Honestly? We had to rule with an iron fist from 8-14. It was brutal for her, brutal for us. The above situation with the standing at the sink for 6 hours? That kind of thing was common for a few years. Any time we let her go without doing them (or any chore, homework, etc) it’s like she knew she got away with it and immediately her behaviour would worsen. She would try to get out of it again and again, regressing to crying etc. if we let her get away with something even once.
We had to stick to our guns, every single time. Eventually she would realise that doing dishes was something we were going to make her do, no matter what, and she couldn’t do anything fun until they were done, and finally started just doing them.
However the thing about AuDHD kids (in my opinion) is that they cannot apply a lesson or rule to other common sense situations. Like, you say no food in your room, they think “This is candy, not food, therefore allowed” and you end up having to reiterate and refine the rule for each situation.
The same is true with them learning how to do any chore, school work, life skill like brushing their teeth. It will require an exhausting amount of micromanagement and honestly there were times when we cried, raged, or plain old gave up. Every life skill had to be taught, and each situation that it applied to had to be taught separately.
You say that your reminders anger him? Good. He can be angry, that is allowed. He has to respect you, but he can be angry when you make him do something. Remember that he is 8 and your window to change any dynamics is closing rapidly, so if you need to change your parenting style, get help and do it now!
What helped us with the reminders thing is remembering that people with adhd experience time differently, so when he needs to do something, give a soft reminder first “Hey in 5 minutes we need to do xyz.” and also respect his interests, we never shut off her pc in the middle of a game or whatever. “After that game, I need you to do xyz.”
Of course this gets push back, and that’s when we had to get “mean”. Taking away devices or scheduling when her internet or phone would not work were the big guns, but around 9 or 10 years old she went through a phase where no punishment or incentive did shit to sway her. She literally ended up in a completely bare room like it was a prison because she couldn’t be reasoned with and nothing was a consequence to her. She just doubled down until we had to take something else away. This is typical of AuDHD kids I think, they are strong willed and can go full “monk” and nothing will bother them. Which sucks when you must get through to them when something is not ok. Thankfully that stage didn’t last long and it quickly got better after that.
Also, we put her into social activities immediately and through her whole time in primary and high school. Kids with AuDHD are… assholes. People don’t like them. Teachers don’t like them. She would come home and tell me a teacher was mean to her and I felt terrible for her. Kids were just awful to her.
Putting her in drama classes, dance classes, judo, scouts, you name it meant she had to learn how to deal with other kids, and the acting and drama classes were great for helping her learn how to mask in public. The short one hour class meant everyone had a chance to cool off until next week.
We spent a lot of time watching her social interactions and asking questions about them, examining them with her. “Do you think that girl was backing away from you because you might have been in her personal space?” “Why do you think your friend got mad at you earlier?”
At home we don’t have to mask, but in public, around others, the reality is we do. We cannot say to our friends mom “This is disgusting” when they ask what we think of dinner. We cannot tell a friend they look fat in that dress, or invade people’s personal space etc.
When we don’t learn how to act we hurt people we care about, and we end up hurting ourselves.
She’s now 20, going to uni, and doing well. She still sucks with executive functioning, the dishes are still her nemesis, but I am so proud of her. For a while we wondered if she would ever be able to live independently, and now we are sure she will be ready in a year or two.
Sorry for the novel. I know how hard this is for you. Sending you strength!
yakko@feddit.uk 4 days ago
Thanks for the novel - seriously. There have been times when I felt like my kid is just an asshole too, reading that was oddly healing. If I wasn’t his loving father, I could easily write him off as no good. I see the good though, and I’ve worked to make him self-aware about the things he struggles with. He definitely knows he’s time-blind.
Recently he told me he thinks I’m unreasonable, and I explained that it’s now how I prefer to treat him, and that sometimes he’s so unreasonable himself that being unreasonable is the only possible response. He seemed to understand. He knows we love him.
He’s more ADHD than spectrum (according to the expensive private assessment we ended up getting after years of waiting). But I definitely see him completely failing to generalize rules. He seems to do better when he knows the reasons for things, but he will still struggle with any frustration, distraction, understimulation - basically executive dysfunction.
I can’t imagine him even attempting to stick with a task for six hours, even in a completely dissatisfactory way. He would sooner fall asleep on the kitchen floor than even pretend to try to do dishes. So at least yours had that much going for her!
