Living With Conduct Disorder

Diagnosed in adolescence or childhood, the mental disorder known as conduct disorder presents itself in a pattern of persistent and repetitive behavior and in which major age-appropriative norms or others' fundamental rights are violated. Often, these behaviors are known as antisocial behaviors. Antisocial personality disorder, which cannot be diagnosed until an individual is eighteen years old, is often seen as the next step after a childhood or adolescence with conduct disorder. It was thought to affect an estimated 51.1 million individuals worldwide as recently as 2013. Doctors group symptoms into four categories: destructive behavior such as vandalism, rule violations including truancy, deceitfulness that includes lying and shoplifting, and aggression such as bullying and animal cruelty. The following help individuals and their loved ones deal with life with conduct disorder.

Psychotherapy

Conduct disorder instills negative attitudes that complicate treatment. Because of this, psychotherapy is often an undertaking that lasts for long periods, with the child's entire support network, especially the family, brought into the process. In most cases, when conduct disorder is diagnosed as early as possible, the child's condition succeeds more strongly with therapy. This is for twofold reasons: the child gets to learn a more successful means of communicating with the world as a whole, while the family and support network learn the best way to interact with the child successfully. Behavior therapists have discovered children's thoughts are as important to correct as their actual behavior is. Children with thoughts that are overgeneralized, wrong, or an understanding of circumstances that are otherwise exaggerated, can lead to a greater likelihood of misbehaving.

In cases with younger children, the treatment for conduct disorder can have apparent similarities to treatment for oppositional defiant disorder, which includes parent management training. Keep reading for more on this.

Parent Management Training

Also known simply by the name of parent training or as behavioral parent training, parent management training is a group of treatment programs with the goal of changing parenting behaviors by means of teaching parents methods of positive reinforcement for the improvement of children's behavioral problems such as temper tantrums, aggression, hyperactivity, and a difficulty in following directions. As one of the most explored treatments on the table for conduct disorder, it is effective both in the reduction of children's disruptive behavior and the improvement of parents' mental health. Conduct problems with an early onset are often contributed to by inconsistent discipline, inadequate supervision, poor parenting, and parents' stress, mental health difficulties, or substance abuse. Abusive parenting and parenting with negative practices contribute to a coercive cycle, wherein the negative behavior of one person is undertaken to control another person's behavior, who responds negatively, and so on. Parent management training's goal is to break those negatively reinforcing behaviors by teaching parents to instead reinforce positive behaviors.

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Treating Other Mental Illnesses

Children diagnosed with conduct disorder often have a variety of other symptoms; they may be irritable, tend to throw more frequent tantrums, and have low self-esteem. It is also often accompanied by other conditions, and treating these other mental illnesses is key to helping a child with conduct disorder. Other behavioral and emotional disorders of childhood that tend to co-occur with conduct disorder include mood disorders, such as depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Substance abuse is another frequent problem for those with this disorder. All problems must be treated together in an integrated, holistic fashion.

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Establishing Routine

Because part of conduct disorder's roots can lie in a child's improper thought processes, a clear and regular established routine is vital for a successful and peaceful life with a child who has conduct disorder. Routines that are clear, regular, and can make sense to a child help deal with negative thought trains that lead to a stop at disobedience and disruptive behavior. Routines do not solely refer to set times of day for particular activities. Positive disciplinary routines are also part of established routines to aid in living with conduct disorder. This assists in the development of emotional control and anger management. Clearly, this shows establishing routine is vital to life with conduct disorder.

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Consequences And Rewards

Part of a positive disciplinary routine is a clearly established set of consequences and rewards. Aggression and disobedience need to have a firm and calm response. A simple time-out may, in fact, seem too simplistic but it is effective when consistent. Sociable behavior needs to have rewards and praise. Hundreds of common daily interactions that are successfully undertaken by the child and responded to with praise and rewards can substantially modify a child's behavior. For example, rather than shouting at a child for running, praise children whenever they walk quietly, so they do so more frequently. Consequences and rewards train a child to think before acting about whether the action will receive an unwanted consequence or a desired reward.