ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and a Big WTF?!?

Great Debates
1

More of the same rubbish from the folks who brought you political correctness. Now we have, “Oppositional Defiant Disorder”. An excerpt:

[quote]
In children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), there is an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior toward authority figures that seriously interferes with the youngster’s day to day functioning. Symptoms of ODD may include:[ul][li]frequent temper tantrums [/li][li] excessive arguing with adults [/li]active defiance and refusal to comply with adult requests and rules
[li] deliberate attempts to annoy or upset people [/li][li] blaming others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior [/li][li] often being touchy or easily annoyed by others [/li][li] frequent anger and resentment [/li][li] mean and hateful talking when upset [/li][li] seeking revenge[/ul][/li][/quote]
What I see in the above description is, “bully in the making.” What compels people to come up with over-elaborate names for simple bad manners? I’m beginning to be (actually, I’m already) fed up with this sort of lame brain 'explaining-away" of fairly easy to address issues. The kid’s a bully? Fine, a progressive series of time-outs, groundings and finally spankings are in order. Still got a problem? Maybe military school will put some lead in his pencil.

Coddling little buggers by calling them Oppositionally Defiant when they’re merely being rude and violent is much like recent proposals to eliminate the F grade in some British schools. There’s something very ODD going on around here and it seems to be located between the ears of sub-morons who come up with this crap.

2

Well, as a person who has long suffered from LBS (Lazy Bitch Syndrome), I would argue the point with you . . . if I had the energy . . .

3

Once you name something, you can develop a medication for it, charge an outrageous amount of money for it, and the “sufferers” can then use the “disease” as an excuse for social deviance. It’s no different than all the variations for “ADD”, which I still believe is largely contrived by the medical/psychiatric professions.

4

Zenster, you are a poopy head and I am not going to participate in this thread.

5

ODD? Please let this be a joke…it is, right? Right?

6

Yep, ODD is way misunderstood.

If you’d bothered to read the whole thing, you’d have encountered a diagnostic criterion that read something like “the behavior must cause clinically significant disturbance in social, emotional, or academic functioning.”

So now we have a name for “bully in the making” that makes it identifiable and treatable rather than simply villifying.

What compells people to come up with these terms is the desire to help people with problems because spankings and time outs haven’t worked. (spankings, -good one)
These are the kids that aren’t even “straightened out” by the panacea “military school”

You don’t think we’ve tried that?

I’ve been working with oppositional/defiant kids for at least 10 years now, trust me when I say it exists. I can tell by your post that you are just north of completely ignorant on this issue. You’ve read an article, great. Do you actually know any of these people? They’re not “merely being rude or violent” any more than a man with a broken leg is “merely limping.”
Zenster, I’d be happy to educate you (as a long time mental health practitioner) if that’s what you want, but if you just want to complain because you don’t understand something and don’t think you should have to, well, there’s no education for that; you just remain bitter and ignorant but convinced you’re right.

Chefguy: there’s no medication to treat oppositionality or defiance.
Re: ritalin and the like, I highly recommend that you spend some time with a truly ADD child before you fully formulate your opinions on that one BTW. I’ll conceede that there are quite a few kids on ritalin out there who might not need to be, but for the truly ADD child, it’s a life saver.

7

From the DSM 4:

“Note: consider a criterion met only if the behavior is observed more frequently than is typically observed in idividuals of comparable age and developmental level.”

criterion B: “The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.”

8

OMG I didn’t even think about the fact that some ass will try to pump drugs into children with this “disorder”.

9

If you liked Oppositional Defiant Disorder, you’re going to loooove Conduct Disorder. An excerpt:

[quote]
“Conduct disorder” is a complicated group of behavioral and emotional problems in youngsters. Children and adolescents with this disorder have great difficulty following rules and behaving in a socially acceptable way. They are often viewed by other children, adults and social agencies as “bad” or delinquent, rather than mentally ill.