I appreciate the validation about ruling with an iron fist (as often as possible with a really soft glove on it, right?). I used to be the most easygoing one in the room, but dad life with AuDHD has turned me into a stereotypical stern-faced patriarch and I often struggle with the role self not matching my true self.
I do need to get him mixing with kids more often in clubs and what-not. He’s a social sponge, and the more time he spends gently being asked not to act like shit by people who aren’t me, the better for everyone in the long run.
I wish there was a silver bullet for the mess that gets caused when we let them off the hook one single time. I don’t like being strict, it takes a toll.
indomara@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I completely understand the toll that having to be strict all the time takes. My parents were abusive and I never wanted to be the strict parent. I wanted to be the loving hippie mom!
The pressure of knowing that we were the only ones who could raise her into a grown ass adult capable of experiencing all the good things in life are what kept us going though.
So yes, we had a glove on our iron fist. We knew we couldn’t let her get away with anything but we tried to be as kind about it as possible, and any time she showed that she was accepting a punishment for screwing up, we would give her a way of “earning” her way out of some of it.
Earn an hour of screen time etc.
I agree I wish there was a silver bullet for any time we let her off the hook. Heck, any change in routine would cause a cascading effect, even something as simple as going away for the weekend as a family meant that all expectations about getting back into the routine of school and life when we returned were off the table.
School holidays? Fuck me, they were the worst for that.
Definitely make the effort if possible to get him into an after school activity at least once a week. Scouts were great for her because she also got to go camping and they often had boisterous children. The musical theatre was great because it attracted the “weird” kids who were more tolerant of her. We let her switch at the end of two terms and any term after, to any activity that wasn’t unreasonably expensive to start.
Like no we aren’t buying a full uniform for football or something, yes we will buy a basic leotard and shoes for dance, you know?
Feel free to pm me any time, I know it can be really lonely. My husband’s parents raised 3 A types who became engineers and it wasn’t until they were living with us and trying to get her to do anything themselves that they finally started to understand. No, we aren’t letting her get away with stuff, yes we have expectations, no we don’t want to raise an asshole. Man it’s hard.
indomara@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Oh yes, I wanted to touch on her “sticking with a task for 6 hours”. This is because at a certain point she wasn’t learning, and she was growing up so fast we knew we had to get through to her. So when she had a task like this that she refused to do, everything else stopped until it was done.
She would stand there or be in the kitchen until it was done, or it was bed time. Then she would get ready for bed, sleep, wake up and have breakfast and go to school like normal, and when she got home? Back in the kitchen. For however long it took. Forever if necessary.
There were tears, there was pleading, there was an extinction burst of both in the beginning that was just awful before she realised we weren’t going to break and life just wasn’t going to continue until she did it.
That’s when we got to the “Will go to the kitchen and stand there but executive functioning so bad that even with constant reminders end up distracted for 6 hours trying to do a task” stage.
There were similar battles over homework, and various other life skills. The homework would just follow her, she would sit at the table until it was done, and if she tried to out will us until the weekend she had a shock on Saturday morning when she had to sit at the table again til it was done.
It was brutal and we all hated it, because it meant our evenings and weekends were spent monitoring this stuff until she thankfully learned and grew out of it. It was a punishment for us just as much as her, and we were sure to let her know this. No one is having fun right now, this is life stuff that just has to be done.
yakko@feddit.uk 3 days ago
Thank you so, so much. Especially for the offer to talk about this stuff. I’m dreading the upcoming summer holiday. My mother is in town for most of it, and she’s useless at any kind of control, routine, or discipline. Every time family stays with us it’s great - free childcare - but also, all routines and hard-won norms go out the window for at least a month after they’re long-gone.
Something I said to him last night after thinking about what you told me was explaining about how rules should be generalized. I told him “rules exist for reasons, and those reasons are the real rules.” I went through a few examples, and he seemed to vaguely get it. I know I’ll have to explain this again at least a few more times, but if I can get him pilled on the idea that rules have conceptual depth, maybe that will help him with compliance and masking somewhat. Have you ever tried anything like that? I feel like the more self-aware he is, the more he cooperates with measures taken to mitigate the things he’s not good at. He is a sweetheart, but that always shines through best when he feels like we’re on the same side.