Oppositional Defiant Disorder Treatment

There are several aspects to look into when treating Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  I will be focusing on the actual difficult defiant behavior and what you should do with your child.

We have already discussed the medical treatment in other places.  Just to summarize again, if your child has another disorder such as ADHD or bipolar disorder, the first line of treatment is to treat the other disorder and see how the behavior improves.  In many cases, the behavior will improve.

There are a lot of programs available these days for ODD. A lot of people, private therapists who treat ODD and I want to give you some criteria of what you should be looking for in a program.  Number one, you should make sure that whatever program you enroll in for your child is stresses treatment of ODD specifically.

There are a lot of parenting programs out there that are general parenting programs, but they do not specifically address ODD behavior.  And, as anyone who has a child with ODD knows, these children do not respond as other children respond.  They are much more defiant. They are much more difficult.  In many cases whereas other children respond to negative reinforcement or consequences, these children would prefer to take the punishment.

If you do not know how to handle your child correctly, you will make things worse.  You want to make sure the program you are enrolled in is specific for Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

The second thing you are looking for is that it should be geared to the appropriate age.  There are basically two main stages of child development.  One being from 2-11 and the other from 12 and teenagers.  These are not at all similar in terms of behavior.

A program that is designed for 2-12 year olds will not work on teenagers, and a program for teenagers should not be used for 2-12 year olds.  You are looking for a program that is specific to your child’s age.  There are programs out there that lump everyone together and say do this without regard to how old the child is.  This will produce mixed results sometimes, but it is still  not what you are looking for.   You want to have the best thing for your child.

The third and most interesting criteria of what I found, was a new research study from a group in Washington State that showed that a good home study parenting program - that means one that has been tried and tested - is just as effective as working privately with a private therapist.

What that means is that you can actually enroll in an online program like the programs we have or someone else has and you will get just as good results as if you go to the top psychology clinics in the country.  You will get just as good results without waiting hours to get an appointment or paying thousands of dollars, and can get proper training in your spare time when it is comfortable for you.  This is an important point to be aware of .  You do not have to go to the local specialist or the best specialist in the world.  A good solid, well proven parenting training program will help you with your child’s behavior.

It is important that you use a proven program.  For example, our programs are very good and we have tested them throughout the world.  We have people in every continent, except maybe Antarctica, who have been going through the programs.  They have gone through the programs in multiple languages and they are very successful.

Many parenting programs that are available online can not say the same thing.  What I would suggest you do is to look into a home study parenting program first, again, making sure it is designed specifically for Oppositional Defiant Disorder and it is age specific.  Do not get a one size fits all program.

The main focus is to do something for these children because you will find that these ODD children are very difficult to raise.  Nevertheless, it is your job to raise them.  They are your children and you have to do what is best for them.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane from the Complete Connection Parenting Program.  For more parenting tips like this, please come to our website at http://ccparenting.com and sign up for a our free Parenting e-Letter.

A common mistake that parents of ODD children make is what we’ll label the “Appeal to Reason” method. What that means basically is that you appeal to the child to be reasonable. The example that follows will help understand why this method is not effective.

Let’s say for example you have a 13 year-old child named Brad. Brad happens to like orange juice and at the breakfast table, he fills his cup to the top and spills the orange juice over. Now, you don’t like that. It’s a wasteful thing, and it bothers you.

Most likely you’ll say, “Look Brad, you can have more. Just don’t fill the cup to the top so it won’t spill.” Now what was Brad thinking?

Well, maybe he likes the feeling of abundance - of having a full cup of orange juice! Maybe he was thinking that if he doesn’t take it all now, he won’t get later. Maybe he was thinking that he wants to fill the cup up and get as much as he can. He most probably wasn’t thinking how he wants to bother you.

So, what have you done here? What you’ve done is taught your son, Brad, the 13-year-old child, that he can get on your nerves by filling his cup to the top and consequently spilling the orange juice. That bothers you. So, what’s going to happen?

For most children, probably, that would be enough. They won’t do it again, or they’ll forget and do it from time to time. But Brad is an ODD child, a defiant child, and they work a little differently. At one point, Brad will remember when he was 8 years old. He’ll remember that you refused to give him eight pieces of cake to celebrate his eighth birthday, and that will bother him now. So what’s he going do?

He’ll say, “Mom, please pass the orange juice.” He will then fill his cup and that’s when he’s going to get back at you. Because what happened was, it didn’t bother you now, but now he knows that you taught him it bothers you. And for ODD children, that’s ammunition for them.

It is usually not a bad approach to reason with children. Try and see if it works. But, if you find that you tried to appeal to your child to be reasonable and your child still responds by doing it anyway, it’s because you gave him fuel to get back at you. ODD children will use revenge. This is another parenting mistake that parents make commonly, and you should beware of the possibility with your child.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane again from the Complete Connection Parenting Program. If you’d like more parenting tips, please go to our Website at http://ccparenting.com and sign up for our free Parenting e-Letter.

