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Okay, I'm an open-minded guy, and bought into ADD and ADHD a little bit, but now I'm convinced the medical/psychiatric/pharmaceutic industries are in cahoots. This is an actual "affliction" that I guarantee will be the next new "thing" to diagnose our kids with:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/oppositional-defiant-disorder/DS00630 (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/oppositional-defiant-disorder/DS00630)

ODD? Are you serious?

I read about it, I gave it some thought and decided ODD is bulls**t. What? Seriously, Oppositional Defiant Disorder? That doesn’t even make any sense. First off, “oppositional” and “defiant” are redundant. They mean the same thing. So, does that mean there’s an Agreeable Defiant Disorder? Just another racket from the medical/psychiatric/pharmaceutical industries to “diagnose” our kids with something and make them dependent on childcare "expert" services and drugs. And because most of our parents are lazy and don’t want to actually parent a difficult child, they buy into it.

Here’s how the bulls**t combination of words works. They can’t just call it Defiant Disorder or Oppositional Disorder, because everybody would question it immediately. “Defiant Disorder? Aren’t most kids just defiant? Oppositional Disorder? Aren’t kids oppositional a lot of the time?” And it wouldn’t go far. Add an additional redundant word that doesn’t add any additional meaning, but that adds weight and makes it sound more clinical or scientific, and then it becomes: “Oh. ODD. Yeah, I think my kid may have that.” What a crock.

My dad often complained that his kids were ODD.  :teddyr:

I could not agree more!  This kind of thing makes me physically ill. It's a nightmare to me.

Years ago I ran a day camp.  A significant portion of our campers were sent to us through the city Parks and Recreation Department.  A major proportion of those were kids who were in the care of Childrens' Services.  Most of those were on meds for ADHD or ADD.  Heavy-duty meds.  This aspect was not part of my job, so I was not officially informed of the camper's statuses.  Not a problem; I offer it as background to my story:

One of the campers was a young boy who was a bit of a trial to our staff as he was slightly more uncooperative than average.  He stood out a bit because he had to be monitored closely: he would not respond when spoken to (which looked like he was ignoring us), would wander off and do his own thing, and/or would stare at us in an almost defiant manner (we had no background on him, which was S.O.P., so we had no other way to interpret what appeared to be his attitude).   He seemed sullen and defiant.  One morning he arrived at camp, actually said 'hello' and joined his group.  The rest of the day he was noticeably brighter, more alert and definitely more responsive and cooperative.  Not outstandingly so, just much more so than his usual behaviour and demeanor.  Not only that, he gave us indications that he was enjoying participating: actually having FUN for once.  In other words: he had a very GOOD day.  At pick-up time, his caretaker's car drove up and the woman (foster-mom?) jumped out, apologising to beat the band, "OH I am SO sorry!  I forgot to give him his meds this morning!  He must have been just AWFUL for you!!!"  I had to pick my jaw up off the ground, and then proceeded to calm her down and attempted to make it clear to her that he had had a standout GOOD day from our perspective.  I don't think she heard me.  It was not what she was prepared to accept.  I felt AWFUL for that kid!  From that day forward I have been very sceptical about kids being prescribed meds for behaviour: I always question as to just how often they are given in order to produce "Stepford children" for the convenience of their caregivers/teachers/parents.  To me it is a very frightening prospect: made even worse by all the experts advocating more and more medications for what seems to me to be NORMAL behaviour in the developmental stages of adolescent humans (as this article exemplifies).   Awful. Just awful.

I'm not sure whether I believe it's totally bulls**t. Yes, probably 99% of these cases are. However, I would not be surprised if an ultra-minority were true.

Now, what I'm going to say is just a reflection of my personal experiences:

I went to two different non-connected special needs (not sure whether I like that term, but everybody seems to use it) schools. I went to to one for  about 95% of middle school and 100% of high school. I am not diagnosed with ODD and I'm not sure if if I've ever met somebody with that diagnosis.

Many kids had problems similar to or the same as those described in the ODD article. Many of them also seemed to never understand what they did (tantrums, violent behavior, shouting, etc...) was wrong. A large portion of them never seemed to improve in any way.

