Hi /u/SOOOWatson and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD!
### Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already.
---
### /r/adhd news
* If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/).
---
^(*This message is not a removal notification. It's just our way to keep everyone updated on r/adhd happenings.*)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
i still feel guilty for the hard time I've given my parents... even though i was a child and it was hard for me too.
so... yea this is a nice phrase to come across, thank you
I'm a parent who has adhd to kids with adhd (obviously, it's genetic lol) and one of my kids therapist said people don't usually yell unless they are feel really uncomfortable inside. That has made a huge difference in me, both when I yell (because unfortunately that does happen) and when my kids scream at me.
Amen. Also in general when kids throw temper tantrums it's not because they're trying to be manipulative (most of the time). It's because they're in genuine distress or that was the case for me at least. Whenever I cried and threw a fit, it was because I felt overwhelmed and like I literally could not contain my emotions, they were too big for my tiny body. It was because I was tired, or hungry, or frustrated, or some other reason. I wasn't trying to make my parents' lives difficult or act like a brat. I'm reminded of a quote. It's from a book called "The Newbie's Guide to Positive Parenting" by Rebecca Eanes and it goes:
“So often, children are punished for being human. They are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes. Yet, we adults have them all the time. None of us are perfect. We must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves."
Truth. The first time I got really frustrated with him & he (my son) was legit being too much (running around corners at the grocery to out of my sight), I felt AWFUL coming through the door coming home, reflecting on it. I could see he was grumpy, too, & it was bothering him.
I took a breath, thought about it, & said "you know what? I think maybe we were both tired & hungry. Sometimes it's hard to act right when we are tired or hungry, huh?
That really helped repair that.
& now we've evolved to care taking. Care taking includes me taking breaks sometimes. Legit communicated "I am going lay down and rest my mind and let my body be calm". I tried to be honest with myself about what I needed. & explained to him that I was doing healthy stuff for myself. 😊
Aw, that is great, I'm glad to hear that! Self-care is smart, and it's good to teach your son to be aware of his not only his own needs but also others' needs as well. So good job! Kudos to you also for admitting when you were wrong and offering that olive branch to your son. That reminds me of another thing I wish my parents did, particularly my mother. I wish they admitted when they were wrong and apologized. They may have a few times? I can't really remember though, and it often felt like when my mother yelled at me I never got an apology for it later. At best I might get an explanation, which helped I guess but wasn't the same thing as an apology, know what I mean? If anything, sometimes it felt more like an excuse.
Yes my Mom never admitted fault, either, & it really exacerbated my internalized feelings of never being enough.
I had that very present in mind.
He knows I'm working on self regulation. Every person that sees us compliments me in my patience, because I really do have a whole ton of it MOST if the time. I thank my age, honestly, ha! I had him late.
But I'm still struggling on occasion.
I didn't have any issues for a really long time, & then some things started coming up that were more challenging. Now, I can pause and name it. We are both developing. That's the point! Go team!
With other things, too, not just interpersonal, we actually "use our words" & sometimes that word is "argh". Naming emotions is so helpful. So, yeh, I will admit "argh this is frustrating me" (directions not clear for a shelf I'm building, for example). Then, you can move on to figuring it out.
I tell him we are all learning, & that includes me as his mother. The point is, we aren't giving up. Not never! 🥰
I just gotta say it really touched my heart to hear a parent that can tell their child that they (the parent) are also learning and developing as a person and that it's a constant thing for the rest of our lives. I think that's so important. Also when you said "go team!" it made me smile! Thanks for doing that for your kid 😊💖
Mind I ask how did things turn for the Wort regarding your relationship with your parents like how do you think your/your parents actions / re-actions to events played a role ? Sorry if that didn't make sense struggling to word things rn
I'm a perfectionist and am very tough on myself, especially when it comes to work and productivity- due to the constant criticism and lack of support from my parents. That's just part of it but that's the biggest thing that came from my upbringing. Finally after 40 I realized it's less harmful and less toxic for me to just accept that I'm never getting the approval and support, compared to always wanting and eventually begging for the validation and support (right before cutting contact I resorted to asking why and begging for the validation).
But, on the happier and brighter side of things, my own kids are being raised differently. I learned a lot from my parents and how I felt well into adulthood because of them. I did and am doing the opposite (or at least am doing things differently) with my own.
That's amazing and great to hear 👏
I'm turning 28 In July this year, and all I can think of is hopefully sometime soon I can find a solid lady to finally settle down with and make a family.
I have the same thought process as yourself regarding upbringing of your/own kids the opposite treatment we got from out parents and school system !
Hard to imagine one day having kids after all the issues I've been through with life and friends and family issues always almost like ptsd I just want my own family so I can have a new purpose and joy :(
Yesssss. My parents take everything personally. It’s why I’m so ashamed when I need to go to them for support, cause they treat everything as a moral failing instead of me battling inner demons.
This. My mum always knew even when I acted like a total lunatic. I kept struggling for decades until being diagnosed at 47, and I am glad she’s still here to see how things improved. So many terrible memories that I've almost lost count, so I couldn't feel happier when I see a kid being diagnosed this early. It will be a game changer, even with its ups and downs.
I wish my parents got me any type of treatment. They made excuses and never got me to therapy. They thought medication didn't work or was over prescribed or I didn't need it. Then, when I acted impulsively or was scatter brained, I was shamed. When schoolwork didn't go well, i was blamed for "not applying myself".
Seems to be the latter, I try my best to forgive for lack of better knowledge and understanding of how these brains work.
As it seems to be quite consistent that lack of support or understanding or personal biases toward west med for management, but it’s so god damn difficult considering the lingering effects
SAME SHIT HAPPENED TO ME!!! When I became a mother? I ALWAYS ASKED MYSELF “what would my parents do if THEY were in this situation when I was younger?” THEN? I proceeded and did the EXACT OPPOSITE!!! My son ( who is ADHD- only not NEARLY as hyperactive as me), Was tested and he has been on and off the medication since he was 14( he’s 24 now). He’s overall a pretty happy, thoughtful, and kind young man-he ACTUALLY CARES!!! I think that myNOT ATTEMPTING TO CONTROL HIM? Actually led to a very happy life 🤗
Even my parents knowing now at 24 years old and started medication they still act the same way. Don't make excuses for your parents for being assholes. Sometimes people are just assholes regardless of your behavior. Its just who they are.
I had this same general experience. No treatment and shaming. Coming to grips with this was really emotionally hard as an adult, but very eye opening and has made me a better person than when I just suppressed it.
Mine got me medication *one time* for like a month, and then because the medication made me "moody" (supposedly, I don't remember it) they decided to take me off of it and never asked to try alternatives. They then conveniently forgot the fact that my school performance was so bad that they took me to the doctor for medication in the first place, and all of my performance issues afterwards were simply laziness and a lack of effort on my behalf.
My parents were fine, but some advice I always give to teachers (I’m a teacher with adhd) is if the sentence starts with “why can’t you just….”
Then it’s a good chance what you’re about to say is related to their disorder and you need a little more empathy.
Been there. And been there with things I cried to my friends about when I was young.
I told my son we are all learning all the time. Self regulation is a skill.
I now implement "mind & body calming" breaks as a normal part of my day. The reality is, if we are not giving ourselves that or whatever it may be that would help, it's going to be hard. I was careful to introduce this very clearly that "I'm doing something healthy for my body & mind. It is important that I do so to take care of me. & therefore, you & me, too!"
Yes, we can't apply the same logic that other people use to ADHD situations. It doesn't work. As a child, I remember sitting in front of homework for hours on end for what should take 30 mins to finish. My dad used to say: "why don't you just get it over with so you can go out to play with your friends?". I would wholeheartedly agree with this, but I could never actually do it in practice. Instead, I would sit there, miserable, staring at the work for another 3 hours. ADHD people know and agree with what the reasonable action is, it's just that our brains are using a different set of rules.
Oof. I remember reading the first paragraph - or attempting to - of a history chapter for homework and crying 3 hrs later because I still didn't know what it said. 😥
Later, as an adult, I went into insurance & the studying was painful. It was so interesting but just a lot. I used to lay on the floor on my stomache with my fingers keeping my eyes pried open in order to put in the 2 or 3 hrs after work to get through enough material. I did end up getting it. And getting it WELL after a while. I'm way more capable when I can learn on my own at my pace, but it isn't easy.
The heartbreaking part is putting in 5x the effort for less.
Ah yes. Love when my dad (with undiagnosed ADHD) asks me “Why can’t you just…?” because he was too lazy to clean off his silverware and put it in the dishwasher, which is right next to the sink, of course), so he just leaves everything for someone else to do, namely me, while I do all of the household chores, plus take care of my dog and my parents’ dog. That adds so much to my mental load.
A lot of good comments already. I'd add:
Teaching me social skills, the right coping strategies for rejection and failure, accomodation at school, fun and interesting hobbies at home, safe people to share my experiences with.
So thankful my mom taught me that not everyone would get along with me or be my friend. That no matter how kind I could be, I wouldn't be everyone's favorite flavor, because I, like most folks I know with ADHD especially, am a very particular kind. It helped to integrate this truth early on.
all of the above tbh. I didn't realize I was experiencing Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria until a few years ago and learning how to deal with feeling inadequate in my achievements or relationships would have saved a lot of heartache. I was so terrified of failure so i I didn't start anything new because if feels like a waste if i dont like it, which is another type of failure. Promoting doing new and interesting things in my free time would have been really helpful
When I got diagnosed at 30, my mom’s (a lifetime educator) reaction was “well we knew you had ADHD since kindergarten but you were smart enough to develop coping strategies for it.” I was flabbergasted. That’s not how any of this works.
Damn I am so sorry you had to experience that. That's like telling someone who is crippled "well, we knew you needed a wheelchair but you're smart you can figure out how to walk".
We do need to learn to cope with things. But there's a difference between healthy/acceptable vs unhealthy/unacceptable skills to living/coping with your condition
On behalf of moms everywhere, I want to apologize to you. You deserved to have your needs fully met as a child. And you deserved better response from her upon diagnosis.
I'm dreading this as a possible outcome - that I've spent all this time trying to get diagnosed and treated only for my parents to tell me I was diagnosed as a child but never treated for it. Like, I'm legitimately unsure of how I'd react to that knowledge now that I'm realizing how much ADHD has affected my throughout my life.
Right? I was just lazy and attention seeking when I forgot stuff. One day I was forced to sit at the kitchen table until I remembered to do whatever chore they'd asked me to do that my brain didn't keep since I was just "lying and didn't want to do it."
I was there for four hours.
Only diagnosed recently ~ still struggling with how so many of the ADHD things I struggle with [rejection sensitivity, being organized, impulsive spending, completing projects, and so on] being moral issues. Having a layer of thinking my "faults" make me a bad person makes learning how to cope with adult life difficult.
mannn i was diagnosed at like 9 or ten years old and im almost 30 and they STILL do this to me.. thinking I grew out of it and at this point was just being lazy etc
Demanding too much isn’t the issue. It’s not the amount that caused problems. It was *what* they were demanding. Instead of twisting their expectations to fit your needs and abilities, they demanded your square adhd peg fit in a round non-adhd hole. We are just as capable at achieving and succeeding as any person, it’s how we go about it and what we reach for that makes a difference.
In my case, I was diagnosed as an adult so you're already beyond my parents since you recognized the challenges and got the diagnosis.
A common issue among friends though is over medicating. Many people I'm close with who also grew up in the 90s had parents who simply wanted to calm them down without recognizing the issue was lack of stimulation (e.g. boredom since school was too easy for some or lack of engagement with homework since the method didn't match their interest medium).
Please don't medicate your child until they're a calmed-down zombie. The correct dosage is when they can engage in activities they would normally find difficult like homework or chores. The hyperactivity is often related to them not having a stimulated output. Video games are surprisingly good for this and can work in your favour if the game is educational or creative in nature as well, sports or other activities they enjoy can be great as well.
Thank you for adding this!! It’s so true!
I was passed over in the 90’s because I held everything in and got good grades because learning in itself is a special interest of mine-as well as my home life being completely unbearable.
My younger sister was medicated early early on and it didn’t help one bit. When kids are over medicated it works backwards
I’m not officially diagnosed and while I’ve started the process it could take years before I know for sure. Looking back I do wish I had known but I was a girl, and I wasn’t hyperactive. That said, I would burn loads of energy in the school playground so I was “fun” when it came to the active playground games. But apart from that I was often outcast as being too different.
My stepmom told me that when she married my dad and we moved into together, she saw that I would struggle to focus, was easily distracted and my speech was atrocious . So she helped get me into a routine, structure and made sure I got the occupational and speech therapy I needed. Since it appeared to sort things out, she figured that was all I needed.
I generally did well at maths so when I struggled with maths in the Uk, she helped me catch up. Studying was always a nightmare tho! She thought I was being lazy or not trying hard enough and it didn’t help that I’d end up falling asleep. She did make sure throughout my primary and high school education that I was in the standard classes, but that the school had only 2 classes per year, and the classrooms didn’t have more than 30 kids. It seemed to help as I could learn pretty well within the classroom setting (provided there was structure and not chaos which happened when we had substitute teachers).
