Any Other Moms Dealing with a Child Who Is ADHD & ODD

I have an 8yr old who is just being evaluated for these disorders so I can't really give any advise but I just wanted you to know that I really understand what you are going through and encourage you to be strong and consistant and trust that you will all get beyond this eventually!
S. L.

I have a son who is non-verbal and he has some behavioral issues. Since hes turned 8, his behavior is way better than it used to be. He would scream, kick and hit. The screaming would paralyze you for a second or it would make me almost hit him. When he has a meltdown, I give him tight hugs. I also learned that he needs things to do. He loves helping and loves cleaning so to get him to calm down sometimes, I would have him help me clean something. He responds well to pressure whether it be the tight hugs or being squished by bean bags. he is not on meds and that would be an absolute last resort.
Hang in there though, I believe it will get better.

Read the book WHAT ARE WE FEEDING OUT KIDS? by Jacobson & Maxwell. YOU NEED to look at overhauling his diet. You'll be amazed at what toxic levels of dyes, preservatives, chemicals, etc will do to your body! On the flip side.....what an "easy" way to help or fix a problem WITHOUT meds!!!

I always thought I was alone when I learned that my 14 year old had ADHD & ODD. I have always kind of knew what to do with him for his ADHD but I was blown away when the counselor told me he had ODD. Let me just tell you that it is very hard!!! I did research and tried to learn as much as I could about ODD, this helped me to understand it. My ex husband used my son's unruly behavior in my home to take away custody. Through the court process we were connected to a counselor by the name of Robert Reitman. He is the one who diagnosed him. I admit that I did not like this counselor at all. I thought he was very harsh, and very arrogant. We were also court ordered to take one of his classes at LCCC. But this counselor worked mostly with us parents and he had "different" techniques and approach to use with children with ODD. Although, I did not always agree with him we actually tried some of them and we actually saw progress with my son. This counselor also does behavior modification...if your current counselor is not doing this you may want to consider trying someone else. If you would want to give him a try his office is located in N Olmstead just behind the mall. Just keep in mind he says some very harsh things and you may be taken back at first but you just need to pick and choose which techniques you want to use. Believe me I never thought I would see a difference in my son's behavior...it worked.

Good luck. I hope for the best for you and your son.

hello K.,
I understand alot of what you are going through.
I have a son who is 10 yrs. old and has adhd, odd, and anxiety disorder. My son is on concerta, which took me a while to come to terms with, I was very afraid to put my son on this type of medication, which works for him. His behavior has been very tring for me, but thankfuly he is in a great behavioral modificational class which also deals with his learning disability, he has a great teacher with LOTS of patience. my son is doing better now that he is in this class, but it has been a very long and windy road.
None the less we still have some not so good times, but what child is perfect. the best thing I can suggest is, try to find the right medication, keep going to counceling,try to find a good behavioral prgram(the can be very great for your son and his father)(your sons councelor might be able to suggest a program) stay consistant with punishment for his bad behavior,and LOTS of praise for the good behavior and let your son know that this school year does not define him, that he is a great child, student,and son. remind him of all the great qulities he has and that he can and will overcome this school year. last but not least that you love him !!

K.,
Your son is very blessed to have you! I am an adult with ADHD. I work for First Steps and am a developmental preschool teacher in a township program.
I too take medication but the biggest difference came from finding out I have MULTIPLE allergies. THis is not highly unusual for people diagnosed with ADHD. Your doctor may not agree, but neither did mine. That's why I found a different doctor. If you want to look into this and want some info please let me know. Yes, it can be a hassle at first, but I had NO idea that I could feel that much better! I didn't know you weren't supposed to have a headache every day of your life. I didn't know it was a headache because I had always had one. ALso, when I took wheat out of my diet I DID NOT have the spaciness that I had always experienced.
GOOD LUCK AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT ANY INFO OR DIRECTION,
Blessings,
S.

My son was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD when he was 3 years old, he is now 8. We tried different medications and now have been on the same plan (upped the Concerta dose once) for almost two years. We give him 5 mg in the morning right before actually waking him up, 36 mg of Concerta before getting him on the bus, and then another 5 mg of Ritalin when he comes home from school. All though the 5 mg seems low, it really helps to extend where the Concerta leaves off, which is extremely vital during the morning and evening routines, without overmedicating. We also had him in counseling up until about three months ago when we found out about a place called Behavior Corp., it is located in Carmel, IN. It is an excellent place and I actually know many other families whose children go there. They specialize specifically in children with behavior disorders and distachment disorders, they actually have animal therapy in which the children work with horses and other animals to deal with anger and other feelings. So far this place seems to be what my son needs and only time will tell whether or not it is really effective long term. My son is extremely intelligent and is at the top of his class, however he struggles immensely with social skills. I have noticed it getting a little better since bringing him to Behavior Corp. Good luck to you and your son!!