Children or adolescents with conduct disorder may exhibit some of the following behaviors:[ul]Aggression to people and animals

[li] bullies, threatens or intimidates others [/li][li] often initiates physical fights [/li][li] has used a weapon that could cause serious physical harm to others (e.g. a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife or gun) [/li][li] is physically cruel to people or animals [/li][li] steals from a victim while confronting them (e.g. assault) [/li][li] forces someone into sexual activity [/li]
Destruction of Property

[li] deliberately engaged in fire setting with the intention to cause damage [/li][li] deliberately destroys other’s property [/li]
Deceitfulness, lying, or stealing

[li] has broken into someone else’s building, house, or car [/li][li] lies to obtain goods, or favors or to avoid obligations [/li][li] steals items without confronting a victim (e.g. shoplifting, but without breaking and entering) [/li]
Serious violations of rules

[li] often stays out at night despite parental objections [/li][li] runs away from home [/li][li] often truant from school[/ul][/li][/quote]
Didn’t we used to call this “incorrigible” or just flat-out “criminal behavior?” Please forgive my ignorance, now it’s merely “conduct disorder.” That’s all the problem is, it’s something wrong with their “conduct.” Their absentee parents, thuglife peers and ineffectual school counselors have nothing to do with it. It’s their “conduct.”

I’d like to herd all of these nut-job psychobabble shrinks into the same room and get myself into a little “conduct disorder” on their sorry @sses.

10

My, how rude of you. Are you your own patient? So many assumptions based on…what, exactly? You have no idea who I am, or what I am or am not familiar with. The solution to the inability or unwillingness to parent these days seems to be: drug 'em till they’re non-functional, then marginalize them because they’re dysfunctional, then test them to see what they’ve learned, flunk them because they were in a drug-induced state all those years and learned nothing, then blame the educational process.

Oh, I left out: then elect a president who says “leave no child behind”. What a joke. At least you’ll have job security for many years to come.

11

I don’t know why you people are being so hostile about a mental or emotional condition. Most kids don’t want to be bad. If there is a medical reason behind it, why are you so unwilling to admit it? There’s something very sad about this…

12

so, you’re happy to remain ignorant then?

In that case, I’ll thank you on behalf of all people who care about human beings to refrain from trying to spread your ignorance.

There is actual knowledge out there, so please try not to inhibit others from accessing it just because of your own discomfort.

I happen to be a psychobabble nutjob shrink, and a skilled kickboxer, bring it on.
:wink:

13

  1. sorry, didn’t mean to be rude. My assumptions are based on knowledge of what happens to a person when they learn facts about people with ADD; particularly if they know someone who suffers from it.
    I notice, of course that you haven’t mentioned any specific firsthand knowledge of the disorder.

  2. do you have any clue what ritalin does? It’s a stimulant. It doesn’t “dope kids up.” It awakens their ability to filter out extraneous stimuli.

14

greck, saying that a “bully in the making” has some sort of (conduct) disorder seems to imply that it is not a matter of personal responsibility, but rather, a somatic or psychological condition that promotes such antisocial behavior. Trivializing or eliminating direct answerability for one’s own misdeeds is one of the best ways to entrench the problem.

While it may be of service for the psychological community to label behavioral patterns towards the end of better identification, you can clearly see from some of the replies in this thread, that the terms OOD and CD aren’t too inspiring. I feel modern society has been misled badly by generations of crank psychology (or behavioral) mavens like BF Skinner and his ilk. There’s been a whole lot of fiddling around with obscure terminology while Rome has gone over to four alarms.

I hope you note that spanking was in last place as a solution. As a victim of pretty harsh child abuse, I have big problems with physically punishing a child. However, I feel more harm is done if there are zero consequences for a child’s more extreme misbehavior. It is really difficult to see past the bafflegab political correctness of these two recent additions to the diagnostic catalog. While I might admire your work with children who exhibit such symptoms, I think there is a much more significant need to get at the true sources of their problems.

