jumpingoffplace
New Member
Hi everyone. I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have found this site! I was google searching ODD because I am in desperate need of some guidance. I am engaged to a wonderful man, and have a beautiful three year old little boy. My fiance has an 8 year old boy who has ODD. I am at my wits' end and don't know what to do with Michael (the 8 year old). They spend almost every weekend here as we live in different states for now. All weekend this child is screaming, arguing, throwing objects at us and deliberately breaking the rules. There aren't many rules here; don't hurt each other, respect adults, don't destroy things- very basic stuff. Other than that, the kids are allowed to just be kids. No matter how hard I or his father try, no matter how many time-outs this child gets, the behavior only escalates to the point where I've considered telling my fiance to take him home. This child purposefully wets the bed (wakes up and chooses to lay there instead of getting up to use the toilet) as if to spite us. I've tried every tool I've ever learned in parenting classes, books, online- you name it. Nothing works. This is very disruptive to my little boy who is for the most part very well behaved (though he is 3 so he tests limits sometimes too, but not anywhere near the extent Michael does). My little guy can't sleep because Michael defies all direction and wakes him up at 5am, and is constantly being teased. It takes me 3 days after having them here for a weekend to get my little one back on his schedule. It's become such a major problem that I've told my fiance that until we can get a handle on it that we can't live together. I run a business from home and there is no way I can do that with this going on all the time. Everything that I've worked for would disappear. I've even considered breaking the engagement because I don't know if I can commit to living with this. I feel terrible for feeling this way. I feel like I should be more flexible, more forgiving, more...SOMETHING...My fiance asked me if I loved Michael...and I want to...I really do, but his behavior makes it so hard. I feel like all I do is correct him every second he is here and I hate that. There is no "fun" when he is here...there is only fighting, correcting, time-outs and then we start over again. I've tried doing fun things with him, but whenever we take him somewhere he gets out of control. My fiance and I have different parenting styles, but we are learning to merge them into something that we are both comfortable with. For instance, I will not spank a child, where my fiance was- until he decided to stop about 2 months ago. But, he has the tolerance for this that I lack. I suppose that is because he's dealt with it for a lot longer than I have. I really feel terrible for being so impatient, for not being able to handle this...What can I do? I'm open to any and all suggestions from anyone. Please help! Thanks so much! ~J