A previous blog lists some great parenting strategies for working with a child who has Opppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Here are more strategies to try.

5) Keep reminding yourself that this is NOT about you, the parent. This is about the child. Either his brain is not capable of making choices OR his past is keeping him in this spot in order to feel safe. Either way, this is about the child. Your job is to love him anyway.... more

Parenting a child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is difficult. Here are some great strategies to try!

Here are some things to try:

1) Inject humor wherever and whenever possible!! I listed this as #1 because I feel it is more important than most any other idea you will ever hear on parenting difficult chidren. When people ask how I’m able to handle working with so many difficult children in my house, I always tell them that the KEY is to have fun!! An internet friend recently visited our home and remarked... more

I have a daughter (15 years old today) who is somewhat new to our family. She does not have a diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), but often is highly oppositional to prove a point, either to us parents or to herself. This morning she exemplified another effort to "show me" that she is in charge and we (parents) are not. This morning, hubby said happy birthday to B. and reminded her that, on birthdays, you get a day off from any chores. Do you suppose she is not doing any chores, then? No, instead, she's cleaning... more

John was 6 years old and already diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). One morning, he was sitting on the floor, refusing to get dressed for school. As many times as I might ask him, or in as many ways, he wasn’t going to move. In fact, the more he thought I wanted him to get ready for school, the less likely he was going to do that.

So, I told him I wanted him to sit down. Of course, he stood right up. He still didn’t get ready for school, yet the degree of his opposition was becoming more evident. I told him... more

In my “raising a spirited child” post I posed the question are some children just harder to parent than others? I often wonder if it’s a matter of fit. What makes one family able to handle issues that cause another family to disrupt? How much of our parenting styles and personality styles come into play when dealing with difficult children. I do think some children just have easier going laid back personalities and others are of the more spirited nature. In... more

If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “ Boy she is a real firecracker” when talking about my daughter. I would be a wealthy woman. I do have an amazing daughter, who happens to be energetic, smart as a whip, a firecracker, a pistol, very much a typical toddler but with a little extra something that makes one want to call her strong willed or spirited. My daughter does not have that inner aim to please her parents as I have seen in some children. I know she loves us. She is affectionate and loveable. She just marches to the beat of her own... more

“I have poofy hair. It’s hard to comb out. When you go swimming, it’s really hard to comb out.”

These are statements that my daughter wished to share today. In this photo, she is third from left, clearly the child with the poofy hair.

Nicole is a biracial 10yr old girl with gorgeous medium brown skin. She has a great amount of tight, curly, frizzy hair. Her preferred styling method is the giant pony tail or "cocoa puff".

Adoptive mom has pale and pasty skin. She has straight, medium brown hair.... more

Continued from part one.

A trip through the social studies section of our teacher supply store this afternoon left me with a renewed awareness of cultural differences.

Do I expect there to be a plethora of information about every single country inside of one teacher supply store? Of course not. Would it be nice if there were readily available resources that included Ethiopia (not such an “oddball country” that... more

This afternoon, I found myself at a teacher supply store to search for math books for some of my home schooled girls. I had three teenaged kids with me, including Helen who arrived to America from Ethiopia two years ago.

After we’d found the needed math books, we looked around the rest of the store. Caroline found some great art books. Ryan wandered off and amused himself playing Blokus while he waited. Helen and I, after reminding each other that “we don’t believe in science”, skipped the science section and looked... more

We just learned the results from the Sensory Profile. Livi is found to have a low sensory registration (she is not bothered by things that bother others- high pain tolerance) sensation seeking and sensory sensitive behaviors. In the tactile department she was found to be mildly defensive, meaning she is bothered by messy hands and the waist band of her clothing. The OT told me that Livi craves sensory input and hops, jumps and bounces to feel her body in relation to her space. Heavy work and Proprioception are the main things we will work on.... we... more