Archive for 'ODD Disorder'

Bigger Hammers Develop Bigger Nails: Why Parents Should Not Take Things Personally

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Our children spend at least half of their lives living with us, watching our every move every day. We might not be aware of it, but as they grow our children also absorbs the things that make us tick, both in good and bad ways. Kids are very adaptive of their environment, so do not be surprised to hear your daughter answer back with the most overwhelming argument.
Perhaps it is inherent to all parents to try and control their emotions, even bite their tongue as much as they can. However,
some parents can only hold their temper for so long and release a sleeping monster within. If you are one of the many parents who struggle so hard with keeping their emotions as manageable as possible, you might find this read interesting and helpful.

Losing your temper easily translates into shouting at your kids, calling them names, slamming things on the counter, increasing the consequences beyond necessary, and depriving them of their basic needs such as dinners to serve as a punishment.

Tension happens between parent and child almost every day, about almost everything – from getting dressed, finishing their potatoes, not sticking with the rules, to being verbally disrespectful. As children become teenagers, the problems escalate into issues concerning socializing, behavior outside the house, helping with household chores, and dishonesty.

The ultimate reason why parents get easily mad when their kids do not follow what they say is that they get trapped in power struggles with their kids. When you allow yourself to be eaten by power struggle, regardless of your child’s age, your emotions will be harder to control and you will find it more difficult to get out of the struggle.

Come to think of it – if losing temper was an effective parenting strategy, all parents in the world would be problem-free. All we have to do is to wait until our child gets into our nerves, yell at him for a while, and he goes out of the house a changed kid.

Losing your temper and taking things personally does not work. It is ineffective because the root of the problem gets lost in the heat of the argument, and it is left unsolved after all energy has been used for yelling and screaming. When you get angry, instead of learning the essential problem solving skill, your child gets nothing but power thrusts from you.

Think of it this way: if your child misbehaves and all you do is get a bigger hammer to correct his mistake, your child will grow and become a bigger nail. Understand that learning how to solve problems and control emotions is what your child needs to get out of childhood. If you do not teach him that, who will?

Searching for parenting help? We highly recommend The Total Transformation Program for parents dealing with Kids Who Engage in Back Talk. Check on the link for more information.

Treat Your Home Like a Business: How to Tell Your Kids NO

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Most parents believe that every rule needs to be explained thoroughly to their kids in order for them to understand and follow. Although this works fine for certain circumstances, going beyond one instance of explaining your decision might pave the way for more serious problems. Letting your child understand every decision and every reason that you have can easily turn to wanting their approval.

This could lead you into a very dangerous cycle of over-explaining every little thing to your kids. At work, did you hear your boss over-explain his decision about not allowing employees sleep while on duty? Have you heard about a CEO sitting beside the janitor, explaining the reason why he needs the office clean at all times? That is why most experts recommend that if you have already given your child an explanation once, repeating everything for the second time is not necessary.

Evaluate your relationship with your kid, have you been frequently explaining your rules and your reasons every time your child disagrees with you? If so, then you probably have kept talking to your kid every time a misunderstanding occurs – a clear indication that you have been defending your own decisions to your child, right in your own home.

If unnoticed, this habit usually grows with the child. You will soon find yourself compromising some more to your kid, and even changing the rules in favor of your kid every time he disagrees. Be reminded that when you over-elaborate your decisions to your child, you are training him NOT to follow your rules.

Always be firm; when you tell your child, “No, we will buy that on your birthday” at the toy store, and he keeps insisting that you should buy it now, and you give in after a while buying him the toy eventually, you just trained your child not to value your decision.

Remember that when you give in to your child’s whim even when already said no earlier, you are grooming him to break the rules, your rules. Of course, that is not what you want.

When you do not stand by your “no”, this is what happens – when you say “no” to your kids, they will think that you are just letting them challenge your authority, the punishment that you set, or the responsibilities that they have. When you explain yourself to your child over and over and end up doing what he wants, you are trying to be successful at allowing your child to overpower you without even knowing.

