I think my son may have Opositional Defiant Disorder, and it s just with me. He is 10 years old now and has always been very sweet, lovable, and respectful. Everyone tells me this! His teachers have always said that he is very smart and helpful in class and with his peers. And he has many great friends that he hangs out with at school and out of school. I am a single parent, work 35-45 hours a week, but try to spend every moment possible with him. He has always been intense in nature, his pediatrician once told me that he may just be a high maintenance child, after I told him about his tantrums. It didn t happen all the time, but sometimes he would have what I thought were just very bad tantrums. He goes into a rage over minor things (today was about not wanting to do his homework), and he just argues with me and questions why every thing has to be my way, he says that I don t respect him or his thoughts or his feelings, that he is not afraid of me, and challenges me to hit him or to tell everyone about his behavior, he will sometimes throw things or knock things to the floor, but never physically attacked me, he will just stand up close to my face. The whole time he is screaming and crying. I don t know what to do, I try talking to him calmly, I have gotten very angry with him and yelled too, tried just walking away, I even tried spanking him, which of course made everything worse and I felt horrible to have done that. Help! What are my/our options! What can I do to help him?! I feel so overwhelmed and almost defeated at this point. And everyone thinks I m crazy of course because he never acts like this in front of them! The most recent episode happened today, after he was out all day yesterday with friends. My Mom says he acts like that only because he is tiered, but still doesn t think it s a big deal because she has not seen him this way. He almost turns into another kid. It s draining and I feel that I m starting to resent him, as much as I love him. I appreciate your input. Thank you.