NPR did a piece several weeks back on a 3 year study of children 'with ADD'. They were divided into groups who took meds and a group who did not take meds and were instead 'given behavior modification'. After 3 years, it was found that the children on meds were not progressing as well as the children with no meds. but behavior modification. They said any results they saw from meds. was short-lived. Behavior modification seemed to be nothing more than actually engaging the children with patience whenever the need arose.

i also came across a paper on the net saying that the evidence for anti-depressants is None but the way that they "interpret" the statistical findings makes it Appear that they are having an effect.

i personally took prozac for one year. It did nothing at all to change anything except that i was unknowingly ingesting flouride- a known neurotoxin that makes people susceptible to being dominated.

i recently met a young man who was about 19 or 20 years old. He said he was trying to cleanse all the residue from his body from being forced to take meds. since he was 11 years old. He said there was nothing he could do -they Made him take them even though he did not want to. He was a lovely young man who was no longer taking pharmaceuticals. He was peppy and yet calm. A lot of people that i end up finding they are on meds. for mood seem not at all helped by them.

i remember a good 15 or more years ago when the idea of medicating people for "ADD" was becoming popular, a man i worked with was talking about putting his young son on meds. or atleast that his son might 'be ADD'. Now this man had told me stories of himself as a boy....blowing up his mother's oven, spending hours in the wooded areas where he lived. i reminded him that his son has far less outlets for his energies than he did as a boy and i also reminded him that he had blown up his mother's oven. :)
Maybe we all need to stop thinking and speaking in psychological pharmaceutical terms..ODD :) if a child talks back he has Oppositional Defiance Disorder ;) come on people are we Really going to medicate the entire population from birth?

Your son got straight A's but now suddenly he has come down with some mind disease called ADHD and ODD and it is affecting his school work so that now he gets F's? i have seen people on zoloft who are like zombies- maybe his teacher is on zoloft. Maybe your son needs to be somewhere where they practice "PBM"(Positive Behavior Modification) ie. engaging children with an open heart and mind and patience and understanding. wisdom.

When i was in school, i was taught that the schools are not under the control of the federal government and that it was a good thing. Well, somewhere since then, the schools have become federalized. No Child Left Behind equates to all children on meds., scripted teaching. When i was in school, it was especially UNcommon for a child to be held back. Today it is common for a first grade class to hold back 4 or 5 children each class each year. No Child Left Behind...those are just words- very misleading words, at that.

and for anyone who might want to say i am a member of an 'anti-med brigade' :) i am 36 and my uncle was a pharmacist and my other uncle was a psychiatrist. i have more than one friend who works for Lily. i spent a year on prozac. i have more friends than i can count who are or have been on prozac or zoloft or ten other names of pharms. What did the world ever do with out these pharmaceuticals? come on. By the way, not ONE person who i know well, who is on pharms. for 'chemical imbalances' of one sort or another seems to me at all positively influenced by the meds. they are on.

