“Oppositional Defiance Disorder” or Infant Rage

~ Clarissa

There is no Oppositional Defiance Disorder. This is simply a code word used by horrible parents who can’t deal with the realization that their children are human beings with needs, preferences, and desires of their own.

What does exist is the phenomenon called “infant / childhood rage.” This is a response of a child who feels that her identity is being invaded and destroyed by an abusive  controlling parent.

By the age of 3, a normally developing child realizes that she is a separate individual who has a life and identity that are different from those of others. Starting from this moment, the child will struggle to assert this individuality. She will want to choose what she wears, what and when she eats, who her friends are, etc. By the age of 6-7, the second major stage of individuation begins. The child will need a greater personal space that will not be invaded and will subject the opinions of parents to doubt and criticism.

If a child is not allowed to go through these stages of separation from the parents in peace, she is likely to develop “infant / childhood rage.” If from the very beginning of trying to formulate an identity of her own the child realizes that these efforts are not welcome, if this as yet very young and tenuous identity is rejected and plowed over by adults, the child perceives this as a threat to her entire existence. The reaction to this existential threat is rage. This is the only weapon the child has in what is for her a fight for survival.

As they mature, most children learn to conceal their rage and live with it. Some never do (depending on the degree of abuse they experienced.) However, this rage will never really go away. It will remain with them for as long as they live. The reason why this rage is not treatable is that it is an eminently reasonable, logical reaction to one’s experiences. If there is any instance of truly self-righteous anger, this is it.

So: if you have come to this blog in search of a recipe of how to deal with a child who has this Oppositional Defiance Disorder, here is one. Learn to see this child as a human being. Try to find out what his personality is instead of trying to inscribe your own expectations and preferences onto him. Learn to respect his personal space. Let him spend time on his own. Stop criticizing him and trying to improve him. Let him make his own choices. Stop applying parenting strategies to him and, instead, learn to interact with him as a human being that he is. Stop yelling and demanding and start asking questions and listening.

Published by Clarissa

65 thoughts on ““Oppositional Defiance Disorder” or Infant Rage”

    1. No, I couldn’t. These are completely different things. Only parents complain about “oppositional defiance. ” No child or adult believe they are too defiant and seek to be made more obedient. If your disorder is only a disorder in the eyes of others, then it doesn’t exist.

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      1. Learn to read and stop being an ass. If you don’t like what’s in this blog, why do you keep coming back? I’m yet to see you ever leave a comment that’s not a complete waste of space.

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      2. On the subject of child abuse, parents are a shitty authority. If you want to understand anything about the issue, ask abused children. Cannibals, of course, think human flesh is delicious.

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      1. Oh good — at least I am making the rage useful. I think I was kind of mean to Nicole and Maggie on DEH’s blog … they touched off the rage and it feels bad, but then perhaps it is liberating me from something.

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        1. When you say “Being a captive audience who is preached at and condescended to, and whose actually more advanced ideas are misidentified as immature or naïve appears to be one of my root traumas”, I know exactly how that feels and not only the field of academics. The pinnacle of that experience was when a friend in an abusive, nasty relationship was lecturing me on how sad my life was as a single woman.

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      2. I had the problem when my father misidentified me as much younger than I am, after being psychologically remote for a long time. He then decided he needed to feast off me, by putting me down to raise himself up emotionally. He regressed quite severely. People don’t care to understand this problem even when you explain it to them — even if you explain it in a lot of detail. People want to maintain their view of an idealized relationship between parent and child. To cope with their cognitive dissonance, they will punish the younger party severely if they hear there are some issues. Contemporary society has few people that are mature enough to BE ABLE TO look this particular problem straight in the eye.

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        1. Oh yes. I discover this time and again in my blogging. The tragedy is that a normally developing person realizes that parents are not perfect by age 6 and doesn’t see it as the end of the world. Seeing so many people who are incapable of the slightest criticism addressed to the institution of parenthood is scary.

