Oppositional Defiant Disorder - ODD - any hope?

[AnneTJB]

TLDR
Having a child with odd is exhausting, and I would love to hear from anyone that has seen improvements with their child as it would give me some hope and maybe new ideas to try.

Hi,Our oldest son is 8, and has been diagnosed with odd.
I’ve read through a few other posts here and read a lot of stories very similar to ours and it’s nice not feeling so alone. But I am yet to read a post about a child with sustained improvement and I really worry we have another 10 years of this ahead.

Has anyone seen improvement with their ODD child? Was there anything in particular that helped?

We’ve lost most of our social circle, most other families are now constantly busy. There are a few that we were very close with and they’ve told me straight up their kids don’t like being around him – Mainly scared of being shouted at or hit. I get it, and if things were reversed I would probably be the same.

I used blame myself and thought he was just a spoilt brat and I’d made mistakes in my parenting, but our other 2 younger (2 & 6) kids are great (despite the awful role model) so I’m slowly learning it’s not totally on me.

I’ve read and worked through the book ‘Overcoming Oppositional Defiant Disorder’. It was ok, and would have been great 6 years ago. For the most part we are parenting in the style suggested in the book based on our trials and failures over the last 6 years. So its nice to know we are possibly on the right path.
I’ve seen some suggestions for 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child, and we will probably work through that next.

Has anyone that has been dealing with this for a longer time, seen improvement – is there light at the end of the tunnel? We have put so much time an energy into trying to help him, but see little improvement.
Its just exhausting, getting up every day wondering what’s going to set him off today, planning out everything with a contingency for dealing with him. And just having the same fights about the same things. Like hitting is not something we do. And having the same result, once he’s calmed down, we get apologies, he makes up for it and is normally upset about what he’s done and won’t do it again.
Then it starts all over again. Often multiple times a day.

If anyone has had any success with anything – books, vitamins, minerals, exorcisms, Chinese birth charts – I am open to any suggestions.

I found your thread because I’ve been thinking my DS5 could have ODD for some time. I’m in the process of trying to see GP but of course COVID is thwarting us.

I hope you’ve been able to see some improvements since your post

I just want to add something and I really don't mean this in a judgemental way but just because more than one kid was raised in the same household and by the same parents doesn't mean they had the same experience of their parents or the world. It's over simplistic to say that 'his siblings did alright therefore the problem is with him' and even if you're not verbalising it to him he will sense that attitude and it puts the responsibility back onto fundamentally a scared and hurt child who probably already has deep feelings of shame and inadequacy. I think surely the first step to parenting a child with this diagnosis is accepting that he is who he is and that whatever the cause of his issues are he hasn't made a conscious or malicious decision to be like this. Sibling experiences of their parents and the world around them can vary for so many reasons so it's a really unfair comparison is all I'm saying

OP, I just want you to know I came onto this site tonight feeling the same and also looking for support. Parents who don’t have kids like this can’t understand the stress, the pressure, the heavy weight of waking up to it every day. My child isn’t diagnosed with ODD, we are waiting for a referral for ADHD and I am just holding on day after day. I cry far too often. My marriage is suffering, I feel guilty as hell my other kids aren’t getting my best because I am so focussed on being a better parent to DS1. Similar to yourself I am sure, I spent years beating myself up about whether I spoiled DS1 or whether I wasn’t enough of a good parent to him in other ways. I tried every parenting approach in the book, lost my few friends because they didn’t like being around him (and I was always with him because I didn’t have any support) and their kids didn’t like him, and I felt embarrassed and angry at the same time that my child was ‘that’ type of kid - badly behaved, and everyone one from strangers in the supermarket to my own family just thought I was a bad parent. My other kids came along and from babyhood they looked at the world in a different way, had happier natures and were more loving and less demanding. I love DS1 fiercely but it doesn’t mean I can’t see there is a difference in his very nature to the other two. Of course I love him and understand he is innocent and doesn’t mean to be the way he is. I treat them all fairly. However I can only hope he picks up nothing, or very little from me during those times when I want to be anywhere else but with him , when my own baby is being violent with me, saying awful things, or keeping me up all night while I am sleep deprived with a new baby who is also screaming for attention. @Jannt86 I can’t help but feel you are judging OP. We all do our best for our kids and we can’t be perfect all the time. Yes her child may be picking up on some resentment, but it would take a saint to not feel that way some times and it doesn’t help OP at all to point this out when she is at a low point. We try our best, and to me it sound like she’s done everything she can to help her child and keep fighting to help him despite how low she feels