In order to avoid that, it is then necessary that you show your child certain limits that he is not to violate. These limits could be as minor as setting a curfew to saying, “No cartoons before homework”. Setting these rules sans the over-explaining habit lets your child realize the value of being told “no”.

Searching for parenting help? We highly recommend The Total Transformation Program for parents dealing with ODD. Check on the link for more information.

Why It Is Important for Parents to Know Their Values

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It is impossible for someone not to believe in a particular set of ideas. Even thieves, believe in something that make them do what they do. No matter how you look at it, believing in a certain set of values will make our lives more peaceful and put everything in order. If you want to teach your kids certain values, you first learn to identify your own.

It is important that parents have their own sets of belief in life. If a father knows the very things that he feels important, then he will be able to look at himself objectively. In the process, he will also be able to understand the things around him and understand the way his kids sees him. Aside from that, he will also be able to improve his self-esteem and self-confidence because he will see the world in a different light.

When you know the things that are most important for you, then you will become a more focused parent and individual. You will be able to shape your expectations and be aware of the expectations that your kids have for you as well. On top of that, you will also be able to handle life’s challenges a lot better if you know what your values are.

You have to understand that there are values that go against each other. Although you will be able to know better, kids will not. If you do not explain these values clearly to your children, they might take on a wrong notion and uphold a distorted set of beliefs.

Of course, you would not want that to happen. When you classify your values in a simple and more understandable way, your kids will be able to understand it better. If you are unsure about the values that are most important for you, simply evaluate your environment.

Take a good look around you, think about the people you like and look at their best qualities. Write these down and take note of their values. If you believe in the same thing, you can take them as yours and add them to your own list of values.

It is also important that you know what each ideal stands for. You can look at the dictionary for a more accurate definition, or you can make a definition of your own. This is not just a good exercise, you will also be able to revisit your own set of values in the process.

Arrange your values according from the most important to the least important. So that when your child asks which is particular principle should come first, you will know how to answer them clearly and properly.

Looking for parenting advice? We highly recommend The Total Transformation Program for parents dealing with Abusive Children. Check on the link for more information.

The Right Approach to Kids’ Lying

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Part of being a parent is being ready to face the things that your child will go through. From the moment your child is born, he is bound to undergo a lot of changes – not just physically, but emotionally and socially as well – and you should be prepared to accept whatever challenges come along the way.

Lying is a crucial part in a child’s development. You have to be aware that all kids, at a certain point at a certain age, will experiment with lying. However, their reasons for lying are totally different from the motives of adults who lie. Kids lie not really to manipulate, but to see what things they can and cannot get away with. That is why when your kids lie to you, it would be better if you don’t make it personal.

In order to discourage your child from lying, implementing harsh punishments is the least that you can do. In fact, punishing a kid for lying is actually a form of reinforcement. So instead of spanking your child for lying, focus on the values that you want to teach. To counter the lying behavior, teach him honesty and help him get the chance to aim for it.

Say for example your son lied to your for the first time, insisting that he was telling the truth. When kids lie, most of the time they will sound really convincing, so keep your guards up. If you know that your child is lying and is trying to stand by his lie, find a way to make him realize that it is wrong without resorting to punishment.

You can tell him a story – that your hearts are actually connected by a hundred invisible little threads and that whenever he tells a lie, he cuts one of these threads cutting the connection between you two in the process.

So the more lies that he tells, the more threads are cut. And if he continues to lie, the thread will be completely destroyed and you will both be separated for good. However, if he tells the truth, the threads will grow thicker and the connection will grow stronger.

Instilling important values in children requires sincerity and warmth. Instead of beating your child to be honest, help him in any way you can to the truth. When he tells the truth, he will feel authentic. Which in turn, encourage him to tell the truth at all times.

It is the job of the parents to keep their children honest as much as possible. However, that does not imply being strict or uptight. Always be in your right mind when dealing with your kids, especially when they lie. Taking these lies personally can actually make things worse.