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        2. They don’t even seem to notice a glaring conradictionbetween their insistence that their parents are saintly and their own miserable personal lives, lousy people skills, pathetic careers, etc. I mean, if the parents were so amazing, why does the result of their parenting suck so much? And if you think it’s all your own fault, then how come they raised such a faulty person?

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          1. IN my case, because I had grown up with relatively great freedom, and then after a certain stage of maturity, around my early twenties, my father had tried to turn back the clock, people saw it as an issue of patriarchal authority. I was surprised that one after another of my apparent allies fell for the patriarchal line that if a father states a point of view, it is necessarily the correct one. “Feminists” are no different from the majority in terms of this, which is why I consider US feminism to be extremely lacking. They’re as addicting to maintaining the social order as anyone else. Feminism is just a personal ego trip for them.

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  5. Yes. Many, many people (to my great surprise) see and treat their children as pets. Children are objects that they own. Children are “alive” but not really their own persons so much as an extension of the parent himself or herself. This is incredibly damaging, both to the children and the parent. However, I do not bring this up anymore with parents who do this. They are completely convinced that they are in the right. Later, when their children are adults, they wonder why they do not have a good relationship with them. “Why doesn’t Susan every visit me?” they wonder. This is very sad on MANY levels.

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    1. You could tell them that their own mind revisits them all the time. They don’t need Susan. They never knew who Susan was — but they do have their own mind, their projections, which they could get acquainted with.

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      2. Very good point! It is not really Susan they miss – but the idea of her that they have constructed.

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  6. Simply a code word used by horrible parents? Try living with a child with suspected ODD. We have five children, who live in a loving, caring home. They are never smacked, very rarely yelled at, and if punishment is ever required, it is always fair and proportionate (timeouts, loss of privileges). We make mistakes, but you’d be hard pressed to describe us as anything other than good parents. Thing is… one of our kids is ‘different’, and has been since he was very young. It has been hard to define exactly what this difference was. We worried about autism and ADHD before deciding that maybe he was just a bit more challenging than his siblings, afterall, most kids with behavioural problems were really just poor parents looking for an excuse for their failings. Maybe he was just a bit more sensitive than his siblings, maybe he was just very strong-willed. Maybe. Hopefully. Years went by and we rationalised that he was probably just emotionally immature and he would start to grow out of it. Nothing changed. He might shove his siblings off their bikes right in front of you, but it would be impossible for him to accept that he had done anything wrong, or indeed, done ANYTHING. He seemed to enjoy spoiling his siblings games, and he only seemed to play nicely if he was making all the rules. If he couldn’t find a toy, he assumed somebody must have stolen it, and set about getting his revenge. If he was asked to do anything, chances are he’d pretend not to hear you, or insist that he didn’t need to do it, or that somebody else should do it. Even the simplest question was answered with “I don’t know”. If you tried to discuss his behaviour it was never his fault, and pressing the issue, however calmly and rationally only ever resulted in escalating the situation. The tantrums were off the scale. This was EVERY day, and it was exhausting. We were really worried about where this was all going, and couldn’t understand what we could be doing wrong. He seemed completely unable to learn to change his behaviour, in fact completely unable to accept that he was responsible for his behaviour. A few weeks ago we heard about ODD and the all pieces fell into place. I don’t like the ‘disorder’ label because it has so many negative connotations, but semantics aside, it’s really helped us to know that our rational approach has been failing because we are dealing with irrational behaviour. We still have a mountain to climb, but simply not entering into any debate or reasoning with our child when he is being ‘oppositional’ has really taken the heat out of the situation. We’re still learning how to make all of our requests seem more like a choice between a good outcome and a less favourable outcome (rather than simply giving instructions that must be followed), but we are making headway. And we are now looking at coaching his behaviour when he is not being oppositional and irrational to teach him the skills that he is struggling to develop. We still live in a war zone, but we are optimistic about the future. So please, don’t be dismissive about something that is very real for a very large number of people. It affects the lives of whole families and disinformation like yours is at best insulting, and at worse harmful. Thanks.

