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Daughter possible ODD, please help!

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Daughter possible ODD, please help!

Postby Tracie » Tue Jan 07, 2014 3:18 am

This is my first forum. Im dealing with a 10 year old little girl who is completely disrupting our entire life. She is the youngest of five girls. She has always been a difficult and head strong child. And I mean always. Over the past two years her behavior has escalated to a whole new level. After reading about ADHD and ADHD with impulsivity I came across this. I am more convinced of this disorder being the issue.

There is no one trigger that sets her off. Dinner time is especially exhausting. Not one evening goes by that she isnt taking a major fit. Complete with stomping, screaming at the top of her lungs, slamming doors, and screaming that she hates everyone and she hopes we all die. Attention, either calm or disciplinary leads to more or worse of the same actions. It does not appear to be getting better as she gets older. I originally thought that she would outgrow this behavior. She constantly interrupts conversations and has to be the center of attention often insisting on telling a story that she knows when someone else is already speaking. Any kind of correction results in fits of rage. What I dont understand is that her behavior in school is exemplary. Teachers say she is a great student. No disciplinary problems at all in structured activities that she is involved in. Very intelligent and gets straight A's. On that note, I can see her manipulating everyone around her during these fits of rage and defiance. She knows what she is doing and says things that she has heard others saying to try to get her way. I'm truly on the verge of giving up. There is no peace in our house and friends have refused to come visit due to these violent and constant fits. If anyone has any advice, I'm open. Thanks
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Re: Daughter possible ODD, please help!

Postby jumpingjellybean » Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:24 pm

Hugss! I know how frustrating it is trust me. The first step is getting a diagnosis and therapist this ivery helpful. You need to learn triggers, they are there trust me. Do not argue with her. Say ok. Then walk away, come back when she is calm and ask y she was so upset? Did she need to react that way? Was it something silly to get upset over? Could she perhaps have reacted differently?

This works while she is tantruming too, if it is severe she needs to go to her room until calm. Say you need to go to your room and calm down tell her everyone in the house does not need to be around this behavior. If she refuses like no im not going to, then physically redirect her by guiding her gently. ( if physical touch makes it worse like her striking out try not to touch her when she is escalated but you must get her to the room. If closing the door is a trigger, tell her u may have it oopen if you stop screaming otherwise i must close the door til u r calm we do not need to hear you screaming. . This may take many tries. Do not respond to verbal assaults, do not yell or argue leave her alone then come back when you see her calm, hug her ask her if she is feeling calm now. Tell her it is not acceptable to say mean things or call names. Tell her it hurt your feelings, how would she feel if someone treated her like that or said that to her how would she feel? Could she say instead i am gettingupset or angry i need to be alone, or i do not want to be touched right now? We will listen and let you have your space. You then must follow through when she asks for this. Then talk about y, what made her get upset, and how could she behave differently bext time? Also asking in a way that sounds like her idea when telling her to do something totally helps. Like say hey did you take a shower today? No? Do you think it might be a good idea? No don't want to. Ok. Do you think mom took a shower today? Why would i do that? To be clean. Well its important to be clean, do your classmates shower, wear clean clothes? Oh, would ( jessie) do that every day? Well if she does it u think maybe u should too? U want to look good and smell good like jessie today? Yea

-- Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:31 pm --

Ok ill do it. After she does it praise her tell her how proud you are of her taking a shower. This works, no tantrums. It is exhausting at times but giving choices makes it their decision.the therapist will give you tools to work with her. Cbt is excellent with this. My daughter's 11' she has odd ar ptsd.
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Re: Daughter possible ODD, please help!

Postby Giulia » Sat Mar 15, 2014 5:16 pm

Hello,
I partially agree with what jumpingjellybean. I agree with trying to know what are the triggers.

What I disagree with is saying to your daughter that her behavior is unacceptable and that the house don't have to revolve on your daughter's tantrums.
We can safely bet that she has been told over and over.
Congratulations for the good job you've done !
Now, does telling her how unacceptable tantrums lead her to explode less ? It sounds that no because you tell us that she explodes every day.

Also, what I see is that her defiance is not premeditated.
Your daughter's exemplary behavior at school while she explodes at home has nothing to do with manipulative and premeditated behavior.
We have a patience budget the same way as you have X dollars/week (month, day, year, whatever) to spend. After a day at school, your daughter has exhausted all the energy to hold it together, then kaboom !
The more you have to hold it together, the easier you explode.
After a day of school, she is too exhausted to hold it together at home.

The more you label her behavior as manipulative, the more difficult you can deal with it.
You say in your post that you suspect ADHD. Your suspicion is consistent with what you describe in consistently interrupting conversation and the urge to tell a story when someone else is speaking. I know all too well this urge of interrupting and talking even when someone else is already talking.
Thinking that this behavior is premeditated is inaccurate labeling.
Believing that she says this and that to get her way is also very inaccurate because we all want our own way.
Think that manipulation needs careful planning, thinking ahead and being collected. The opposite of how you describe your daughter.

I really like The explosive child by Ross Greene because this method aims to teach skills to avoid the tantrums.
Ross Greene's saying "motivation yes, skills no" summarizes eloquently why punishments don't work with explosive people.
Your daughter is already motivated to show good behavior. Mission accomplished !
Now, we need to proceed differently than traditional parenting. Berating yourself for not going anywhere with traditional parenting will only deplete you more.

I agree with jumpingjellybean for a time-out to calm down.
However, you don't need to use it as a punishment to make it effective.
You can try something like "ok, I see that we both need a break to calm down. Let go get in our rooms to think more clearly". The key point is presenting the time-out as a positive tool to calm down rather than a punishment for misbehavior.

When you talk to her, I can safely bet she will tell you "I don't know" when you ask her why did she explode.
I can tell you as someone dealing with my own explosive behavior that she genuinely does not know.
She does not know because in order to know why you explode, you need to learn how to name your feelings and putting in order all the puzzle.
This is a long process well described in the 8th chapter of "The explosive child".

You are a good parent because you want to give the best education to your daughter.
A good parent teaches and train the child he has been given.
I really like the parallel Ross Greene does when he says that explosive children have a learning disability in flexibility and frustration management the same way as children can have a reading learning disability.
How do you teach a child with a reading learning disability to read ? By teaching the lagging skills. Same with cognitive flexibility and frustration management.
You won't teach cognitive flexibility and frustration management overnight the same way you won't fix a reading learning disability overnight.

Take care
Giulia, adult
dx: ADHD, ODD, SPD, Maths LD, dyspraxia and Single Sided Deafness by brain injury.

tx: methylphenidate
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Re: Daughter possible ODD, please help!

Postby 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
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