Post Toasties.

I should mention that if she truly does not want to do something, she flat out will not do it. There have been times when I handed her the towel and wash cloth, and she said, "No!" and walked away. This is her point of resistance. And at that point, we do not force the issue. But I have had new staff members try to tell me it was a violation of her rights to hand her the towel after she said "No". And bear in mind that this is a woman who recently celebrated her 50th birthday. This is not a phase for her. Kids who have ODD - as opposed to those who are in a stage of development which calls for a certain amount of defiance - will not simply get better by outliving their toddler or teen years.

At what point in time or at what benchmark do you (general you, not you, Windsparrow! YOU TELL ME!) determine that it is not a phase and is to the severity of the disorder?

I'm guessing that's why psychiatrists go to all that medical school. I figure it's probably like depression -- everybody gets blue, but when you can't get out of bed and are on the verge of getting fired, there's a problem.

I totally get your skepticism, Aimee, but I think like most mental illnesses, we're talking about the pathological version of what otherwise might sound like normal behavior. Er, if that makes sense.

Kids are supposed to be a-holes sometimes.

Andi already said it much better than I could, but -- ODD is more than a kid being a pain in the ass sometimes, just as depression is more than being down in the dumps once in a while. t edit (Or, what Emily said succinctly while I was blathering on like the uncaffeinated blowhard that I am.)

Yeah, there are unfortunate incidents where a doctor (or the parent) wants to medicate *anything* other than "my kid is a sunny happy perfect child who never throws a tantrum and can concentrate on his homework for hours at a time." And that's wrong.

But a good clinician has a sense of the difference between a kid being a kid and a kid having an actual disorder.

(Or, What Andi Said.)

I think like most mental illnesses, we're talking about the pathological version of what otherwise might sound like normal behavior. Er, if that makes sense.

That totally makes sense to me. Sometimes, I feel very old and crochety when it comes to newly emerging findings in disorders and such. Probably too many years of being around the parents in that use their children's very real issues to dismiss very bad behavior. My mom has a student that bites. He took a huge chunk out of Em's leg a couple of weeks ago. He's 4. He knows better. He has no mental development issues or slowness. He does have spina bifida. And the kid's mom says that the biting is a side effect of his spina bifida. Which, I just shook my head at. Pretty sure, and if I'm speaking out of turn, sj, please say so, but I'm pretty sure that a) it's not a side effect of the spina bifida and b) that if it was sj biting kids and teachers, her mom wouldda put the smackdown.

(Also, I really hope I'm not coming off as an a-hole cause I'm not trying to, really. I'm posting quickly between Boss being out of the office. If I am being an asshole, my sincere apologies.)

Anyone else hear about the study on adopted vs. natural children and tendencies for mental issues as teenagers? If not, one of the mental disorders they talked about was Oppositional Defiance Disorder.

I came across one seriously delusional character on the Time Faith boards who would diagnose everyone who disagreed with him with ODD.

I meet a kid with ODD, at least that's what his dad told us. It looked like there was some sort of cognitive behavioral therapy going on -- right behavior got rewards and wrong behavior took away thing like library trips. Now I only saw this kid a few times - so this is all speculative sort of stuff. The only outburst I saw was behavior I would have expected from a much younger child.

but when you can't get out of bed and are on the verge of getting fired, there's a problem

My nephew got kicked out of the Navy during boot camp for being ODD. This was not something that they take lightly, he was given multiple personality tests, psych evals, etc. What tipped it all the way over to be kicked out was that he threatened to blow up a school teacher when he was in 10th grade. He was expelled from that school and yet neither he, nor his mother, seemed to take it seriously. And his mother is a school teacher. (I despair.) The nephew has ADD, too, so it's one whole big ball of difficult to diagnose. He was so severely disappointed, because he really wanted that, but he just can't stop himself from being a total a-hole. Love the dude, but he can be very difficult to be around for long periods of time.

Aims, they've floated the idea of ODD in regards to Owen once or twice. I think the question with him is wether he was processing requests, rather than defying them. *shrug* Still when I read the desciption Ikept asking, "isn't this just normal behavior?"

Until you have a guage of typical versus atypical, it's easy to dismiss the idea of a disorder.

lots of -ma foe erin.

Laura, I'm sorry about the sitch with your mom. I hope you guys can make you stepdad understand why you're so concerned.

Holy fuck I miss my laptop. Parts still aren't in. I've been more productive the last few days than I have been in YEARS.