Our daughter was recently diagnosed with ODD. She mainly displays the behavior at home and with the people who love her most myself, my husband and my mother (she says she doesnt misbehave at school because she doesnt want to embarrass herself). However lately, it seems to be trickling into school a bit (this year her teacher has noticed that she seems to lack some confidence, but other than that, her teachers always think shes the perfect student I dont think theyd believe us about what we deal with at home).
A little history on our daughter. She has ALWAYS been tough. At 15 months the doctor commented that we seem to have an early case of the terrible 2s (its never gone away). As a toddler it would take me an hour of chasing her around the house to get her into time out. I often wasnt able to get her into her car seat she would fight me for an hour and would end with me crying and her sitting on the floor of the car (once a stranger came to help me and we were successful because she stopped fighting when the woman came over). When she got mad at mealtime, we would have to throw ourselves over the table to keep her from grabbing everything and throwing it on the floor. At age four she sat on the step watching me empty the entire room of her toys she pretty much laughed at me.
Up until now, we have done conventional parenting with her rules, consequences, consistency- tried reward charts (never worked), positive reinforcement (she just denies our compliment, no Im not creative!") Since she always seems to care more about making a statement than the actual consequence, we were advised to make the consequence more severe rarely worked. Ignoring her doesnt work either. She just ends up looking for something she can do that we cant ignore. Since November, it has escalated to a point where our family is no longer functioning. She has always been defiant, dramatic, irritable and manipulative, but now she is putting her hands on us, yelling at the dog/poking him, poking us with pencils, ripping our papers, locking us out of the house, causing signs of physical stress in her younger sister
We have realized that traditional parenting does not work on our kid. (Works perfectly on our six year old daughter, though). We have been doing a lot of reading (i.e. Transforming the Difficult Child the Nurtured Heart Approach, Explosive Child") and have been completely changing our parenting. Although, as my husband recently says, it feels like were not doing any parenting (i.e. give her a consequence she ignore the consequence and her behavior escalates, dont give her a consequence she just continues doing what shes doing ). Weve been in survival mode lately just trying to keep her behavior from escalating, to get the situation in control, but weve been having a near impossible time doing this.
Shes an average/above average student (would probably do better if she didnt have low self-esteem and get frustrated so easily and if she worked harder shes satisfied with doing the minimum necessary to not get in trouble/noticed), shes a talented singer/actress and loves her theater class. She has anxiety (runs in the family), very self conscious, has an easy time making friends, but doesnt seem to be able to build real friendships/maintain healthy relationships bottom line doesnt really have any close friends.
We met with a psychiatrist who thinks it's time to try some Prozac, but we're having a hard time getting our head around it. Sometimes it feels like she's totally in control, but yet, what kid would take it to such extremes if they were? We can't go on like this and need to try something big. But, is medicine the way to go? Any thoughts would be so helpful. And, if you got this far, thanks so much for reading my super long post - appreciate it so much!
A little history on our daughter. She has ALWAYS been tough. At 15 months the doctor commented that we seem to have an early case of the terrible 2s (its never gone away). As a toddler it would take me an hour of chasing her around the house to get her into time out. I often wasnt able to get her into her car seat she would fight me for an hour and would end with me crying and her sitting on the floor of the car (once a stranger came to help me and we were successful because she stopped fighting when the woman came over). When she got mad at mealtime, we would have to throw ourselves over the table to keep her from grabbing everything and throwing it on the floor. At age four she sat on the step watching me empty the entire room of her toys she pretty much laughed at me.
Up until now, we have done conventional parenting with her rules, consequences, consistency- tried reward charts (never worked), positive reinforcement (she just denies our compliment, no Im not creative!") Since she always seems to care more about making a statement than the actual consequence, we were advised to make the consequence more severe rarely worked. Ignoring her doesnt work either. She just ends up looking for something she can do that we cant ignore. Since November, it has escalated to a point where our family is no longer functioning. She has always been defiant, dramatic, irritable and manipulative, but now she is putting her hands on us, yelling at the dog/poking him, poking us with pencils, ripping our papers, locking us out of the house, causing signs of physical stress in her younger sister
We have realized that traditional parenting does not work on our kid. (Works perfectly on our six year old daughter, though). We have been doing a lot of reading (i.e. Transforming the Difficult Child the Nurtured Heart Approach, Explosive Child") and have been completely changing our parenting. Although, as my husband recently says, it feels like were not doing any parenting (i.e. give her a consequence she ignore the consequence and her behavior escalates, dont give her a consequence she just continues doing what shes doing ). Weve been in survival mode lately just trying to keep her behavior from escalating, to get the situation in control, but weve been having a near impossible time doing this.
Shes an average/above average student (would probably do better if she didnt have low self-esteem and get frustrated so easily and if she worked harder shes satisfied with doing the minimum necessary to not get in trouble/noticed), shes a talented singer/actress and loves her theater class. She has anxiety (runs in the family), very self conscious, has an easy time making friends, but doesnt seem to be able to build real friendships/maintain healthy relationships bottom line doesnt really have any close friends.
We met with a psychiatrist who thinks it's time to try some Prozac, but we're having a hard time getting our head around it. Sometimes it feels like she's totally in control, but yet, what kid would take it to such extremes if they were? We can't go on like this and need to try something big. But, is medicine the way to go? Any thoughts would be so helpful. And, if you got this far, thanks so much for reading my super long post - appreciate it so much!