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    1. Have you tried seeking help for your psychological problems or did you dedicate all of your energy to finding a label to stick on this kid?

      Just from this one comment you come off as an extremely problematic person. I do not envy anybody – child or adult – who has to endure your company.

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      1. Yes we’ve tried seeking help fom the school and CAMHS. I actually hate labels. I tried to infer that in my post. But like I said in my post, this label fits and because I’ve accepted (with some difficulty) that our child may have a behavioural disorder, we are now helping him achieve his potential.

        I’ve not discussed myself in my previous post, so if I have come off as a problematic person, then presumably this is because I disagree with you?

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        1. “Yes we’ve tried seeking help fom the school and CAMHS.”

          – The school and CAMHS were supposed to help you with YOUR psychological problems? Seriously?

          “I’ve not discussed myself in my previous post, so if I have come off as a problematic person, then presumably this is because I disagree with you?”

          – No, it’s precisely because you have chosen not to discuss yourself that you come off as seriously problematic. Just see how you construct your sentences: “They are never smacked, very rarely yelled at, and if punishment is ever required, it is always fair and proportionate.” See how much passive voice there is here? What you are trying to do is claim credit for not beating your own child and you coach this in a safe and weak passive voice construction. This approach informs the rest of your text. Things happen to you, you are the victim. There is no effort to try to analyze how you might be contributing to making your child so damaged.

          Your most recent comment is in the same vein: it’s all about you overcoming your difficulty and accepting whatever. Nothing is ever about the child. He is a problem, a nuisance to be gotten out of the way of your fantasy about a loving family.

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    2. @Hagar The Horrible Jerk

      “Thing is… one of our kids is ‘different’, and has been since he was very young. It has been hard to define exactly what this difference was.”

      You didn’t know what it is, BUT OH MY GAWD, HE’S DIFFERENT! HE’S NOT LIKE OUR 4 OTHER SHEEPS!

      “We worried about autism and ADHD before deciding that maybe he was just a bit more challenging”

      Why did you worried about autism. I think your bullying attitude is more worrying.

      When parents bully one of their child and use eir siblings to bully eir because ey’s not fitting with the other sheeps, this is normal than this child defends himself.

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      1. It actually happens very often that one child in a family with several children gets singled out as a bad apple and everybody else uses this one person as a dumping ground for their resentments and issues. This normally continues well into adulthood and even old age of the siblings.

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  7. Sometimes the one bad apple in the family turns out to be, well, you know, bad. Some sociopaths are born not made.

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    1. “Sometimes the one bad apple in the family turns out to be, well, you know, bad. Some sociopaths are born not made.”

      – No, they are absolutely not. This is simply an excuse made by horrible parents.

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      1. I don’t know why I can’t respond to your other posts, but here goes… this is the Internet. I’d be an idiot to disclose too much about myself to total strangers. My post is not here for your entertainment. I came across your blog whilst searching for other people’s experiences of ODD. When I read your post, I simply decided to put our story out there so that anybody else in my position might have something to help them other than your opinion, which most certainly will not help.

        And TitForTat, he really isn’t a bad apple. When he’s not faced with a choice that he doesn’t want to make, he’s actually a really good kid.

        Anyhow, I’m going to see if I can get them to come in off their bikes and get ready for bed without all hell breaking loose. Wish me luck! And then I might make them endure my company while I sort their supper out. (If you’re still playing the CSI linguistics game Clarissa, there’s a hint of passive aggression there!)

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        1. “And TitForTat, he really isn’t a bad apple. When he’s not faced with a choice that he doesn’t want to make, he’s actually a really good kid.”

          – So unless he obeys you he is A BAD KID? Jeez, I so wonder why he has problems with such an adoring parent.

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        2. “Anyhow, I’m going to see if I can get them to come in off their bikes and get ready for bed without all hell breaking loose. Wish me luck! And then I might make them endure my company while I sort their supper out. (If you’re still playing the CSI linguistics game Clarissa, there’s a hint of passive aggression there!)”

