My3girls&me
New Member
Hi everyone. I am new to the board. I was referred to this site by my daughter's teacher. My four year old was recently diagnosed with ODD. I first started noticing a problem when she was about 3. She started going to a new daycare and almost immediately began acting out. I attributed it at first to this being the first daycare without her big sisters. My oldest started kindergarten that year and my middle daughter started preschool at a montessori school. After a few weeks, it got to the point where the school director was calling me everyday to come and get her because she was too disruptive. She would go into the library and pull every book off the shelf, kick her teacher, pull others hair for no reason and just cry and cry and cry. It got to the point that I was scared something was happening to her at school and even took her to the doctor to be checked and make sure she was not being abused in any way. After the school basically kicked her out, I enrolled her in a larger preschool in our town. Again the fits started. Luckily the teacher in her classroom has really taken her under her wing and has even gone to the extreme of reading books on the subject to better deal with my daughter and give her the tools she needs to succeed in school. We have truly been blessed by this wonderful teacher coming into our lives. To give a little more background on EK, she is about to turn 5YO, she has classic ODD symptoms, constantly picking on other kids, blaming everything on others, demanding my attention, disagreeing just for the sake of disagreeing, kicking and saying hateful things to other kids. She is however very smart and has tested into Kindergarten at 4YO. She has no developmental delays at all and became verbal and mobile by 11 months old. It just seems there is no rhyme or reason to her. She is the sweetest most loving child one minute, but as soon as she feels rejected or left out, she starts brewing like a tea kettle and cannot be consoled until she has completely blown up, often times exhausting herself. I am a single mom with two other daughters and I think the hardest part for me has been the guilt. I really do feel like I am doing the best I can and get very hurt when people tell me all the things I should be doing and that ODD doesn't even exist - it is just her being difficult. I am starting to notice changes in my other two daughters because I have to devote so much of my already stretched out time on the baby. I know I am young and I do not have a husband, but I have very specific feelings toward parenting - I will physically punish her within reason but I will not put her on medication until I have done all I can first. I am terrified that next year when she goes to public school she will be labeled as a "bad kid" and slip through the cracks. My heart is breaking for my daughter and I need to know how to make our lives better. Please help us.