Why can’t he JUST listen?

This phrase plays in my head 2,000 times a day. Maybe more in the summer.

My second child, let’s call him Z, has ODD. If you aren’t familiar with the acronym, it stands for Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

Every child with ODD is different. This is what ODD looks like in our house.

These were the kids labeled “bad,” “disobedient,” “disrespectful,” and “troublemakers” in the 1990s. I’m not going to pretend Z doesn’t fit those descriptions a good portion of the time, but ODD is something more than that.

Until you’ve interacted regularly with someone who experiences the world through the lens of ODD, it’s difficult to understand how taxing this disorder is for the child, the parents, the siblings, and everyone around them.

According to the DSM-5, ODD is characterized by “a persistent, 6-month pattern of angry/irritable mood, argumentative/defiant behavior, or vindictiveness that causes significant impairment.”

Kids with ODD are often the ones who will argue until the end of time that the sky is green simply because you said it was blue. They may refuse to eat because it was your idea, have explosive reactions to what seem like minor frustrations, become the child the whole family carefully tries not to set off, or earn disapproving looks from strangers who have no idea what’s happening beneath the surface.

I’m sure I’ve judged parents of kids with ODD before. It’s not like these kids come with a giant flashing label that says, “Warning: Their brain processes life differently.”

Let me paint you a picture.

Today, Z refused to go to cross-country practice.

Not because he was sick.

Not because he forgot.

Not because we hadn’t talked about it.

We had talked about it the night before. His clothes were ready. His shoes were ready. When presented with activity options, HE chose cross country. 

We had a plan.

Practice time came.

He refused to get out of bed.

I had other kids to take places, so I left with directions that he needed to be up and dressed by the time I got back. When I came home a few hours later…

Still in bed.

By then it was time for the camp he had begged to sign up for. The camp that wasn’t free. The camp where he knew the other kids.

Complete meltdown.

No camp.

A couple more hours passed.

During that time, he refused to eat because we had “no good food.”

By this point, he’d gone fourteen or fifteen hours without eating, which is an excellent plan for a twelve year old. So now we had basically thrown gasoline on a bonfire, and things were escalating. 

Then came Costco.

This wasn’t a surprise trip. We’d been talking about it for days. We had a shopping list. Half the things on the list were there because he wanted them.

Meltdown.

One of his favorite insults made a loud appearance.

“You’re actually so dumb. Mom, you’re actually an idiot.”

Eventually he got in the car.

Victory?

Not exactly.

That same level of cooperation continued through the entire Costco trip.

Then it continued at the neighborhood pool.

By 5:20  he’d pushed both of his younger siblings to the point that they were puddles of rage themselves.

Our “night” officially ended when my four-year-old launched his swim goggles directly at my face.

Here’s the thing.

If you only saw us in Costco, you might assume I needed to discipline my child better.

If you only saw us at the pool, you might think I was letting him get away with murder.

What you wouldn’t see is that Costco wasn’t the problem.

Or cross country.

Or camp.

Or lunch.

Or the pool.

The entire day had been one long chain of requests, transitions, and perceived loss of control.

By the time we arrived at the pool we were collapsing under the combined weight of everything that had happened during the day. He was out of control and the rest of us were exhausted and sick of him. 

It sounds awful but it’s true. 

That’s what living with ODD can feel like.

ODD isn’t always one massive explosion, it’s often 10,000 tiny explosions. 

ODD is hard to live with. It can be frustrating demoralizing, and isolating, and as the mom of a child with ODD, there are a few things I wish people understood. 

Things that would make life easier for my son, me, our family, and, honestly, the people who interact with him.

First, there is no way I can simply “make” this child do anything.

Let’s ignore the fact that Z is almost as tall as I am now and just talk about the mechanics of it. There is no amount of 90s-era parenting that will pull this child out of bed if he has decided he isn’t getting up. No amount of punishment, threats, bribery, sticker charts, or lectures will magically change his mind.

He has to decide.

Sure, I can physically get him into the car. But can I make him cooperate once we arrive? Nope.

Can I guarantee he won’t explode and suddenly “get with the program” because everyone expects him to? Absolutely freaking not.

This goes beyond ordinary stubbornness.

It isn’t that I haven’t explained the logic behind my request. Most of the time, he understands exactly what I’m asking and even why I’m asking it. This child of mine is brilliant.

But the problem is that, in the moment, his emotional reaction is so much bigger than his logic. Reasoned, measured responses cannot occur in that situation. Before I have even finished the explanation, even if I do it in a calm voice, in a safe environment, his emotions have taken over, and he’s reacting. The reaction is usually explosive, it’s something that gets much worse before it gets better. 

The request itself isn’t the problem. Usually the request  is something completely reasonable, like take a shower or eat breakfast. The problem isn’t the request but the way his brain experiences the request. 