What I'm (poorly) trying to say is: For some of them ODD-ish behavior just seemed to be a part of them.

To be fair, these behaviors could be caused by other, more realistic diagnoses. I just don't think ODD is impossible.

I see a lot of these disorders as almost a single, highly variable disorder (neurotransmitter imbalance), and specific names as more of a way to distinguish between different symptoms and probable causes.

The important thing is to understand that ADHD is much more severe than plain old laziness, OCD is more than being overly fussy, ODD is more than normal defiance. They can resist your best efforts to control by sheer effort, and they can seriously affect your quality of life.

So, based off of what I read on their website, I, in fact, suffer from ODD.  Or Anti-social Behavior. 

Been meaning to see a doctor about that stuff.  Never got around to it.

I'm not saying that I completely discredit these conditions. I don't want it to be taken that way.

I do, however, think that the "community" tends to conveniently stigmatize children as having a "disorder," and parents who may not be the best parents in the world readily accept it and subject their child into treatments and, shudder, drugs that significantly alter who that child really is. Additionally, educators in general tend to encourage this practice enthusiastically because they don't want to deal with a difficult child, and sadly don't have the child's best interest in mind in such encouragment. Many parents don't research their rights and get pressured into drug therapies by all these influences, and in many cases end up with zombie children who are more tolerable by everybody, but who are often robbed of their gifts and their identity.

I am an advisor for people who want to become educators. I talked to a prospective student once and was very moved by her story. She has a child who is grown and out of the house who was diagnosed with ADHD, and it definately was a problem behaviorally that she had to deal with that created a very rocky road for her as a parent. She initially succumbed to pressure and had her son on meds to control the behavior, but it wasn't long before she noticed that he was like a zombie, his creativity gone and just wasn't the same child anymore. It broke her heart.

She put up with it for a few months and said enough is enough. She researched her rights, went to her son's teachers and said "TOUGH! Put up with it. You can't require me to have my child on meds. I will work with you to find a solution to any disruptive behavior, but I WILL NOT continue to have my son on these meds. He has never been a danger to anybody, so deal with it."

Her son had a fascination with music, so they found out that if he could have plenty of access of musical toys, he actually retained other information rather well and proved to be quite advanced mentally.

He has recently graduated college and is a music teacher. He still has some issues that crop up now and then, but through patience, maturity, and a parent who really was his ONLY advocate with his best interests in mind, he was able to escape the clinical and educational community who would rather have drugged him into conformity.

It really does disgust me, as much the community as the parents who just accept it without question. Had I a child who was "diagnosed," I'll be damned if I would allow meds as a means of dealing with it. I'm open-minded to behavioral approaches, but the meds will NEVER enter my children except as an extreme last resort, like he's a danger to himself or others. My wife and I are their parents. We are their ONLY advocates. I don't buy into "it takes a village," because the village would rather drug them up than deal with problems.

I'm not saying I think there are no kids needing the meds: I am just saying that I think the 'threshold' for prescribing may have been shifted too low in response to various pressures.  And what kid has NOT gone through a 'defiant' stage?  Seems to me it is a matter of degree (as AndyC pointed out), and people are treating these behaviours as 'all-or-nothing' propositions.

Parenting requires sacrifices.  Some people are willing to offer up more than others.

I do applaud anyone who undertakes to *first* address such behaviours without chemical assistance.   An affected person can only benefit from learning strategies and new behaviours, as an investment in being able to function in the world.  A parent owes them that to my way of thinking.  It is what a parent does in any case, isn't it?  IF it turns out that the child/person requires more, then at least they have found out what they really need.  Seems common sense to me.

I'd say most serious behaviour problems in kids are the result of parenting, or the lack of it. And, unfortunately, it's the same clueless, self-absorbed or lazy parents who are handed the decision of what to do about it. But then there are the ones who really have a physical problem, and all the parenting and counseling and discipline in the world isn't going to do more than teach them to cope with it, if that.