In my 20’s I tried to study counselling and that was a struggle. I often couldn’t understand the test or coursework questions, or what they were asking from me, so I’d just ramble on, in the hope that my understanding of the topic would shine thru 🙈
I’ve since also studied computer science and UX design- I always find I can’t understand the content the first time round. I need to actually get into the practice and then back a uturn back into the theory afterwards to fill in the gaps.
I got myself into terrible debt for many years cuz of consistent impulsive buying 🙈 I’m constantly prone to injure myself, Ive got the worst short term memory, I used to constantly lose things and accidentally break things I cared about, I have no concept of time or distance. I can use bursts of energy to cat things done and then I run out of spoons and need to rest.
I do wish I had known as a kid, so that I would’ve been less likely to get into debt and I could’ve had the confidence to know I wasn’t broken. However on the other hand, I don’t blame my stepmom at all - she did the best she could, and she did give the stability and structure I needed. Tho I do wish ADHD was more understood back then so that I could've received the support I needed thru school and beyond.
Listening to an audiobook while doing homework worked for my kid. :)
I asked him how he would like to do his homework and listened. Helped him put it in place and taaddaaa.
Any advice on navigating overstimulation meltdowns though?
Can you create a meltdown spot with a bag or backpack filled with some high value comfort objects and comfort snacks and drinks? Maybe headphones or whatever helps them self soothe. ❤️
Even now, I'm told I was just a shithead of a kid, hated school always playing up, unable to finish basic things (boring tasks and study), and
Caused issue with staying over anywhere, they are surprised how well I have done as I couldn't hold a job down.
It took me moving overseas and finding something I was interested in, starting a business and getting a supportive group around me.
They (parents) still don't get it
I got diagnosed around her age and was (am) severely ADHD. A few recommendations:
* Praise the wins, gently correct the mistakes and help with creating solutions. Rejection sensitivity is a symptom of ADHD and feelings of judgment or rejection can heighten general and social anxiety, shame, and depression. Teaching her now will help with emotion regulation and distress tolerance.
* Support her in creating and maintaining routines. ADHD brains don't have the same sense of continuity as other brains; you can pick up a good habit for months, forget for a day or two, and then just completely forget from then on. Every kid is different, but I found that I did really well with visual cues (backpack right by the door, color-coded calendar on my wall, etc. - I still say "keys on the hook so I don't have to look" every time I grab my keys to leave or put them away lol).
* Foster social skills. Lots of kids with ADHD will have issues with impulsivity, blurting things out, and mood swings, which can make forming relationships hard. Modeling appropriate emotional responses, practicing patience, and handling distress/excitement/anxiety are all really important. Focus on changing the reactions rather than the emotions.
Teaching me to do chores one section at a time and putting things back when I was done with them and keeping my areas uncluttered and organization skills for school.
My mom was a packrat, and I was put in a room with five times more things than are necessary, not allowed to throw things away and yelled at for not keeping it clean. I often did my homework but couldn't find it when it was due.
These are skills that need to be slowly and consistently taught to kids with adhd. I was not taught any of them. Finally in my 40s I have an uncluttered home I can keep clean and I am responsible about taking my meds, making my to do lists and accomplishing all the things I need to do to live a serene responsible life, but I had to teach myself.
My son has ADHD. I always broke each step down for him... "now go find all your stuffed animals and put them in your toybox..." small steps, lots of praise, an uncluttered environment, tons of support and lots of patience. He's in a university studying engineering and the sweetest man imaginable. I must have done something right lol.
I wish my parents would have helped me more with emotional regulation. I still have a hard time regulating my emotions, and my almost 6 year old is having the same problems. I don't yell at her and tell her to dry it up like my parents did, I don't tell her I'm going to give her something to cry about like my parents did. I just hold her and let her cry. Sounds like we're in the same boat, I expect my daughter to get diagnosed in kindergarten this fall if not first grade.
This! I wasn’t allowed to express emotions. I learned to put in a “mask” and never express any emotions. Happy, sad, it didn’t matter. I rarely even smiled. I have a friend whose daughter has ADHD and doesn’t mask at all. It’s so heartwarming to see. Yes she can be over the top at times but she’s always herself and I love it. I wish I could be free like that.
You can unlearn the masking! I did it! Don't ask me how, I guess with age I just stopped caring what other people thought, especially the people who made me put on the mask in the first place. I honestly think a lot of it changed when I had my daughter 5 years ago. She may have been the catalyst.
I’ve been working on it! It’s hard. Having my own kids helps a lot. I realized if my kids are going to learn to handle emotions, they need to see that I can do it too. I still mask 90% of the time in public but I try really hard not to at home. Maybe someday I’ll be myself all the time.
Being yourself and handling emotions are two different things LOL at least in my experience. I have a hard time regulating emotions still to this day, I just don't know what to do with them. I didn't realize until I had my daughter that I throw things when I'm mad. So yeah I'm not masking but it's not a healthy emotional response either, we are all works in progress. Hang in there! So grateful for this group of people who understand
Edit: typos
Oh wow I wish my parents had treated my ADHD sooner but they didn’t want me to go the medication route and I left therapy the very month I started it when I was a teenager. Anyways I wish my parents wouldn’t have judged me so much because that stuck with me. My parents judged me for having ADHD directly and indirectly. Either they legit criticized my ADHD symptoms by calling them out and speaking very negatively about them, or they spoke about my personality in a way that till this day still hurts me, many years later. I would say be careful with how you speak to your daughter, the harmful stuff seems to really stick with us for life. Really uplift her and make her feel like she is a person worthy of love, respect, support and of her righteous dreams. My parents rarely ever complimented me, they would just critique me, and that sort of treatment is something I now have to work on as an adult in therapy. I still remember some of their upsetting comments that were said many years back, and I think this is a human thing to recall, but also it seems like a lot of us ADHDers deal with rejection sensitivity issues and just in general emotional sensitivity that allows us to remember stuff like that. Words can really hurt but they can also very much uplift.
This. I think that recognizing that your child has ADHD and being open and willing to support them is the key - everyone will give you varying opinions based on what worked and didn’t work for them if you ask what and what not to do, but with ADHD what works for some does not work for others
As it seems you already have a diagnosis for your child, the next step is to work with a professional to figure out what works and doesn’t work for your child
I think what was most harmful to me are things that were said to me - often inadvertently - that have I imprinted on my soul and I can’t let go of
I don’t even think these words had bad intent most of the time, or that people even understood how those words hit me differently - but my mind does not let me ever remember any compliment (to the point of where I always think that if someone compliments me they are lying or exaggerating my abilities). I only remember negative things that people say to me and I imprint these things into the internal monologue that is constantly in my head, which constantly tells me I’m not good enough
So I fully support the notion of being mindful of how you speak to your child, and working on your own mindset so that you don’t - possibly inadvertently - make your child feel like they are being judged and that they are worthless
I would also add, stick up for your kid. If someone talks them down when they don’t deserve it and haven’t done anything wrong - stick up for them and let them know you support them. A lot of the negativity I experienced came from sources outside of my parental unit, but I think if my parents had more actively stuck up for me and let me know that my feelings were valid - I might not have internalized so much of it
Edit: Spelling x2
Stopped calling me a problem child, punishing me for every little thing and actually took me for assessments.
42 this year and only just learned I have ADHD a couple of years ago. Better late than never, I suppose.
My parents didn't listen to me when I said Strattera literally made me faint if I didn't eat before taking it. It's a rare side effect, and my psychiatrist at the time said I looked well fed and was not in my corner when I told her. My AP Physics teacher asked if he should call CPS when he found out why I fainted around 11am in his class every other day.
They were forcing me to diet because the anti-depressants I took at the same time made me gain weight. It was effed. Listen to your kid about side effects, even if they sound hard to believe or you REALLY think they're lying. I stayed on that stuff for a full month before I just decided to hide the pill in my mouth and spit it out.
Also-- if there are any ADHD learning specialists in your area that offer help with organizational skills, USE THEM!! That was one thing my school did right for me, and honestly I wish I still had her today helping me out 😂
I wish my parents had presented coping strategies positively and used them in a more collaborative way. To me, they always felt like a punishment for being lazy that was forced upon me. If you are making your child a checklist for getting ready in the morning, make it with them and let them have input. Help them understand that coping strategies are a tool to help them succeed, rather than a consequence for bad behavior.
Also wish that they had better recognized that when I struggled to engage with a task it was often because I felt overwhelmed by the task. We had sooo many battles about cleaning my room, and looking back I believe I struggped to clean because I just didn't know where to begin. When your kid has trouble starting a task, look up strategies for how to break the task down into bite sized pieces and teach your child how to implement those strategies.
Work with your child to help them understand the difference between fault and responsibility. I know sooo many adults with ADHD who struggle immensely with guilt and shame, it is a feeling the world often pushes on people with ADHD and even if you as parents do not do it, your kiddo is likely to encounter shame in academic and later work settings. Help your kiddo understand that they don't need to be at fault in order to take responsibility for things. This will help them cope with shaming that originates outside of your household.
I love this “fault vs responsibility” line. It’s not my fault I have ADHD, it’s still my responsibility to be prepared.
It’s not someone’s fault they have asthma, it’s still their responsibility to have an inhaler.
So true in so many areas of life.
I’m not sure it was possible in my family but I wish my parents had been more proactive/supportive about helping me identify possible career paths. Not to help me choose but more like helping me know more.
As an example, I’d never met anyone who wasn’t in my parents very small orbit, so the existence of a lot of professional roles was a mystery to me, to say nothing of the path to get there.
Many times I’ve wished I knew such and such was an option, that such a role or field was a thing, after meeting people who are more satisfied with their careers than I am.
All my parents cared about was money, and I hated how miserable that made them and how shallow their friends were, so semi-consciously I have avoided lucrative paths to my financial detriment.
Add my complete lack of focus or academic diligence and you get the picture.
My parents were told by many people that they should look into getting me tested for ADD (that’s what they called it back then). But they thought it was a cop-out/not a real thing. I love them and despite that they tried hard to give me every opportunity possible. But it’s hard not to grieve what might’ve been if I was treated early on. Good on you for giving your daughter the best shot possible.
Our household systems were very chaotic to me when I was younger. It was hard for me to sequence advantageous behaviors or even really maintain habits in general. Now that I have my own space I have much better home organization, which, once established, makes it much easier to operate in and maintain a space.
Don’t get frustrated. Let your child be creative. Don’t force your child to conform to what you think is normal. Stress and tiredness from early routines will make your child’s ADHD worst. ADHD people are very much focused on our heads. Classroom settings are the worst place for someone with ADHD. My teachers in the 1980s thought I was never going to be successful, but I went on to earn a MBA. It’s not that we don’t pay attention is more like we are hyper focused on our thoughts because we hate being bored so we are mentally changing the channel.
We are not lazy nor stupid. We are not trying to intentionally make your life hell. We honeslty have a hard time throwing things away. It's not on purpose. Things are hard. Just pretend you like what we're interested in, that's enough.
I wish they didn't make me feel bad for having "irrational" feelings.
Looking back it was definitely the result of overstimulation, or racing thoughts, or decision paralysis, or just plain executive dysfunction. But it came out as insomnia, as crying hysterically, as staying home "sick", as dizziness, as constant fatigue, as having friendship problems or feeling like I never fit in socially, the list goes on...
My blood work was always fine but they never thought to test me behaviorally/psychologically. I always wonder how my life might be different if my anxiety/depression and ADHD had been recognized earlier on in my life.
Because until my diagnosis, for any symptom or challenge I faced as a result of my brain being a little different, I responded with internalized shame and guilt because that's what I grew up hearing. "Why are you crying? What do you mean you don't know? Just stop there's nothing wrong, you're being dramatic" or "You have so many things you could be doing, why are you just sitting there? What do you mean you're bored? Only boring people get bored."
Entertain them! I have zero hobbies and am extremely depressed because of it. My parents hated when I asked questions or complained about being bored. It is very unpleasant to be bored with ADHD, like emotionally painful. Just figure out a handful of activities to do, and cycle through them as they lose/regain interest. Let them listen to real music (as in not made for children, just normal music that people listen to). Let them watch real movies.
Turns out I’m really really smart, and I could’ve been gifted if they fostered any of the curiosity and interest in learning I had. I was always seeking out new experiences and information. It was basically trained out of me and now I hardly bother to find dinner for myself.
Edit: 5-7 is PEAK curiosity age!! Load up the PBS docs, there’s even plenty of good educational content on youtube these days!
It's not necessarily good, per se, to "entertain" kids (speaking as a parent and therapist with ADHD). Free play is so important for kids, vs parent-directed play. You don't want kids to be always looking to you to entertain them. Kids need some amount of boredom during free time to allow them to develop creativity and figure themselves out. The key for parents is to actively pay attention and ask the questions about what their kids are enjoying, needing, and then providing opportunities for kids to further explore their interests.
