Children With Oppositional Defiant Disorder

No. 72; Updated December 1999

All children are oppositional from time to time, particularly when tired, hungry, stressed or upset. They may argue, talk back, disobey, and defy parents, teachers, and other adults.   Oppositional behavior is often a normal part of development for two to three year olds and early adolescents.  However, openly uncooperative and hostile behavior becomes a serious concern when it is so frequent and consistent that it stands out when compared with other children of the same age and developmental level and when it affects the child’s social, family, and academic life.

In children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), there is an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior toward authority figures that seriously interferes with the youngster’s day to day functioning.  Symptoms of ODD may include:

• frequent temper tantrums
• excessive arguing with adults
• active defiance and refusal to comply with adult requests and rules
• deliberate attempts to annoy or upset people
• blaming others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
• often being touchy or easily annoyed by others
• frequent anger and resentment
• mean and hateful talking when upset
• seeking revenge

The symptoms are usually seen in multiple settings, but may be more noticeable at home or at school.  Five to fifteen percent of all school‑age children have ODD.  The causes of ODD are unknown, but many parents report that their child with ODD was more rigid and demanding than the child’s siblings from an early age.  Biological and environmental factors may have a role.

Click on link above for more, including the possible “treatments” - which mainly seem to be GOOD PARENTING. Seriously … what will it be next? And those percentages seems very high! And wow - “biological and environmental factors may have a role?” Ya think? I mean, what ELSE would have a role if not one or both of those things?

**flabbergasted**

I think we will definitely have to get one of these for our child …. Or maybe for me.

Images courtesy of ThinkGeek.

Instantly, I recalled childhood memories of giant, murky colored catfish with blubbery, hairy lips lying dead on ice at the fish markets in Queens. The association (in my mind) of catfish with bottom feeders and cheap eats, made my face contort. . I kept sputtering, “A catfish? A CATfish? What?! You think I look like a … What are you … what are you … what … how can you SAY THAT?!”

He didn’t know what hit him. It wasn’t until I Googled up a photograph of a catfish for the LH, that I saw a little light go on behind his eyes, as he realized the error of his ways. Now, although I’ve forgiven him for it, and was never genuinely angry, I love to bring it up every few days. “You told me I look like a catfish.” And he always protests, “No, I said you reminded me of a catfish ….” Mmm hmm.

I’m thinking that for Christmas, I’ll put a photograph of a catfish in one of those nice “My Darling Wife” frames, and give it to him. 

*photo of catfish courtesy of webpage of Eldredge Elementary School in Rhode Island.

I mention the birds to hubby, and my family across the street, but no one else seems to be thinking about them. Further investigation is needed, but through online research of photography and mp3 files, I believe that we are surrounded by warblers, brown creepers, robins, chickadees, wonderful winter wrens, a small number of blue jays, and a handful of hummingbirds. And possibly sparrows. Previously, they were to me, “chit chit” birds, “swee” birds,” “trilling,” and “weow whistling” birds.  If I even thought that far. I am keeping my ears open for a meadowlark, though I think I may have to venture to a nearby forest for that one.

As both a city girl and a woman who operates almost entirely at the conscious level, I have no real notion of what all this “signifies,” if anything. I’ll continue to explore this interest … until its prominence in my mind wanes or leads to something more. It is really strange to think you know yourself, only to be possessed in this way.

*photo of Winter Wren, from the Wake Robin Learning Center at NWNature.net.

Quick updates - Was without computer for a week, then my grandmother (Nanny) has been in the hospital since Saturday (hopefully she’ll come home tomorrow). An ultrasound last week gave us the good news of a baby GIRL. 

While Baby Osuna is kickboxing her way to rock-hard abs, hubby and I have narrowed the list of possible names to less than five. And I am at 20 weeks and counting, which means: halfway there! Was also thrilled to discover that the 30 pound weight gain in the first three months has slowed down to only four pounds in the last four weeks. I was very much afraid of gaining 100 pounds during the pregnancy - and not just out of vanity: I’m not due till the end of September, and we don’t have air conditioning in this house, which has many large windows and south/west exposure. Right now it isn’t even 70 degrees, but the t-stat reads 79. 

