Diagnosing children is really hard. New symptoms can appear out of the blue and change everything, or old symptoms can fade away. I strongly suggest you look for a neuropsychologist and have extensive testing done to rule out anything else. This is a specialist psychologist with intensive training in how the brain function impacts psychology and education. It is often covered by insurance, but if not, it is still a very worthwhile thing to have done. The testing is often 12 hours or more over several days. It can really pinpoint problems and rule out other problems.
I know that ODD is often diagnosed. I have a problem with it. A good diagnosis gives you an idea of what is wrong and how to treat it. It may not tell you exactly why it is wrong, but it gives you a sort of road map to at least start treatment. ODD gives you a fairly vague description of symptoms that describes almost every difficult child I have ever heard of. It dpesn't give any idea of what is wrong to cause those symptoms, just that the symptoms are happening. There is no roadmap to even start any sort of treatment. I know many of the moms who have been here for a while feel the same. I am not saying it isn't a valid diagnosis, just that it troubles me. It doesn't seem to give any real help. When my oldest was given this diagnosis, it seemed to allow the teachers to just write him off. They would tell me that since he had ODD, it wasn't worth their time to try to help him understand the rules and the reasons for them. It drove me crazy!! Wiz has Aspergers and if he understands the reasons for a rule, he is very likely to follow it to the letter. He just has to understand the logic behind it and see that it is applied to every student, not just to the students the teacher does not like.
If your instincts say this is the right diagnosis for your daughter, stick with it. Always follow your instincts. You have them for a reason - the survival of the species and the protection of your young. Seriously. I know the times I made the biggest and worst mistakes were the times I ignored my instincts. Don't let ANYONE tell you that you should ignore your instincts. Sure doctors and various experts may have fancy degrees. They are experts after all. But they are experts in subjects, in fields of study. They have spent minutes with your child. You have spent years with her. You know her intimately, you see all of her, not just the public face she shows people. You are an expert too - an expert in your daughter! Don't let some doctor or therapist with a fancy degree bulldoze you into something. Take whatever time you need to think and research and listen to your gut instincts before you agree or disagree. Consider your self Mom Ph.D. if you need to. All those nights spent up with your child, or hours spent worrying about her, they count. They earned that Ph.D.!!
The reason I suggest the testing is not to disprove the Histrionic personality disorder. It is to see if there is anything else going on that can be identified now. If you can identify things now, it can be easier to treat them.
You are doing a great job with taking away her tablet and monitoring her when she is using a computer. Does she have a phone? Can it go online? What about a game system? It seems like just when you think you ahve everything covered, they make another gadget that can go online! It really seems like you have a good handle on a lot of things. Make sure you take care of yourself. Support for yourself is crucial. The teen years are HORRENDOUS!!
I suggest you also read Parenting With Love and Logic and/or Parenting Teens With Love and Logic both by Foster Cline and Jim Fay. I love these books because they do use both love and logic. Some parenting books seem so illogical to me. These books also made sense to my husband, which most parenting books didn't. It was the first book we could use to be on the same page without having to create cheat sheets for him to look at before he told the kids something. You can imagine how well cheat sheets worked out = they were AWFUL!! L&L was incredible!! They have a lot more books and resources available on their website, www.loveandlogic.com . Some of it is for teachers. Our schools here use L&L and have for years. Periodically they bring in some other system that fails in a few months (few last even half a year) and then they bring L&L back until some administrator sees the next bright and shiny new system. The teachers just love L&L because it makes sense. No yelling, no fussing, lost of common sense, and even the kids think it makes sense. How can you beat that?
She does not have a phone, we just can't allow it. That would end in a nightmare. We took the WII away because of it's ability to surf the net as well. We can't let her have ANYTHING with that capability. She has proven time and time again she can't be trusted. We know she get's singled out by kids because she does not have the normal things kids have but she doesn't act like a normal kid! I am very sure we are the talk at many dinner tables because of this.
It is absolutely maddening, I get it.