What I find frustrating is there seem to be two camps with regard to these types of disorders, and neither of them is particularly well informed. On the one hand, you have the people who know the names of all the ailments and love to stick labels on anything that kind of looks like something. On the other hand, you have the people who pooh-pooh any suggestion that there are real mood and behavioural disorders of this type, thinking it's just fancy names for old-fashioned laziness, absentmindedness, rambunctiousness or whatever, and a little discipline is all you need to fix the problem.

And while I agree that drugs should be the last resort, there is this mentality out there that fixing a problem of mood, motivation, etc. with drugs is somehow cheating. You need to get your act together, work through your problems and so forth, without once considering that your problem might be purely physical. It's like those ignorant people who think antidepressants just make you happy when you have real problems to work out, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Someone mentioned elsewhere that it's like telling a diabetic to get off his ass and metabolize sugar properly, which hit the nail on the head.

This is an area where the public needs a lot of education.

I wouldn't call myself an extreme case, but I will admit I lean toward that category. No question. But believe me, I have my boys' best interests in mind. I will not hesitate to provide whatever is necessary to the situation, but the definition of what is necessary is what causes so many problems. That's something Newt was suggesting as well. My 3-year-old son has some behavioral tendencies that suggest mild ADHD, but then it's difficult to tell. He is a spirited child, no doubt about it. Prone to a few more temper tantrums than the average child, and has some issues with compliance, but it's far from clear-cut. He's also a very brilliant child who is spelling six-letter words with ease and has always demonstrated amazing skills with characters and shapes in general. It's one of those things were behavioral concerns come up from daycare once every few months, so it's like, "okay, every once in a while a concern gets mentioned, so how serious could this be?" In today's climate of needing to diagnose every little thing, I'm led to believe it could be serious. I am very reluctant to buy that.

hi
Okay  i find this thread quite fascinating and a little bit frightening.You guys are well aware that i have a son who is severely disabled,I also work with disabled children through a broad spectrum of disabilities.
I agree that to a certain point some parents may fall into the medical jargon trap and readily accept that their child has a disability.Having said that i know only too well how manipulative some specialists may be,I almost fell into the trap myself.I also am an advocate for many children and parents in my school and regularly attend various meetings to discuss the parents role with regards to their child's wellcare.It is painstakingly difficult to get any help with funds if you have a child that has not a recognised disability,this is to say that if your child has not been "labelled" then you will have one hell of a job  with any financial help.It is very important and helpful for parents to identify with a child's disability,until i knew my own son's diagnosis i found it impossible to be in a position to help him.I agree that ODD may seem just like another branch from the tree however it is a recognised disability and if this label is able to bring some comfort to a parent then i am all for it.
I agree with flick that some parents may jump on the bandwagon to profit from their child's behaviour but alas this is human nature and you will always find freeloaders in all aspects of life.It is extremely important for all concerned with the child /doctors/specialists and physio's to all be in agreement of the child's true  disability and to do all that is possible for the child's benefit.Labels are not just prevailant in disabled children we all have labels attached to us , large/small/bald and all manner of various labels yet we accept and even revel in some of these labels.We all belong to some group or another it is almost impossible to be a singular person anymore.

  I think that ADD and ADHD exist, but I also think they are over-diagnosed. Sometimes it's the work of an incompetent or over worked mental health care worker, sometimes it's done for shear money-making greed.  

   My sister went to the school district because her son had a small problem with lisping and she wanted to know about maybe taking him to see a speech pathologist. She set up an appointment to see a Speech Pathologist but when she arrived she was met by a roomful of people, including a school psychologist, the speech pathologist, a nurse and a lawyer(?). After talking to my sister for about 10 minutes they decided that my nephew had ADD and needed an immediate course of therapy, including serious drugs. Now bear in mind, my nephew wasn't even present. They diagnosed a patient without even seeing him!  My sister lost it and let them have it.

She went back to the pre-school my nephew attended and decided to talk to his teacher. The teacher said that she thought his lisp wasn't very serious and that he would probably grow out of it. She also reccommended that my sister take him to a Speech Therapist in private practice because she felt the school district diagnosed too many kids with ADD who didn't have it. The teacher had no proof but said she thought the district did it because there is a ton of funding for kids with ADD and the district wanted it's funding.

