Hello, I am 24 years old, I was a child before, hehe ;)

Some tips which may help.

- If your child opposes herself, it doesn't mean necessarily she wants to defy and bug you. She may feel in danger, for a reason or another. So before labeling her as oppositional, try to understand why does she oppose to someone else, as appropriate reactions won't be the same if she wants only to bug you and when she opposes herself because she feels a potential or true danger.

- If she wants to bug you, make her understand that you understood she wants to bug you. When she does something wrong, put her in an angle and make her draw and/or write (depending on her capacities) what she felt at this moment. Then, you can discuss together about how and why it's wrong, and how can we do in order not to it again. This way to do has a greater impact than punishing her with "no tv" or "no donuts", because she is then able to understand the link cause-consequences, and how to do to not to do again the same mistake. When you say "no tv" to punish her, she understands that she was wrong, but she will probably not understand why she was wrong and how to deal with the situation better for next time. So punishing just to please someone else and make believe you're "able to care of the child" puts glitter into eyes toward other people, but it's only a short view politic and will lead no efficacity, or even more harm than good. And even if psychologist advise it, when someone did it to me, it did far greater harm than good on me.

- If she opposes herself because she feels a potential or real danger, she doesn't make necessarily something wrong. If the danger is only potential, make her understand why the the danger is not true. She can feel like she is in danger because she can't carry out the task : in this case, find a way to help her carrying out the task. For example, if she refuses to do her Maths exercise because she doesn't understand the words, explain her the words or explain to her she can find them in the dictionary. You may also do the first sentence, numeracy etc... to help her understand the mechanism. If the danger is true, for example she refuses to go away from a friend because this friend is told by other people as "contagious because she has AIDS" (I use a lived experience when I was a child as an example to explain you), and whereas nowadays we know that AIDS is not contagious (at this time, I had the intuition it is not contagious, even if no one made me a course about it), then, in this kind of circumstances, you can congratulate her : she opposed herself as a duty and not because she is naughty. She opposed herself because this girl told as with AIDS is a human being and can have friends, that she is not guilty to have the AIDS and that no one can say she is not a human being because she has this condition. Same if she refuses to smoke to please her friends (or, better, so told good friends) : here, she opposes herself to protect her health, and because true friends will never insist toward her to make something harmful for her or for someone else. Because in some cases, you have to say no to social pressure, and better having a few true friends than a lot of so told good friends.

- Educating, giving rules, is not incompatible with not punishing. Mom educated me without punishing, and it worked much better than if I were punished because I made something wrong : I faced the natural consequences of my acts (like if I eat too much, I end with a bad stomach ache) and when you face the natural consequences of your acts, you have to think how and why you were wrong, and how can we do better next time. Telling "no tv" to a child doesn't put the input to think about cause and consequences, and how to make better next time.

- Give the example : if you made a mistake, recognize it. Adults are not God, they are humans and can make mistakes too. Recognizing them toward a child speaks better than "recognize your mistakes, tell the truth whereas I don't recognize them and never tell the truth". Example is a powerful way to pass messages to your children. If you give the example, your child will be less prone to oppose herself.

- Choose your battles. You can't fight for everything at the same time : you can't fight for your child to do her homework and be a good girl at home if she abuses alcohol + thinks to suicide. Here, the priority is seeking help to a good psychiatrist (and the good psychiatrist for one is not necessarily the good one for another) to help her with alcohol and suicidal thoughts, then you can care for homework and home behavior. But if you want to do everything at the same time, you won't manage to do anything at the end, like if you try to hold 10 rabbits in your 2 hands....

A short story to end. I have a great GP. Of course, she is bossy (and sometimes quite bossy). But I feel at ease with her because she recognizes when she is wrong. So when she says that I do something wrong with my health, listening to her is much easier than if she never recognized her mistakes : everyone makes mistakes, even best people. If she told me not to smoke and she smoked while she were with her patients (she never smells cigarette, even when she comes from outside), I wouldn't listen to her very much because she would "do what I say, not what I do". And this way of doing never work, and I think but it's only personal opinion, with children with ADHD.

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