Oh, ODD is real alright.

I'm not sure how much of it is "programmed in" or learned in early years due to permissive parenting, and how much in genuine.

My oldest SD was ODD to a tee. Argue just to argue, pick fights when feeling stressed, belligerent, willfully disobedient just for the sake of rebelling. She would have heated 5 hour screaming matches to avoid doing something that would take 30 seconds.

I can't offer any advice, because I never figured it out. All I can say is I did learn to stop taking the bait once I figured out that the fighting and the conflict "fed" her in some way. She was getting something out of it. Not sure if it was stress relief, attention, adrenaline... but once I figured out that the fight was the fix she was seeking it was easier to let her bait go.

Good luck. If she's only 11 the best is yet to come.

I'm happy to say my SD is now 25 and she has mostly grown out of it. Some hard knocks from life and growing up made a huge difference. Every now and again it still rears it's ugly head, and mostly with my DH.

So I do wonder how much of ODD is really just not getting your ass whooped enough as a small child and, as Another Step said, having parents who simply allowed you to be an asshole.

The fact that we normally see her old behavior creep back in relation to my DH leads me to believe that a large component is indulgent parenting at a young age.

ODD is neuro-biological, not a result of bad parenting, but good parenting can help minimize the fall-out. My now 15 yo bio-son was diagnozed with ODD at 2 yo. I thought the developmental pediatrician was nuts! Haha... not at all. He was right, the kid is a handful, but being consistent pays off. He is much better than he used to be (maturation works wonders) but not an easy kid by any measure.

Once someone on this forum recommended this book to me, and i am hapily passing the advice along:
Douglas Riley, Raising an ODD child, or your oppositional-defiant child. Google it.

I loved it, read it out loud to my boys to drive one point home: i am the adult in the house, they are not.
it worked - i have never had to implement pretty brutal measures Riley recommends. Even if you do not go down his road it will help you and your DH to see things from his perspective. I saw my son looking at me from every page.

BTW: if your SD is failing every subject the school must be aware oof her issues. Get her help through the school district. She might have learning issues underlying her ODD issues. My son's grades have been either As or Fs for many years. He is extremely bright, great at strategy games, beats adults - but won't do homework. Schools needs to figure out how help kids like my son and your SD.

Nothing that a firm swat to the ass or finger pop to the lips won't resolve IMHO. These LMNOP syndromes/conditions of the month that the pseudo science child behavioral crowd spits out like empty sunflower seed shells have about as much content and credence as an empty sunflower seed shell IMHO. At least in most cases. In far too many cases this crap tends to be excuses for idiot parents to tolerate lippy and inappropriate behavior from their toxic spawn because they just can’t believe that sweet little Johnny or pretty little Becky could not possibly behave that way because they are so loved and coddled.

For centuries few to none of these newly created conditions existed. In large part because most of them are easily solved by regular trips to the wood shed for a meeting with the razor strop to the ass of an ill behaved kid who is bent over a saw horse. Back when principals and sports coaches roamed the halls of schools carrying a paddle and teachers had a paddle on the corner of their desks we did not have this crap or shootings in our schools. We started having this crap crop up when the spawn of the 60’s free love and hippy crowd went to Berkley and found that a real degree, like engineering, math, physics, etc.. takes hard work and intellect so they created a bunch of pseudo science “professions” to justify their own “professional” existence. Now to perpetuate the myth that they bring value to society they have to make new shit up nearly constantly. This crap is the same reason why the US has been plummeting in the global Education Quality Rankings for the past three decades. Our kids don’t learn shit because they are not held accountable for learning, doing homework, behaving in class, studying, etc…. because as a society we have been sucking at the tit of the pseudo science bullshit about how these “professionals” know better how to parent than truly good and intelligent parents figured out centuries ago. Parents who set and enforce behavioral and performance standards on their children produce well behaved high performing children. This is not rocket science folks.

I have several friends with ADHD/ODD/Autistic/LMNOP syndrome of the day Dx’d kids. One I believe truly is Autistic. His mom and dad are great parents and their son is blessed to have them. The others … meh … are just sucky parents with ill behaved little shits for children. One set of friend’s eldest son got kicked out of countless preschools and elementary schools for crappy and violent behavior. Once when we were visiting them their little shit son punched me in the nuts. Instead of telling him not to do that and letting his throw a screaming fit I immediately turned him over my knee and lit his ass up. I then grabbed him by the nap of the neck, stood him up, and told him to go get a book and bring it to me. He came back with the book, I sat him in my lap and we read. He was calm, engaging, he learned a few words and letters and his mom and dad just sat there watching us all slack jawed. They complained regularly that he would freak out head butt them, etc, etc… Every time we have visited them since he engages with me very pleasantly while blowing a gasket with his parents. When he was young every time we visited he would bring me a book, climb into my lap and ask me to read with him. As he has gotten older he will sit next to me we talk and joke around and he is perfectly well behaved at least with me. This kid has been Dx’d with everything from environmental allergies to Aspergers. Nope, all he needs is parents with a spine IMHO and experience. His mom and dad are not idiots. The three of us went to grad school together and his dad and I went to engineering school together and worked together for years. Their youngest son has all kinds of Dx’d crap wrong with him too. IMHO his issue is brain damage from oxygen deprivation from the several times his elder brother choked or smothered him to unconsciousness when he was a baby, toddler, and little boy. Of course no one wants to recognize that the big one is an evil little shit who needs his ass lit up rather than his volatile violent behavior coddled.