  I almost lost it when I heard that story. That's unconscionable.  

  Like I said, there are probably kids and even adults that need medication to deal with these problems, but I think too many times it's either over or mis-diagnosed. Sometimes the problem can be solved by a change in diet or in other ways that might not be as convenient or profitable for some parties, but that are much healthier for the kids with the issue.  

  As far as ODD goes, that just seems like an excuse to pump more drugs into kids and more profits into the pharmaceutical companies pockets. Is there any behavior left anymore that doesn't require medication? I'm sure it won't be long until refusing to take unnecessary medication is viewed as a medicatable(sp) condition.

I have no problem with that, macabre. None at all. I have a big problem with the pharmaceutical industry in general, and the growing number of people, young and old, who are getting addicted or dependent upon synthetic drugs, so that enters into the picture. I also have a problem that things necessarily have to be called "disabilities" or "disorders." A semantic consideration perhaps, but kids and adults have all kinds of strengths and weaknesses, some more pronounced than others. I am not so quick to consider things a disability or a disorder.

Also, there is just an unfortunate wording issue with ODD that gets under my skin. Whoever named this condition, however recognized, did a p**s poor job. The redundancy just makes it seems like bulls**t to me. The words "Obsessive Compulsive" make sense because it refers to having both obsessions and compulsions, two distinctive behaviors that, when combined and uncontrollable, comprise OCD. "Attention Deficit" make sense because it refers to a pronounced lack of ability to maintain sustained focus on a single subject or topic. The words "Oppositional Defiant" make no sense. It's like saying "Big Huge." Not trying to be insenstive to people with weight problems, but perhaps we should refer to those suffereing with obesity as having BHD, Big Huge Disorder. That's absurd, I know, but the ODD wording seems no less ridiculous to me, and makes it seem like a joke.

My posture remains, however, and I want to make it clear that my main concern is the propensity of parents to alter their children's behavior by medication in general. Other interventions that involve ways of dealing with the behavior that improve the child's funtionality while maintaining the strengths and abilities that drugs have a tendency to limit or remove I'm all for. That is not a reflection on individual situations in any way, shape, or form. Clearly, medication is sometimes necessary.

Actually, opposition and defiance are two different things. But you're right that they aren't different enough to each warrant a mention in the name.

There have been a few medical conditions I thought must have been named by an idiot. SARS would be number one. Severe Accute Respiratory Syndrome? That's not a name, it's an extremely vague description that just as easy describe a nasty case of hiccups.

I have a theory that we are all, every last one of us Americans, alcoholic, drug-addicted, or medicated. 

I do agree with that aspect.  Kids are entirely overmedicated for the littlest of things.  Based on my experiences growing up and tests and whatnot, apparently I fall under the radar for ADD/ADHD, and ODD.  For one reason or another, I never got medicated.  Probably should've, but I wasn't as bad as others in terms of their conditions.  I was 'functional', if that makes sense.  My cousin, though, isn't, and as such is medicated.  I dunno.  Based on what I saw in her case, some should be.  Not all though, as you said.

Yeah.  In my case, all three at one point or another in my lifetime. :buggedout:

I've been through the system, and I stand by my belief that not every case needs drugs. So a kid's disruptive in class; maybe they're bored and just don't like sitting in a desk for hours on end. Kids just have more energy than adults, hence why they absolutely need recesses throughout the day to help burn off that energy and help them focus again.

Hell, I remember in elementary school occasionally getting tested for various things and the school calling my Mom to let her know that they were doing some speech therapy with me because I couldn't pronounce "th" properly. She flipped her lid when she heard about that, since it was obvious that I was just picking up my Dad's french accent. They stopped pulling me out of class for that BS and I learned to pronounce "th" just fine.

Later they started testing me to see if I had a learning disability since I tend to doodle while I'm listening to lectures and whatnot, thus making teachers think I'm not paying attention. The gaping hole in their theory? I was an "A" student and could repeat every word a teacher had just said when they asked me to do so. Yeah. Not a learning disability, just a tad absent-minded and I remember things better if I'm doing something with my hands at the time.

