Long story short, my son (when at home is a good kid - listens when told/asked to do something, and usually co-operates unless extremely tired. Rarely is grounded or timed out), when at school is apparently a real handful. I get more calls than normal about his behavior. I've explained to the school that when being diciplined for actions that are not appropriate, it has to be immediate and they can't sit there and talk to him for what seems like hours about his behavior - he'll tune them out (not out of disrespect, but boredom). I've explained numerous times that if he is refusing to go back to class after recess or lunch, take him by the hand and take him to class. He needs to know "who the adult, and who the child" is. He knows that as teachers the school can't do anything to physically hurt him (ex: spanking) so he pushes his limits.

Today's incident was simple. He didn't want to eat his lunch - the monitors kept at him to eat, he got upset because he felt like he was being "forced" into doing something he didn't want to do. So, he refused to go back in to class. Now, with that being said, if they had have stopped bugging him after the second time of being told "no" by him, then none of this would have happened, except for maybe he would have gotten hungry later on (but would have learned that if that's the case then he should have eaten when it was time). So I get a call from the school telling me of the incident and "suggesting" he has ODD.

I've asked them for two months to put together a Behavioral Therapy program for him. They've JUST started. However the teacher told me that there are days she doesn't use it because he's not "diffacult" everyday. Infact he had a week here and there of good behavior. I explained to her that regardless of good behavior or not, the BTP needs to be constant.

Last school year I brought ODD to the attention of the pediatrician who care for my son. The school my son had attended the year before had put together a report (along with the BTP that was implimented last year), and after reading it and reviewing the BTP report - my pediatrician came to the conclusion that if an incident was only happening every 6 weeks (this was last year), it wasn't ODD, it was merely a child pushing his limits. This school year, the incidents only started happening just before Xmas. I might have 1-3 calls a week from the school, or I may have none for 2-3 weeks, or more, AND the funny thing is....as soon as the principal puts me on the phone with my son (who is 8 btw and was diagnosed with adhd 2 years ago - and is medicated) he is immediately compliant with me and does as I tell him (such as go back to class and do you work!). Yet he has ODD????

Expert opinion please!! (This will be shown to the school prinicpal).

Quote