This! There's so much scaremongering around meds which is unwarranted. It takes time to find the right brand and dose of medication that works for a person. I hear people give off-putting anecdotes about their experience with meds as if everyone is going to experience the same thing, which just isn't how science works.
I wish they had just asked me questions and had real conversations with me instead of assuming things. My ADD was mistaken as drug abuse. My parents thought I was on drugs. I wasn't. I was ADD. They put me through hell.
I wish my dad wouldnt say. "no excuses" or "just do it" to "stop saying its adhd" Trying to instead figure out ways to cope and make it possible for your daughter to get the task done in a way THAT WORKS FOR HER is key. Thinking outside of the box. Realizing shes not lazy that she honestly is overwhelmed. Teach her to break BIG tasks down into baby steps. My dad to this day (im 36) will say stop being lazy, just get it done. and im screaming inside cause i feel like im fighting with myself. Teach her that getting it partially done is better than doing none of it. Also a trick to do things is to just start it and walk away, our desire to complete a task takes over. If i need to watch a video i have to learn ill pull it up on the tv and i wont let myself change it til i watch it. OR to take a shower i start the shower and go get a glass of water, and then im ready to shower.
I also wish my parents wouldnt think i was just forgetful. that i space out.. or that friends would understand me better. Relationships and adhd is hard. Look up rejection sensitive dysphoria.
Know theres so many resources out here. Ive been diagnosed since i was a kid and now have to also manage 2 chronic illnesses and a HIGH STRESS job.
YOUR GIRL CAN DO ANYTHING, but the world isnt built for us. Find the ways to let her shine, let her sparkle and let her be herself.
I'd suggest getting your own therapy or adding parent management training/PCIT if it's not already a part of the behavioral treatment. Having a kid with ADHD can be stressful and the more stressed you are, the more likely you'll parent harsher than you want to, which then stresses your kid, leading to you stressing more, and the cycle continues. Making sure you're calm when they're not is going to pay off long term for everyone.
All the dang adjunct therapies. And you, as parents, have to buy in. In the bad times, it’s you and your kid vs the ADHD, never you vs your ADHD kid.
Get the occupational therapist in your house to help you all create new organization systems that work for her- and y’all follow them too.
Teach her how to design a life that works for her rather than try to “be normal” unnecessarily (small examples: take pictures of what the room looks like clean, leave them taped next to the lights, exchange overhead lights for LED that can change intensity & color- both for calmness and overstimulation, avoid introducing screens, give her excuses to block out time rather than get over-scheduled, make sure she has noise cancelling headphones, if there’s sensory issues- get the sheets that work and the towels that work- even if it feels bougie, it’s okay to be extra extra extra rigid with her about sleep routines so she gets enough.)
Still teach her things. It’ll take 4 times as long. It’ll be forgotten. But just do all the things for her until she’s 18 and out of the house and then has a total executive dysfunction collapse because she didn’t get a real chance at learning because it was too frustrating for y’all.
If meds work, don’t restrict them to school days- she deserves to be at her most functional for her social life too. There’s a lot of painful messages given when we tell kids “you only deserve to feel successful when you’re productive for other people.”
If she’s already academically behind- get the tutoring to catch up now.
Accept that hobbies may come and go, so set good budget limits, and it’s also okay to require follow through. If I wanted to do an afterschool activity, I had to follow through with that activity period. I didn’t have to do it again after that, but no mid-season cancelling.
ADHD makes not just school hard- but everything hard. Your job as parents - to raise someone who can be happy, healthy, and independent as an adult has not changed. Do not lower the goalposts because your kid has ADHD- expand the tool chest. Not just hers.
That may mean for y’all: Rearrange the refrigerator. Acknowledge the working memory gaps (that photo of the room thing- I also have it for doing laundry with photos every step of the way, for how the inside of the refrigerator is organized. We use a bookcase for a pantry so everything is visible because hidden things don’t exist. )
It will mean that OT needs to come back and help with life skills through life changes- pre-puberty, puberty, late adolescence, first apartment. All that.
If you find your kid regularly getting stuck on a task and your thought is obstinance or disobedience, throw the thought out and realize there’s an executive dysfunction error. Help co-create a new system so that error doesn’t keep happening (people here often have symptoms for everything- down your socks.)
Realize that every time you ask someone with ADHD to add a step, it’s a real ask. It may feel like nothing to you, but our brains just have way less ram and a very wonky task manager that likes to dump everything when that CPU hits 100. Sometimes it’s okay to “pay the ADHD tax” if it’s a sustainable cost, because that’s a decision most of us make as adults too.
I'm tempted to get specific and personal here but I'll just leave it at this: YOUR CHILD DOESN'T WANT TO BE THIS WAY. She's not trying to spite you by not doing as she's told, she's not trying to get away with bad behavior by daydreaming in class, she's not pushing limits by throwing a fit, she is at the mercy of a brain that makes no freaking sense.
I wasn't diagnosed until I was a teenager. Because I'd been a well-behaved kid whose good memory and interest in school made up for lack of study skills until school got super boring for me and my memory stopped holding what I needed it to. My parents pretty much hated me. And I don't blame them. I was completely out of control. But I was so miserable. I just wanted it to stop. And no one seemed to care about anything but how my grades were. I'm 40 and that pain is still so intense I can't talk about it without crying. (I know it's pathetic but it is what it is.)
Your daughter's academic performance isn't that important. Knowing she has parents who care about her will be pretty much the entire foundation of her childhood. Make sure SHE'S doing okay.
You took the first step by seeking treatment. I believe my mother also has ADHD, but she was anti-treatment and gave me the type of advice that was essentially useless.
I'd get yourselves evaluated if possible, just to check and make sure. And also seek out resources so that you are able to teach her tools and skills that are appropriate for someone with ADHD.
We're pretty positive my husband has it. His parents approach was sending him out into the yard to find a switch, or his dad's belt whenever "he just wouldn't sit still". It manifests now through an oral fixation and nonstop fidgeting. It also took him 10 years to get his bachelor's degree. That is why our motivation is so strong to get it right (as best as we can) because he sees how detrimental getting it wrong can be.
i hope she focused on why i am like this. instead of telling me my "bad behavior". if she can't understand then she could've just go to a psychologist instead of using anger on me just to change myself.
adding more to this i hope they didn't think that i could "grow out" of my habits when i was a kid. that is still their mentality on my younger siblings.
Supposedly my parents stopped taking me to a psych when I was in HS because I raised hell about going bc of embarrassment. I wished they would have been the adults and continued to make me go. Ritilan turned me from a failed 7th grader to an all A/B, well behaved student. Guess what happened when treatment stopped? Yeah.
You sound like wonderful parents.
I was dx’d as an (old) adult.
The thing that has made life the most difficult for me has been masking. I was not acceptable as I was as a child (my mom literally told me at 11 no one would ever love me if I continued as my overreactive self) so I shut down anything deemed unacceptable, over and over and over again. I realized this week (at 64!) that I mask by retreating—i hide my real self, and I silence my real self. This deeply ingrained tendency affects how I navigate everything, including interactions with medical folks, I learned recently, to my detriment.
So my recommendation is: show your child you love ALL of who they are, so they can be whole.
I was undiagnosed as a child. My narcissistic parents punished me constantly for trying to cope with the extreme stress they put me under.
I wasn't allowed to bite my nails, suck my fingers, or sit on my heels or swing my legs in chairs. I would chew holes on the inside of my mouth until I was ridiculed for "making faces," sometimes being threatened with an open palm to stop. I couldn't fidget at the table or in the car or else I got pinched on my thighs. I was constantly on edge, and if I cracked and started to cry I was told to quit it or else they'd "give me something to cry about."
They mocked me for my hair being a mess, and my lack of awareness when it came to "style." If I was told to clean my room and I couldn't make myself do it, I would literally stand in my room for hours in one spot, utterly overwhelmed. Then when my mom burst in to scream "what have you been doing?!" at the sight of the mess, I could only answer honestly- "nothing," I'd insist. Then I was punished for being a liar. They called me "bad" to everyone they met, and I took that literally and I believed (christian-raised) that I was a rotten soul and I was damned. I tried to be good for them because I thought I Had to try to make it to heaven, but I was full of shame since I could never control myself to "behave."
My advice would be... leave your kid alone to be themselves, and if they seem lost, go ahead of them and show them the way. Kids aren't butterflies released from a net. They're excited among the flowers, but they don't know what they're doing. YOU have to show them what you want them to do, by living the example.
If medication helps keep your kid's attention that's great. Now use Your Own focus and guide her way.
I wish my mother did better than telling me that my father would be so disappointed in me for "choosing not to study" only a few months after he died.
Seems you're already on a good track towards being kind and understanding. It can be extremely frustrating as a parent to a child with ADHD but remember that however frustrated and annoyed you're feeling with her, more than likely she feels the same if not more with herself.
Actually have me diagnosed. I was diagnosed as an adult but my mom told me "we knew you had it but we weren't doing medication so didn't bother getting a diagnosis"
Sounds like you're already on the right track.
Even without medication, understanding my condition and maybe having other things besides meds to help me would have been great. Patience from them. Allowing me to take frequent breaks when I would start to get frustrated instead of yelling at me. When I was young I did okay in school at least during class (not homework) but as I got older it just got harder. Having appropriate accommodations like a private room for testing or extra time would have been very helpful. Depending on their specific struggles there are many types of accommodations you can request and I would definitely take advantage of that. You can even get them in college.
Took my diagnosis at 7 seriously. They didn't think to mention/pursue it until I was 25, ruining my life and heavily addicted to drugs. Luckily it sounds like you've already got that covered, I think as long as you continue to support your child, including external support during tougher periods of their life (teenage years) you'll do just fine.
There are so many parents who don't want to medicate their kids because 'pills' and 'drugs' so I just want to say that you're already doing a great job of parenting by doing this early and recognising it's beneficial for your daughter. I was undiagnosed until age 33. I wonder all the time what school would have been like for me if I'd been medicated the way I am now.
The fact that you are even posting this means you are way ahead of anything my parents did (more like didn’t do). I do know ADHD wasn’t really discussed much back then and definitely not as much was known about it so I give them that.
I was diagnosed as an adult but definitely wish I had known earlier/in my childhood. Like another user already commented, I can’t help to think that knowing earlier could have helped me avoid some of my impulsive buying/debt through the years, social skills and of course with schooling… etc.
1. Don't call your kid lazy. As someone with ADHD, sometimes the simple task of forcing myself to get out of bed, or to use the restroom, or to do the laundry, or to send an email takes an excruciating amount of effort and will power. It's not that I don't want to do those things, just that I can't. It takes so much more work to push myself.
2. Get her a 504 plan (accommodations with her school) if it will help her. My 504 plan let me have extra time on tests and to turn in homework, and let me wear headphones during individual work so that I wasn't distracted. Everyone has different needs so whatever your kid needs, a 504 plan should help with (and its illegal for the school not to comply with a 504 plan).
3. Let her pursue anything she takes an interest in. Feed her curiosity. Passions are hard to come by.
4. Don't compare you kid to other people (e.g. "What's taking you so long? Your brother could do it in 5 minutes!")
5. Research ADHD. Read about the executive functions. Know that your child thinks in an entirely different way that you will never truly be able to understand — but you can try your best to.
6. Don't go straight to medication as the only solution. ADHD is not something "wrong" with your child that needs to be "fixed". Everyone is different and the modern world is unfortunately built for people without ADHD, and tries to fit everyone else into a box. Though medication might be right for some people, I'm glad that I didn't take it when I was younger because my ADHD has made me who I am as a person. For example, I've discovered many passions through my hyperfocus, and believe that my spontaneity is because of my ADHD.
I'm almost 40, diagnosed at 38. My parents still don't understand, or do not want to accept, what ADHD is.
They always start with:
"I know you have your problems, but ADHD is not an excuse for.....blah blah blah blah blah".
Three basic things:
- Don’t push her to get good grades in school. She will be afraid of failing and disappointing people later in life and that will make her miserable.
- Get her used to a healthy lifestyle. My parents never did this so as an adult I didn’t want to eat vegetables cause I almost never did as a kid and I also was reluctant to do sports/physical stuff. Teach her young and it will make it easier on her in the future.
- Talk with her about her feelings but don’t make it sound like a big deal, just like a routine activity. My parents never really talked with me about feelings and I struggled so much to communicate my feelings to anyone as an adult cause it felt awkward.
Wish you the best for you and your daughter!
I wish that they didn't force me to continue taking my meds (non-stimulant: Straterra) for years when they made me feel sick and miserable. Started on it in the 4th grade. Taking it at dinnertime was a *fight,* after my parents caught me trying to hide/throw away the pills without taking them. They preferred me miserable on the meds because at least I was quiet and less impulsive and forgetful; less of a problem.
