- refusing to follow rules
- losing one's temper
- deliberately annoying other people
- blaming others for one's own mistakes or misbehavior
- being touchy, easily annoyed or angered
- being resentful, spiteful, or vindictive
- arguing with grown-ups
- actively defying requests
Here’s what ODD looks like throughout childhood:
Preschool—
- family instability, including economic stress, parental mental illness, harshly punitive behaviors, inconsistent parenting practices, multiple moves, and divorce, may also contribute to the development of oppositional and defiant behaviors
- temperamental factors, such as irritability, impulsivity, and intensity of reactions to negative stimuli, may contribute to the development of a pattern of oppositional and defiant behaviors in later childhood
- when the parent punishes the youngster, the youngster learns to respond to threats
- when the mother or father fails to punish the youngster, the youngster learns that he or she does not have to comply
- the youngster's defiant behavior tends to intensify the parents' harsh reactions
- moms and dads respond to misbehavior with threats of punishment that are inconsistently applied
- interactions of a youngster who has a difficult temperament and irritable behavior with moms and dads who are harsh, punitive, and inconsistent usually lead to a coercive, negative cycle of behavior in the famil
- these patterns are established early, in the youngster's preschool years; left untreated, pattern development accelerates, and patterns worsen
School-age—
- they lack the skills to solve social conflicts
- they blame their peers (e.g., "He made me hit him.")
- these kids may be more likely to misinterpret their peers' behavior as hostile
- noncompliance with commands
- kids with patterns of oppositional behavior tend to express their defiance with educators and other grown-ups and exhibit aggression toward their peers
- kids with ODD and poor social skills often do not recognize their role in peer conflicts
- in problem situations, kids with ODD are more likely to resort to aggressive physical actions rather than verbal responses
- failure to take responsibility for one's own actions
- emotional overreaction to life events, no matter how small
- as kids with ODD progress in school, they experience increasing peer rejection due to their poor social skills and aggression
- ODD behavior may escalate and result in serious antisocial actions that, when sufficiently frequent and severe, become criteria to change the diagnosis to conduct disorder
NOTE: When many kids with behavioral problems and academic problems are placed in the same classroom, the risk for continued behavioral and academic problems increases.
==> Effective Disciplinary Techniques for Oppositional, Defiant Teens