The next 15 days in the Portland area are forecasted to be warm and sunny. It began today. Tomorrow we see sunshine and 87 degrees. Then 91 degrees. Then 80s and high 70s through the end of the month.  Time for lemonade, smoothies, fruit salads, and ice cream - can you tell where my mind is these days? 

I will resume posting again soon - maybe even this week! I have really missed it. For now, I have to get back to paying the monthly bills, listening to John Mayer, and thanking my lucky stars that I have a partner who is cooking me up a delicious dinner of rib-eye and portobellos.

***Sumer is I-cumin In

(lyrics translated from 14th c. times)

Summer is coming in, loudly sings the cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo…. 
The seed grows; the meadow blossoms, and the woods alivens anew. 
The ewe bleats after the lamb; the cow lows after the calf; 
The bull leaps; the goat capers*; merrily sing cuckoo! 
Well sing you, cuckoo–don’t ever stop now. 
Sing cuckoo, now..

Everything Father Phleger has said, I’ve heard black people say growing up. Everything. It’s still incredible to me that there are millions of people out there who aren’t even familiar - they don’t have to agree - with these views. 

But … it could be good. The premise - in case you’re wondering by this time - is this: a man on his way home from work or wherever is sitting in his car at a light, when all of the sudden he goes blind. Of course, he cannot drive so he is assisted to his home by another man. The man who went blind visits the doctor, who isn’t sure what’s going on. But very soon after, the doctor goes blind. The blind man’s wife goes blind. Pretty soon many people have inexplicably gone blind, and the government starts housing them all in an unused asylum.  And then we see what happens to people in these situations, and what becomes of society as more and more people lose their sight.  

Back to the film: The director, Fernando Meirelles - also Portuguese - is responsible for City of God and The Constant Gardener. Oh my god - two films that can grind even a stone heart into sand for an hourglass. I’ve only a little exposure to the screenwriter Don McKellar. He is a Canadian, who seems to travel (at least some of the time) within this circle of excellent and interesting Canadian actors and directors like Egoyan, Cronenberg, Sarah Polley, and Oh. He made the indie film, Last Night, which I thought was … okay. In general, I find Canadian films made by this group of people to feel slightly frozen. I like them, but the characters always seem to be in the midst of thawing. 

Maybe something truly remarkable will be the result when these two Portuguese and Canadian sensibilities are mixed. The novel itself gives the experience of being rent from a long distance. Saramago is magical that way.

This afternoon I skimmed through some of the book, rereading underlined passages. It’s a challenge to quote Saramago because his “sentences” are the length of paragraphs, while his paragraphs are the length of chapters; his humor is difficult to take out of context, and the dialogue is not separated from the narrative.  But here are a couple of excerpts that I like:

…The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality ….

… She did not waste time asking herself where such a thought had come from, she was only surprised at its slowness, at how the first word had been so slow in appearing, the slowness of those to follow, and how she found that the thought was already there before, somewhere or other, and only the words were missing, like a body searching in the bed for the hollow that had been prepared for it by the mere idea of lying down. 

… animals are like people, they get used to everything in the end.

That last one reminded me of something Dostoevsky wrote in another of my favorite pieces of fiction, House of the Dead, - “Man is a creature who can get used to anything, and I believe that is the very best way of defining him.” 

There are many days when I think this is true. In Blindness, Saramago offers a great parable. 

Of course, being a native New Yorker, I couldn’t help but know about Joel, and oh … the days when you could actually hear him on the Top 40 radio station. Back when it was okay for a “pop star” to be in their 30s, or chubby, or balding, or singing things that would never play in a night club. But now I’m starting to sound like an old grump muttering about the “good ole days.” 

Here’s an excerpt from Joel’s introduction; another reason why he and Mellencamp are all right in my book. 

Don’t let this club membership change you, John. Stay ornery, stay mean. We need you to be pissed off, and restless, because no matter what they tell us - we know, this country is going to hell in a handcart. This country’s been hijacked. You know it and I know it. People are worried. People are scared, and people are angry. People need to hear a voice like yours that’s out there to echo the discontent that’s out there in the heartland. They need to hear stories about it. [Audience applauds] They need to hear stories about frustration, alienation and desperation. They need to know that somewhere out there somebody feels the way that they do, in the small towns and in the big cities. They need to hear it. And it doesn’t matter if they hear it on a jukebox, in the local gin mill, or in a goddamn truck commercial, because they ain’t gonna hear it on the radio anymore. They don’t care how they hear it, as long as they hear it good and loud and clear the way you’ve always been saying it all along. You’re right, John, this is still our country.