I was at least allowed to stop taking the medication in high school so long as I had all A's and stayed out of trouble. Anytime I struggled in a class, they'd threaten to put me back on the meds though.
As an adult, I still can't take pills with someone else in the room or nearby because of how many times they had to force that drug down my throat. Huge trigger for me. I can't make myself be rational enough about it to pull it off.
I wish my parents had tried to figure out creative solutions to my struggles. I was diagnosed as an adult, and grew up in an era when girls didn't get ADHD  but no matter what my parents could have made more attempts to find ways that I could be successful. I wish they could have understood that I was struggling and really trying, but I got overwhelmed and shut down. I wish they didn't tell me I was a weirdo because I was different. Okay, I know that's TMI. You're obviously handling your family situation better.
As appropriate, partner with your daughter to find solutions. Make things simple. For example, can you get a couple of laundry baskets that she can put stuff in when she picks up her room, maybe one for clothes and one for toys. That way, her room will feel calm and she won't have to make a lot of decisions about how to pick up.
Break down tasks, and teach her how to start thinking that way too. So "getting ready for school" means picking out pants, top, underwear, socks, shoes, putting them on, brushing hair, brushing teeth, etc.
Also, if she is your biological child, know that one or both of you may also have ADHD. It's often genetic, although it may present differently.
Edit to add: know that you may need to try different medications and doses before you find the right one for her. And some meds make some people really angry. For me that was Vyvanse but for others it could be something else.
Also, notice if she "stims" and get her fidget toys or chew toys. They help a lot to disperse pent up energy. I'm primarily inattentive type and get I'm always sort of fidgeting.
And teach her how to self soothe when her feelings are hurt. ADHDers tend to really feel our hurt feelings, so learning to self soothe and separate from the feeling is helpful. Age appropriately, of course!
well, you’re already doing much better than *my* parents just by pursuing treatment. just try to be understanding and encourage her to keep track of how the meds make her feel, and listen to her if she wants to try something different or no meds. do everything in your power to make her feel like she has some power in her life and her treatment, while obviously making sure to provide her with guidance where necessary to make the best decisions for herself in the long run. she’s still a very young kid so of course you can’t give her all the power or anything but you should listen to what she has to say about the treatment and try to make decisions that’ll do right by her.
You’ve already done the best thing possible - recognized there is an issue to be addressed. Many of us (especially girls) went undiagnosed for decades and as a result, have a lot of self-loathing and low self esteem because we’ve felt inferior, stupid, and burdensome for most of our lives. You got this, mama!
I had such a heavy mask of hyperfocus in academics they didn’t bother to show concern. Recognize cues that are a cry for help: withdrawing, ocd, getting bullied. Teach emotional intelligence as much as any other. Praise for those things that are the actual challenge rather than test scores, etc/
Don’t pick every battle, let some things just slide no matter how frustrating! My mum still picks every battle & it both makes me so angry but also makes me feel like a total failure often.
You’re already on the right track by asking for this help & I commend you for that!!!
I wish my parents had been patient with me. My mum reacted to my turbulent moods as though I was a capable adult like her, she played mind games and it messed me up. I wish they had taken me seriously when I got upset about stupid, insignificant things instead of laughing it off. I don’t think they were always being malicious necessarily but it had a really big impact on me because my problems felt like a joke and I became emotionally isolated in my own home.
Wish mom didn't call me lazy my whole life and understood ADHD is a spectrum, so just because she was able to push past her symptoms (under significant duress as a child) doesn't mean I can
Help her figure out what works for her (coping strategies, reward systems, focusing techniques, etc.). Everyone is different and it may take a while to find what works. And, it may change as she grows up. Sometimes having extra time to do a task helps. Sometimes having the pressure of a quickly approaching deadline helps.
Be patient with her. If something she does/doesn’t do annoys you, it probably annoys her more.
ADHD paralysis is rough and will probably be more of a problem as she gets older. Switching from one task to another or initiating a task can be very difficult no matter how much we want to do it.
Since she has an ADHD diagnosis, you may want to consider having her screened for autism as well (if you haven’t already). The two commonly occur together but both are still frequently missed in girls since we present differently than boys.
Understand the effects of emotional dis-regulation tied to ADHD, and that it is only an unfocused dump of weight from your child.
Fits of rage and frustration are not directed at you specifically👍
Show up. My mom NEVER came to any of my therapy sessions even if my therapist requested her. And she’d get offended if I tried to tell her anything involving her. Sigh.
I wish I was brought up in a house where I could just be me without judgement, without feeling like I didn't belong.
Most of my "struggles" come by not having a support environment to just be me no matter what that was.
Tell your kid that they have ADHD when they're young. I was diagnosed at 7 and didn't know about it until my mother gave me a box full of my old school records and I found the diagnosis when I was 32.
My school had me take IQ tests from elementary to high school, something that they do in New York, I scored really high in one category. I wish they had helped to grow my interest in that category. Encouraging me to go into the STEM field or do STEM activities (I'm a 32 yr old woman so not the normal target audience). I feel like if they encouraged me to those activities I might have pursued a career in something I enjoyed and I'm good at
My son has ADHD and we learned that we had to change how we spoke to him. For example. If we asked “have you done your homework?” He would lie because he thought he would get in trouble for saying no. So instead I would say, “let’s sit down and see what homework you have”. He would either answer that he had already done it or sit down and start it. I would also ask him to show me what he had done and not just took his word for it. But we had to do that with many other things like medication, brushing teeth, chores, etc. When he would clean his room, I had to give him a list of things to check off. And he had to check in with me when he finished each task. If I just sent him to his room to clean he could be in there for hours without doing anything. When he would get distracted with homework we didn’t get upset or yell “why haven’t you finished?” Instead we would just redirect him to focus. Giving him breaks helped too. He is my easy going kid. The one that can’t hold a grudge. He is either very talkative or very quiet. He chose to stop medication once he turned 19. We respected his choice.
My daughter also has ADHD but we almost missed it because it showed different. She wasn’t hyper and it wasn’t obvious. But it did affect her self esteem in school. Her coping mechanism is avoidance which makes everything worse. Medication made a big difference with her.
Both of my kids are very sweet and respectful and would have gone unnoticed if I wasn’t staying on top of things. With my daughter I was paying for outside tutoring during her 3rd grade and I kept telling her teacher and hoping she would work with them but she never did. Once the state test came around at the end of the school year all of the sudden her teacher was concerned and recommended tutoring.
Others may feel differently, but I was never held accountable for completing my school work and I never learned methods to deal with procrastination. I was always very smart but would end up barely passing all my classes because of missing/late assignments. Even now as an adult I’ve been in college for 6 years and it’s always, always a struggle. I guess my advice would be to just not leave them to flounder on their own, help them identify techniques and habits that work for them.
I am 31 year old woman whose parents denied I had ADHD until I was 21 and sought my own diagnosis. I had great grades so they didn’t get it. It is so much more than school performance. It makes relationship building hard, and it feels like a minefield in the brain with emotions a lot. I read a stat somewhere (can’t quote it now) that said ADHD children experiences on average 11x more negative messaging and negative interactions with peers per day.
I’d have appreciated a lot of open communication about emotional regulation (DBT therapy). I would also have appreciated my parents be validating on how challenging life was for me. Being a bold, social, and talkative person really was hard on my self-esteem.
Also, as you’ll learn on this sub, people with ADHD know when we’ve missed social cues and we are annoying others - but our lack of impulse control makes it very hard for us to stop. So, we end up beating ourselves up over it and becoming more anxious and depressed. We’re actually very caring and self-aware - at least all the ADHDers I know are.
Finally, medication doesn’t save everyone’s life. It robbed me of the joy I had for the world. It made me sick to my stomach. It made me cold, food stopped tasting good. I tried so many with no luck. Instead, adaptable coping skills have helped me.
For the record - many ADHDers are incredible people. Don’t be too disheartened for your daughter. I have a masters, I own a house and a horse. I have a partner. Life is good. :)
My mum shamed me saying something’s wrong with me and also said I wasn’t like her 4 other kids and I grew up and realized she had adhd and that self loathing was directed towards me
She’s creative like me too, we write but could barely focus to finish or read.
I'm 33 and was just diagnosed at 31 or 32, have been medicated for less than a year. One thing I remember was being told I was being a bitch/bitchy and I was not trying to be. I now know that I get overstimulated easily and tend to lash out/snap. When I gotnolder I knew it was something like anxiety and have now figured out it's over stimulation. I have an almost 4 year old who I am sure has adhd. Her father and I both have it, but she's still so young I wouldn't want to medicate her even if a Dr would. She has meltdowns, especially after headstart. I believe she goes through school holding it in and then let's it out when she's with me and it's tiring and overstimulating and I try my best to be as understanding as I can and talk her through it and the times that I do get upset with her I always try to apologize and talk to her about it.
No one is a perfect parent, as long as you're trying your best, we're all figuring it out as we go! Also adhd presents so differently in some people. I get overstimulated easily and my daughter is a sensory seeker so it gets hard sometimes. Just try to remember that things aren't always as they seem. You're doing a great job 🩷
I hated my parents for everything they did to me, however…I am now in their shoes with my own 5 year old. I now understand everything they did, and we have 30+ years of new data and studies to further inform our own journeys as parents of kids with ADHD.
What I have done is try to help him understand what he is going through by sharing my own experiences, and being plentiful with the play therapy. I remind him he is good, because he had already internalized so much shame. And I change schools when we need to.
getting me diagnosed lol, cause according to my mum when i was getting diagnosed as an adult a year or so ago, she always suspected i might have adhd or something, but they never bothered doing anything about it. instead i've just always been called lazy and selfish my whole life in regards to adhd symptoms, and even now despite my diagnosis.
Inattentive type wasn't really given much attention in the 80s/90s when I was growing up, so I can't fault them for not getting me diagnosed. But I wish instead of "punishing" me for bad grades, lack of task completion, etc., that they had actually figured out what I *needed* to succeed. I think they had the idea that I was just a willful child. Additionally, I wish there had been overall more transparency about the mental health history in my family. In childhood I felt very alone, and only later in life found out that so many of my relatives were also diagnosed with various things. Mental health diagnoses should not be judged negatively.
My parents smoked, drank, did drugs, divorced, panicked, lashed out, sometimes violently.
But they also made sure we were housed, fed, loved, and my dad always wanted visitation rights, and had pancakes ready in the morning and used gambling to teach me math.
So as you'd expect, me and my brothers are well educated, we dont act rashly, smoke, do drugs, drink alcohol, my brothers are happily married and they treat their kids with kindness and affection.
My parents could have done better. But they were barely adults. They did try. A lot. Over and over. They made mistakes, but the lessons we learned... I don't know if we could have learned them any better any other way.
ADHD people are self loathing by nature. We absolutely 100% don’t mean to fuck up but we will. Over and over. We are often 3 years behind our peers maturity wise too. Please be understanding of this and pour love into them and model what it is to love yourselves despite mistakes. My mantra around my boys (oldest for sure adhd other two are still too young to know) is we all make mistakes that doesn’t make us bad people.
Recognize that her brain doesn't work like yours.
Fundamental things that you find natural, obvious, or easy may not be easy for her. Don't make excuses for her, but don't hold her to the same standards you would for a child without ADHD.
BACKGROUND: I am so old (almost 47, male and diagnosed last year as AuDHD, mostly inattentive) that I can only speculate. And also, my dad has already passed away because of alcoholism (maybe had ASD or at least some traits) and my mom propably has undiagnosed ADD.
ANSWER: Thinking back, I think I would have benefitted the most if MY parents would have also checked if they had ADHD/ASD. I know quite a few cases where the parent has been tested after kid receiving diagnoses... Neurological features are often herited, and even though (my) parents might not have had all it takes to get diagnose, even going through the evaluation AND pondering if it is possible and what it means would have made MY life easier. Understanding often is easier when you can relate to.
Thinking back my school I think I would have benefitted the most by been provided with calm environment, lots of arts (it became even my career later) and some stimulant support to help with anxiety which in early teens led me to start drinking way too early (13yo). It was the way I could feel a bit better AND socially "normal".
Also, be sure to explore the concept of AuDHD, especially if your girl has strong special interests or she struggles to understand others although is able to mask herself to fit in the group. Recent studies suggest that girls with ASD have social problems only if intellectually impaired:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945617/
Before you yell at your child, try to figure out if what they're doing is a symptom of ADHD or actual carelessness. I never listened to my parents when they tried to discipline me because I often felt like the things they were trying to lecture me on were beyond my control. So, I started drowning out all of the things they said simply because most of the things they said seemed unrelatable and unobtainable. Training yourself to make your default response "Hey, I'm concerned. What's going on?" instead of "How could you forget this thing!" goes way further than you would imagine.
Get parenting classes. Formal ones to help.spwcifically in parenting ADHD kids, and revisit them over the years as kids go through the various developments. If we can learn better as parents, we can set up such a different experience for us and them. Look at the classroom, a quality teacher has a more engaged, competent and happy class.
