16 yr old ODD

I would love answers as well... My 13 yr old dd has is usually ok, but when she isn't....LOOK OUT.

Is he the only one in counseling, or is it family counseling? If you're family isn't in counseling, it might be a good idea for all of you to go together. Hopefully, your son would be willing to go with all of you, but even if he chooses not to go, it could benefit the rest of the family. As you know, if one person isn't doing well within the family, it can affect the entire family dynamic. A family counselor could help all of you work on the dynamics within family and, at the very least, cope.

I hate to discourage all of you parents that has been told by experts what is the norm for teen , and you are finding that your teen doesn't meet the picture of what you were told. But guess what, the experts are liers they havwe no idea what is the normal teen. You are seeing and living through what comes with the teen years. I have raised 12 children in my 57 years. I have never had one that didn't go through a disrespecting age. What a lot of us forget is their bodies arent the only things that are growing and changing. They have emotions that they don't understand and they are trying to understand. But every one wants to run to so called experts that in most cases never had a child , and they are book experts not experience experts. Your teen is trying to deal with feelings and emotions that come with age. My mom told me that a teenager is almost as bad as a woman going through the change of life. Their feeling and emotions are all messed up and out of balance . Just be patient they will find their way with your support and encouragement . Just keep reminding them to curve their tone when speaking to you , that you understand where they are coming from and you will still love them at the end of the day. Even though you may feel like the day will be your last. Tomorrow is another day. My grandson who has been a night mare of disrespect with me for the last 3 years is now finally growing out of his phase. He's becoming that fine young man that came to live with me when he was 7. He was rejected by his mom because he was born from rape . When he first came to me he didn't know love. I showed him a fathers love. He went from bad to normal and good back to a child from hell and the most disrespectful child a person could ever meet from the age of 12 now at 15 he is my grandson again. Your teens will become your dream children again . You dont need to call the experts , they are the problem. Be parents love them.

Milo14 - You obviously have never parented a teen with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. This is not merely a disrespectful child. This is a child with a mental health disorder. Love cannot fix it. Are you saying that if your child suffered from depression, you would not take them to an expert? You would just love the disorder away. What if they suffered from severe anxiety? You think love fixes that. No, it is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It is no different than a physical diagnosis, like allergies or diabetes. Love doesn't fix those issues. Medical professionals would be called. Same with mental health disorders. For you to say that our children will become dream children without intervention is insulting. A child with ODD has suffered so much trauma at a young age, their brain is wired differently. Therapy with professionals helps the child see the triggers that exist and teaches them how better to deal with them. It teaches the parents to recognize the onset of an ODD episode and how to deflect it. ODD symptoms are some of the most difficult to deal with because the child is constantly in "fight" mode. Please don't come on here and tell us what we are doing wrong. We live with plenty of judgement. We don't need yours.

A child with ODD is not just a child who is misunderstood and needs extra love and understanding. ODD doesn't mean that the kid tells you 'No' when you want them to do something. ODD is way worse than that. My son has several mental health diagnoses- one of which is ODD. An ODD child seeks ways to create havoc, in my experience. The ODD child is hurting-- so they seek out ways to hurt others, whether it is by being physically violent or being emotionally abusive to others or even being destructive in the home by deliberately clogging sinks and overflowing them, clogging toilets, using kitchen knives to carve gouges in the new kitchen cabinets, hurting pets, --anything they can think of to get revenge, but revenge for what?-sometimes they don't even know why they want to do things that hurt others but they still do it. Love is not enough to cure ODD, there is no medicine for ODD, in my experience even years of therapy don't make the impact that you wish it would

