K., I know how hard this is----my grown son was diagnosed when he was 7. Therapy is the best thing you can do to begin, but as you know, all therapists aren't the same, nor are they all "good". I'm wondering why you're still in therapy 6 mos. later. We went for about 3 months, maybe 4, and learned many different parenting techniques to deal w/ODD children. For instance, you don't want to reinforce their poor behaviors with any of your attention. So, if possible, you NEVER get angry or let them see you get angry. If he refuses to go to his room or a time-out, you CALMLY put your hand on the back waistband of his pants and direct him there. (He's only feeling a small portion of your hand--the area between your knuckles and first joint--not your knuckles.) The idea is to use as few words as possible and as little touch as possible, because these children all feed into negative attention. Then when everything is going well and he's doing what he's supposed to be doing or just NOT doing anything wrong---you tell him what a great job he's doing, you hug and kiss him, etc. Reward the positive w/your words, reward the NON-negative w/your words, then ignore the negative as much as humanly possible. It's important to hug, kiss and cuddle him as much as possible when he's not being difficult or defiant. Anyway, after a few mos. our therapist actually told us we were done for awhile, and we'd probably need to come in for "tune-ups" periodically and do some phone sessions. We did and he helped us immensely for many years--but maybe 2 or 3 sessions a year. I can't see going for months on end, so that concerns me about your therapist. Next, watch his diet. I did notice my son was worse after red food dyes---suckers, slurpees, etc., so that may be an issue for your son, as well. Does your school offer social skills classes? Many do, but if they don't, they might be able to refer you to one. Make an appointment w/your school psych and discuss this with her. An excellent book is "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. It helped us immensely, and explained ODD in a different way. Especially helpful in the teen years, which are incredibly difficult with an ODD child. We did begin meds when he was in 8th grade, and did quite a few different ones through a trial and error approach. This was, by far, the most challenging thing my husband and I had to deal with in the long term. We had so many incidents that drove us to tears and we felt so ineffective. If we didn't love him so much, we might have given up (in high school), but we never did. My son is doing extremely well today---his fuse is a little short, but not explosively so, and you'd never know he had ODD. Take heart, with a lot of work and love, you will all get through this, and get through it successfully. Feel free to email me directly if you'd like. Oh--are you near UCI? I've heard they have a good program for ADD/ADHD and somebody said they thought possibly ODD as well.