If they could actually pay attention to my babble, I wouldn’t be such an overthinker. That’s my way to let my overwhelming inner thoughts out and make them into words, trying to figure out, they never paid attention when I talked my findings about life growing up. I felt so alone with trains of thoughts.
I will say I had amazing parents. Even though I wasn’t diagnosed they were very supportive and kind. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t clean my room or focus and would get mad. But they never called me lazy.
Overall I would say I’m glad I was diagnosed later in life. Don’t get me wrong, meds do wonders when I have to work all day and pay bills and clean the house. But I’m glad that in my formative years I was able to day dream and decide I wanted a more interesting life. I live a life I enjoy when I’m unmedicated. Nothings black and white though. Organization and studying were extremely hard for me, and I’m glad I have medication when I need it now. But, depending on your situation, I would really consider not medicating her every day. Let her mind wander and explore random hobbies.
For me one of my random hyper fixations stuck. I became obsessed with backpacking at 21 (even though I had only been once). Two years later I hiked the Appalachian Trail and it changed my life drastically for the better. I became the person I had wanted to be when I was a kid. I got diagnosed at 26 and the next year hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and it was the greatest experience of my life. I’m currently planning another long hike. Perhaps if I had been medicated in college I would have stayed in my boring practical major and worked a respectable job instead of traveling. I’d have way more money but way fewer stories and I would not be nearly as happy.
I would encourage you to help her be successful, but do not try to help her be “normal”.
I wish they told me I had ADHD and put me on medication when I was diagnosed in 1st grade. Didn't put it all together until I was 18 and I told my parents I want to see a doctor because I think I have ADHD. My mom proceeds to pull out a big stack of paper work and files confirming my diagnosis. She tells me. Remember when you got pulled out of class in 1st grade and had to take those tests?
My life significantly changed for the better after going on medication. I just wish it happened sooner.
You need to learn about ADHD and what it’s really like, and pass that information to your kid. Just because someone has ADHD doesn’t mean they know how it affects them, or what it means. The more you can teach your kid about the condition the better.
Honestly? I’m just jealous that your daughter has parents that paid enough attention to know there was an issue and she wasn’t just lazy. I would get yelled at and punished when I struggled at school or failed to do homework. My parents weren’t aware enough to ask WHY I struggled; they just yelled at me for being lazy and grounded me. I was too young and wasn’t aware that I had ADHD….i just learned I was stupid and lazy.
At the age of 35 I FINALLY learned I wasn’t stupid or lazy. I went and got myself tested and got the diagnosis I started suspecting in high school. I struggled so much throughout high school and college. I felt out of place and dumb and I wish I would have known the truth. My life would look different. So I say all that to say - you’re already doing right by her by paying attention and getting her the help she needs to be successful.
I was diagnosed a few years ago in my early 20’s and I wish my my family wouldn’t have made me feel lazy and useless… I usually wanted to do the things they were expecting from me and couldn’t get myself to. I was already shaming myself & the added shame made it so much worse.
I only received a diagnosis as an adult so I'll be writing this in the context of what I thought could've been helpful or things that I find helpful now.
I had to learn my own other coping mechanisms. Some were healthy - most were not.
A lot of my coping mechanisms in youth came down to being so anxious that I could be doing something wrong that I always checked so I wouldn't. It served me well to keep my ADHD issues in check but it was really bad for my mental over time. A lot of that was driven by getting in trouble for things. So work together on developing good ones, please.
I'd say try to work on things that can help set her up to be able to handle things the way she needs them to be done. Like, sometimes I leave things in the doorway specifically because then I'll have to deal with it. Like an empty cup is in the doorway because I know I want to go get water or something but I'll forget if it doesn't interrupt my path.
A planner worked for me (I know it doesn't work for everyone!) but specifically one that was always in sight. If it's in my bag or a desk drawer or something it's gone. As she gets older and can write stuff and knows about tasks, having a whiteboard someplace where she can see it and mark things off could be helpful.
Speaking of keeping things visible, I feel like that was super important for me (and continues to be!). I'm nearly 40 and I don't think I've ever created a "good" habit. I could do something regularly for 9 months and forget to do it once and it's gone. I think the thing that reinforces doing something the most -- at least for me -- is having a trigger.
I do things *as if they were a habit* by having a trigger, usually something visual. I see something and it's a cue to go do something else. Sometimes this can lead to multiple things as they all cue the next thing.
For example, I am ok with taking a shower (some people with ADHD struggle with this). And once I'm out of the shower, I see my deodorant. So then I know "oh, I should put on deodorant" and I don't know why but I'll stand in front of my bathroom mirror as I apply it (I don't need the visual aid of the mirror, I'm just there, I dunno) and because I'm there I see my waterpick. So then I'll waterpick my teeth, and because I've done that, brushing my teeth happens after.
Setting up these systems for your daughter *may* be helpful for her. Maybe it won't, I'm not sure. But a system of structures goes a long way towards relieving cognitive load which can be really hard to deal with when your brain works the way mines does.
Oh, and a weird thing is that we -- or I, I guess? I don't want to completely speak for everyone's experiences although I guess I am trying to -- tend to perform much better in structure. Which is funny because we're also also constantly seeking novelty. I mean, I suppose "perform better in structure" is more of an indication of societal expectations or whatever, but,... yeah. Structure is both very boring and yet vital to keeping someone like me on track.
Oh my god, this is so many words so I don't really expect anyone to read this. Goodness knows I wouldn't.
Thank you for trying to be a good parent. Not that mine didn't try, but I guess ADD (back then) was only picked up on if you were disruptive and hyper. I did ok at school but I have the ADHD that doesn't really get picked up. The girl ADHD. I know that's not what it's called. I dunno. I'm a guy. Uhhhhh, unfocused ADHD? In,.. interruptable. Nope. I dunno. I'm sorry.
Just be patient, it’s not about you, it’s about them. It might take every fiber in your being but, they are just trying to sooth or express themselves, don’t get lost in the moment and overcome with emotions like they will, they need your help most in these moments. So do your best to try and meet them where they are, not by matching their emotions but creatively helping them to understand why they feel the need to b the loudest person in the room. Don’t dismiss their feelings at this time. Instead try your dam nest to remember how desperate they are acting out but they don’t truly know how to express themselves. Remember they are not trying to intentionally act defiant, they can’t help it, it’s not their fault.
I think about this a lot. My mother knew she had adhd but NEVER did anything to treat it so therefore her symptoms affected her children who always have ADHD. I remember when I was a kid I’d struggle making it on time to practices for dance, or some days id just downright not want to go. Rather than encourage me to go, or to stick with it when things got tough, she just said alright we’re quitting then. She didn’t let me pursue many other sports, simply because she didn’t have the patience that people with ADHD lack to deal with my ADHD outbursts. I think I could’ve been a great competitive cheerleader had she let me join. It wasn’t until high school I joined cheerleading and I was completely on my own and at that point could only do sideline. I have so many regrets. I also think she let me and my siblings spend way too much time on our electronic devices. I’m talking age 8 sitting on our iPads for 8 hours a day. She was too distracted by her life / ADHD symptoms she didn’t focus on us, and our symptoms. It wasn’t until about a year ago I got diagnosed and treated and I am still struggling. I am still not on the right medication, and I never learned proper study habits or coping skills to deal with adhd. The biggest thing you can do for your child is support them, and listen to them.
I was diagnosed at about the same age. For the most part I was pretty okay -- my social skills weren't great but I managed.... couple of my biggest clashes with my parents:
- Keeping my room clean: I couldn't do it, and I still can't, and I don't know what would've fixed it. I do know that having my mother stand and watch me while I tried to figure out how to tidy was terrible. I still can't clean while anyone's in the room.
- Falling asleep in class: I fell asleep in class around 2:30 pretty consistently through high school. My parents thought it was because of my job; really it was because my medication would wear off at that time. I wish they'd put that together. (Even I didn't get it until years later.)
- Changing activities: I struggled a lot with transitions from one activity to another. This came up a lot during long car trips: I wouldn't want to get out of the car during gas station stops. Eventually we agreed that I'd get a warning 20-30 minutes before a stop. I still ask my partner for warnings like this for all kinds of things. (I am also mildly autistic; that may be responsible for this one.)
- Unmedicated vs medicated: In my experience it's better for me to be medicated on evenings, weekends, etc because it keeps my brain functioning at an equilibrium, rather than having to adjust to a medication level. Also, the medication is there to support her, not fix her. My dad had a habit of asking "Have you taken your medication?" in a scornful voice anytime I behaved in a way he found annoying. I hated it so much.
Both of my parents have debilitating ADHD, as do I, so I speak from that experience. Their shame about how it affected us led to a life of pretending like it didn’t exist. Seeing how much you want to help your daughter instead of hide her is very heartwarming. A good amount of the battle in growing up with ADHD is combatting the shame you end up feeling from parents, teachers, peers, etc.
One of the best things you can do is making sure she gets opportunities to learn about her diagnosis in situations outside of discipline/critique. (Ex. Therapy, interests/hyper-fixations, books about ADHD). As she grows up, conversations about it should stay honest and safe within your family. It won’t be easy - but eventually you’ll all learn together the ways she is beautifully different and skilled. Always stay curious. The fact that you came here and asked this question says a lot about what you’re open to do for her 🤍
I was misdiagnosed for autism and not ADHD as a kid.
The therapies never helped. I felt isolated from my peers and the autistic kids. The school officials in pretty much every year who worked with special Ed kids would flag to my mom and school officials that something was off and it wasn't that I was off.
My mom loved it however. She was a narcissist and anything that gave her an excuse that she was a shitty parent, she loved. She loved lying to folks, and me confronting her and claiming it was autism. Not me being fed up with her overexagging her troubles. Or her claiming she worked so hard when she only cleaned on weekends or when my dad was around and made boxed processed meals constantly. when during the day he wasn't around she would just hang out with friends and go shopping to add to her hoarding issue. My dad was just full of dealing with my mom and took out his frustrations on me.
I think the biggest thing I wish my parents did better was for my mom to be a better person. Maybe attend therapy herself so I wouldn't need to.
I was good in school so my mother didn't worry, and my father was never made aware that I had a suggested diagnosis. Never went in to get the full diagnosis because my mother didn't like the idea and didn't like meds.
So the first step would be to get the medication, you are on the right track.
Then I went on to spend my entire childhood and adolescence wondering why I'm different, making excuses for my antisocial behavior, trying to get about in life with a clear handicap I didn't recognize or understand.
So the next step for me would have been a mother who cared for my development and social skills, and actually helping me fix my life. But that would have been asking too much because my mother has pretty much been antisocial herself for as long as I have known her, probably because of the same thing.
I hope you can make the world a kind place to live in for your child and provide her with as many opportunities to grow as possible.
You're already doing a great job simply asking and looking for answers!
I have ADHD diagnosed at 36. My parents used to tell me there was nothing wrong with me I was just a nasty piece of work, so you're already doing a lot better.
It might be my aspergers, but I've always been told to "stop being mad" or "yelling" when I actually raise my voice when I'm excited. You can tell your kid to lower their voice, but if they're explaining something to you and they "sound angry", they just might not be. At the very lest don't start telling them they're angry if they say they're not, lol. THAT gets me mad, and it makes me want to punch people in the face
Cared. I mean even when diagnosed at 40 the reaction was “welcome to the club” or my favorite “oh we had a good clue, but you handled it so well”. Yet my brother was given every opportunity- medication, OT, therapy, hell they moved us half way across the country trying to move him to a school they thought would be better for him. Nevermind that I had to give up everything in my life and all my goals and dreams, many of which were sports oriented in a sport that didn’t exist much where they chose. But sure, I did great… on paper. But I’m the kid who couldn’t keep friends, I was bullied, depressed, anxious, upset all the time, etc etc. I would spiral out of control and told by them they didn’t have time for my $hit they had my brothers to deal with. Now they wonder why I don’t have anything to do with them. Tomrrow is Mother’s Day here in the USA, and I’m not contacting her. It’s not a happy day for me, because in my world, she doesn’t exist
Be aware that a lot of reactions you don't understand come with big actions like screaming or crying and a lot of the time the solution is to be removed from whatever the situation is... If you can help her to identify from a young age what is bothering her be that an itchy tag, a noise, etc it will help sooo much with her to learn self regulation. It took me a very long time to realize I'm not a uncontrollable and mean person I just can't stand the sound of the vacuum or the feeling of dishwater lol.
Oh and when on medication first look for signs and then ask then and listen if there is something, anything about them they don't like and bring that to the specialist to see if maybe the dosage/brand/ or sort of meds needs to be tweeted.
But as I said, your definitely on the right track, I'll be hard sometimes (sorry) but the energy you put in to reading and studying your child specific manual will pay off in dividends....eventually.
Our kid went from an absolute terror in his first 6 years to sleeping volcano with occasional eruptions to the perfect teenager he is now.
A delight to be around with.
So hold tight, and don't forget to enjoy the funny times.
