Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)

milliebear00001

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

My ds has been like this since the age of 3 and we have been to school many, many times regarding his behaviour, so it isn't something that has just happened since he hit his teens. We have also sought outside medical help for him over the years but to no avail. He has had counselling and been given techniques for dealing with his anger, but he has never put these into practise so they never work. I have also had hypnotherapy/counselling myself as I feel that alot of his problems are down to the way we deal with things and over the years I haven't dealt with them very well at times. My OH on the other hand has been consistent in dealing with my ds's behaviour and sometime I think he has been too strict, sometimes he has been right. I have never displayed my feelings in front of my ds but have always told DH if I thought he wasn't right and this itself has led to conflict between us both. I will try anything, whereas my OH thinks we are doing it right anyway - he is quite a disciplinarion.



I have been trying to get answers from his comprehensive school for the last 5 years and am no further forward, and in fact only found out today that there is an Educational Psychologist attached to each secondary school - so why hasn't my ds and ourselves had dealings with them? I feel as far as the school is concerned I am hitting my head against a brick wall. I suppose if I am honest one of the reasons I would like to see if there is a diagnosis is because then I can tell the school that for all these years they have treated him like a naughty boy, there was in fact an underlying reason for his behaviours.



Sorry I am getting angry now and feeling very frustrated. I hope it hasn't come across that I am poo-pooing your comments/suggestions, as I am not; I am extremely grateful to you all for taking the time and posting.

Many thanks

ps sorry if it's a bit disjointed but lost the first half of my post when I saved it and so had to do it again

Hi there

I too would be wary of landing your son with an unhelpful label - ODD is not recognised by all mental health practitioners. I would be thinking about why his school have not flagged up a major behavioural problem. Is it because he is seen as merely 'routinely naughty' at school, but much worse at home? What behaviour does he display at school that could be considered severe enough for a referral to outside services such as the school's Ed Psych or (more likely as Ed Psychs are chronically overloaded with cases) behavioural support in the form of CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services)? What do his school say about his behaviour?

TurnaroundSue

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

It's an excuse used by many parents to forgive the fact that their child is fundamentally badly behaved. I've done quite a bit of research into it online and found that many parents were making basic errors - or indeed, they were so sensitive that they couldn't handle even a bit of criticism from their child.

It's nothing that good parenting can't cure, however, 'Supernanny' style moderning parenting isn't the answer either.

To the original poster : What good do you think an assessment will be? Will it allow you to simply shrug off his problems, knowing that he has a 'disorder', or are you looking for the school to support you?

I think you've just fallen into the 'Google-fiend' syndrome that many parents fall into when they don't have the answers.

Yes I admit that we have made errors in parenting - but then which parents havent? I can easily handle criticism of my ds and am willing to put into practice any help/solutions that can come from these.

I really don' know what an assessment will do, but fundamentally I most probably am looking for some support from the school if there is some underlying mental health issue. I am not normally a parent who does the google thing, but being at the end of my neither, not getting any help from the professionals I didn't know where else to go - and yes I dont have the answers, coz if I did I wouldn't be posting here now.

TurnaroundSue

milliebear00001 wrote: »

Hi there

I too would be wary of landing your son with an unhelpful label - ODD is not recognised by all mental health practitioners. I would be thinking about why his school have not flagged up a major behavioural problem. Is it because he is seen as merely 'routinely naughty' at school, but much worse at home? What behaviour does he display at school that could be considered severe enough for a referral to outside services such as the school's Ed Psych or (more likely as Ed Psychs are chronically overloaded with cases) behavioural support in the form of CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services)? What do his school say about his behaviour?

I really don't want a label for my son and this has never been my agenda - all I ever wanted is help for my son and us as a family. We have tried many things on our own without outside support, but now we do not know what else to try. The school have always had a concern about his behaviour and we have gone from one incident to another - in fact he is on the verge of permanent exclusion with just 3 months to go before his GCSEs.

milliebear00001

OK, then if his school also have major concerns, you need to ask them (in a proper, sit-down meeting with his class teacher/Head of Year/SENCo etc) why, if they have such concerns about his behaviour, they have not made a referral to CAMHS/Ed Psych. By all means, at that point suggest your concern re. ODD and stress the longevity of the poor behaviour. You can ask for a referral by the school - see what their view is on this.