...if your children being on meds gets you through the day in this day and age where we are cutting down the rainforest and not about to stop until it is gone- why is not the media talking about that like Monica LewinskY? and great expanses of the Amazon River are Dried up..if putting your child and yourself on meds. gets you all through the day...we are a cancer on the earth...remember the all-electric cars? anyone? i believe i saw Tom Hanks on a late night talk show talking about his so many years back- the oil industry is ruining the earth for profit. We are living in very off times. It seems perfectly natural to me that children are tuned out in some way or upset even if they have No idea why- it seems perfectly natural to me that we should all be very uncomfortable even if we have not the least idea of why ...rather than being stewards of the earth we are a cancer to it and all Her creatures. i couldn't Believe it years ago when they started selling bottled water- now i see that we have polluted ALL of the water And the air And the land and so all the food we grow and our selves. The Root of the problems is that we are Not living in harmony are not living in tune with nor with any respaect nor regard for our environment we live unnatural lives We are not Able to live natural lives. Native (american) Indians forced onto reservations not allowed to built strucures and their cattle confiscated in the late 80's or early 90's to make room for big business to blow up the land and pillage Her resources. The ancient Sumerian marsh peoples of Iraq had their marshes Drained in the 90's for OIL. Oil companies are blowing up the land of the Amazon rainforest...the kogi people ...on and on and on... we ~THEY suppress anything that would take us off of our dependence on oil- like hemp, like electric cars, like Nikola Tesla's Free energies. -even natural plant medicines to reallign our beings with the forces of nature- DMT The Spirit Molecule Dr. Rick Strassman...you can take any number of pharmaceuticals but you may not eat a mushroom.
Something is wrong and it is not our children. But giving them pharmaceuticals may be the only way to make life bearable these days- for us- but what about them? Is it more bearable for them? maybe ..i was told as a girl that God put a plant on the earth to cure everything that ails man- God did not make pharmaceuticals God made plants. If God wanted us to depend on oil, He would not have made it so that we have to destroy our home to get it.
May Peace be with everyone who reads this. i do Not criticise a person taking pharmaceuticals nor giving them to their children. i criticise our having to live in a way that is so far from reality that we feel the Need to.

Micki W's response with the suggestion of truehope vitamin (created by a Canadian doctor)... http://www.truehope.com/main/index.html
looks truly awesome

Hi K.!

The teacher is very important, what is that 5th or 6th grade? The middle years are often a very big struggle for kids with ADHD, and you will probably run up against teachers who doubt the diagnosis, or think that smart kids who have ADHD struggle with "attitude" and "choice" instead of a biological chronic illness; especially when the IEP modification or accomodation is difficult for them to accomplish (I have noticed a strong corelation between those two items...)

Medication is an issues for kids of the age group too, but don't give up. They are changing and their feelings about themselves are so volitile when they struggle in school, and they will need careful and skillful monitoring and a willingness to try new dosages and medications. I urge you to not fall prey to the anti-med brigade, diet, supplements and exercise are great for health, but they will not help him with his ADHD, and neither will removing sugar, dye, or preservatives, etc.

We did ask for a behavior plan at school, even though our child did fine with teachers who did the right things without it, once they run up against a teacher who does not have the proper class structure or personal compasion to help a child with ADHD thrive, the problems may linger even after you get them into the right setting.

The plan should protect your son, and let me say that as an educational advocate for many years, I have seen a vast difference in the way boys and girls are treated when it comes to behavior. It is not fair, but being a boy puts him at some risk, and schools traditionally crack down harder on boys than girls (for the same behaviors) and eventually, the possibilty exists that someone will call the police. If you have never thought of this, trust me, it happens all the time for very small behavior and the behavior plan can protect your son by spelling out the behaviors he has, and the specific concequences for those behaviors that are going to be used, and you have a leg to stand on if the school escalated the concequence without notifying you of thier plans.

You are doing the right thing by getting counseling, it can help him sort out how he feels right now, and may make the transistion to a better year next year run more smoothly. Cognitive behavioral therapy and medication work very well together.

If you do not have a leg of his evaluation that includes a full work up about his executive functioning skills, or lack there of, you should ask the school to do this, and get a private one that you control. The middle years are difficlut for kids with ADHD, not because they change, but the expectations of them change and suddenly they are expected to know how to use thier time well and turn in thier own assignments. Teachers assume that our kids will pick this up by indirect teaching and natural concequences, but most of them won't. We ended up hiring a tutor who stayed after school with our daughter and they did the homework together, not for academic reasons, but to be able to find all the papers, books, and intructions and then teach her to organize it, pace herself, and turn in the assingments when she was done. Most kids with ADHD will need some very detailed help in this area, and what they get in the classroom is not nearly enough.

Or biggest heartache was seeing a child go from doing well, to one who was frustrated and angry, almost overnight. The reaction is very predictable, they rebel. It is sad, but they tend to be beat up with thier own sucess, I am sure that you have had a teacher doubt the diagnosis, or remove a core element because your son had a sucessful try at something. "He turned in the social studies last week, so that means that he can do it if he chooses too, so I don't see why we have to help him with that, it is JUST his attitude..." this crushes their spirt. Any really smart kid would quit being sucessful even when they can if they know that they will be beat up about it later!

Good luck!
M.

