If you are a teacher who finds that "nothing works"
to manage some students, this article may help. It's
way past time for you to learn about ODD, Oppositional
Defiant Disorder.
In college, you probably got very little training
on basic mental health, but if you've been teaching
for more than five minutes, you know that little bit
of training wasn't enough. Here's just a quick
peek at what they should have taught you in college
about basic juvenile mental health. Be aware however
that this article gives you just 1% of what you will
need to know in your classroom in order to maintain
control and best assist each challenged student. Be
sure to visit our web site (http://www.youthchg.com)
to get more of the remaining 99% must-know mental
health information you need every minute in
your classroom.
WHAT DOES "OPPOSITIONAL-DEFIANT" MEAN?
"Oppositional-Defiant" is a mental health diagnosis that
describes kids that have consciences but sometimes act
like they don't. This diagnosis can only be applied by
a mental health professional but will be very important
for any youth worker to know and understand. This
diagnosis is far more hopeful than "conduct disorder,"
which means the child lacks a conscience and a real
capacity for relationships. While the oppositional-
defiant child (ODD) may also appear to have little
conscience or relationship capacity, you may be able to
improve that with the right approach and methods. With
conduct disordered youth, such improvement may not
be possible.
** WHAT DOES "OPPOSITIONAL-DEFIANCE" LOOK LIKE?
Oppositional-defiant kids are often some of your most
misbehaved students. They may disrupt your class,
hurt others, defy authority and engage in illegal
or problematic conduct. Though they may look similar
to conduct disorders, their bad behavior is usually
less severe, less frequent, and of shorter duration.
The ODD label is often inaccurately applied as this
dynamic can be a difficult concept to grasp and apply.
Many ADD youth are also ODD, and boys dominate
this category.
**THE 3 AREAS OF HELP FOR ODD YOUTH
The thrust of helping the ODD child must focus on
1) Skill building, plus 2)"Pulling up" that
conscience and 3)Improving their relationship skills.
For skill building, teaching them how to regulate their
anger, actions, peer skills, verbal output, etc. will
be critical. But equally important, this child must
be aided to care about others and to be guided more
by conscience. These are areas we cover extensively in
our live and taped workshops, but here are a few of the
most effective interventions we give especially for ODD
children and teens. These interventions will only focus
on stimulating that conscience or "compensating" for it.
If you want more than the handful of ideas given here,
or, you want to see how to build skills or
relationship capacity, the other two crucial aspects
to concentrate on with ODD kids, then consider coming
to our class or getting some of our books that will
deliver hundreds of the solutions you need.
**STRATEGIES TO STIMULATE THE CONSCIENCE OF ODD KIDS
*** To help "pull up" the child's conscience, use
this intervention. It can be used pro-actively or
reactively (before or after the child has engaged in
misbehavior.) For example, let's say the child has
stolen the teacher's pen, you can say "I want you to
imagine that we're making a video about your life.
Are you impressed?" That "uncomfortable sensation that
the child may have in reaction to this intervention may
be the conscience stirring.
*** Another intervention to stimulate the conscience:
after the child has engaged in a problem behavior, such
as stealing a pen, as in the example above, ask the
child, "So what's your integrity worth to you?"
*** To adapt the intervention shown above for young
children, simply rephrase the question to "So what's
people believing in you, worth to you?" Or, rephrase
it to "So what's people trusting you, worth to you?"
*** Before a child undertakes a problem behavior, ask
the youth to imagine that s/he will read about that
act on the cover of the local newspaper in the morning.
Ask the child their reaction. If they say that they
wouldn't want to read about it in the newspaper, the next
morning, then you can say "Then don't do it!" This
image makes a fast and easy guide for kids to
follow to evaluate whether or not to do questionable
behaviors. This intervention is a good choice to use
with children whose conscience provides little guidance.
Remember: you've just gotten a tiny portion of the
information you need on ODD students. Please be sure to
read more, go to a training, or otherwise update your
skills. There is no substitute for getting the tools
you need for your classroom. Our web site (link above)
has more help if you want quick answers.
» left by Creative Blogger(7,512) Creative Blogger (1 year 146 days ago.)
In the good old days we said one of two things about children like this: 'they have an attitude problem' or 'they will grow out of it'.
The attitude problem usually disappeared with maturity or with proper parenting and teaching. The label ODD did not exist. It was NOT a mental health problem.
In my opinion these labels are very dangerous, as they are identifying what are 'differences' between people that are entirely natural. The world would not get very far if we were all 'sheeple' and quiet and studious and accademic as the world is made up of a great many different people.
As well as accademics, we also need practical, creative, physical people to do those jobs that require, strength, passion, single mindedness, leadership, courage.
I have a book on ODD and I have to say after reading it, that it describes most teenagers I knew as a teenager myself. All of whom are now healthy, functioning adults. Their parenting is what greatly affected the direction their 'attitude' problem took, or their hormones merely settled down as they became older. What we need here is greater variety of teaching methods, rather than one size fits all and a bunch of unhelpful labels that convince the child they are 'abnormal' and cannot change. Respond to this comment
I somewhat agree with the man who commented before me. It's one thing to expect studious and appropriate behavior out of a teenager, and it's another to label them as abnormal. I've worked as a private counsel to teenagers labeled as ODD or ADHD, and a vast majority appear to be functional people with an attitude problem. And oddly enough, many seem to be broken up over being called a hopeless case. This clinical take on normal teenage behavior can lead to some very, very dangerous problems. I've spoken to a few who have resulted to prescription drug use to keep them level-headed enough to get through the day.
We have to be a bit more careful about who we say is what.
Was this article helpful to you? Leave a Public Comment or
Question:
This Article has been viewed 8,333
times.
Article added to SearchWarp.com on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 View other articles written by Ruth Herman Wells(2,496)
If you found this article interesting, you may want to check out:
Disclaimer: All information on this site is provided for informational purposes only! By no means is any
information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice provided to you by any health care or other professional
or organization.
