My second child recently received his official diagnosis of ADHD and ODD. For years, we have joked that he had ODD, but now we have the documentation to prove it. 

Lots of parents deal with defiant children. Learning to defy the rules is part of childhood! It’s just like learning to lie to save your own skin is a developmental milestone, learning to defy the rules you deem unnecessary or potentially harmful can have positive long-term benefits. 

But the problems come when the defiance is always and about everything. 

Actually, I don’t want to use superlatives. Always and everything are a bit too strong. 

The problem comes when your battles with the rest of the world become constant. The problem comes when your need to be right or have it just so interferes with your ability to kindly and productively interact with others. 

There’s a term for when defiance becomes your way of life- Oppositional Defiance Disorder or ODD. An individual must meet specific criteria to be diagnosed with ODD as classified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Criteria include:

Often losing temper

Being touchy or easily annoyed

Being angry or resentful

Arguing with authority figures

Actively defying requests or refusing to comply with rules

Deliberately annoys others

Blames others for their mistakes and misbehavior

Has been spiteful or vindictive 

The symptoms must be present for a period of time (6 months or more) and are distinguishable from age-appropriate behaviors. These behaviors negatively impact the child in more than one social setting. 

ODD is often diagnosed in conjunction with other mental health conditions like… drumroll, please… Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). 

It’s a beautiful cycle. Take a kid who wants justice no matter what and who has no problem arguing with adults; add in an inability to sit or follow multistep instructions, and you have constant conflict. 

No, seriously, This creates what can only be described as an explosive environment. 

The rest of the family walks on eggshells, never quite sure what will set them off and never quite sure how to diffuse the situation.

Sometimes, I describe it as being held hostage. You are a hostage because you don’t know how you got into the situation, and there is no clear path to safety. 

There’s no real way to “snap” the kid out of the ODD loop.

They have to choose to do it.

They have to set aside being right to make peace. So… that happens very rarely. 

Every time I’ve gone to a med check for my oldest, I always chuckle at the screening questions. The child sitting next to me, may have difficulty sitting and shutting his yap trap, but he is rarely defiant, and when he is, he quickly apologizes. 

At every one of these visits, I would think about how every item on the list described Zachary.

For the longest time, I was convinced that Zachary didn’t have ADHD. Maybe I preferred it that way. He could sit, be quiet, sleep, and control his emotions. But ADHD doesn’t look the same for everyone, and what I saw as not ADHD was ADHD manifesting itself differently. 

ADHD includes a laundry list of symptoms or a pattern of behavior that occurs over time. The behaviors occur in several settings and may change as the child ages. It may be hard to see ADHD behaviors at first. But as other children age and mature, the impulsive and hyperactive behaviors that were once socially acceptable signs of an energetic and enthusiastic kid can become problematic. 

That’s where we were with Zach. Most little kids run around, wrestle, and have difficulty sitting. Zach does all that, but he also loves to sit in his bed listening to audiobooks and playing with Legos, so we thought there was no chance he had ADHD.

Michael was always on the move, up before the sun, talking a mile a minute, always looking for sensory input. Zach wasn’t like that.

While Michael is an extrovert, Zach is not. He has good friends that he loves spending time with, but he also needs his alone time. Zach has a stubborn side that we never saw in Michael, and what we initially deemed a personality trait is now a much bigger issue.

While Michael thrives on peace and harmony, Zach craves the dopamine rush he gets from conflict. He’s like a bottle of lighter fluid poured on dry grass, one small spark and the whole thing goes up in flames. And there’s no way to stop the cycle of conflict. He’s like a California wildfire spurned on by the Santa Ana winds. There is genuinely no way to stop the blaze until the fire runs through every last scrap of fuel. 

I don’t know that Zach sees this behavior as problematic.

He feels he is right, justified, and even compelled to speak out against the injustice of the situation. We argued for an hour the other night about why he can’t have a fingerprint lock on his bedroom door… no logic stopped him from arguing, screaming, and crying; finally, I left the room and went to bed. 

After his older brother, I thought I had some idea of how to parent a child with ADHD.

It turns out I only had some idea of how to occasionally parent that child with that particular brand of ADHD.

Zach is a completely different story, I have no idea what to do here, and it’s exhausting. 

From the moment you try to wake him up (which he hates) until you finally convince him he has to leave you alone and go to bed, he is arguing.

He is an equal opportunity arguer and pest.

