4 yr old daughter-odd?

[cheraw1]

I am new to this site and saw some similarities between my daughter and other children. My daughter didn't sleep through the night until 14 mo and has always been high energy (more so than other kids her age). At age 2 she was moved up to the 3 yr old class at school because she was the class bully. We joked that they were moving her up into a higher weight class. She wasn't potty trained at the time and caught a lot of grief from the other kids in her class. A year later we believe she was still holding resentment towards some of the kids and targeted one little girl in particular to go after and scratched her pretty good one day. We met with a pediatrician immediately and wondered if she had ADHD (too young to diagnose). We switched daycares immediately hoping to get away from the little girl that seemed to be a trigger. We kept her in the older class at the new school because she knew a couple of the kids. It was too structured for her. She threw tantrums, yelled and spit at the teachers. We put her in younger class (I observed the first morning). We had her evaluated with the school district, cognitive, speech and psychologist. She did great and they didn't think there were any issues. We saw a family therapist, read a few books on child rearing and my husband and I have done a much better job with discipline etc. A year later she started pre-k and all of a sudden the school tells us she has really bad for some time. We had no idea. They are working with us and we have set up a progress calendar that she gets rewarded for having good days. She's doing so much better. She was having meltdowns (run from teacher, hide, not sit still in circle time, etc) at school and they would call us so that we could talk her down. We saw our therapist again. Last Friday she didn't get her way when we were going through a drive thru and she stated that she should just run into the street and kill herself. (we were shocked). I very calmly asked why she would say something like that and she said she wanted to go live with another family and we could have another baby. Then she cried hysterically the whole way home. She has never said anything like this before and has never cried like that before in front of us. Our therapist thinks she may have ODD. What are ya'lls thoughts? by the way - her teachers adore her. She is so loving and caring and cute as can be. She is not as wound up -energy wise as she used to be. But she does get in trouble for hitting, etc. She seems to know right from wrong but gets in a "red zone" moment and cant come out of it. We don't really see this much at home and our therapist thinks it's because she is an only child - doesn't have to share, etc. Thank for leting me vent!!

 

[BusynMember]

Hi and welcome, but sorry you have to be here.

I think she should be evaluated by a neuropsychologist. I don't think ODD is a stand alone diagnosis, nor do most people here. There is usually a bigger disorder causing the child's definance. Do you or her biological father have any psychiatric issues or suspected psychiatric issues on either side of the family tree? Anyone a substance abuser at one time? Any neurological disorders such as Aspergers? She isn't too young to get a diagnosis, however to me it sounds like more than something like ADHD too.

A therapist is not a good diagnostician. They don't test. I don't believe you are seeing a parenting problem at all. And plenty of only children share and behave well. in my opinion not logical. See a neuropsychologist. NeuroPsychs do 6-10 hours of testing in all areas of function. I recommend that.

 

[cheraw1]

Thanks for your reply. No psychiatric issues in family that I am aware of other than depression. Nothing major. I take zoloft for anxiety and stress. No substance abuse. My husband flies off the handle pretty quickly and throws tantrums (he's much better now - has had to be as he notices that our daughter needs a calm environment). When she started pre-k we were getting daily calls from the school to calm her down. It's been a month since we got a call. So, she is doing better. It feels like we roll along pretty smoothly and then hit a bump. The bumps seem to be big enough to take notice. It's possible that she's too immature to be in pre-k. She minds us pretty well at home - so it does seem like I have read on this site about more extreme situations. She is really smart but like another child I read about - has no desire to sit with us to learn letters and numbers. She can count but doesn't seem to be able to pick out numbers. But she will tell me states and their capitals. She gets bored easily even in most conversations. She will sit still and watch a movie. She's an only child and is pretty good about staying occupied but she also spends a lot of time with me and my husband on the weekends. she has friends at school. A year ago she would complain that she hit the kids because they wouldn't leave her alone and got on her nerves. she seems better now but will hit if a kid bugs her - not every day but every couple of weeks. She knows it is wrong. The other night at chick father in law a 3 older girls called her a little girl and she got mad and went after them. So, she definitely needs to work on her extreme emotional (and physical) reactions. She is mostly sweet as can be - but is headstrong. Me and my husband have had to learn how to discipline -he used to leave it to me and that did not work at all. He's much better with it all now. I just want to make sure that we aren't missing something with her and that things don't spiral out of control. Thanks!

 

[Marguerite]

I second the suggestion to get a neuropsychologist assessment. Also a speech pathology assessment, ven if you feel she is perfectly OK there, because sometimes there can be subtle issues not immediatel obvious. Besides, even a "she's perfectly OK" report from a speech pathologist at her ge will be valuable for her, and for you, from here on. There is a big difference between speech and language - speech pathologists work on both to a very complex level.

You mention your husband has a history of throwing tantrums - that is interesting and possibly relevant. MWM asked if there is a family history of Asperger's but the trouble is, it wasn't diagnosed a generation ago. I beleive my husband is a closet Aspie but there's no point getting him assessed for it now (although difficult child 3 disagrees with me, he really wants to know for sure). The thing is, there is a correlation between Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) in some form, and family members with high IQ. Temple Grandin describes autism as "an overdose of genius". The things your daughter describes (other kids getting on her nerves, so she hit them) sound very familiar to me.

She sounds like a very bright and perceptive little girl. That does not exclude Asperger's. Girls with Asperger's do display it differently, in a more complex way. Brighter children also are more difficult to diagnose because they adapt more quickly and can seem more "normal".

I certainly would consider Asperger's as a working hypothesis, it would give you a sense of direction while you get osme more specific answers. I also agree it doesn't sound like a parenting problem, although the usual parenting techniques which people seem to consider best are probably not going to be good for her.

Have a look at "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene (ther's some discussion in stickies here) and take from it anything that seems to fit. In our case, difficult child 3 is our fourth child, we felt we knew how to be good parents. But we learned a lot form that book including our need to totally change direction as parents and find a way that would work better for difficult child 3.

Marg