I can only offer information. I am not a professional though. But I am starting to feel that this ODD thing is describing ADHD in the very young who are not being tolerated anymore for their regressive behaviors in the classroom or at home. Children freak out when they are over-stimulated and the world is so horribly over-stimulating now. Even in Kindergarten, my daughter was being required to go to other classrooms on some days of the week/month! She had computer lab and all kinds of stuff that I never saw until Middle School.
Again, children who are impulsive as well as easily distracted are definitely going to act out. In the old days, the boys with ADHD were the ones who acted out and it was seen as boisterousness or dealt with punitatively. But nowadays you see GIRLS starting to act out and they are getting labelled as ODD. But this is an expression of ADHD when it gets out of hand with the frustartion, IMO. I just see ODD as the effort of the psychologists to explain a type of ADHD that is less obviously hyperactive and is more about the child expressing frustration at being asked to start or stop activities (which has to do with activation) as well as defiance since the instinctive response for ADHDers is "NO!" and then followed by thought later when the mind is quieter.
I am in a more fortunate position perhaps to be a mother of a single child. I can focus on her. Also, I have ADHD too which I believe causes me to be more tolerant to chaos and the unusual popping up. I am highly empathetic to her because I suffered a lot of negativity from teachers and even my parents when I was growing up. I didn't know how to process all that. I felt like I was always being misunderstood and harrassed, provoked, and taught that I was a bad kid. Really people were just frustrated because of my frustrations. Nobody knew how to calm me. People argued with me when I was upset. All a child wants when they are hurting is to be held and soothed. They don't want to hear how they are wrong at that time. I believe that soothing the child should come first, then speak to them intellectually when they are calmer. Unfortunately the ADHD child isn't as good as letting you know what their needs are. THey don't know how to reach you without making a loud noise or a dramatic situation. I always felt left behind somehow, like nobody really cared about me. In my family, I had 2 brothers and they were always more accepted somehow than me. They were trusted more, and shared more special time with my parents than I did. I didn't know how to entertain or make my mom happy. She was always pushing us and nagging us, to get things in better order in the household. In retrospect I think she is a hidden female ADHDer too! She often looks angry but denies being angry. She's very inflexible with her schedule and is easily flustered and stressed. She yells a lot, but she denies she does. She is quite irritable most of the time. But she's high functioning, had a good job and always basically took care of things (nothing fancy, and there was always a mess to clean up before anyhow could come over).
Important last thoughts:
1- Emotional Hyper-reactivity in ADHD children and how this can lead them to being provoked and teased by the slightest of triggers. This leads to them being bullied in a very secretive or hidden way, because they can't really explain what is going on. But people are intentionally provoking them, even a close sibling. You would never recognize this unless you caught the guilty child doing it. Even then, you would think that your problem child is way over-reacting and you would tend to punish or view the problem child as the problem. This happened to me by my brother, who could bring me to instant tears and yelling when he simply repeated an insulting phrase to me. Or if he doodled an ugly caricature of me, which he did over and over again while I grew up.
2- Soothing the ADHD child must not try to engage them intellectually at the time. I can't over-stress this. Soothe your child first, then figure out who is wrong! I was always seen as the black sheep in my family. But then I realized that we were probably all ADHD but all my family is high functioning and gifted. Brilliant people who can work and support their families despite their blindness to their own cognitive situation!
3. If you are a parent of a child who may have ADHD, ODD, or any other emotional & behavior issues while young: Get an evaluation for YOURSELF to screen for ADHD as well as any other issues.. I wish I had done this back 4 years ago when she was in Kindergarten! These issues are highly genetic and it can help you so immeasurably to gain this knowledge. It's truly enlightening