I have a 17 year old son who is ADHD & ODD. He has been on may different medicines throughout the years as he seems to be immune to them after a while. The best approach for us was a combination of therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist along with the medication. Sounds like he is in need of a teacher change. Please keep after the school to provide the services that they are required to provide him.
Most schools just aren't well equipped to deal with this type of children. They are wonderful kids, they just learn differently. My son is great with mechanical and hands on activities, but book work is difficult. My advice would be patience and prayer, both help.

ADHD and ODD are on the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and it is possible that your son has yeast, bacteria or other environmental issues, food digestions problems, etc. and could benefit from a good probiotic (Culturelle is a good choice) or maybe even an antiviral like Valtrex and an Antifungal - Diflucan - some children will totally heal after using these protocols and their behavioral disorders dissapear, if your son seems to have any issues with milk, lactose, diarhea or consitpation then I would advise you to look into treating those issues. When he is feeling better, he will behave better.

First off I am glad to see that other mother's care so much about their children's behavior. I see so many of the kids my son goes to school with acting terribly and the parents just blaming it on their age. (GRRR)Kids need boundries. Thanks for being one of those mothers. :)

I'm a little concerned with the fact that he's on meds. and you've not been directed toward behavior mod. We have had the same issues with our oldest, but I'm not a fan of medication unless it's a last resort. That's what it's supposed to be for. Definately look into it. I haven't found any help in the school system. I've had our son tested 2x, and because his I/Q and grades are normal, I can get no help from them. The only suggestion I can give you is to look into a behavioral program, and work diligantly(sp?) at home. I feel for you. have you talked to the school yet? I have gotten the school to allow our son to go to the counselor ANY time he feels the need. It took alot though. Good Luck. :)

Hello K.. I wanted to take a moment and send you a link to one very good article. I could send you hundreds of things, but I always start with this one. http://www.childrensvision.com/ADD.htm Of course you can always email me directly at ____@____.com and I can get you as much information as you need. My son was seen by Dr. Horvath (the supposed leading ADD/ADHD doctor in the Dayton area) and though my son had really never been in trouble he diagnosed my son not only with ADHD, but also ODD. When I tried to discuss with him further I was told he was not going to discuss it as my son was the poster child for ADHD&ODD. We since discovered that my son was no ADHD, but he had vision problems...don't confuse this with sight...he has 20/20, but there is more to it then that. The kicker for me as like your son he was doing well until about 10 or 11 in my opinion and that is when all heck broke loose. Well in actuality my son had been struggling all along, but he was able to keep up until that age when text print got smaller adding more of a strain to the eyes and the work got more difficult...his coping mechanisms couldn't keep up any longer. Please, please read this article and email me with any further questions. I am working with parent advocates to bring awareness into the schools and to reach as many other parents as we can. I am working on getting legislature to address the issue. It is said that 6 out of 10 children and 7 out of 10 juvenile delinquents have some type of vision related learning problem. I am not saying your son is not ADHD/ODD, but I would urge you to look at everything before you make up your mind. The vision problems can mimic signs of ADHD and while there is no real test to prove ADHD there is a clinic evaluation to find the vision problems. I am sorry this was so long winded. I hope you will email me if you are interested in hearing our story or getting more information. I can even recommend two very good doctors in the Dayton area to help find the vision problems if they exist for your son.

J.

I work with a lady whose son was diagnosed with this, and she had him on truehope vitamin (created by a Canadian doctor)... http://www.truehope.com/main/index.html and she said it really helped a lot! She said if you sign up on the website, they have support groups and everything on there. If you check out the website, you can read some of the stories about how many people it has helped.

My son was diagnosed at age 8 with Attention Deficit Disorder (no hyperactivity) and we suspect between than and now he developed ODD. We medicated him, sought behavioral counseling and hired an educational advocate for him. He is now 19 years old and is in his senior year at a private high school. We fought with our public school district for 4 years over the special attention and patience he needed in order to succeed and we gave up in the middle of his 7th grade year, moving him to a private school where classes are much smaller. We felt that was the key to turning him around and it worked beautifully. At many of the private schools, the teachers are trained to provide the special attention needed by kids with such disabilities and they have the patience other teachers often don't show. The public schools think medicating the child and behavior modification of the child is the fix, but that's only part of it. I would recommend searching for an appropriate alternate educational route for your son. It is hard financially, but worth it.

Parenting with Love and Logic has specific books and tapes regarding ADHD. The basic skills that Love & Logic teaches parents will help with the ODD. Check out their free information on the website: LoveandLogic.com Remember, that you and your husband must take good care of yourselves.