Terrific Tools For Oppositional-Defiant (ODD) Youth And Children
By: Ruth Wells
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. |
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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 of oppositional-defiant kids.
> THE 3 AREAS OF
HELP FOR ODD YOUTH
The thrust of helping the ODD
child must focus on
- 1) Skill building
- 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.
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