Alka Mansik Pramarsh Foundation Clinical Psychologists-Family therapists Indore 0731-4263087,9179383554

A young lad  or lass in his or her teens  need to be paying attention to  the school curriculum and playing with the mates but instead if a child of this age become a problem for the family and the school , there is bound to be a cause and consternation amongst the family, teachers and the  well wishers of the child and the family.

We have recently   been getting some   cases   of   young children behaving oddly in the families . The young ones  defy  their parents even for small errands .   They insist   on not going to schools . These children  refuse to listen to their parents. Some of them  go even to the extent of fighting   back with  their parents. The parents have to understand that  children   usually are    defiant .They like to  oppose their parents  for many reasons. Obedience may not always be expected too.  We all will like to have independent thinking , self decision making children if the  decisions made by them meet our expectations.   During their  normal   growth and development  ,   individualism of human nature  does exert itself at times  when oppositional behavior  against the order and the expected  gets  expressed even by the young. The  young children  want to grow up and their   desire to gain freedom  from control   gets  intense, around the ages of two and three,  and again  in early adolescent   years . For  any parent however an uncooperative, disobedient   and aggressively hostile  behavior  of their  ward  becomes a serious issue when it is frequently ,  fiercely and arrogantly  expressed by the child. Opposition of any kind  by the child becomes glaringly visible  when  it is  compared with other children’s    visible  obedient and docile  behavior . This kind of  defiance and disobedience  gets very strainful  and stressful    for  the parents and other members of the    family.  It affects    the academic life  of the child in addition to being counted as an unsocial child within and outside the family circles .

Looking for the  the signs of  Oppositional  Defiant Disorder :  It’s not easy  for any parent to notice   differentiation   between normal defiance and the  oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) from age related  normal defiant  behavior by their children  . Symptoms of the disorder start appearing , in noticeable happenings on various occasions. Child and parental conflict related   problems   are common in  families. Families have various levels of tolerance for the opposition by their children . In some, a disgruntlement to the  the rules produces major stress for the parents , while in more friendly , social and  tolerant families , opposition by children and occurrences of bad behaviors  by the kids  are largely overlooked till such times as  they cause relationship  problems . In children  affected  with ODD,  a  systematic pattern of , anger,  aggression and the uncooperative, defiant, and aggressive  behavior toward authority can be seen. Such opposition by the young ones  regularly hampers  the  day to day functioning within the family . The children suffering get flayed tempers at times. These  children become hot headed and short   tempered. They  argue with adults. They take pleasure in fighting back against  adult rules.They refuse even minor  adult requests. They look for opportunities to   deliberately annoy others. The same defiance continues – at home, in school, in the neighborhood . Such behavior is not necessarily the  result of a conflict with a particular parent or teacher. They begin with holding  others responsible for their mistakes.They   become grumbling kind and they often behave  touchy, arrogant , resentful, spiteful and  vindictive. Some children engage in mild physical aggression and fight back physically too . Their language   becomes  aggressive, abusive and  obscene. A kind of  power struggle within the family  begins  with these children.   Their  struggle may be noticed in terms of food for choice, clothes to wear or simply in selecting a place to sit too.  During infancy  oppositional episodes must have occurred at the time of their  feeding,    eating, toilet training, and sleeping  etc. , but went unnoticed because of motherly love and affection . Children   with ODD regularly insist on postponing the work in home and at school and   they find strange reasons to  procrastinate. They  ignore parental directions and their teachers orders. They would often   pretend  to forget or fail to hear . They are often referred to for memory exercises but we have to understand  that it is not the memory or hearing problem but the problem relates to   obeying what was expected of them. As the child grows up the issues such as  keeping the room neat,  taking baths, doing home work on time , not watching television for longer times, not interrupting  while elders are talking or talking back, crop up. In all such small    small quarrels and fights , winning becomes the most important aspect of their  struggle. At times a child with ODD will deliberately forego and rather lose  cherished privileges, in order to prove a point and win  the argument. The child will   exhibit .continuous opposition within the home environment. He or she will act completely  resistant and uncooperative  in the class room . On a serious side   the child continues with his or her defiance towards the established  authority . The child may not be in a position to understand the  difficulties or even get an inkling of his or her being in the wrong. Such children as said earlier look for the reasons of their  troubles in others   behavior and in the other circumstances. external circumstances. There is always an inherent scant respect for the   the rules and discipline.  The child enjoys  challenging anyone who exhibits some kind of authority.