Strategies for Parents
Contingency Management
Contingency management is based on the premise that the child's behavior is due to the child's inability to regulate his or her own behavior. The child may have experienced inconsistency in appropriate consequences for their behavior. The purpose of contingency management is to increase positive behaviors and decrease negative behaviors and this is done by creating consistent consequences that match the behavior. This is known as operant conditioning.
Here is a short video that walks through 5 tips to managing ODD:
Behavioral Parent Training (BPT)
BPT is a family-based training intervention and is similar to contingency management in that the parents are taught to focus on rewarding positive behavior and respond to negative behavior with effective, non-coercive punishment. Parents are also taught how to identify positive and negative behaviors, as well as the best way to track this type of behavior on a daily basis. Studies have shown this type of training helps children ages 3-8 and it may be less effective in older children.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is a therapy with a goal of changing behavior because the child has a learned pattern of inappropriate behavior. CBT will assist the child in understanding their behavior and why it is inappropriate. CBT will also assist the child with skills on how to handle difficult situations and learn how to relax their mind during future situations that would have normally upset them.
8 Discipline Rules for ODD
Here is a short video that walks through specific discipline rules that could be incorporated on a daily basis: