Decoding the Defiance: Your Guide to Understanding & Helping Kids with ODD & CD

The Infinite Self

Navigating challenging child behaviour is a common hurdle for parents and professionals alike. But how do you know when it's more than just a phase? This episode dives deep into Disruptive Behaviour Disorders (DBDs), focusing on Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder (CD) in children and adolescents. We'll help you understand the crucial difference between normative difficult behaviour and clinically significant issues, highlighting that problems becoming clustered and repetitive are a signal for concern.

Explore the various facets of disruptive behaviour, from passive non-compliance to severe defiance, and different forms of aggression, including physical, verbal, and relational aggression. Learn about the underlying motivations, distinguishing between reactive, emotionally-driven aggression and proactive, goal-oriented aggression. We also touch upon related concepts like antisocial and delinquent behaviour and personality traits such as callous-unemotional traits.

Gain crucial insights into the complex interplay of factors contributing to DBDs. We discuss how individual characteristics like temperament, brain function, executive skills, and social information processing interact with environmental influences such as family dynamics, peer relationships, school environment, and community context. Understand how genetics and environment interact and the nature of risk factors in development.

Effective support begins with accurate assessment. We outline the clinical assessment process, from gathering information and forming hypotheses to making a formal diagnosis. Discover the importance of identifying often co-occurring conditions like Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), anxiety, depression, and learning difficulties. Learn how assessing severity and impairment in daily functioning is vital for guiding treatment decisions.

Finally, we present the landscape of evidence-based interventions. We delve into behavioural parent training, a key approach focused on improving parent-child interactions through specific techniques. Understand cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), which targets changing a child's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. We discuss the role of pharmacotherapy, particularly beneficial for children with comorbid ADHD or significant ADHD symptoms, and highlight the advantages of multicomponent interventions that combine various therapeutic strategies for more comprehensive support. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of child disruptive behaviour and how to find effective solutions.