And yet they missed diagnosing the actual life-long mental problem. Way to go elementary school counselors!

People do need to let go of the one-size-fits-all approach to learning. Many people do concentrate better with a little distraction. My wife can't sit through a long meeting or a seminar, or even a TV show, without knitting or needle felting or some sort of craft. Me, I like music playing, or a TV just for background noise, or I like to doodle. We recently took a training course together that required us to spend two full weekends - all day, Saturday and Sunday - in a classroom. She made a bagfull of felt toys and I designed a self-setting digital clock with a foot-high display.

People tend to have this idea that you can't pay attention if you aren't sitting quietly and doing nothing else. I used to have a boss, back when I was 18 or 19, who used to complain about us wearing headphones on the job. But if I took them off, my mind wouldn't have enough to occupy itself. I'd get bored, start daydreaming, get distracted by something. My mind would be less on my work. I think my boss understood that somewhat, since he always had CBC Radio on while he worked. I think his problem was more with what we listened to, being kind of a symphony snob.

I always had trouble paying attention in school. Part of that was, I think, real ADHD, which I still have, and only recently started taking medication for. But a big part of it certainly was being made to sit there, paying attention to nothing but a lesson I got the gist of within a few minutes.

I like your post, Andy. What I wonder is, why are you taking medication? It sounds like you don't have any problems. Does this cause you significant problems in life? This is not a judgment in any way. It's a personal choice (as opposed to it being imposed upon you), and if it helps something that is a problem in your life, then go for it. I'm just curious because from what you describe it doesn't sound like a problem.

hi
I can see  where you are going with your opinion Flick but you seem to be more concernend with the medication issue.I can only speak from my own experience and the experiences of my children i teach and i don't know the process in America for disabled children.The UK and especially in the north where i live is very stringent with whom may or may not require medication,you cannot just go to your local G.P and tell them you wish for this or that medicine.I think the door can swing both ways with this issue ,you can either demand that your child has access to medication or you can just take a somewhat old fashioned  train of thought and just ignore the child's obvious difficulties and put it down to "the child just being a child" . I do fully agree that some children are overdosed on unwarranted medication but we must not ignore the fact that some children require medication even if this dulls their senses.I know fro experience that some of my son's earlier medication left him acting like a zombie,however when he was took off this medication his  seizures became intensified and dangerous to himself .

The short, terse answer: I think after almost 40 years of this, I know whether I need medication or not. :hatred: ( :teddyr:)

Now, the long answer:

The motivational problem comes with depression (occasionally severe) and some OCD, all of which have been present since I was a kid, and all of which have proven difficult to deal with any other way. It was the depression I finally sought medical treatment for. I was taking Zoloft for a while, which seemed to fix the anxiety, but not so much the depression, and made the motivation problem much worse. In a way, it just made me less concerned about not getting anything done.

Treating the condition as ADHD seems to work. A dopamine reuptake inhibitor and a time-released stimulant appear to help with everything, although I'm still tapering off the Zoloft. Gotta do that very slowly. Too quickly, and the anxiety goes up, although that's only now. I initially halved the dose and saw immediate improvement across the board, which is what confirmed in my mind that I'm finally on the right track. Serotonin deficiency never made sense for me, because I have the ass-backward seasonal affective disorder that flares up in the summer, when serotonin levels are usually higher. Also explains why every serotonin reuptake inhibitor I tried before Zoloft made my depression much worse. I was tipping the imbalance further in the wrong direction. Turning my attention to dopamine and norepinephrine was the logical choice, and I'm seeing improvement.

That's why these conditions are so difficult to categorize and treat. You seldom have just one thing, and what appear to be the same symptoms are not always caused by the same imbalance of chemicals.

Like I said, it's a general opinion, and does not disrespect or fail to take into account cases where medication is truly needed.

Well, that was what I was saying. You're an adult and you know what helps you, plus you're your own advocate and can make up your own mind what's in your best interest. Children don't have that right or luxury, they have to rely on their parents to be their advocate. Like I said, it wasn't a judgment, I was just curious.