A common parenting mistake, which is very, very detrimental to parenting/education, particularly if your child has Oppositional Defiant Disorder, is getting angry with your child.  It is considered a grave mistake.

Getting angry, meaning a parent exploding and losing control, has very serious ramifications for you in raising your child for three separate reasons. The first reason is because when you lose control, you are showing your child that he can do something that gets to you. This is a golden opportunity for an ODD child to be able to have some type of control over you.  They love to have control. And I can guarantee you that if you get angry about something, you are going to see that behavior over again and again from your ODD child.

The second problem is that when you get angry, the anger itself becomes the issue in the child’s mind.  This means that whatever you’re trying to accomplish, whatever behavior you’re trying to get rid of, has lost its importance.  The only thing in your child’s mind that’s important is that you’re angry.  And that’s a serious problem, because even if your child does listen, he will not learn anything from the lesson you teach him.

The third and most serious problem with getting angry is that of being a role model.  The child will learn from what he sees around him. You are your child’s most important role model.  This means that the way you react to the world and how you behave is how the child will behave. Simply put, when you get angry you’re teaching your child that there are certain problems and certain circumstances when it’s okay to be angry and temperamental.

One of the best examples of poor modeling behavior that I’ve ever seen is actually something not in real life.  It’s something I saw in a commercial in a foreign country. I was watching a movie in a foreign country.  I did not understand the language so I don’t know what was said.  But, here is what I saw.

The commercial was for a certain snack food that the company was trying to make look desirable.  The first scene shows the mother with that snack food in her hand.  The teenage daughter walks in the room and tries to reach for the bag. The mother smacks her hand and says something which seemed to imply, “Get your own!”   The following scene shows the teenage girl with the snack food in her hand.  Her 12-year-old brother comes in the room and reaches for the bag.  She smacks his hand and the same thing repeats itself.  Now the 12-year-old brother has the snack food in his hand and the 5-year-old sister comes in the room and reaches for the food. He smacks her hand and says,  “Get your own!”.  The final scene shows the 5-year-old girl holding her dolly and the snack food in her hand. And in this scene she is pounding and beating up her dolly repeating what they said –“Get your own” – again, pounding her dolly.

That’s what role modeling is.  When you get angry, you’re teaching your child that anger is acceptable and that it is a good thing. Whereas we know that anger is not a good thing.  It’s not a good characteristic not for you, nor is it healthy it’s not for your child. It is something that you must avoid at all costs.

Again, this is Dr. Anthony Kane from the Complete Connection Parenting Program.  If you want to hear more parenting tips, please go to our website at http://ccparenting.com and sign up for our free Parenting e-Letter.

What do you do when you child is stealing?  This is a question no parent wants to face, deal with or admit to. Now, I say all parents face it because basically at some point in your child’s life, and if you have several children, it is certainly going to happen at least once.  Your child is going to steal.  It is a problem and you have to face it.
First, let’s go through some of basic principles.

If a child is four or five years old, he is not really capable of stealing.  The reason is this:  a child who is three, four or five does not usually have a good sense of possession.  He does understand the concept of taking from other people.  He does not understand that people own things.  As a child gets older however, that changes.  An older child does understand that stealing is wrong and has to be held accountable for that.
Let’s first discuss why children steal.

One of the reasons children steal is that they cannot control themselves. This is the case in younger children.  A child sees something that he wants and he does not have the maturity or the ability to hold himself back, so he will take what he wants.  Another reason children steal is because their basic needs are not being met.  They feel a lack of attention, a lack of something, and they steal things to fill a void.  This child may need more attention.
Children also steal because it gives them a sense of control over their lives.  Either something has happened where they feel unstable or insecure and stealing gives them a sense of power.  Another reason children steal, particularly older children, is because of peer pressure.  There is something that other children have that they want. Or, they are involved with a crowd where stealing is considered a nice thing, or a macho thing to do and they want to fit in so they steal.

What do you do when you suspect your child is stealing?
Number one, you have to stay calm.  Do not take this personally - children steal.  It does not mean he is heading for a life of crime.  It does not mean he is a bad child.  It is just one of those parts of growing up that children fall into and you have to react appropriately.  Also, do not accuse or confront your child.  If your child is stealing and you do not know about it, that is, you have not seen it or caught him, you can not accuse him of stealing.  Even if somebody tells you he was stealing, or thinks he was stealing, or if there is circumstantial evidence that he is stealing - you do not accuse your child.  You have to catch your child in the act.

The reason is because if your child denies it you must believe your child.  It is very important to show your child that you trust him.  If  he denies it, and he is going to deny it if you do not catch him, you have put yourself in a very bad situation.  As a result, you will have to not believe your child which is not good for your child or for you, and it will just affect your child’s self esteem.  What you want to do is catch your child in the act.