          – The scariest thing is that the person who wrote this incomprehensible and unhinged paragraph doesn’t even realize how insane it sounds. Poor kids who have to endure such a person’s company.

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    2. “So unless he obeys you he is A BAD KID? Jeez, I so wonder why he has problems
      with such an adoring parent.”

      Clarissa, you are conflating obedience with learning boundaries. I could have left the children outside to come in when they liked, but that would have been irresponsible for so many reasons.

      Your attempts to validate your position do not and will not stand up to scrutiny. While I empathise with your position on child protection, you are being quite silly with your reasoning in other areas.

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  9. Some people think Autism is from bad parenting too. Maybe they are on to something. Afterall it couldnt be just the wiring of your brain, right. 😉

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    1. I hear it’s about 30% genetical and the rest is, of course, upbringing. An intellect that hasn’t been trained is hardly of any use to its owner. And then again, if one has serious psychological issues that drive one into, say, alcoholism, even the best brain will be killed by the booze.

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  11. “one child in a family with several children gets singled out as a bad apple and everybody else uses this one person as a dumping ground for their resentments and issues. This normally continues well into adulthood and even old age of the siblings”

    Too lazy to look it up, but isn’t this called the family scapegoat by some? The main difference is that’s not always a child (and may well be one of the parents) I throw the term around pretty casually but find that figuring out the scapegoat in a family can tell an outsider a lot of what’s going on.

    In some ways it reminds of the sucker in a poker game. If (after thinking about it for 10 seconds) you don’t know what the family scapegoat is…… it’s you.

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    1. “In some ways it reminds of the sucker in a poker game. If (after thinking about it for 10 seconds) you don’t know what the family scapegoat is…… it’s you.”

      – Exactly. 🙂

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    3. In some ways it reminds of the sucker in a poker game. If (after thinking about it for 10 seconds) you don’t know what the family scapegoat is…… it’s you.(cliff)

      Reminded me of this one.
      “How do you know who the alpha male in the room is? If you cant figure it out youre it.” 😉

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  12. We actually suspect my child to have some disorder like ODD, maybe aspergers. And I am an attachment parent. When she was a baby I nursed her on demand. I held her all day because she cried…I mean SCREAMED all day long (until she was about 2 she cried extensively so it was not colic), we co slept…and we still do for part of the night and she’s 6. She is oppositional with just about everything. Sometimes what she will do is even if she has chosen something she will turn it away because she has been told she can have that choice. All the sudden it’s appealing for her. It is a shock for us when she is cooperative! She is in everybody’s face telling them how they have to play, which results in arguments and even physical fights because she won’t play along and ad lib. She is violent and will kick, punch her sister in the face, pull her hair and shake her head around because she wants whatever is in her sister’s hand even though she had plenty else to play with. She was diagnosed with “learning dissabilities” during a prenatal ultrasound. All I can ever find about ODD is that it is typically the result of neglect…I am a stay at home attachment parent!!! It is only after having dealt with it so long that I have started losing my cool with her. Others have always noticed this about this one particular child of mine as well. Even her pediatrician and dentist have concerns about her serious contrariness, so I know it’s not just because I’m the parent and I’m looking for reasons to hurt my child. I don’t even believe in spanking or letting a baby CIO!

    So, maybe some people use that term because it is a result of neglect…but it isn’t always.

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    1. Maybe you should leave the poor tot alone and stop visiting your insane attachment- housewifery torture on the poor kid. Go get a job and stop torturing the child. Being held all the time is absolute torture for an Asperger baby.

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  13. I can’t believe what I just read. First of all you can’t even get the name of ODD correct. You are the most ill informed, vapid, blogger, I have ever encountered. I pray that you never know what it is like to have a child with neuropsychiatric illness, actually I pray you never have children.

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    1. Sweetie, learn to write at least at a grade 2 level and then come talk to adults about these complicated adult things, OK? This is all too complex for your tiny little brain right now.

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  14. Pingback: Book Notes: Margaret Forster’s The Unknown Bridesmaid | Clarissa's Blog

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