(transcription courtesy of Wikipedia.org; video available here - this excerpt is from the last 2 minutes of the clip)

But in all truthfulness, I’d never heard of Richard Feynman, Alan Turing, Gauss, Heisenberg, Von Neumann or the Bernoullis before I met him… so we both have our weak areas. His is popular culture and Black History; mine is physics, mathematics, and computer science. You can decide which is worse. 

In any case, we are learning from each other. Hopefully, our child(ren) will learn from us both. 

***

Stuff #2: I’m learning to swim! After 3 lessons, and 3 additional sessions (on my own), I can “kick” and “fin” on both my stomach and my back, without any assistance. So if I fall into a small body of water I shouldn’t drown.  Although this has never been a real danger for me, knowing this feels really great.  I love going to the pool. I finally got over my swimsuit fears (well, mostly; my suit is a short skirt and midriff-concealing top), and don’t care what people think of my body. So I guess that’s modesty without the self-consciousness, which is all I ask.

Yesterday, the midwife told me it was okay to get in the hot tub so long as I didn’t let myself cook; that made my DAY. I love a jetted hot tub. Learning to swim has been an empowering experience; every day I see progress, and become more bold. Plus, I’m doing my part to defy the stereotype that black people can’t swim. (Click here for an interesting article on that annoyingly persistent myth - most of my family believes it, and they all swim!)

***

Stuff #3: Picked up Murakami’s Elephant Stories (at reader Hotei’s suggestion), as well as several Saramago novels I’ve not yet read, including his latest, Seeing. I’ve decided to write a few short children’s books for my own kid(s) based on people in my and Michael’s families. Getting the illustrations done will be the biggest challenge, but my brother-in-law is an artist, and one of my brothers is very good, too. I’m teaching myself to draw,  but it will be a while before I can do anything substantial.

I learned more about my predecessors … my granddad (an aspiring writer, who wrote numerous novels that were never published) wrote a letter to W.E.B. Dubois, who wrote back to him. The letters are published in a book of Dubois’ correspondence. This granddad’s mom, Rebecca, was a labor organizer in Panama, and met Paul Robeson (another person Michael’s never heard of). And her mom, Mary Jane - the Jamaican woman who married the Scotsman - wasn’t of African descent, as I’d assumed; she was Arawak. Rebecca was a pretty incredible woman. Discovering things about my recent ancestors has been such a gift. I feel more grounded, richer … as though I have something to give to my children apart from myself.

I also learned that Michael’s paternal ancestors from Spain were Sephardic (Jews). When I told him this, his response was the typical wisecracking: “So there’s still a chance I’ll be rich!” Oh lord. He doesn’t care a whit about ancestry or family history. In some things, we couldn’t be more different.

So many stories …. If you’re looking for stories, start at home.

Okay, enough food chatter. Approximately 55-60 people went through our workshops, and the best word I can use to describe our reception is gracious. I’ve heard that Southerners are known for the hospitality, but I’ve found Midwesterners to be tops, so far. Just so earnest, and friendly. The people in our workshops thanked us profusely for being there, and were so engaged and - gasp - they filled out their evaluation forms! Amazing. 

Last year, the Prairie Star District commissioned a team (now called GRACE: Growing Racial And Cultural Equity) to look at implementing specifically anti-racist policies and practices within the district. GRACE is the group that sponsored the workshops I co-led. I met Cheryll Wallace and Nathan Woodruff, who are on the GRACE team. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with them. Cheryll’s son and daughter-in-law attended one of the workshops along with her, and were active participants. The Saturday morning speaker, Rev. Meg Riley, weaved issues of race and racial history into her sermon/lecture about faith, family, and knowledge of self. What a great environment to come into!

After four plus years of doing Groundwork programming, this is my favorite yet. Even though it’s cold, dreary, and snowing here, my impression of Omaha, Nebraska, and the Midwest is very bright.