Oh, on the last sentence, not necessarily. The parent may also be the kind of person who doesn’t think their children’s medical problems are worth considering and treating unless said child is bleeding where other people can see it or the parent is otherwise forced by outsiders to Do Something. I do have several like that in my family, makes for a lovely environment to grow up in.
In a Perfect World, who should have been blamed for your behavior?
Why should anybody be blamed? Sometimes shit happens. We don’t generally blame people when their kids need glasses or braces but there are other diagnostics which apparently wake up the Mother In Law From Hell in anybody who hears about it.
These sound like good practical suggestions - the very kind I was hoping to hear. I ‘get’ the dodge and weave redirection thing. This seems intuitively right. I’ve done it successfully with him on a handful of occasions, but I think we may need to do it a lot more if we are ever to reduce the sheer quantity of friction in our household and get him to do things that are in his own best interests. Thing is, my wife is an attorney and tends to have a short fuse, does not take crap from anyone, and can be quite confrontational at times - kinda like our son. She tends to regard any sort of dodging as ‘not having a backbone and standing up to him’ and so the two of them frequently go around and around on the dance floor with rather predictable results. In fairness, I get drawn on the dance floor too so it’s not just her.
I’m taking notes here.
I could cry right now. We managed to find a counsellor who deals with teens and ODD and actually got him to attend two one on one sessions with the idea that later we’d integrate parents into the discussion when my son felt comfortable enough. Sadly my wife pressed the issue with my son yesterday wanting to know when she could join in the discussion, and was told ‘never’. Fur flew and now he is no longer willing to do any therapy. Back to square one.
Thank you for the practical suggestions
I think you should do your utmost to get him back to therapy and let all other chips fall where they may, for now.
I have some thoughts about what to do to get him back to therapy, but the first thing to try is to call the therapist, explain the situation and see if they will speak with him or can give you some concrete suggestions. I believe it will be important that you and your wife (particularly her, since they fought) say something like you won’t be attending sessions until the counselor and your son feel it’s time. Trust the counselor to help him find that moment. Do not push him on this without risking damaging his trust. You (as parents) should be meeting with the counselor separately anyway, at least briefly before or after he does.
A few other thoughts for you: try to be very specific about rules or agreements, and get his input. Once we have agreement on something, if it’s important, we write it down. So the rules for after school: 30 minutes of screen time, then homework, then more screen time before dinner if he has time, up to a limit.
You (the parents) absolutely need to learn the art of disengaging. My husband and I try to tag team each other, with the calmer one stepping in. You’ll learn skills over time and it will get easier.
Another thing that helps cool things down, as behavior modeling if nothing else for now, is apologizing after an argument. Parent, “I’m sorry that I raised my voice/snapped at you/didn’t listen. I got upset and I will try to do better next time.” I try to end those talks (do not segue into Argument Part 2) with at least an acknowledgment of acceptance from my son and a hug. Sometimes he’s not ready to be friends again yet, but that’s ok. It is not important, for purposes of the reconciliation moment, who was “right”. We are working on behavior.
It also sounds like you and your wife need to talk about disengaging from the argument. Your son can’t. If your wife (or you) snaps to debate mode, or heated debate mode, he’ll be right there with you. The parents need to be able to stop arguing, or never even start. A session or two with his psychologist without him (if he’s ok with that - let the psychologist negotiate it now) might help you learn some strategies.
A few random tricks we learned along the way:
-Bargaining - “What do you think is a reasonable amount of screen time in a day?”
-Bargaining for consequences - “What do you think should happen if someone breaks the television accidentally?”
-Bribing - “What would it take to get you to go back to the counselor?” (A: 1 Billion Dollars - yeah, not gonna happen - but he’s thinking about it now. So, ask him for another offer. Be prepared to negotiate for something outrageous because this one is important. He’ll eventually tell you something that’s a stretch but that you can work with. Hypothetically, it could be McDonald’s on the way to or from every session AND an Xbox after he completes 3 months worth of sessions.)
-Do-overs - there’s been a fight and everyone’s a little mad. I used to go into my son’s room and say, “I don’t like it when we fight. How about if we just say that none of that ever happened and we have a ‘do-over’?” We’d hug and make up and ignore the argument. I didn’t use it a lot, but it gave all of us a graceful way out of arguments that went too far.
-Sideways approach - sometimes we try a difficult topic while half his brain is occupied doing something else. For example, Khemet, a 2-person strategy game (or another game for 2 of you). It seems to help him think about topics without going straight to “no”.
I hope some of this helps. Feel free to reach out.
No experience as a parent, but I feel for the OP deeply.
I knew a single parent raising a daughter with ODD. He was prisoner to her. She did as she pleased, even throwing food bits (chicken bones, food wrapper etc.) on the floor when she was done, and he was too scared to correct her. She ruled their home, doing as she liked whenever, when he tried to discipline her a physical fight would happen-biting, eye gouging etc., frequently he resorted to 911 for help.
I wish you luck, she was DX late in life, he wasn’t of the nature to ask for help, and Mom bailed early on.
Our younger son’s pre-k teacher initially thought he could be ODD, until she realized he was just entertaining himself. I hope the OP’s kid gets the necessary help.
A couple generations ago, people DID blame parents for things like that, or, in the case of braces, they thought the parents were just showing off how much money they had to throw around. (Ask me how I know about that.)
At least those are visible. Mental health issues aren’t.