I guess , I phrased myself wrong, If the child has mental problems , that is endangering the life or lives of others than yes I would take that child for help. But I have raised 12 children. I have fond out by experience , that every teen goes through a stage of disrespect. I have took a couple of them to counseling on advise from my wife. Which was a waste of my time and money. The hardest time I had was with my Grandson. He put me through a living h*ll . His mother had him two three different ones. They did no good at all. At the hardest point he even stab me in the arm. After which he broke down crying on my shoulder telling me he was sorry and didn't mean it, that I was the only one that ever loved him . That was the breaking point that actually opened the door of communication between us. I have a better relationship with him than his mother and all the professionals she is dragging him to. She is one of those type parents that runs to the so called experts for every thing. She doesn't understand my bond with him, and all off the different counselors, that he is seeing cant explain why I can get him to tell me whats bothering him. He wont talk to his mother or them , but with me he tells me every thing. All the experts seem to want to do is medicate him. I can't explain why I have a way with him that even his mother and three different trained and qualified experts on children arent able to reach him but I can. I know that when he came to live with me while my son was incarcerated at the age of 7. He was hurting and out of control he wouldn't listen to any one in trouble in school . Would just walk out to go to his friends at any hour with out telling any one . Would get into fights and steal. He would threaten his brother and beat him up all the time. That was one reason his mother sent him to me she feared for the lives of the other children. Yes that first year he was with me was a page out of hell. But you know by the end of the second year he was with me , the teachers were telling me and his mother they had never seen such a turn around in a child before. His grades had gone up he wasn't just walking ou or stealing and fighting . He was almost at the top of the class. I just used the skills I did with my children the same ones my parents used with me. The old fashion ways. No I didn't beat him senseless . Though I felt like it and a few times I wanted to but I couldn't find any thing to use. Yas he said that I was abusing him, he complained to me and fought me every step of the way. I put him on a set bed time of 8 on school night and 9 or 930 weekends. He had to tell me where he was going and he better be there if I checked, or he wouldn't be allowed to go their by himself again. I wouldn't let him go to his friends or allow them to come over until I met them and their parents. He yelled at me telling me that was abuse and I was ruining his life he will never have any friends now because of me. I would sit down with him every night and would ask him about his day, I would not accept one of those. answers that kids give, that doesn't really answer the question. I had him express himself with an answer. Why is not an answer its a question, what is a question. I involved myself in his life just as my parents did with me . Yes he hated those talks , and he at times would say nothing at all to me , so I did what made him say I was crazy. I statred a two way conversation with myself answering the questions for him while he was sitting next to me. I would ask he didnt answer me so I answered it for him. He would start answering just to end our talk so he could go and play. I chose the meals that was healthy to cook. He hated that and told me how I was poisoning him. He was going to die if he didn't have his Chinese food and MC D's. I put him in the corner and told him if he got out of that corner one more time . I would hold him there till his grandchildren was asking me permission for him to go out and play. I would send him to bed with no TV when he got in trouble at school. While he is still alive at the age of 15 will be 16 this year. Yes maybe my ways are considered abuse. But he didn't get suspended from school for fighting or kicked off the bus . When ever I punish it consists of two parts . I send them to the bathroom , where they sit and wait for me to come. The length of time they wait for me depends on what they did and their attitude. Then the second part which they hate is my arrival . Because then they hear my mouth and my talking and asking them why and do they know why they are there and do they understand what they did. My talking to them can last up to an hour some times. Then either they get another chance or I ground them to their room which has no TV. So no game system to play no phone. They have actually told me that they would rather have me whip their a with a cord then to be sent to the bath room. I know , why the bath room. That is simple, when you have several children you have the peanut gallery. The bath room is the only privet room in the house. Not to mention, for some reason every time I use to send my kids to their room . They needed a drink or go to the bathroom. Always some reason to leave their room, to see what every one was doing. In the bath room they have nothing to do but think and wait for the inevitable. Not knowing if they were going to get that beating that could happen the one my grand father gave me the one that will change their entire life. No I never did , but they didn't know it wouldn't happen. Yes my parents used that as a threat, My dad use to tell me about the woodshed and his grandfather. Yes maybe my scare is considered abuse . But when you are facing a child with a knife or even a gun like one of my grown children , you use a threat that they think you are going to do. I never threatened to have them taken away or hospitalized. A lot of times they want to know you are going to be there for the long haul even if they kill you your not going to give up on them, if necessary you will beat them senseless just to show them you love them. So you can judge me if you want. But after my grandson went back home to his parents, he went back to his old ways skipping school getting in trouble no one knowing where he is . He's in his second year of therapy that that hasn't even made one bit of difference. But he still listens to me and checks in with me, and he is showing me respect. I'm about the only one, he does. So if my methods was abusive well then throw me in prison and throw the key away , they work and succeed better that those experts with all their training . But yes in some cases you do need to go to a counselor, but not always.

But your grandson did not have ODD. This thread is about teens with ODD. Your grandson had the ability to relate cause and effect and learn from the past. Our children can't do that. I'm glad you were able to help your grandson, but you are comparing apples to oranges.

I'm not sure which is worse, RAD or ODD. My son has both dx and I am ready to pull out the last little bit of my hair. Yep, that's right. I'm going bald from stress. Good grief these kids are hard.

Mental illnesses are definitely medical illnesses that require medical care. They are brain diseases and the brains are a part of the body so mental illnesses are just as physical as diabetes. There is no doubt about that. However, there is no evidence that ODD and a number of other DSM disorders are brain diseases or caused by a chemical imbalance. Other than the fact that a book (the DSM) says it's an illness there is really no evidence that it's an illness at all. It's an extreme behavioral problem and behaviors are controlled by the brain but it's entirely possible that it's a reaction to an action and not a malfunction in the brain. That doesn't mean that it's not a real problem that is extremely difficult to deal with but it's very premature to claim that ODD is a chemical imbalance and on par with "bodily" illnesses. There is simply no evidence of that.