Then there is my college BFF’s daughter. This friend used to harp on my bride and I about being too strict on our son when he was little. We were not strict at all. We just set boundaries and enforced behavioral and performance standards. His daughter is a little frickin animal. She too has been Dx’d with a list of the conditions of the month. To make it worse he and his wife use some new age “boundary parenting” bullshit where she can run amok within the “boundary” as long as she does not cross the boundary. Apparently this is supposed to teach her self determination, how to make her own decisions, give her freedom to grow, etc… The problem is that the boundaries are completely fluid and amoeba like rather than firm and inviolable. When we go out to dinner with them the little shit runs amok. It starts with her sitting at the table playing the cute card playing with her few little toy animals that they bring for her. Soon the animals are being thrown while she giggles and laughs. The she starts demanding paper and a pen or colors, then she stands in her chair, then she stands up away from the table, etc, etc, etc……… all while my BFF tries to get her to sit. He expands the boundaries from sit and play with your animals to, okay, stay by the table, to okay but don’t go past that other table, to okay but stay in this section, until eventually he is chasing her around the damned restaurant while people are glaring. Once again I played the light the kids ass up card when I finally reached my limit at a dinner outing. I got up, snagged her by the arm as she ran by screaming, picked her up and marched her to the men’s room where I put her over one arm and swatted her ass several times with the other, stood her on the counter and had a face to face talk while I poked her in the chest with my finger and informed her that she would walk quietly back to the table, sit her ass down, and ask her mom for a book. She did as instructed and for about 10 minutes I sat next to her and we read together. For the rest of the meal she was fine. My BFF was amazed and asked what I had said to her. I just told him “remember how you used to get on DW and I for being too strict. Did you ever see our kid run amok like yours?” His eyes got big and he said “No, you didn’t!”. Just said yep I did because the shit you do doesn’t work. And since then any time she is in my presence she is a well behaved little lady. Even my BFF and his wife admit that our kid was an angel and that what we did worked and are amazed every time their daughter is around me but …. They don’t have the balls to actually parent.

Now, for kids with true issues the seeming few and far between true professionals do great work in helping the kids that truly need it. Sadly far too many parents are too stupid to see that they are the problem that their children have and buy this mostly bullshit pseudo science crap as an excuse for their out of control children.

IMHO and experience of course.

My BD has ODD/ADHD, and she is 8. There is also a possibility that she may have BPD, but obviously, she is too young to diagnose.

I know that there are many parents who have been complacent with discipline, and created a generation of entitled, bratty kids, but ODD is real. I am not the best parent, and oftentimes, I feel like a horrible POS parent, but I am truly doing my best to care for and improve my daughter. She has 2 therapists, 2 social workers, and a host of other people involved. It is a full-time job just to get her ready for school and take care of her at night, but I still somehow manage to work. Some days it is a miracle. She even was in day treatment for 6 weeks last year. Was not a great experience for us, and she picked up some more undesirable behaviors from other children.

Nothing that we have done or tried has worked for us. Consequences are laughable to her. She literally doesn't care about people's feelings, or following rules, and she will willingly admit this when asked. At times, I will give her a wooden spoon on the behind. It's not my preferred way to deal with her, but sometimes it's the only way to interrupt whatever tirade she was on. Today, after not following directions, and being late to leave for school once again, she went over to the door and farted and said "I did that so you will have to smell it when you walk outside." I ignored it and told her to get on her jacket and get her stuff. Just kept my eyes forward. She then walked away and said, "Why are you just standing there mom? Are you trying to stare at my fart I made?" And laughed maniacally. So she got a spoon for that. After we finally got to school, she chose to ignore me and not say goodbye, so I waved to her and walked out the door. Five seconds later I hear crying and running behind me, as she then decided to leave the school and chase me down, and accuse me of not loving/caring about her and not wanting to give her a hug. This is a fairly typical start to the day for me.

So yeah, I am also looking for something that works. I am not a flighty parent. We have had rules the whole 5 years we have been dealing with this. Those rules are enforced daily and do not change. I do not "give in" to bad behavior, but I also am not strong enough to physically force my 87 pound child to bend to my will on a daily basis. They do not operate like normal kids and are not motivated by the same things that motivate normal kids. I wish I had a normal kid, but I don't. It would be so much easier.