One particular challenge that we can
face as parents is dealing with oppositional defiant disorder. How do you
discipline a child with oppositional defiant disorder? Let's have a little
chat first about diagnosis. The diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder is
completely behaviorally defined. What that means is there's no blood test.
There's no scan that you can do to find out if your child has this thing, this
disorder. This disease. It's not that kind of a disorder. It's behaviorally defined
and it has to do with being oppositional or defiant resisting Authority, refusing
to cooperate. Interesting that we would behaviorally define a diagnosis. That may
be more significant to me than it seems to you. I think it's important to
consider that because this is not the kind of thing that we can simply give a
pill for. It's not the kind of thing that a surgical intervention would correct.
This is the kind of thing that has to be dealt with behaviorally. Because it's
defined behaviorally. When we talk about parenting or disciplining a child with
oppositional defiant disorder, we could even leave off the diagnosis at the end
of that and say it's disciplining a child. Think of your child first as your
child. As a person, as a human being who has a name and a history and a set of
skills and attributes that are unique to them. Among which our set of behaviors
that may qualify them for this diagnosis. That's something that will help to put
you in a frame of mind that will deal with your child a little more
appropriately. When I think of oppositional defiant disorder, my mind
goes back to the 3 stages of moral development that we've talked about on
other videos on this channel. Very quick summary, if you think of three distinct
stages of moral development, Stage one is oppositional and defiant
and selfish and self-centred. We're talking about stage one moral
development. Stage two is where we stop fighting and start cooperating. In fact,
that's the dividing line between stage one and stage two. Cooperation. Stage two
you don't want any trouble. You want to keep the peace you want to get along so
you're going to comply you're going to cooperate. That's stage two. Stage three
is the highest stage of moral development. It includes your
responsibility and morals and values and ethics that drive behavior. You do the
right things for the right reasons in stage three. So, what we're really talking
about when we talk about disciplining a child who has oppositional defiant
disorder, it's the same conversation we have about disciplining a child who's in
stage one of their moral development. If you want a quick review of this, go to
the video teaching children responsibilities here on the channel in
the positive parenting playlist. That's a way you can review all of those stages
and you'll know better what I'm talking about. Now, let's go to the discipline
techniques. First of all, as a parent, please remain calm. We should do a
t-shirt right? "Stay calm and parent on." Maybe I'll do that.
Would you buy one? I think I might wear that t-shirt. Stay calm. Don't get tipped
over by your child's oppositional behavior. If we have a stage one child,
that's refusing to cooperate and being disruptive in their behavior and we have
a parent who goes stage one and starts yelling and screaming at their child, now
everybody's out of control. We got a big old mess on our hands.
You stay calm as a parent. You can do that by knowing how to handle
oppositional and defiant behavior. That's why we're having this conversation. 3
rules about power struggles which you are sure to have if you've got a child
who's being oppositional and defiant on stage one. 3 rules about the power
struggles. Rule number 1: Avoid them. Do not get into the power struggle if
you don't have to. Rule number 2: If you can't avoid them, make sure that you win
them. Now, I tell kids the same thing. Hey, if you're going to get into a power
struggle, make sure that you can win it. Kids are really good at this. They have
this uncanny knack for following the rule number 3 which is You Pick The
Issues. You pick the issues and you always pick something that you can
personally control. That way you can win the power struggle. And it doesn't have
to be an argument. It doesn't have to get all mean and nasty. You're in control so
you don't have to worry about whether you're gonna win that power struggle or
not. Do you love that? 3 rules for the power struggles: Avoid them. If you
can't avoid them, win them. And you do that by picking the issues.
You always pick something that you can control especially if you're working
with an oppositional and defiant child. In your interactions with a child who's
being oppositional and defiant, you want to stay in control of 3 important
things. The timing, the content and the emotion. Let's talk about each of those
three in order. The timing. Sometimes, you are feeling a little tipped over. You're
a little upset. You're having some emotional issues of your own. That is not
the best time to discipline, confront or interact with your oppositional defiant
child. You want to control the timing. So sometimes it might look like this: Let's
say that you got a teenager that violated your rule to be home at a
certain time. They come home late. Do you have to confront them as soon as they
get home? No, you don't. In fact, it might be really wise and strategic to wait for
a little while and it'll drive them nuts. But just try this. When they come in late,
think about it. What have they been doing all the way home? They've been coming up
with their story, right? They're ready for the fight. We want our kids to think not
fight. Will you put that in your notes please?