Engaged tranmission of coherent personal philosophy and active demonstration of correct ethics might go a lot farther towards solving these issues. Giving them palliative names doesn’t necessarily come across as the best way to fight the problem. To me, their still young little punks that need to be straightened out fast. Any semblance of tolerance for such vile comportment is tantamount to putting out the fire with gasoline.

15

As a parent of a child with ADHD, I can assure you it’s a real enough condition.

Ritalin & and it’s ilk (my son uses a different drug) are indeed stimulants but not a stimulant like caffiene or amphetmines.

The current understanding is that the brain has a portion that is tasked with the regulation of impulse control. For genuinely ADD & ADHD kids, this portion of the brain is sluggish. Ritalin “speeds up” this portion of the brain so that it can keep pace with the rest of the brain.

The best evidence is that when my kids takes the drug, he doesn’t get hyper like a stimulant would do, he gets calmer and more focused.

Before the drug, he’d sit and watch TV, focused on the screen. When a change in the program would occur, like a commercial or other discontinuity, he’d twitch or “spaz”, sometimes reaching out to hit or poke his sister without provacation.

In the mornings, when the drugs are not active, he’s extremely distractable, wandering off the simple task of getting dressed or feeding himself. He can’t sit still in a chair. When he was younger, and still rarely now, he’ll actually hit himself in his frustration to control himself.

When he was diagnosed with ADHD, I was skeptical. I specifically asked the Dr if the diagnosis was valid. ADD & ADHD have become “boutique” diseases, it seems. Active kid? Must be ADD! He assured me, and there’s a checklist we went through, that a kid that has had as much therapy as he has and still exhibits the problems he does is probably a genuine case.

The daily drug regiment he’s on give him control, the ability to focus on task long enough complete things. It’s turned him into a normal kid and frankly, I think it’s a godsend.

Unfortunately, there’s a contigent of people out there, some doctors (especially, in my experience, the holistic/homeopathic one) that are pushing that this isn’t a real condition. One Chiropractor spoke to my wife’s mothers group about how all the drugs were poison and all we had to do was parent better and remove articial flavorings from his diet. When you’ve been through the things we have, to have some idiot tell you that your problems are of your own making or simply non-existant is painful.

The condition is real enough, perhaps somewhat overdiagnosed, IMO, but still real enough.

16

I think this paragraph really sums up the distinction that you’re missing here. We’re not talking about bullies in the making–that would be a subclinical diagnosis. This is a full clinical level of behavior, to the degree that the person can’t function normally in society even if they want to.

I am an adult ADD sufferer. You will never understand how badly I want to be able to focus, to remember what I was doing five seconds ago before I was distracted, hell, to even be able to pick up on social cues as well as a normal person. This isn’t some made-up fairly tale to abdicate responsibility: this is a real fucking disease and all your ignorance and/or disingenuity isn’t going to change that one fucking bit.

17

Except you’re missing the point here. Diagnosing ODD or CD doesn’t mean that everyone throws their hands in the air and says oh poor wee kid we can do nothing. It means the kid gets treatment and support and things change. ADD, ADHD, ODD and CD are not a matter of personal responsibility in the sense that if the kids just straightened up and did what they should, it would be cool. There’s more to it than that.

And puhleeeease parentblaming is out of line. Kids with these disorders are still answerable for what they do. I have no idea why you’ve decided that a diagnosis equals a get out of jail free card.

18

Primaflora’s got it. Some kids with ODD are doubtless unsalvageable. There will always be some bad seeds.

But a lot of kids who meet the definition of ODD can be helped with therapy. There are a lot of causes for this disorder and many of them are very treatable.

For example: I had ODD (retroactively diagnosed) from age 8 to 13. Turned out that I was also severely depressed at the time. Childhood depression often manifests itself as “acting out.”

Too bad for me that my parents didn’t believe in “excuses” for my behavior. They considered sending me to a therapist, but decided instead to just keep on punishing me for my bad behavior.