Let me explain what that means.
Let’s say, for example, that you have a fifty dollar bill in your purse and it is gone.  Going through your child’s drawer you find a nice, crisp fifty dollar bill.  You did not catch your child.  Maybe your child found it somewhere else or maybe you dropped it and your child found the fifty dollar bill.   Maybe he picked it up on the street.  You do not know for sure, and that is not called catching your child.  Catching your child is when you catch him in the act and you see him take something of yours or something of that nature.  You have to actually catch your child.

I will give an example.  Once I was with my child, who had a problem with stealing. At one point, he took money from my wife’s purse - he was about eight or nine years old at the time.  I saw him walking out of the store with things in his hands that he bought.  I did not accuse him, or say anything to him.  I just brought him home. H knew he was caught.  Even so, I could not accuse him. He could say he found the money.  I did not say anything but he knew he was caught.

What to do now?  When do you know he has admitted to stealing?

The first thing you have to teach him is to correct the wrong thing that he did.  That means if he stole from somebody else, he has to go to the person he stole from, pay them back - make restitutions, apologize and say he will not do it again.

If he stole from you, you should estimate what he took and find some way for him to pay you back. This could be through chores or something else.  Find some way to right the wrong.  The next thing you have to do is to keep the temptation out of the way.  If a child needs something he wants to steal, you have to make sure he does not have access to things.  If you have money, put the money somewhere else where he can’t find the money.

The next thing is to put the incident in the past.  He is finished, he was caught, he paid it back, said he was sorry.   Whatever he did is over and you still trust your child and still consider him a good boy or a good girl.  You understand it’s something that children do.

The final and the most important thing, and this is really a principle of parenting in general, is that you must be a good role model.  You must be honest and your child must see you as honest.  That means you do not talk about cheating on taxes nor do not cheat on taxes.  If someone gives you back too much change at the store you give the money back.  You must do things that show you are an honest person and that you value honesty.

That is basically what you do.  Do not worry.  Do not panic.  It happens.  Children do it.  If you handle it appropriately it will be a one time or a short term incident in your child’s life and he will grow out of it.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane from the Complete Connection Parenting Program.  For more parenting tips like this, please come to our website at htt://ccparenting.com and sign up for a our free Parenting e-Letter .

Child Lying

Why do children lie?  Before discussing the subject it is important to break it up in two categories: lying in younger children and lying in teens.  The reasons behind each one are completely different as is the approach in correcting it.

We’ll start with younger children.

First of all, you have to understand that there are different ages and different reasons for lying. A child who is 3-4 years old is not really capable of lying, because they don’t really have a good grasp of what truth really is. A lot of times they confuse their imagination for reality and they really don’t understand the concept of lying.

When a child reaches age of 5-6 years old, he develops a better understanding and grasp of reality.  A lot of times children lie because they are ashamed of something, or embarrassed by something, or don’t want to get in trouble.

By the time child is 7-10 years old, he understands right from wrong, and usually children lie to get out of something, get out of trouble or to avoid unpleasant consequences. But the difference is that they can be held accountable at that age for lying, because they know the difference between right and wrong and between what’s true and what’s not true.

How do you control lying and what do you do about it? The first thing you have to do in children is understand that lying is normal. Children test limits, that’s how they understand who they are and what the boundaries are. One of the boundary tests is lying. They lie to see if they can get away with it.

First of all, don’t take it personally if the child lies. It’s not a sign of the problem. It’s really a sign of normal development at most ages.

One of the first steps in tackling the problem is that you must role model truthfulness. That means you do not lie. You cannot lie. If you find lying in the child, you cannot lie for any reason as an adult, certainly not in front of your child, and really you shouldn’t lie at all. For example, if somebody calls on the phone and you don’t talk to them, don’t tell anyone to say that you are not home. You are home. Think of the reason that is true. You can’t come to the phone, you’re unable to talk. Don’t encourage a lie to get out of the problem. Avoid lying, because what you choose as a white lie for your reasons, your child will see it’s good to lie for his reasons. You don’t want to do that. Role model truthfulness.

Secondly, make sure that your child understands that being truthful is a virtue and a characteristic that is well respected in your household.

Lastly, just don’t get upset about it. Children do lie. It’s going to happen, so don’t overreact. In order to set things right, set up the situation for your child to make right the wrong.  Make sure that you give him the chance to admit that he wasn’t telling the truth and honorably correct the wrong. Don’t make a big deal of it. Your child will probably grow out of it at a certain point as long as you model truthfulness, as mentioned previously.  Show that truthfulness is a virtue in your house and that your family values being honest and being truthful.

Again, this is Dr. Anthony Kane form The Complete Connection Parenting Program. If you want more parenting tips like these, please click on this link sign up for our free Parenting e-letter.