TurnaroundSue

We have done this on very many occasions and they say they will look into it and after a week or so nothing happens, so I chase them up and they say they will look into it again and so on and so on. I have spoken to them on many occasions about a referral over the last 3 years, but nothing has happened. Only last week in a meeting with the Board of Governors I bought this very subject up and our frustrations at not getting anywhere in the last 3 years after many many requests and the headmaster's answer was "I don't really think that seeing a psychologist for a couple of hours every fortnight would make much difference anyway". I couldn't believe it. I disagreed with him and (just to pay lip service in my opinion) once again he said he would mention it to the relevant department in school the next day and yep, when I questioned him this week (4 days after this meeting) he says that he's waiting for someone to get back to him. So tomorrow I will be on the phone again!

PolishBigSpender

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

Yes I admit that we have made errors in parenting - but then which parents havent? I can easily handle criticism of my ds and am willing to put into practice any help/solutions that can come from these.

You're already halfway there by admitting that you've made mistakes. So many people deny that they have had anything to do with it. Those people are beyond help, but I'm sure you aren't.

What I suggest you do as a matter of the utmost priority is to get a meeting with senior management in the school. Don't see his personal tutor or the head of his year - go higher. You want to be talking to the Deputy Headteacher as the bare minimum - and what you want to do is to find out about every single incident in which he's been involved.

You might be able to find out if there is a 'trigger' for his behaviour - it's quite possible that although he's badly behaved, there is a common link in all of this. It might just be as simple as boredom - but whatever you do, you have to move now.

As for referals/etc - alas, I suspect that you might just be too late on this one. The school will take the long view - if they can get rid of him in three months, there's little point trying to put a support package in place.

If possible, I would suggest to your son that he doesn't have to go to school every day in return for him not getting permanently excluded - he might very well respond to this, and the school might agree if it saves them the paperwork/hassle of an exclusion. Ideally, you just want to get him to finish school and into a new environment.

hethmar

Turnaround Sue, check out this forum:

adders.org

Of course, I am presuming that you have had worrying behaviour by this child all his life not just as he hit puberty.

One of my sons was a worry from toddler stage and it continued when he started school. Although very bright he could not even write his own name properly by the time he was 7 - and there was little improvement for the next 3 years. By accident I saw a tv programme about dyslexia and I was gobsmacked that all the "symptoms" mentioned were the same as we had witnessed all this life. I was until that moment one of the "its just a label middle class parents use for dozey kids" - believe me guys, IF you have a genuine dyslexic kiddie, you would know it isnt. It was made worse by my other kids all being star pupils and indeed are in professional careers now. So, it is NOT a case of parenting badly.

Go to adders.org and seek advice from them about having the child assessed professionally - you could ask your GP to refer him to CAMHS. You will find schools are very reluctant for an Ed Psych to see him as if they find a real disability the school will have to fund increased help and lessons.

Good luck.

TurnaroundSue

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

You're already halfway there by admitting that you've made mistakes. So many people deny that they have had anything to do with it. Those people are beyond help, but I'm sure you aren't.

What I suggest you do as a matter of the utmost priority is to get a meeting with senior management in the school. Don't see his personal tutor or the head of his year - go higher. You want to be talking to the Deputy Headteacher as the bare minimum - and what you want to do is to find out about every single incident in which he's been involved.

You might be able to find out if there is a 'trigger' for his behaviour - it's quite possible that although he's badly behaved, there is a common link in all of this. It might just be as simple as boredom - but whatever you do, you have to move now.

As for referals/etc - alas, I suspect that you might just be too late on this one. The school will take the long view - if they can get rid of him in three months, there's little point trying to put a support package in place.

If possible, I would suggest to your son that he doesn't have to go to school every day in return for him not getting permanently excluded - he might very well respond to this, and the school might agree if it saves them the paperwork/hassle of an exclusion. Ideally, you just want to get him to finish school and into a new environment.