As I got older, my untreated depression took on more adult characteristics. And, at 25, I landed in a mental hospital because of it. My doctors tell me that if I’d been treated earlier, my condition would probably not have deteriorated so far.

My mother feels tremendous guilt because she knew something was terribly wrong with me, even as a child, but she subscribed to the idea that I should “snap out of it” and “stop being a brat” because no “excuses” should be made for my bad behavior.

Funny–all those punishments that were meant to cure me of my “brattiness” didn’t help me a bit, Zenster. Therapy and medication did.

Nobody’s looking to give bullies a “get out of jail free” card. Medical professionals who write the DSM are hoping to identify the kids who will grow up to be the criminals of tomorrow (an overwhelming percentage of adults with Antisocial Personality Disorder had conduct disorders as children) and head them off at the pass by getting them help as soon as possible.

Sure, some people will abuse the diagnosis and claim an ODD diagnosis should give kids a “get out of jail free card.” But we should fight that ignorance specifically, instead of getting all reactionary and declaring that all conduct disorder diagnoses are just bullshit and excuses.

19

While much more difficult to document or diagnose, I’m intensely curious as to what home conditions contributed to your intense depression, ultrafilter. Too many times, I have seen these sort of unruly kids come from homes where there is little or no discipline. Discipline is not the only pivotal factor. Unreasonable severity is of little use in raising a responsible child. However, I do not feel that this is the key issue. Along with the lack of discipline, I have often seen an inability on the parents’ part to coherently explain why misconduct is not acceptable. Very few parents I know take the time to sit down and thoroughly explain to their children why it is so important to maintain right conduct.

Rich or poor makes no matter. When the proper demonstration of ethics and reasoning are absent, this sort of misconduct is nearly always the result. Nowhere have I denied that ADD or ADHD do not exist. I do think that they are “fad” diagnoses for doctors who are incapable of seeing deeper and more significant problems related to upbringing and home environment.

It is more than a little likely that I suffered from both dyslexia and ADD when I was a child. In many ways, I’m rather glad that these modern diagnoses had yet to evolve. While Belrix’s description of how Ritalin helps control ADD is accurate according to what I have heard, I also feel that it is extremely irresponsible for the psychological community to be dispensing so many relatively powerful neuroactive drugs, especially to young children.

Without direct testing on large scale human populations for extended periods of time (much greater than those that have been done), we have no real clue as to the downstream and permanent effects of such chemicals. While Ritalin is relatively benign, I speak more of all the seratonin re-uptake inhibitors and other mood disorder medications.

I feel that society as a whole would benefit to a much greater degree if children were first checked for faulty conditioning at home before getting chemically rewired. I can personally trace a lot of my own personal and developmental problems back to intensely confusing role models that both of my philosophically incoherent parents presented. Just as it has been found that intense parental (or other) abuse can induce symptoms of schizophrenia in the affected children, I am still obliged to wonder how much of ODD and CD are results of flawed external programming. I personally do not see where chemicals are going to be of much use in fighting poor parenting skills, unless it is (in the very worst sense) to “dope out” uncooperative kids.

I’m not quite ready to accuse the psychiatric profession of something so heinous. Yet, in the rush to tag and label various behavioral disorders, I see a definite trend towards overlooking the underlying causes and instead focusing only on symptoms. This is band-aid medicine and it is of little use in my book.

20

Hm. In my house, we call this “being 13.” And it seems to me yet another mad rush by the drug companies making money hand over fist off of Ritalin to be the first to cash in on the teenage version of Prozac. I see a lot of kids with problems who probably would have grown out of them, had their parents actually taken the time and effort to raise their children instead of medicate them. I’m sure some kids DO benefit from Ritalin. But the majority of cases are nothing more than misdiagnosed kids who are acting like kids. I’ve seen the test for ADHD. It is SO generic, it’s easily applicable to any child over the age of 2. Also, it was written by a doctor working for a very large pharmaceutical company. I kid you not.