I have a young son who experienced a battle with ODD. When the counselor first told me of what he suspected I did some research. Oppositional Defiant Disorder sounds scary doesn’t it? The truth is that looking that name in the face gave me the courage to help my son with these behaviors that were destroying his life.
My twelve year old son was living a dysfunctional life. It had started at about two years old. There were often loud altercations with adults resulting in the adults trying to get him to listen or get him to hear them out. There was no “getting” him to do anything. After he calmed down he may or may not feel bad about the altercation depending on how heated the situation had gotten and what was said to him in the midst of high emotions.
I have seen professional people sweat under the collar after having a stand out with this little short kid who acted like he was ten feet tall. There were times that it was like watching a double dutch jump rope game. You watch the ropes go round and round and you look for a way to jump in. I would stand back and watch the tension and hear the words and look for a way to bring peace to the situation. As a parent it can be quite emotional to watch other’s respect of you as a parent go down the drain after having an altercation with your child. As a parent it can be quite a challenge not to walk away looking at your child with the same anger and resentment and blame that the other adult just threw at you. The best thing to do is to step out of your emotions and be objective. When others are angry they will even be angry at you for being objective. That’s okay. Just stay objective and remove yourself and your child as quickly and peacefully as possible, even if that means that you have to glue a huge smile on your face as you drag your child way kicking and still yelling.
ODD is an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, obnoxious behavior that holds the child back from living a functional life. ODD effects the child every day. In my son’s life I dealt with the ADHD that went hand in hand with the ODD. As I dealt with and got the ADHD under control through diet and vitamin intake the ODD behavior became less and less frequent. Frequent temper tantrums, rash verbal outbursts, refusal to obey, disrespect of authority, revengeful behavior, name calling, easily irritated by others, and other behaviors along these lines began to fade away as I changed his diet.
We discovered that the main foods that effecting our son were milk, dyes, sodas, and high fructose corn syrup. Check out this site if you need help and think that diet change may be the answer for your family: http://www.feingold.org/ . Go to the resources on the home page and click on the blue book. It will explain much of the process that I went through to help my son.
Another great site that helped me was http://www.meierclinics.com/Home . This site has tests that can help you evaluate what your child may be experiencing. It will help you find out if your child is being effected by ODD or ADHD or other disorders.
As these behaviors faded away in strength we were able to talk to our son more. He was able to focus and listen. The level of daily anger at life that he had carried left and he was able to learn anger management skills. The root cause of ODD and ADHD symptoms in my son’s life were food intolerances. Once we figured out which processed foods and ingredients in prepared foods were effecting him adversely it was like a huge pendulum stopped swinging in his life and then reversed and began to swing in the opposite direction. We had our healthy son back. We gained back a boy who loves life and is compassionate of others. I hope that our story of victory gives you some clues to finding victory for your child and family.