Think not fight. Every interaction we have with our kids we'll invite them to
do one of those two things. They've been thinking all the way home about how
they're going to fight with you about their being late. You want to control the
timing. So, when they come in through the door late, you say, "Welcome home. I'm glad
you're here. We'll talk about this in the morning." Ha! Now, they might try to
engage you right now. "What? What's the matter?"
Or whatever, right? They go into their oppositional defiant mode. You just can't
be cool. You're going to be like, "No, I'm just glad you're home. We'll talk about this
and we'll do that tomorrow morning. I think that'll be a better time. Good
night." Alright. Now when you're smiling, kids are thinking. It's a good rule of
thumb. And what did you just invite them to do? To fight with you? No, you want
them to think. And putting them off buying a little bit of time like that,
controlling the timing gives them time to think. Okay, you control the timing, the
content and the emotion. Content. Let's go there next.
Sometimes when you're confronting or dealing with or disciplining an
oppositional and defiant child, they try to change the subject on you. Like for
example, they'll say, "Well you're mean." Okay, whether that's true or not, that's
not the topic. That's not what we're discussing. That's not the content of our
conversation right now. You want to control the content. And there's a few
ways to do that. So let's say that they turn it back on you and they say, "You're
not fair. You're just mean." Whatever, okay? Well, let's now we're talking about. We're
talking about their irresponsible or defiant choice that triggered this
conversation in the first place. So, you're going to deflect that. What
they're trying to do is sidetrack you, okay? Sidetracking is an old railroad
term. A sidetrack runs right along the side the main track but it doesn't go
anywhere. They just put cars over there so that they can shift the order
of the cars in the Train and then they put him back on. Sidetrack doesn't go
anywhere. And if they're trying to take you off on a sidetrack, you're going to
bring him right back on track, okay? So, you might say something like this,
"Whether I'm mean or not is not what we're talking about right now. We're talking
about your choice." Okay? So, you bring him right back on track. You might also say,
"That may be true. Nevertheless..." Alright? And I love that word nevertheless. You
can throw that in. Nevertheless and then you bring him right back on track, okay?
Don't let them sidetrack you into a different conversation. You control the
content. Control the timing, the content and the emotion. That's going to be easier
to do if you're controlling the first 2. You want to be in a good place
emotionally before you have this conversation about discipline for an
oppositional child. If you're feeling tipped-over, control
the timing. You can also control the emotion by separating the emotion from
the discipline. The best way that I know how to do this is make sure you pick
consequences that you control 100%. You don't need their buy-in, you certainly
don't need their input. If they're being on stage 1, they opt it out of
participating in the conversation. They have to be... At least on stage 2
where they're cooperating with you before they even get to have any input
into this conversation. So, you think of consequences that do not
require their cooperation that allows you to stay in more emotional
control as you're delivering the discipline piece of this. Control the
timing the content and the emotion. One another quick tip that's going to help
as you're working with oppositional or defiant kids. Give them two choices.
This is a basic parenting technique that we've talked about in other videos. Quick
review. 2 choices. Either one you're okay with. One of them you control.
And that one becomes the default. You always give them 2 choices, you're okay
with both of them and you control the consequences for one. Here's a quick
example. Let's say that you have a school-aged child who's refusing to get
in the car and go wherever you're planning to go with the family. Refusing
to do it, okay? That's oppositional, that's defiant. So, you give them two choices.
Here's the 2 choices. "Son, you can get in the car pleasantly and respectfully
for free or you can get in yelling and screaming for fee." Alright, now. I'm okay
with both of them. If you give them a choice that you're okay with and one
that you're not, guess which one they're gonna pick? I know, right? So, you've got to
be okay with both of them. Now, which one do I control. I don't control whether he
yells and screams or not. I do control whether it's free or fee. And if he
chooses to yell and scream, he's gonna get a fee for that. We're not gonna get
into the details in this video about how to impose a fee. But basically it's
something that you can control 100%. And I control a lot of things that allow me
to extract fees from my children. Now, if I'm smiling, he's thinking. And we're
likely to have a whole lot less oppositional behavior if we'll handle it
in these ways. You've got this. You are a positive conscious parent. And because
you're here on the channel, I know that you're committed to the most important
job in the world. We're here to help you with that. Vicki and I have collaborated
to put together the parenting powerup.If you haven't checked it out yet, please go
there now. parentingpowerup.com where you can
get some free resources and a whole lot of other resources that will put you in
the loop with positive parenting. We'll see you there.
