Amanda Introduction/ODD

Hi, I'm Amanda. I'm a 29yo SAHM of two boys. I'm happy to be here. I'll be relating life with a child who has Oppositional Defiant Disorder. At least that's my son's official diagnosis. He has many traits of other behavioral disorders, but not enough to change his diagnosis at this point. Life with an ODD child can be very challenging at times. It takes over a huge chunk of family life. Part of the trick to the balance is that you have to not let the child know they're controlling what is happening with the family, but yet their disorder does control much of the way you parent and run your household. Very catch 22.

I knew around the time my son was 18 months old something was different about him. He was still communicating in cave man grunts mostly, and was pretty aggressive when he didn't get his own way. His pediatrician insisted that as long as he was communicating that it was just a phase and the physical things would subside as my son developed his language skills. She was wrong. Finally, at age 3 1/2 I got a doctor to see that it was not a phase, and to refer us to a psychologist. Here we are 4 years later, and it's still a struggle at times. I think the hardest part is that my son is older, but acts so immature for his age. We expect him to act 7, but do to a lack of impulse control, he acts more like his 2yo brother.

I'm happy that Stefanie brought me on to talk about ODD and my son's other issues so that if nothing else I can let other parents going through the same thing know that they're not alone. I also look forward to learning while I'm here. While not formally diagnosed, my son also has sensory issues.