Virtually every conversation we have is with the headmaster himself - so really can't go any higher. I think on hindsight it would have been a good idea to have a meeting with ALL his teachers, as we only get the perspective of the head himself and he is not there in every lesson to know EXACTLY what has happened. In fact I will phone him up tomorrow and see if maybe that is a possiblility - maybe then with all the relevant people together we can come up with a strategy on how to deal with ds when he is 'wound up'.

I have agreed with the head that if he feels he is getting angry then he can leave the lesson and come and phone either me or his dad and we can talk him through it, but my only concern is that this will not be fed down to all of his teachers (which has happened in the past) and he will end up getting into trouble when trying this!

I agree with your last sentence and that is our main priority now, like you say it most probably is too late to get him an assessment, so just getting him to and through his GCSEs and finishes his schooling is what we have to try and achieve.

Many thanks for your reply.

ps have just re-read my post and have realised that the strategy is the phoning me/his dad has been agreed - maybe just need to ensure that ALL teachers are aware of this, IYSWIM. Sorry am speaking goobldigook now, my brain is mince!!!

PolishBigSpender

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

Virtually every conversation we have is with the headmaster himself - so really can't go any higher. I think on hindsight it would have been a good idea to have a meeting with ALL his teachers, as we only get the perspective of the head himself and he is not there in every lesson to know EXACTLY what has happened. In fact I will phone him up tomorrow and see if maybe that is a possiblility - maybe then with all the relevant people together we can come up with a strategy on how to deal with ds when he is 'wound up'.

This actually sounds like a terrific move - if you can get them all in the same place, and get them to understand that you simply want to get him through the exams, they may very well be receptive.

How is he academically? You might find that it would make more sense to possibly get him removed from the classes in which he has problems in order to focus on the classes that he enjoys.

I have agreed with the head that if he feels he is getting angry then he can leave the lesson and come and phone either me or his dad and we can talk him through it, but my only concern is that this will not be fed down to all of his teachers (which has happened in the past) and he will end up getting into trouble when trying this!

I can only suggest that he carries a letter from the headteacher confirming that he can do such a thing. But it surely shouldn't be beyond the ability of the school to inform his teachers that he's permitted to do such a thing - would your son be able to leave the room without causing a scene? If so, the teachers are probably more likely to be receptive towards it.

The one major suggestion I have is that you should perhaps try and get him to concentrate on five 'core' subjects. English and Maths is pretty much required - but outside of this, you should get him to focus on three subjects that he enjoys. It might very well be possible to get him removed from the other subjects and into learning support in order to ensure that he does well in these classes - again, it's something to discuss with the headteacher.

TurnaroundSue

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

How is he academically? You might find that it would make more sense to possibly get him removed from the classes in which he has problems in order to focus on the classes that he enjoys.

I can only suggest that he carries a letter from the headteacher confirming that he can do such a thing. But it surely shouldn't be beyond the ability of the school to inform his teachers that he's permitted to do such a thing - would your son be able to leave the room without causing a scene? If so, the teachers are probably more likely to be receptive towards it.

The one major suggestion I have is that you should perhaps try and get him to concentrate on five 'core' subjects. English and Maths is pretty much required - but outside of this, you should get him to focus on three subjects that he enjoys. It might very well be possible to get him removed from the other subjects and into learning support in order to ensure that he does well in these classes - again, it's something to discuss with the headteacher.

Once again, many thanks for your reply - it is very constructive. The most frustating part of all of this is that he is academically bright. Without doing a stitch of work or picking up a book even, from his mock results he would have gained 5 GCSEs at C level and was only 4 marks off getting a C in maths.

He has been offered the chance to reduce his lessons and concentrate on only 5 or 6, but he says he wants to sit them all!! It really does seem a contradiction in the way he is behaving, which doesn't make sense to any of us. Both my OH and myself have said that if he doesn't knuckle down and behave in school then he will find himself with no GCSEs at all as he wont be allowed to sit any.

I will suggest that he carries a letter with him to show his teachers, but will also reiterate to the head that he lets them all know of the situation. I think he might manage on leaving the class without a scene, but then that really is dependent on what the situation and how he sees it in his head at any one time.

Once again, many thanks for all your suggestions, help and advice.