Living With A Child With Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Pick Your Battles

It may sometimes feel like an uphill battle, or like you’re entering into World War III when it comes to disciplining a child with ODD. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to feel this way. Try to always pick your battles when it comes to disciplining an ODD child. As you need to remain consistent with discipline, an ODD child has difficulty accepting any type of authority, therefore you need to stay vigilant and only choose the battles that are worth pursuing and let go of the small things and avoid power struggles. For instance, if you give your child a time-out for misbehaving, do not add more time to the clock for any additional arguing or rude behavior, as you do not want to reinforce negative behavior by continually disciplining your child.

Similar to managing your reactions, if you begin to feel overwhelmed or know you are about to overreact and completely escalate a situation, give yourself a personal time-out. To properly discipline and help your child, you need to maintain a sense of calm to deal with the situation effectively. This is not only a fantastic way to ensure you provide a good role model for your child to model their actions after, but it also gives a positive solution to negative behavior.

Continue reading to learn the three steps to discipline an ODD child.