There’s so much screaming and self-talk to “stay calm” and “breathe”

You spend your time considering how important it is to get things done. How important is it to get him to complete a task, eat, or do anything he doesn’t want to do (which is most things). 

At the end of the day,  you just want to sit like a zombie and stare at the wall while you process what happened that day.

You woke up with a plan, a set of strategies, and every intention of making today the day, but 12 hours later, nothing has gone to plan and you, him, and everyone else involved are exhausted, unmotivated, and frustrated. 

With the neurodivergence comes a thirst for knowledge, an unwavering sense of justice, perseverance, creativity, and someone who is an intensely loyal friend.

Zach is your ride-or-die friend; he’s your go-to-jail-together buddy, but I’ve got a plan to get us out guy. He’s the friend who tests the limits but also the one who sees when something is going to be an absolute disaster and saves you from yourself.

He’s the one who will show up in the middle of the night when you call in a crisis. He’s the one who’s prickly on the outside and isn’t afraid to stand up to bullies regardless of size, and also the one who describes his crush as “the perfect girl”.

He’s sweet and sassy, hot and cold, and polarizing to his core. These things are all part of the neurodivergence.

I admit I’m exhausted—parenting neurodivergent children in HARD. Anyone who makes light of that is kidding themselves.

It doesn’t matter what the neurodivergence is; any deviation from the expected norm is hard to handle.

Not only do the kids act differently than we expect, but the world is not set up for them to succeed. The world doesn’t know some of these kids need more sleep, more planned decompression time, more frequent food breaks, and more opportunities to get up and move. Some of them need more space to create, more freedom to express themselves, and more opportunities to hyperfocus on their interests.

It’s hard to get them to think inside the box when they are so busy arguing that there shouldn’t be a box in the first place. 

In my almost 14 years of parenting neurodivergent kids, I’ve learned a lot, mostly on what not to do but also on what I wish people would do. I don’t have a silver bullet to make this easier for anyone, including myself. 

But I do know this: if you see a kid behaving in a way that doesn’t seem age-appropriate, do NOT give their parent the side eye. They know their kid is acting outside the norm. 

Don’t stop inviting them to participate. Change your expectations of their participation. Maybe their child isn’t capable of sitting and playing nicely, perhaps they’ll have a massive meltdown 10 minutes in, or maybe today is the day they find peace in a new place, and everyone can take a deep breath. Keep inviting. 

Don’t ask, however well-meaning, “Oh, what’s gotten into him today?” Nothing, nothing has gotten into him TODAY; every day is like this; you just don’t see it. Let the parents mourn the path they thought parenthood would take. Give them the space and support to grieve and the encouragement to see a way forward. 

Don’t lie and say, “This is just a phase,” or “I’m sure it will get better”. I’ve been guilty of this, but let’s talk truth for a minute, it isn’t going to get easier. They aren’t going to change; neurodivergence is part of what makes these kids who they are. We need to sift through and find the positives. This can be extremely hard when you’re constantly arguing or living through meltdowns. Tell the parent the positives you see in their kid. Your outside perspective may be what they need. 

Over time, it’s US that changes.

We develop strategies for managing situations and create new internal dialogues to get through tough times.

We give ourselves grace, we eat the secret ice cream, we find our village and let them know that sometimes we can’t do it anymore.

We let go of the “perfect” child we imagined and embrace the child we have. 

We start to think of neurodivergence as a gift rather than a curse. We begin to look for ways to channel that energy, creativity, and impulsivity into something that benefits our child.

We become stalwart advocates for our children.

We know them; we may not know exactly what makes them tick, their triggers, or even how to diffuse the bomb, but at the core, we know THEM. We know they are full of promise and potential, and we work to help others see it. 

We won’t all raise a neurodivergent kid, but we will all interact with someone who will. The differences may not be readily apparent, but trust me, every parent of a neurodivergent child has had moments of loneliness, moments of exhaustion, and moments when they feel like failures.

Lift them up. Tell them that what they’re going through sucks because it does. Tell them you know it sucks but that you see them crushing it every day.

Compliment their attempts at self-regulation, slip them a candy bar, send them a funny Instagram reel, and be the village they need.

Keep your neurotypical parenting advice to yourself; don’t tell them that 90’s parenting will solve all their problems.

Just show up. 

Listen. 

Remind them to breathe. 

Let them vent. Tell them that kids are the worst… because they are. 

And love their child. Because loving their neurospicy kid for who they are is how we support parents, families, and the children.