Looking for parenting advice? We highly recommend The Total Transformation Program for parents dealing with Abusive Children. Check on the link for more information.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder: Treatment At Home

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When your child is diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, treatment options can be confusing. One of the more difficult decisions you can make is how, exactly, to deal with the situation; there are any number of people suggesting treatment plans ranging from basic disciplinary methods all the way up to expensive boarding schools.

But for oppositional defiant disorder, treatment is not simply a question of teaching your child how to behave – it’s also a matter of understanding, as a parent, how your child thinks and makes decisions. The emergence of ODD in a child is not a disease in the classical sense – something strange and unusual that has happened to your child, with no rhyme or reason. It is evidence of a series of rational thought processes which need to be understood and corrected.

The biggest flaw in the thinking of children with oppositional defiant disorder is having only a surface understanding of human behavior. To the ODD child or teen, defiance is a way to get what you want – and when people want something contrary to your own desires, patterns will emerge based on what has worked in the past.

These patterns are not based on a deep understanding of human nature, but on a flawed and impersonal notion that people are tools you can use to achieve your goals. The ODD child does not suffer from some sociopathy or psychosis, where they believe that other people have no feelings or emotions at all, but from a basic inability to discern what feelings and emotions someone else has at a given time… or will have after a given situation.

The single most effective thing you can do with a child like this is to provide education on the larger picture. The ODD child tends to be analytical and intelligent, and to understand small interactions quite well. It’s the larger interactions that are confusing. When faced with complex interactions, children with ODD see only the simple surface interaction, one step at a time.

So the best oppositional defiant disorder treatment you can use is not some strange technique or expensive facility, but a process of education. Using a simple system like James Lehman’s to understand the flaws in how an ODD child thinks, you can begin the process of correcting those flaws, bit by bit… not by demanding specific behavior on the surface, but by addressing the logic and feeling behind their behavior.

To learn more about oppositional defiant disorder treatment, I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

ODD Disorder in Kids and Strategies for Parents

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ODD Disorder, or Oppositional Defiant Disorder, can be a tremendous difficulty for a parent to handle; what might seem like a simple request to you just rubs your child exactly the wrong way, and leads to a fight or argument that can last hours… when simply doing as you’ve asked would have taken only a few minutes.

While the actual diagnosis of ODD disorder is of course best left to a qualified professional, there are many warning signs that could signify its presence. The primary behaviors that could identify the presence of ODD disorder are an ongoing pattern of disobedient and hostile actions toward authority figures – whether violent, e.g. throwing things or shouting, or merely passive-aggressive… simple refusal to act, or to alter one’s actions.

It’s important to understand that ODD disorder is fundamentally a way that children seek control over their surroundings. Children lack a great deal of control that adults take for granted; looking at the world through your child’s eyes, it can become apparent that even when you find your requests reasonable and small, they still represent a loss of control for the child.

One of the most effective techniques to deal with these scenarios is to simply reframe the request as the child having control over the outcome. The presence of some consequence is a powerful motivator, if it is properly framed as something the child can choose – rather than responding to undesired behavior with an immediate consequence, identify the desired behavior and the consequence of continued refusal.

There are, of course, productive and unproductive types of consequences… and it can be difficult to determine which type of consequence will work best. Behavioral therapist James Lehman clarifies and explains this in his Total Transformation Program, including the difference between task-based and time-based consequences.

A time-based consequence is the usual variety many of us remember from our own childhood; we may have been grounded for a week, or lost television for a month, or had to sit in the corner for an hour. But the best consequences teach a lesson, and these consequences do not – they only teach patience, how to “do time.”

A task-based consequence, however, relates directly to the undesirable behavior and teaches a lesson about that behavior. Staying out past curfew may require coming in an hour earlier the next time, to show your child can observe a curfew; rudeness to a sibling may require a letter of apology. The consequence is not arbitrary, but relates specifically to the infraction at hand.

The process of dealing with a child who has ODD disorder, or simply displays its tendencies, can be improved dramatically with the right guidance. With effort and patience, the undesirable behaviors of children and even young adults can be modified into productive and appropriate behaviors.

If you enjoyed this article about ODD disorder you’re probably going to get a lot more out of The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

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