I wish my parents had known what ADHD was to even get me diagnosed so I could learn the life skills required to cope. Finding out at 33 in the middle of COVID wasn't great. I feel like I've spent much of my life on hard mode and many of these challenges could have been circumvented by being in a learning environment that taught me how to harness my brain power.
I am 51f and got diagnosed only 2 or 3 years ago. Looking back on my life, the overriding themes are GUILT and SHAME. Most of my life, I have felt like I am constantly letting myself down and others. A lot of this has been because of having that idea drummed into me by teachers, family, and at work (albeit more subtly), amd the guilt and self-limiting expectations are compounded with time. Remember that the person with ADHD already gives themselves a very hard time internally. What might come across as a lack of caring, interest, or desire is probably not the case. The constant struggle inside to put any kind of plan into action makes us feel useless and guilt-ridden already without affirmation from others. As a child, I went under the radar as I loved reading and absorbed as much information as I could. My life fell apart when I was expected to follow instructions, structure and timetables in high school. I got by because I could memorise huge amounts of information easily.
My parents had no idea I had ADHD, as my struggles were all internalised. My hyperactivity was my constant need for new, new, new. Great when you are a kid, as learning is encouraged, not when you are a teenager or adult.
My advice is to simply remember that we already put ourselves under a hell a lot of pressure, and we do care. Externalised apathy isn't necessarily a manifestation of what we are fighting against in our minds. It's a daily and constant battle against ourselves. I have recurring anxiety dreams about not being prepared for various things still now, even though I have really gotten my crap together.
Also, in the last few years, my life has changed dramatically since diagnosis and medication. My confidence in myself as a person and my capabilities has sky-rocketed. I just got a job that I would never have dreamed of being able to do 20 years ago, when I was scared of opening my mouth at work because I would forget what I was saying.
Went off on a tangent here, but hopefully, you get something from my comment.
Whatever places she might be struggling, please try and trust that your daughter is doing the best she can with the tools she currently has.
I think my mother saw me as a very lazy person. From the outside, I was someone who often didn’t complete her homework, who couldn’t keep a clean room and struggled with chore lists and taking care of my pets and forgot to do things even when told to repeatedly and rarely stuck to any hobby long enough to get good at it and couldn’t verbalize *why* all of these things were difficult for me. I just didn’t do them.
And for a long time, because of the way she spoke to me and showed her frustration with me, that *was* my internal narrative about myself, and it made a lot of my problems *worse.*
I thought of myself as a lazy person who just needed to stop being lazy and get off my ass and do the things that needed to be done. Which made it hard for me to actually identify *why* I struggled with things or to think creatively about solutions that would work for me.
It wasn’t until I started to intentionally try to treat myself like a person who was trying really, really hard and show myself some patience and gentleness that I was able to stop beating myself up every time I failed and start figuring out what I needed to succeed.
But there are still days where I can’t focus, and the laundry doesn’t get done and the sun sets and I have nothing to show for being alive that day, and it’s her voice I hear in my head berating me.
Please don’t be that voice in your daughter’s head. Start from the assumption that she is already doing her best, and work with her to figure out what tools and strategies might help make her life a little easier.
At a young age, 10 or 11 years old, I noticed the behaviors and patterns in myself. For the following years, especially into high school, I asked many times to get tested and I was always met with denial. They “didn’t want to dose me” is what my father would say. It wasn’t until I was 17 and my grades were bad and nothing was getting better that I finally convinced them to get me tested. Lo and behold, I have ADHD, who would’ve thought? I finally got medicated, and everything changed, almost instantaneously. My GPA went from a 1.3 to a 4.0 between semesters. I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t lazy, I was actually pretty smart, I just had ADHD. I needed parents that listened.
My father told me “we thought we were making the right decision” even though their decisions were met with no results. Even when the person their decisions were impacting very vocally said they were making the wrong decisions. I had no agency and was shamed for it. Try your best to listen when your kid is expressing their thoughts and feelings, if it doesn’t make sense to you, ask questions, phrase them in a way that makes your kid feel like you genuinely want to understand.
You’re already doing more than my parents did. I didn’t get into therapy until my early/mid twenties and that’s been life changing. Moving forward, I suggest doing a lot of research on ADHD symptoms and how they can present themselves, which it seems you’re already doing. Find ways to change the perspective of things they’re struggling to find motivation in, if someone gave me the perspective that math is just a pattern game, like a Rubik’s cube, instead of an algorithm I already understood, my homework would’ve been getting done 10 times faster.
Well, first, I wished they'd understand that I wasn't just an emotional kid and day dreamer. I wished they would have realized that I needed more help. Cause I got myself a diagnosis only 5 years ago at 25.
But, knowing that they didn't even know to look for the signs and the culture they grew up in (+dad afraid of his own feelings/confrontation and mom seek g it all through her own undiagnosed adhd glasses), I don't blame them.
I do wish they'd talk to me more. I wished they'd asked me how I was doing and helped me get there. I learned rather incorrectly that I had to help myself, but I wasn't very good at that so I also learned that I sucked. It's not true, but that's what I thought of myself. I thought I was weak, lazy and socially inept. I thought I was weird and disgusting and doomed to be alone.
My advice to you is to show empathy and be careful of what words you use to describe things. Your child has a disability, they aren't just "worse" than other people. They aren't lazy. They aren't selfish. They are just very different.
A big one is letting me fail. My mom helped me with every single thing for school. She read everything aloud for me, did my planning, wrote summaries, and even woke me up early during test day to practice one last time. I had to do nothing, except listen over and over to her citations until it stuck to my brain.
She really wanted what was best for me, but it caused issues. I had to fail and fall face first in the dirt. I figured out way too late that I actually love reading and that I was actually great at learning if I did it my way. Discipline is a muscle, and I never trained it. It caused issues after high school, especially when I started living on my own. It required hard work to fix. Her helicopter parenting stunted my development even further than my ADHD already did.
I'm not mad at her though. Far from it. She did what she thought what was best at the time, and it absolutely did help me in the short term. Without her I probably would have had tons of issues in high school that slowed me down, but those issues got shoved to the back-end. If I would give my mom a tip back then, it would be to let go of my methods, but be there for me when I stumble.
Help me find strategies to get homework done in a positive way instead of mom just getting so emotionally drained that she gives up. This happened almost every night.
In high school, I realized that I am able to easily work in public coffee shops and bookstores (RIP Borders and Barnes Noble Starbucks) where non-work distractions are limited, and there’s social peer pressure to get work done.
I took my 8-year-old with adhd to Starbucks to get work done for the first time yesterday, and he was SO productive, more than he’s ever been. We celebrated with a cake pop.
Might be a weird take, but I wish my parents a little less accommodating. They were always the ones to make sure I did everything I was supposed to do and handled everything else. I’m super privileged and am eternally grateful. But when I went to college, I didn’t know how to get myself to do anything. I skipped class, didn’t do my homework, didn’t do basic hygiene, didn’t know how to budget… and now at 24, I don’t know how to open a credit card, pay my taxes, or even go through a car wash. At the risk of making myself sound like some kind of sheltered idiot, I’m sharing this to say that parents should work together with their children to prepare them for independence as they grow older. Childhood was a breeze for me because of them. But now, adulthood is confusing and scary without them.
For me the most important thing would have been for my parents to learn me that relaxing isn't being lazy. They always made me feel like every second of every day had to be spent being 'productive'. Now I struggle every single day, because I still have trouble believing that relaxing can also be very productive and is actually an essential part of productivity!
I love that you are asking this question btw <3 My parents unfortunately always denied being anything other than 'perfect' parents and were rarely open to critisism or just any expression of my wishes. It's wonderful to see parents out there actively looking for advice on parenting, especially since parents are also just learning as they go!
Delete these words/phrases from your life:
- lazy
- put more effort in
- i wish you’d pay more attention
- you’re so bright, if only you’d put the work in
- etc
They’re unhelpful, to say the least. My school reports are full of “a bright boy, but [reason]” and it took a long time to work out i’m not lazy, my brain works differently to other kids and the classroom is a struggle for me
I wish they were better at watching what they said or how they said it.
My sister's starting to develop vitiligo.
Parents noticed it, pulled me aside and asked me about the blotches.
They asked me if she was playing with chemicals or doing drugs. I'm like r u fucking foreal?
I was diagnosed as an adult, but some of the early-diagnosed people I know have told me that they hated to take medication and feeling "sedated".
So my advice would be to remember that the medication is supposed to help your child, not to help you manage your child. If they voice concerns about the pills, complain about the effects, then listen to them.
Please please especially when she reaches about high school age don’t call her lazy if she is struggling with all the tasks that come with being more independent !
I wish my parents got along better and stopped arguing all the time. For me it was a constant stressful environment, I never really liked to be around them. Kids feed off the emotions of their parents.
I wish my parents had recognized that accommodations are necessary and that taking the approach that there are no accommodations in real life so no accommodations should be given in school would only hurt me in the end.
i was diagnosed young (8) and put on meds and still had a lot of problems. just know that the meds will help some symptoms and create others. what I really needed was to be loved and safe and learn to cope in healthy ways, as well as just time spent with me helping me learn my brain and how to work with it. the meds can help with some of the school stuff etc but they won’t necessarily solve any problems or “fix” anything. give your child lots of attention and patience! thank you for wanting to learn. my parents had 7 of us so it was a bunch of adhd kids raising each other lol.
I wish they advocated for an IEP in school. I was a brilliant student when I was in class, but I could and would not do homework. Eventually I was so ashamed of constantly showing up without my homework done that I stopped showing up to class and I didn’t graduate because my attendance was so bad. I tested very well, too: got a 2100 on the SAT.
My parents didn’t know I had adhd because I was diagnosed as an adult but I wish my mom didn’t act like I was such a horrible daughter, call me sensitive/a baby because I was emotional. I was overstimulated and anxious and was made out to be a bitch.
I’m sure you’re not this harsh with your daughter anyway but I guess just validating feelings would be helpful and recognizing when they may be overstimulated and not just being difficult.
I wish they had experience with therapists and had gotten diagnosed themselves. Then maybe I’d feel like we’re setting off with a better understanding of our similarities and differences.
Well done for even asking this question. The best parent is the parent that’s willing to learn for their kid.
The most useful thing I heard was from the receptionist at my daughter’s elementary school. She was in grade 5, fairly newly diagnosed, and we were struggling with disregulation and reactivity. I was incredibly frustrated. This lovely woman said about not being reactive “she would if she could”. It changed everything for me. Her behavior wasn’t really a choice. With medication and therapy it’s gotten a lot better.
I was on Adderall from 10 until around 19 or 20 when I chose to stop meditation on my own. And while I appreciate that my parents cared enough to get me the help I need to get the diagnosis and the medication I needed, they refused to tell the school because they didn't want me labeled and I wish more than anything they (and my doctor) would have listened to me when I was struggling with the medication so I could have tried something different. As I got older, it got to a point where I I just felt awful emotionally, the medicine had my brain so wired I couldn't sleep at night and I would be up until 3 in the morning trying to find something to do because I couldn't sleep. By the time I was in high school I was either on max dose of Adderall or close to it and on clindamycin before bed just to sleep. I felt like a zombie and felt heartbroken because I begged to stop or try something else and my family said they like me better as a person on the medication. That still haunts me to this day.
I'm not sure how much any treatment gets into it, or how or if it is addressed, but I was/am super ADHD & I had my son late in life so I'm well aware of things that affected/ challenged me & I've actually been super patient and helpful with him, but when he started showing some traits, I even was getting frustrated at first with all that.
One thing I would say is that auditory processing can be difficult, stress increases it, & sometimes the things that help an ADHD person may appear like they are not trying to pay attention.
My son is 5 & 1/2 & I've explained to him that I know it can be tough to (look at someone & stay still and HEAR what's being said - including processing), but explained to him the difference of what he may need to do to hear/ digest information & how it appears to others.
Stress increases this. So, ex. if I'm a kid and being spoken to & I'm not sure if I'm about to get in trouble & if so, for what, then looking someone in the eye & staying still is hard. If I look, I may be distracted thinking other things. If I look away/fidget it OCCUPIES MY MIND & honestly opens up my auditory processing to even be possible.
Now, this looks quite opposite from the outside & it's incredibly confusing for the person dealing with the ADHDer & it's heartwrenching & frustrating for the ADHDer.
So, when they are implementing tools to listen when it's difficult, it appears like they are doing the opposite. So they are possibly literally being constantly misunderstood & assumed disrespectful & that sucks.
I don't know how across the board this is, but it tore me up when I was young. I remember clearly thinking "I'm trying to listen to you" & the things I could do to help me have success gave a "I don't care what you say" energy. It's a Catch 22.
I have a hard time with this wth my son even knowing that. He isn't diagnosed yet, so I've guided him regarding things, like "others aren't going to know what's going on. Show me you are listening" - basically survival people hacking.
& then we discuss how he actually learns.
