New to board, 7 year old son has ODD

[klemie]

Hello eveyone,
Well I have a 7 year old son that was just diagnosed with ODD, a daughter with sever anxiety disorder, and a husband that was diagnosed two years ago with Bipolar and so I am here! Life is busy, rough at times but I love them all. Just came home from hospital today as my hubby is having a major depression and needed adjustments to his medications and a specialist as he decided shortly after being diagnosed that he couldn't take it . Now we are on the right track, our daughter lives in a residential treatment facility and its rough. My daughter is doing great though and we have high expectations that she will be home in the summer and able to attend main stream high school in the fall. I am working very hard with my son's teacher but it is really difficult with my son. I have made a routine schedule on the fridge for my son of what he has to do in the morning and after school till bed and this seems to work very well for him. I have asked the teacher to have my son tested and it is going to happen in March. What I would like to know is some stratagies to use on my son for his arguing. Also, I am interested in knowing what medications seem to work for others. My son is on 20 mg of dexadrine and 25 mg of straterra. At bedtime we have to give him clonidine for him to fall asleep but boy does he get irratable. It seems that his medications run out way before bed and it makes it very difficult to do homework. I do see a lot of behaviors in my son that are the same as my husband but that could be just learned behaviors too Im sure.. Any advice would help,
Thanks, :smile: busy mom

 

[Wiped Out]

Welcome! You may want to remove your name for privacy reasons.

You sure do have your hands full but sound lie you are on top of things.

One book that really is helpful is The Explosive Child by Ross Greene.

My son also takes the Clonidine for sleep. My son was never able to do well on stimulants or any ADHD medications because of his bipolar-it brought out to much raging.

I'm glad you found us-you will find much support here! Hugs.

 

[nvts]

Hi Carol! Welcome to the site! Explosive Child - a great read!

I don't have any experience with bipolar, but a lot of us have had neuropsychologist evaluations done with great success. It's rare that ODD resides alone. We got ours done over the summer and got some great information.

Again, you found a great crowd of people here!

Beth

:smile:

 

[Jena]

Hi and welcome,

you do have your hands full yet have a finger on it all. good for you, they are all very lucky to have you.

I'm not familiar with the medication's you spoke of just wanted to welcome you. I'm familiar with clonidine i used to use that for my daugther so sleep. I hated it though. so now she's on abilify which seems to assist in sleep aid somewhat.


anyhow welcome, people here are great i'm new too.

Jen

 

[slsh]

Hi and welcome!

You sound impressively strong! What's your secret??? :wink:

I don't have first-hand experience with- those medications, but the thought does occur that with a husband with- BiPolar (BP), perhaps a look at possibly trialing a mood stabilizer in son might be a good idea? I know that thank you at 7 was irritable to the nth degree generally but when he cycled up (or down) the irritability turned into more Tasmanian Devil kind of behavior - just *wild*. My understanding is that BiPolar (BP) in young children looks more like extreme (*extreme*) irritability rather than what you'd think of as a "manic" or "depressive" episode in an adult. Just a thought... Of course, another option since his current medications do seem to work, just not long enough, is to talk with psychiatrist about either another afternoon dose or a long-acting formulation?

As far as the arguing - the strategy that worked best was "asked and answered" (thank you Law and Order). thank you would obsess about whatever question/want it was and would just go on and on and on. When I would say "asked and answered", it kind of made him stop and think - honestly I think sometimes he would ask and then forget to listen to the answer. Another strategy that worked well sometimes (especially when I was feeling particularly patient) was to just extinct him - ignore him completely after the first discussion of whatever it was.

There were the days when thank you would insist the sky was purple and grass was red... path of least resistence was to just agree. But I'm a wimp!

Again, welcome!

 

[KitKat]

Hi

One technique that has worked with all three of our kids was taken from the book "1-2-3 Magic" some years ago. It was a good read and we were so impressed with its results when we started using it that we introduced it to the school daycare where my stepson was attending school... they loved it and the school commission here eventually adopted it as a non-invasive way of controlling behaviour when things get out of hand). The book is written by Thomas Phelan and it literally saved us before my stepson's behaviour evolved to what it is now (he's 15.5 yrs old). It works for kids from 2-12. You might want to check it out. We loved how it worked and we are still using it for our six year old...

Good luck. You seem very strong. Don't forget to take time out for yourself!

 

[loricbme]

The sky isn't purple and the grass isn't red??? I'm so confused! LOL

 

[rdp]

Hi and welcome to the board.
As for sleep at bed time have you tried a prn we use benadryl its over the counter or its called Diphenhydram from the Dr. it works great to help him sleep