Second, it feels like all he does is argue.

Like many kids with ODD, my son also has ADHD. Sometimes it’s hard to know where one diagnosis ends and the other begins. Individually, each of these presents a set of challenges, but together they create something exponentially more problematic. ADHD leads him to forget and get distracted, it leads him to seek dopamine and novelty to avoid boredom. ODD leads him to explode when “challenged”. 

Super fun combo. 

I’ve learned that trying to explain, negotiate, or convince him usually makes things worse because once he feels challenged or controlled, every interaction becomes a screaming debate. I am terrible at remembering this in the moment. My nervous system rushes into flight just as his is gearing up for an epic fight. 

The ADHD side of Z is constantly seeking stimulation and arguing 100% fills that need.  As we start to argue, we find ourselves in a positive feedback loop, and there is very little that can break that cycle. 

Ironically, yelling also seems to be the only volume that penetrates his hearing. So that’s fun.

As soon as I engage in the debate, I’m no longer solving the problem; I’m fueling the fire. 

One quick side note here. His older brother, who also has ADHD, does not react the same way. Yes, he will argue back when he’s feeling particularly prickly or when he’s trolling me, but we can usually reach a consensus without screaming. Eventually, a logical part of his brother’s brain engages, and instead of escalating the conflict until one of us gives up, we can find a solution, agree on it, and move forward. ODD is more than teenage attitude. 

Third, bad parenting isn’t the reason he is this way.

It is easy to look at a kid having an inappropriate reaction and blame their parents for a lack of discipline, control, or even interest.

It’s easy to see the parents sitting and waiting for the scene to end, wonder why they aren’t doing anything, and judge them.

Don’t do that.

More than likely, they’re exhausted, and they’re trying. More than likely, by this point, they know that attempting to reason with a child whose brain is completely overwhelmed is a waste of time and likely to result in an even bigger explosion.

More than likely, they want the floor to swallow them up.

They don’t need platitudes. They don’t need you to say, “It gets better.” They don’t need you to attempt to settle their child (unless you know the child well and have been asked to do it).

They need you to acknowledge that this sucks.

It does.

No one likes to feel out of control in public. No one likes to be screamed at. No one likes it when their child loses their mind over something that seems insignificant.

There’s no perfect thing to say to a parent who is in the middle of a meltdown, but some of the best things I’ve been told are:

“Sometimes kids are little jerks.”

“This sucks.”

“Kids are the worst.”

For me, the sarcasm helps.

Kids can be the worst.

Even the best kids are sometimes the worst, and that’s okay.

It doesn’t make me a terrible parent because my kid loses his ever-loving mind at Costco.

It doesn’t make me a terrible parent because he tries to “get even” with his sister for something that happened three days ago…in the middle of church.

It doesn’t make me a bad parent because he decides to teach his little brother a “life lesson” that ends with a rage-screaming four-year-old.

It just means we’re having a really hard day.

There are things within my control that make me a bad parent.

These, friends, are not among them.

Finally, kids with ODD are GOOD kids.

They may not be easy kids.

They may scream horrible things at you. (So fun.)

But they are ultimately good.

They are often incredibly sensitive. They can be among the kindest people you’ll ever meet when they feel safe. They are fiercely loyal. Many have an intense sense of fairness and justice, and they struggle when the world doesn’t line up with what feels right to them.

They’re not all going to turn into serial killers.

You can have ODD and be a good person.

You can have ODD and learn compassion.

You can have ODD and not let it define you.

Time, guidance, support, and maturity will help. You cannot will them to behave. They have to decide. 

You can have a child with ODD and still be a great parent.

You can have a child with ODD and wish it were socially acceptable to hide under the covers all day.

You can have a child with ODD and still have really good days.

Life absolutely won’t be perfect. There is probably more yelling in your house than in many others. But there are also victories that non-ODD families never experience.  

Your child is more passionate and more spirited than most, and someone once told me that kids who are comfortable expressing themselves now become more assertive adults.

Personally, I think they were messing with me.

But I’ll cling to that today.

Tomorrow Z will argue with me about whether it’s time to brush his teeth. He’ll probably argue that it is a constitutional right to call everyone around him a “huge idiot”. 

He’ll almost certainly make me question every parenting decision I’ve ever made.

I will probably want to lock myself in the bathroom and cry at some point. 

But tomorrow I’ll still love him.

Not because he’s gotten easier.

Not because I’ve figured out how to parent a child with ODD.

But because underneath all of the arguing, the yelling, the defiance, and the exhaustion is a funny, brilliant, fiercely loyal kid whose brain makes everything a bit more complicated than necessary. 

ODD explains some of his behavior, but it doesn’t define who he is.

And it certainly doesn’t define the kind of parent I’m trying to be.

Tomorrow WILL be messy, and so will the day after that, and the one after that. 

And it’s going to have to be ok.