Neighbour's son has ADHD and ODD - question.

[RedCharityBonney]

ODD, as most will know is Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and it's frequently found as a co-morbid condition with ADHD.

My neighbour's 15yo son has these conditions and he makes her life a misery - not to mention the whole street's lives. He's got a grudge against the world, including me unfortunately, and I wondered if anyone who knew about these conditions could give me a few tips for keeping him away.

He's always been a nuisance - cherry knocking and throwing things at our houses, even climbing into my garden for they come over the back, and now he's started vandalising my wall and fence and swearing at me in the street. If you ask us neighbours we've all got stories about him.

BUt how do we get him to stop? His mum's control over him is slipping as he gets older.

She sent him over to me to apologise for swearing at me and instead he pushed my fence in.

Police have been involved recently but I think he's only getting worse - am genuinely frightened.

What do we do?

RCB

bump

my DS has ODD and ASD, i would suggest you ask the mum if she is getting any support through her Gp or CAMHS or autism outreach if you have these things in your area.
ODD in some areas is recognised as being on the autistic spectrum and alot of the strategies you would use are also used for autistic children. Unfortunately i have no advice how to help you. If you feel the mum needs support maybe suggest she contacts social services for some support.

Thanks Bonkerz, I appreciate the input. I'm not sure that I could suggest that to the boy's mum as we're not close and she's extremely defensive about him - I think she'd think it was an intrusion. I'm equally sure that calling the ss without her knowledge would cause immense amounts of trouble.
We do have those things in the area - as I know because my DS1 is autistic - and maybe I'll slip something through her letter box.
xxRCB

No idea if this is feasible, but given he is likely to get into trouble with the police if he continues, can there be more neighbourhood involvement? I mean, would the autism outreach that Bonkerz mentioned, get the boy's mother, neighbours who are likely to be affected, like you RCB, and maybe even the boy in question together and do a bit of education about the condition but also give practical advice for neighbours and mum and so the child knows they are all working together - sort of like the community parenting the child? Has anyone every encountered anything like this before?

Heated, I think that's a wonderful idea and it needs thinking about.

I wonder how it would work ... there's so much bad feeling here already. He's 15 now and the police are already getting involved. Lots of neighbours have had enough (for example, he had a phase of asking people to change notes for him which then turned out to be counterfeit, and this undid a lot of the sympathy that there was for him) and the boy's mum is very touchy, understandably.

It's all got really tense here.

I don't suppose there are easy answers now - it's going to be hard work.

But maybe a bit idealistic, having read your last post? I thought to myself that doesn't sound like many autistic boys I teach and then I realised I had misread your original post and it's ODD with ADHD. Given the calculation involved in swapping dud notes, but stupidly on his own door-step, I can see why neighbourly goodwill has disappeared. Unfortunately it does seem he's on a downward spiral of petty criminality unless someone steps in.