HULK Smash!

for those that follow me on facebook, you know we've had issue with a girl down the street.  Erin has been very brave about this whole thing.  And today, some words against me were spoken by said girl and well, Erin had enough.  She ended it and there were tears and more words.

In the end, I ended up at this girls house  to talk to the mom.  She in fact was not told the whole story and I played the message for her.  She was shocked and embarrassed by what her daughter did.

As we talked like moms, I was told the girl has ADHD and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder).  It made sense. She was clear it wasn't an excuse for what the girl did.  And I believed her.  And it really sounds like this girl has a learning disorder on top of things.  I'm not a clinician... but from everything I have read, its a possibility.  ODD paired with ADHD is hard.  Now that we know it, we can work with that.  But I called a time out for a month.  When school is out, we can re-group and try again.

So now we have to teach Erin how to deal with ODD and ADHD.  This is something that isn't in the Mom Handbook.  There is no chapter on "How to deal with my ODD friends".  I have books on how to deal with "difficult" kids.  They came in handy with Erin when she was little - simple tricks on how to defuse the situation.  But how can a 9 year old be asked to do that?  I told Erin the honest truth about ODD.  She wants to give it a try.  She wants to try again with this girl knowing that the ODD is out in the open and there ways to stop the conflict. She wants to help.  I think I did something right with Erin.