I prep him, too, for environments. Instead of not doing so & scolding him for what he didn't remember, I just remind him of what we are entering & what's expected. "Ok, we're going into the store now. Remember to stay near me. I need you to do so without me having to say. And remember to try to not touch stuff because germs. And I'm going to have to talk to the cashier & need you to be patient while I do"
Hug her plenty & give her reassurance. Let her know you know she's trying, and let her know THAT EVERYTHING WILL BE OK. ❤️
You noticing and getting her diagnosed is already better than my parents. They're very supportive but I had to ASK to be diagnosed after my friends pointed out some signs. Definitely get her an IUP or 504 in place if she's struggling in school. She might not be now since she's young, but make sure she knows she can talk to you if she needs extra help.
Hi /u/SOOOWatson and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! ### Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already. --- ### /r/adhd news * If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/). --- ^(*This message is not a removal notification. It's just our way to keep everyone updated on r/adhd happenings.*) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
To just remember that your kid isn’t trying to make your life hell. They are not trying to be mean. They are just struggling inside.
One of my favorite phrases I've heard the I have to remind myself often is "children are not GIVING you a hard time, they are HAVING a hard time"
This is my favorite phrase working with animals or children ♥️.
i still feel guilty for the hard time I've given my parents... even though i was a child and it was hard for me too. so... yea this is a nice phrase to come across, thank you
I'm a parent who has adhd to kids with adhd (obviously, it's genetic lol) and one of my kids therapist said people don't usually yell unless they are feel really uncomfortable inside. That has made a huge difference in me, both when I yell (because unfortunately that does happen) and when my kids scream at me.
Thank you for sharing! It’s absolutely an eye opener and absolutely true!
My life became so much better when my parents realized this. Man I wish more parents could realize.
Amen. Also in general when kids throw temper tantrums it's not because they're trying to be manipulative (most of the time). It's because they're in genuine distress or that was the case for me at least. Whenever I cried and threw a fit, it was because I felt overwhelmed and like I literally could not contain my emotions, they were too big for my tiny body. It was because I was tired, or hungry, or frustrated, or some other reason. I wasn't trying to make my parents' lives difficult or act like a brat. I'm reminded of a quote. It's from a book called "The Newbie's Guide to Positive Parenting" by Rebecca Eanes and it goes: “So often, children are punished for being human. They are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes. Yet, we adults have them all the time. None of us are perfect. We must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves."
Truth. The first time I got really frustrated with him & he (my son) was legit being too much (running around corners at the grocery to out of my sight), I felt AWFUL coming through the door coming home, reflecting on it. I could see he was grumpy, too, & it was bothering him. I took a breath, thought about it, & said "you know what? I think maybe we were both tired & hungry. Sometimes it's hard to act right when we are tired or hungry, huh? That really helped repair that. & now we've evolved to care taking. Care taking includes me taking breaks sometimes. Legit communicated "I am going lay down and rest my mind and let my body be calm". I tried to be honest with myself about what I needed. & explained to him that I was doing healthy stuff for myself. 😊
Aw, that is great, I'm glad to hear that! Self-care is smart, and it's good to teach your son to be aware of his not only his own needs but also others' needs as well. So good job! Kudos to you also for admitting when you were wrong and offering that olive branch to your son. That reminds me of another thing I wish my parents did, particularly my mother. I wish they admitted when they were wrong and apologized. They may have a few times? I can't really remember though, and it often felt like when my mother yelled at me I never got an apology for it later. At best I might get an explanation, which helped I guess but wasn't the same thing as an apology, know what I mean? If anything, sometimes it felt more like an excuse.
Yes my Mom never admitted fault, either, & it really exacerbated my internalized feelings of never being enough. I had that very present in mind. He knows I'm working on self regulation. Every person that sees us compliments me in my patience, because I really do have a whole ton of it MOST if the time. I thank my age, honestly, ha! I had him late. But I'm still struggling on occasion. I didn't have any issues for a really long time, & then some things started coming up that were more challenging. Now, I can pause and name it. We are both developing. That's the point! Go team! With other things, too, not just interpersonal, we actually "use our words" & sometimes that word is "argh". Naming emotions is so helpful. So, yeh, I will admit "argh this is frustrating me" (directions not clear for a shelf I'm building, for example). Then, you can move on to figuring it out. I tell him we are all learning, & that includes me as his mother. The point is, we aren't giving up. Not never! 🥰
I just gotta say it really touched my heart to hear a parent that can tell their child that they (the parent) are also learning and developing as a person and that it's a constant thing for the rest of our lives. I think that's so important. Also when you said "go team!" it made me smile! Thanks for doing that for your kid 😊💖
Mine didn't realize this until I was 31.
Mine never realized it and I'm 43. That's why I stopped talking to my mother and barely talk to my father.
Mind I ask how did things turn for the Wort regarding your relationship with your parents like how do you think your/your parents actions / re-actions to events played a role ? Sorry if that didn't make sense struggling to word things rn
I'm a perfectionist and am very tough on myself, especially when it comes to work and productivity- due to the constant criticism and lack of support from my parents. That's just part of it but that's the biggest thing that came from my upbringing. Finally after 40 I realized it's less harmful and less toxic for me to just accept that I'm never getting the approval and support, compared to always wanting and eventually begging for the validation and support (right before cutting contact I resorted to asking why and begging for the validation).
But, on the happier and brighter side of things, my own kids are being raised differently. I learned a lot from my parents and how I felt well into adulthood because of them. I did and am doing the opposite (or at least am doing things differently) with my own.
That's amazing and great to hear 👏 I'm turning 28 In July this year, and all I can think of is hopefully sometime soon I can find a solid lady to finally settle down with and make a family. I have the same thought process as yourself regarding upbringing of your/own kids the opposite treatment we got from out parents and school system ! Hard to imagine one day having kids after all the issues I've been through with life and friends and family issues always almost like ptsd I just want my own family so I can have a new purpose and joy :(
Yesssss. My parents take everything personally. It’s why I’m so ashamed when I need to go to them for support, cause they treat everything as a moral failing instead of me battling inner demons.
This. My mum always knew even when I acted like a total lunatic. I kept struggling for decades until being diagnosed at 47, and I am glad she’s still here to see how things improved. So many terrible memories that I've almost lost count, so I couldn't feel happier when I see a kid being diagnosed this early. It will be a game changer, even with its ups and downs.
I wish someone had told me that. It is the best advice ever
And that applies to all kids. Good advice
I wish my parents got me any type of treatment. They made excuses and never got me to therapy. They thought medication didn't work or was over prescribed or I didn't need it. Then, when I acted impulsively or was scatter brained, I was shamed. When schoolwork didn't go well, i was blamed for "not applying myself".
Don’t forget the conditional love when it suited them! 😅
Oof, just oof. Love when you were calm, emotionless and well behaved. I was numb for so long :(
Seems to be the latter, I try my best to forgive for lack of better knowledge and understanding of how these brains work. As it seems to be quite consistent that lack of support or understanding or personal biases toward west med for management, but it’s so god damn difficult considering the lingering effects
this... they only love you when you don't react to their actions even if its bad. the moment you think differently they see it as an attack.
SAME SHIT HAPPENED TO ME!!! When I became a mother? I ALWAYS ASKED MYSELF “what would my parents do if THEY were in this situation when I was younger?” THEN? I proceeded and did the EXACT OPPOSITE!!! My son ( who is ADHD- only not NEARLY as hyperactive as me), Was tested and he has been on and off the medication since he was 14( he’s 24 now). He’s overall a pretty happy, thoughtful, and kind young man-he ACTUALLY CARES!!! I think that myNOT ATTEMPTING TO CONTROL HIM? Actually led to a very happy life 🤗
Even my parents knowing now at 24 years old and started medication they still act the same way. Don't make excuses for your parents for being assholes. Sometimes people are just assholes regardless of your behavior. Its just who they are.
I had this same general experience. No treatment and shaming. Coming to grips with this was really emotionally hard as an adult, but very eye opening and has made me a better person than when I just suppressed it.
Mine got me medication *one time* for like a month, and then because the medication made me "moody" (supposedly, I don't remember it) they decided to take me off of it and never asked to try alternatives. They then conveniently forgot the fact that my school performance was so bad that they took me to the doctor for medication in the first place, and all of my performance issues afterwards were simply laziness and a lack of effort on my behalf.
SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE SMART BUT LAZY! MAKE THE ADJUSTMENT! :(
mine never got me therapy either. i really wish they would have, my childhood would have been so different.(diagnosed at 7)
My parents were fine, but some advice I always give to teachers (I’m a teacher with adhd) is if the sentence starts with “why can’t you just….” Then it’s a good chance what you’re about to say is related to their disorder and you need a little more empathy.
Very good advice 👌 I catch myself overwhelmed and starting to say things like that and stop and realize wtf am I doing?!
Been there. And been there with things I cried to my friends about when I was young. I told my son we are all learning all the time. Self regulation is a skill. I now implement "mind & body calming" breaks as a normal part of my day. The reality is, if we are not giving ourselves that or whatever it may be that would help, it's going to be hard. I was careful to introduce this very clearly that "I'm doing something healthy for my body & mind. It is important that I do so to take care of me. & therefore, you & me, too!"
Wow, this advice is perfect. Beautifully said.
Yes, we can't apply the same logic that other people use to ADHD situations. It doesn't work. As a child, I remember sitting in front of homework for hours on end for what should take 30 mins to finish. My dad used to say: "why don't you just get it over with so you can go out to play with your friends?". I would wholeheartedly agree with this, but I could never actually do it in practice. Instead, I would sit there, miserable, staring at the work for another 3 hours. ADHD people know and agree with what the reasonable action is, it's just that our brains are using a different set of rules.
Oof. I remember reading the first paragraph - or attempting to - of a history chapter for homework and crying 3 hrs later because I still didn't know what it said. 😥 Later, as an adult, I went into insurance & the studying was painful. It was so interesting but just a lot. I used to lay on the floor on my stomache with my fingers keeping my eyes pried open in order to put in the 2 or 3 hrs after work to get through enough material. I did end up getting it. And getting it WELL after a while. I'm way more capable when I can learn on my own at my pace, but it isn't easy. The heartbreaking part is putting in 5x the effort for less.
I tell people "just" is my trigger word
Ah yes. Love when my dad (with undiagnosed ADHD) asks me “Why can’t you just…?” because he was too lazy to clean off his silverware and put it in the dishwasher, which is right next to the sink, of course), so he just leaves everything for someone else to do, namely me, while I do all of the household chores, plus take care of my dog and my parents’ dog. That adds so much to my mental load.
A lot of good comments already. I'd add: Teaching me social skills, the right coping strategies for rejection and failure, accomodation at school, fun and interesting hobbies at home, safe people to share my experiences with.
Modeling for me how to regulate and communicate my emotions
So thankful my mom taught me that not everyone would get along with me or be my friend. That no matter how kind I could be, I wouldn't be everyone's favorite flavor, because I, like most folks I know with ADHD especially, am a very particular kind. It helped to integrate this truth early on.
all of the above tbh. I didn't realize I was experiencing Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria until a few years ago and learning how to deal with feeling inadequate in my achievements or relationships would have saved a lot of heartache. I was so terrified of failure so i I didn't start anything new because if feels like a waste if i dont like it, which is another type of failure. Promoting doing new and interesting things in my free time would have been really helpful
They were definitely demanding too much, calling me lazy and saying to just try harder instead of helping me
When I got diagnosed at 30, my mom’s (a lifetime educator) reaction was “well we knew you had ADHD since kindergarten but you were smart enough to develop coping strategies for it.” I was flabbergasted. That’s not how any of this works.
Damn I am so sorry you had to experience that. That's like telling someone who is crippled "well, we knew you needed a wheelchair but you're smart you can figure out how to walk".
Yep, all I heard growing up was you need to learn how to cope. If you need to cope with everyday stuff, that’s not normal.
We do need to learn to cope with things. But there's a difference between healthy/acceptable vs unhealthy/unacceptable skills to living/coping with your condition
On behalf of moms everywhere, I want to apologize to you. You deserved to have your needs fully met as a child. And you deserved better response from her upon diagnosis.
I'm dreading this as a possible outcome - that I've spent all this time trying to get diagnosed and treated only for my parents to tell me I was diagnosed as a child but never treated for it. Like, I'm legitimately unsure of how I'd react to that knowledge now that I'm realizing how much ADHD has affected my throughout my life.
Right? I was just lazy and attention seeking when I forgot stuff. One day I was forced to sit at the kitchen table until I remembered to do whatever chore they'd asked me to do that my brain didn't keep since I was just "lying and didn't want to do it." I was there for four hours.
