Niccakolio
New Member
I am here as a stepmother. I have three children of my own and one due in a few short weeks, but my concern is with my stepdaughter. She is almost 11 (she had just turned 8 when I met her) and since I have been seen as an authority figure and not just a friend (a few months into my relationship with husband) my stepdaughter has displayed all the telltale signs of ODD. (Which I only became familiar with today!)
We have been at a total loss as to what to do with her. She has recently started counseling (which she refuses to take part in) because she was drawing pictures of me on fire and writing die all over the papers (all of this because I said no when she asked me if she could do something). We have had to take her personal journals away from her because this activity continued after the initial consequence.
I hate to say it, but husband has never been good with laying down the rules and following through. He is finally seeing what a mistake that has been, for all of us. I am glad he has started to come around.
Reading through the symptoms and causes of ODD, I have to say she has 99% of them (probably the only one she lacks is substance abuse!) I am more than convinced she has this problem. I don't think our counselor is able to diagnose problems. I am thinking of suggesting to my husband that we take her to someone else who could diagnose her if need be.
However, a road block for us is that her mother is, for all intents and purposes, a hippie who has extremely lax parenting skills and doesn't enforce any rules or guidelines. In fact, DSD isn't enrolled in school (nor is her younger brother, who reaches school age this fall) simply because she doesn't want to be. Her mother doesn't believe in bed times or rules, and doesn't have consequences for negative actions. She is not on board with a treatment plan for her daughter because she doesn't believe in the conventional way of doing anything (and in fact doesn't even bring the children to medical doctors, let alone ones for mental or emotional issues). I am unsure of how to go about this- if she were put on a prescription, her mother would not give it to her, and DSD is certainly not going to take them herself when she is not under our roof.
Is there a possibility that she can have effective treatment without full support from all parties? I am concerned for where this is going, not only for our family but for my SD, who isn't that far from becoming a teen and risking making extremely poor choices.
Thanks for reading!
We have been at a total loss as to what to do with her. She has recently started counseling (which she refuses to take part in) because she was drawing pictures of me on fire and writing die all over the papers (all of this because I said no when she asked me if she could do something). We have had to take her personal journals away from her because this activity continued after the initial consequence.
I hate to say it, but husband has never been good with laying down the rules and following through. He is finally seeing what a mistake that has been, for all of us. I am glad he has started to come around.
Reading through the symptoms and causes of ODD, I have to say she has 99% of them (probably the only one she lacks is substance abuse!) I am more than convinced she has this problem. I don't think our counselor is able to diagnose problems. I am thinking of suggesting to my husband that we take her to someone else who could diagnose her if need be.
However, a road block for us is that her mother is, for all intents and purposes, a hippie who has extremely lax parenting skills and doesn't enforce any rules or guidelines. In fact, DSD isn't enrolled in school (nor is her younger brother, who reaches school age this fall) simply because she doesn't want to be. Her mother doesn't believe in bed times or rules, and doesn't have consequences for negative actions. She is not on board with a treatment plan for her daughter because she doesn't believe in the conventional way of doing anything (and in fact doesn't even bring the children to medical doctors, let alone ones for mental or emotional issues). I am unsure of how to go about this- if she were put on a prescription, her mother would not give it to her, and DSD is certainly not going to take them herself when she is not under our roof.
Is there a possibility that she can have effective treatment without full support from all parties? I am concerned for where this is going, not only for our family but for my SD, who isn't that far from becoming a teen and risking making extremely poor choices.
Thanks for reading!
