ODD mom moments

Of all the Harry Potter characters, I mostly closely relate to Hermione Granger. What do I do when I have a question? “When in doubt, go to the library.” 

I knew very little about ADHD or ODD when Aurora was diagnosed, so I set out to learn. My favorite resources still are “Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A handbook for diagnosis and treatment” by Dr. Russell Barkley and “The Explosive Child: A New Approach For Understanding And Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children” by Dr. Ross W. Green. (Seriously, these books have changed my life.)

Dr. Barkley is a leading researcher on the subject of ADHD. He explains that ADHD is a misnomer. It is really a regulation disorder. People with ADHD have a delayed ability to regulate impulsiveness, self-awareness, restlessness, attention and persistence, working memory, rule-following, emotions, time, and problem-solving (also called executive functions). It’s not that they cannot do these things, they just struggle to regulate and control them. 

In order to better understand the difficulties children with ADHD face, I am going to adapt a scenario presented by Dr. Barkley as found on http://www.russellbarkley.org/ in a way that more closely resembles a situation that Aurora might face. 

Pretend you walk into a grocery store and see a Snickers. You really want that Snickers but don’t have enough money. You know it is wrong to just take the candy. Your brain begins to regulate your actions. You might walk to a different part of the store so you are not tempted. You might tell yourself you need to save up and come back another day. You might ask someone to lend you a dollar. You might search the parking lot for stray coins. You might think about the consequences of shoplifting. Your brain helps you to not give into just taking the Snickers.

In order to avoid taking the Snickers your brain has to enact different abilities. You have to be aware that you are facing a choice (self-awareness), you have to restrain your urge to just take it (impulsivity), you have to redirect your attention (attentional management), you have to speak to yourself and follow through (working memory), you have to come up with solutions (problem-solving), and you have to pay attention to a future event or consequence (time management). You have to do all of this without getting overly upset, sad, or angry (emotional control). It becomes a little more clear why those with ADHD might struggle in this scenario if you understand that ADHD involves deficits in all these areas.

I used this scenario because thievery is, in fact, a serious temptation for Aurora. She would come home from school with little knick-knacks that I knew weren’t hers, but that would be very difficult to place back with their owners. It was usually things like little erasers, a game piece, a pen lid, chapstick, etc. Or just straight up garbage. If it looked interesting to her, she didn’t care if it came off of the street or from someone’s desk.  

One day, however, I got a call from her teacher. Yes, another call. 

“I am sorry to tell you this, but Aurora was caught in the classroom during lunch taking Pokemon cards out of other people’s backpacks.”

I cringed. What do you say to that? I always figured those troubled kids at school must have come from really difficult family situations. This is not always so apparently. (I have since learned the danger of starting a sentence with “my child would never…”. Do you use that phrase? My advice is stop. Stop right now. Consider yourself warned.)

“I’ll have a talk with her tonight,” I sighed.

“I will have to lock my classroom from now on whenever I am not in there. I have never had to do that in all my years of teaching.” Yep. My child.

Well, Aurora’s just special like that,I wanted to respond, but what I really said was, “I’m so sorry. I’ll see what I can do.”

Before I had to pick Aurora up from school I decided to check her room for other possible stolen items. She hoarded everything, so it was VERY difficult to figure out what was hers, what was stolen, and what was just garbage. (Don’t judge my house cleaning skills here. I was trying. She just brought in so much stuff it was hard to keep up. She should’ve been born years and years ago as a hunter/gatherer. She would have thrived.)

Despite the difficulty, I figured the hundred or so Pokemon cards I found in her room were not hers. Umm…yeah. That was bad.

We had another chat about stealing. She denied everything, as she usually did when the subject was brought up. When I told her that her teacher had called me, she said, “Well, I was actually just putting the cards back into people’s backpacks. I just wanted to look at them.”

“I’m sorry. I just don’t believe you,” I responded.

“You never believe me! You don’t even trust me!” she screamed.

I left the room. Nothing I could say at that point would make any difference because she was embarrassed and angry at being caught.  

I took her and her stolen Pokemon cards and a random key chain that I knew had to have come from school into her classroom the next morning and spoke to her teacher. She was very understanding, but neither she nor Aurora could figure out which Pokemon cards belonged to which person. Aurora certainly couldn’t remember. So she donated the lot of them to the class prize box.

At home consequences were a little more dire. Using the advice of friends, Ike and I decided to empty her room entirely so that all she “owned” was her bed. We removed her toys, books, clothes, knick-knacks. Everything. (Just sticking everything into garbage bags seriously took hours. So much junk.) 

She had to earn everything back through repeated good behavior and lack of stealing instances. The idea was that if she couldn’t respect others’ property, she couldn’t have any property. 

This kind of worked, but mostly didn’t. You see, Aurora has a very poor memory for things she can’t see. When she couldn’t see her things, she mostly forgot about them. She earned her clothes back first, but after that she sort of forgot about all of her other things. She just found other things to entertain herself…like sticks and feathers and rocks and bugs. (I’m telling you, she really would’ve made a great hunter/gatherer.) She had no motivation to earn back things she had forgotten existed. And I was stuck with garbage bags full of trinkets for months. This is a good example of ADHD/ODD parenting that failed. FAILED. The consequences and methods for redemption were too vague and not immediate enough. So I’m not sure why I’m sharing it unless you need the reassurance that other moms fail sometimes. 

One of the statistics I learned in all my Hermione-ish reading was that ODD occurs in about 40% of children with ADHD. It makes sense. If emotional regulation is an aspect of ADHD, then Oppositional Defiant Disorder is essentially a subset of ADHD (when it occurs in people with ADHD).

Despite Aurora’s troubles in school, anger management issues, and messy habits, I have been able to maintain a sincere and deep love for her throughout the years. I was asked once, “How do you love her when she is so difficult?”

When Aurora was a very little baby, only five months or so, she had a day when she wouldn’t sleep. This was unusual for her. Surprisingly (to me and everyone now), she was actually a very easy baby and a good sleeper. But I had this one day when I could not get her to calm down and sleep. I started praying for inspiration. I believe that we are entitled to inspiration regarding our stewardships and for me, that’s my kids. I thought that God would help me know what to do to get her to sleep. 

It didn’t quite work out that way. 

As I prayed, I was able to let go of my frustration. Praying helped me be calm, and I felt peace and knowledge that my baby was fine. I could still be a happy person if she slept or not. Instead of a voice telling me what to do, I got a warm feeling and a glimpse into how God felt about my child. He loved her. She was His child. 

This experience has come back to my mind over and over again as a reminder that before she was mine, she was His. When I am struggling to maintain positive feelings toward my child, I remember how I felt when God reminded me how much he loves her. 

I think he gave me this experience at the beginning of her life because he knew I would need that reminder again and again.

I don’t understand all the science or psychology behind what is in her brain. I’ve learned a lot about her struggles, but I’ve also learned a lot about HER. She is a daughter of God.

Barkley, Russell A., ed. (2014). Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A handbook for diagnosis and treatment. Guilford Publications.