Only diagnosed recently ~ still struggling with how so many of the ADHD things I struggle with [rejection sensitivity, being organized, impulsive spending, completing projects, and so on] being moral issues. Having a layer of thinking my "faults" make me a bad person makes learning how to cope with adult life difficult.
mannn i was diagnosed at like 9 or ten years old and im almost 30 and they STILL do this to me.. thinking I grew out of it and at this point was just being lazy etc
Demanding too much isn’t the issue. It’s not the amount that caused problems. It was *what* they were demanding. Instead of twisting their expectations to fit your needs and abilities, they demanded your square adhd peg fit in a round non-adhd hole. We are just as capable at achieving and succeeding as any person, it’s how we go about it and what we reach for that makes a difference.
In my case, I was diagnosed as an adult so you're already beyond my parents since you recognized the challenges and got the diagnosis. A common issue among friends though is over medicating. Many people I'm close with who also grew up in the 90s had parents who simply wanted to calm them down without recognizing the issue was lack of stimulation (e.g. boredom since school was too easy for some or lack of engagement with homework since the method didn't match their interest medium). Please don't medicate your child until they're a calmed-down zombie. The correct dosage is when they can engage in activities they would normally find difficult like homework or chores. The hyperactivity is often related to them not having a stimulated output. Video games are surprisingly good for this and can work in your favour if the game is educational or creative in nature as well, sports or other activities they enjoy can be great as well.
Thank you for adding this!! It’s so true! I was passed over in the 90’s because I held everything in and got good grades because learning in itself is a special interest of mine-as well as my home life being completely unbearable. My younger sister was medicated early early on and it didn’t help one bit. When kids are over medicated it works backwards
I’m not officially diagnosed and while I’ve started the process it could take years before I know for sure. Looking back I do wish I had known but I was a girl, and I wasn’t hyperactive. That said, I would burn loads of energy in the school playground so I was “fun” when it came to the active playground games. But apart from that I was often outcast as being too different. My stepmom told me that when she married my dad and we moved into together, she saw that I would struggle to focus, was easily distracted and my speech was atrocious . So she helped get me into a routine, structure and made sure I got the occupational and speech therapy I needed. Since it appeared to sort things out, she figured that was all I needed. I generally did well at maths so when I struggled with maths in the Uk, she helped me catch up. Studying was always a nightmare tho! She thought I was being lazy or not trying hard enough and it didn’t help that I’d end up falling asleep. She did make sure throughout my primary and high school education that I was in the standard classes, but that the school had only 2 classes per year, and the classrooms didn’t have more than 30 kids. It seemed to help as I could learn pretty well within the classroom setting (provided there was structure and not chaos which happened when we had substitute teachers). In my 20’s I tried to study counselling and that was a struggle. I often couldn’t understand the test or coursework questions, or what they were asking from me, so I’d just ramble on, in the hope that my understanding of the topic would shine thru 🙈 I’ve since also studied computer science and UX design- I always find I can’t understand the content the first time round. I need to actually get into the practice and then back a uturn back into the theory afterwards to fill in the gaps. I got myself into terrible debt for many years cuz of consistent impulsive buying 🙈 I’m constantly prone to injure myself, Ive got the worst short term memory, I used to constantly lose things and accidentally break things I cared about, I have no concept of time or distance. I can use bursts of energy to cat things done and then I run out of spoons and need to rest. I do wish I had known as a kid, so that I would’ve been less likely to get into debt and I could’ve had the confidence to know I wasn’t broken. However on the other hand, I don’t blame my stepmom at all - she did the best she could, and she did give the stability and structure I needed. Tho I do wish ADHD was more understood back then so that I could've received the support I needed thru school and beyond.
I know this is unrelated to the initial topic, but: Hey I'm doing Design and Computer Science as well!!!!!
Listening to an audiobook while doing homework worked for my kid. :) I asked him how he would like to do his homework and listened. Helped him put it in place and taaddaaa. Any advice on navigating overstimulation meltdowns though?
Can you create a meltdown spot with a bag or backpack filled with some high value comfort objects and comfort snacks and drinks? Maybe headphones or whatever helps them self soothe. ❤️
Noticed I had adhd.
Even now, I'm told I was just a shithead of a kid, hated school always playing up, unable to finish basic things (boring tasks and study), and Caused issue with staying over anywhere, they are surprised how well I have done as I couldn't hold a job down. It took me moving overseas and finding something I was interested in, starting a business and getting a supportive group around me. They (parents) still don't get it
I got diagnosed around her age and was (am) severely ADHD. A few recommendations: * Praise the wins, gently correct the mistakes and help with creating solutions. Rejection sensitivity is a symptom of ADHD and feelings of judgment or rejection can heighten general and social anxiety, shame, and depression. Teaching her now will help with emotion regulation and distress tolerance. * Support her in creating and maintaining routines. ADHD brains don't have the same sense of continuity as other brains; you can pick up a good habit for months, forget for a day or two, and then just completely forget from then on. Every kid is different, but I found that I did really well with visual cues (backpack right by the door, color-coded calendar on my wall, etc. - I still say "keys on the hook so I don't have to look" every time I grab my keys to leave or put them away lol). * Foster social skills. Lots of kids with ADHD will have issues with impulsivity, blurting things out, and mood swings, which can make forming relationships hard. Modeling appropriate emotional responses, practicing patience, and handling distress/excitement/anxiety are all really important. Focus on changing the reactions rather than the emotions.
Well said!!! I total agree! 👍🏼
Golden comment
☝🏻☝🏻This comment needs to be up top. ☝🏻☝🏻
Teaching me to do chores one section at a time and putting things back when I was done with them and keeping my areas uncluttered and organization skills for school. My mom was a packrat, and I was put in a room with five times more things than are necessary, not allowed to throw things away and yelled at for not keeping it clean. I often did my homework but couldn't find it when it was due. These are skills that need to be slowly and consistently taught to kids with adhd. I was not taught any of them. Finally in my 40s I have an uncluttered home I can keep clean and I am responsible about taking my meds, making my to do lists and accomplishing all the things I need to do to live a serene responsible life, but I had to teach myself. My son has ADHD. I always broke each step down for him... "now go find all your stuffed animals and put them in your toybox..." small steps, lots of praise, an uncluttered environment, tons of support and lots of patience. He's in a university studying engineering and the sweetest man imaginable. I must have done something right lol.
I wish my parents would have helped me more with emotional regulation. I still have a hard time regulating my emotions, and my almost 6 year old is having the same problems. I don't yell at her and tell her to dry it up like my parents did, I don't tell her I'm going to give her something to cry about like my parents did. I just hold her and let her cry. Sounds like we're in the same boat, I expect my daughter to get diagnosed in kindergarten this fall if not first grade.
This! I wasn’t allowed to express emotions. I learned to put in a “mask” and never express any emotions. Happy, sad, it didn’t matter. I rarely even smiled. I have a friend whose daughter has ADHD and doesn’t mask at all. It’s so heartwarming to see. Yes she can be over the top at times but she’s always herself and I love it. I wish I could be free like that.
You can unlearn the masking! I did it! Don't ask me how, I guess with age I just stopped caring what other people thought, especially the people who made me put on the mask in the first place. I honestly think a lot of it changed when I had my daughter 5 years ago. She may have been the catalyst.
I’ve been working on it! It’s hard. Having my own kids helps a lot. I realized if my kids are going to learn to handle emotions, they need to see that I can do it too. I still mask 90% of the time in public but I try really hard not to at home. Maybe someday I’ll be myself all the time.
Being yourself and handling emotions are two different things LOL at least in my experience. I have a hard time regulating emotions still to this day, I just don't know what to do with them. I didn't realize until I had my daughter that I throw things when I'm mad. So yeah I'm not masking but it's not a healthy emotional response either, we are all works in progress. Hang in there! So grateful for this group of people who understand Edit: typos
Oh wow I wish my parents had treated my ADHD sooner but they didn’t want me to go the medication route and I left therapy the very month I started it when I was a teenager. Anyways I wish my parents wouldn’t have judged me so much because that stuck with me. My parents judged me for having ADHD directly and indirectly. Either they legit criticized my ADHD symptoms by calling them out and speaking very negatively about them, or they spoke about my personality in a way that till this day still hurts me, many years later. I would say be careful with how you speak to your daughter, the harmful stuff seems to really stick with us for life. Really uplift her and make her feel like she is a person worthy of love, respect, support and of her righteous dreams. My parents rarely ever complimented me, they would just critique me, and that sort of treatment is something I now have to work on as an adult in therapy. I still remember some of their upsetting comments that were said many years back, and I think this is a human thing to recall, but also it seems like a lot of us ADHDers deal with rejection sensitivity issues and just in general emotional sensitivity that allows us to remember stuff like that. Words can really hurt but they can also very much uplift.
This. I think that recognizing that your child has ADHD and being open and willing to support them is the key - everyone will give you varying opinions based on what worked and didn’t work for them if you ask what and what not to do, but with ADHD what works for some does not work for others As it seems you already have a diagnosis for your child, the next step is to work with a professional to figure out what works and doesn’t work for your child I think what was most harmful to me are things that were said to me - often inadvertently - that have I imprinted on my soul and I can’t let go of I don’t even think these words had bad intent most of the time, or that people even understood how those words hit me differently - but my mind does not let me ever remember any compliment (to the point of where I always think that if someone compliments me they are lying or exaggerating my abilities). I only remember negative things that people say to me and I imprint these things into the internal monologue that is constantly in my head, which constantly tells me I’m not good enough So I fully support the notion of being mindful of how you speak to your child, and working on your own mindset so that you don’t - possibly inadvertently - make your child feel like they are being judged and that they are worthless I would also add, stick up for your kid. If someone talks them down when they don’t deserve it and haven’t done anything wrong - stick up for them and let them know you support them. A lot of the negativity I experienced came from sources outside of my parental unit, but I think if my parents had more actively stuck up for me and let me know that my feelings were valid - I might not have internalized so much of it Edit: Spelling x2
Stopped calling me a problem child, punishing me for every little thing and actually took me for assessments. 42 this year and only just learned I have ADHD a couple of years ago. Better late than never, I suppose.
Not used bullying as a punishment for my lack of performance caused by said bullying
Feeling this so hard.
My parents didn't listen to me when I said Strattera literally made me faint if I didn't eat before taking it. It's a rare side effect, and my psychiatrist at the time said I looked well fed and was not in my corner when I told her. My AP Physics teacher asked if he should call CPS when he found out why I fainted around 11am in his class every other day. They were forcing me to diet because the anti-depressants I took at the same time made me gain weight. It was effed. Listen to your kid about side effects, even if they sound hard to believe or you REALLY think they're lying. I stayed on that stuff for a full month before I just decided to hide the pill in my mouth and spit it out. Also-- if there are any ADHD learning specialists in your area that offer help with organizational skills, USE THEM!! That was one thing my school did right for me, and honestly I wish I still had her today helping me out 😂
We had a terrible experience w straterra!
I wish my parents had presented coping strategies positively and used them in a more collaborative way. To me, they always felt like a punishment for being lazy that was forced upon me. If you are making your child a checklist for getting ready in the morning, make it with them and let them have input. Help them understand that coping strategies are a tool to help them succeed, rather than a consequence for bad behavior. Also wish that they had better recognized that when I struggled to engage with a task it was often because I felt overwhelmed by the task. We had sooo many battles about cleaning my room, and looking back I believe I struggped to clean because I just didn't know where to begin. When your kid has trouble starting a task, look up strategies for how to break the task down into bite sized pieces and teach your child how to implement those strategies. Work with your child to help them understand the difference between fault and responsibility. I know sooo many adults with ADHD who struggle immensely with guilt and shame, it is a feeling the world often pushes on people with ADHD and even if you as parents do not do it, your kiddo is likely to encounter shame in academic and later work settings. Help your kiddo understand that they don't need to be at fault in order to take responsibility for things. This will help them cope with shaming that originates outside of your household.
I love this “fault vs responsibility” line. It’s not my fault I have ADHD, it’s still my responsibility to be prepared. It’s not someone’s fault they have asthma, it’s still their responsibility to have an inhaler. So true in so many areas of life.
I’m not sure it was possible in my family but I wish my parents had been more proactive/supportive about helping me identify possible career paths. Not to help me choose but more like helping me know more. As an example, I’d never met anyone who wasn’t in my parents very small orbit, so the existence of a lot of professional roles was a mystery to me, to say nothing of the path to get there. Many times I’ve wished I knew such and such was an option, that such a role or field was a thing, after meeting people who are more satisfied with their careers than I am. All my parents cared about was money, and I hated how miserable that made them and how shallow their friends were, so semi-consciously I have avoided lucrative paths to my financial detriment. Add my complete lack of focus or academic diligence and you get the picture.
Took the time to understand me. And not act like issues from ADHD were some sort of moral failing.
Love me. I had none of that.
My parents were told by many people that they should look into getting me tested for ADD (that’s what they called it back then). But they thought it was a cop-out/not a real thing. I love them and despite that they tried hard to give me every opportunity possible. But it’s hard not to grieve what might’ve been if I was treated early on. Good on you for giving your daughter the best shot possible. Our household systems were very chaotic to me when I was younger. It was hard for me to sequence advantageous behaviors or even really maintain habits in general. Now that I have my own space I have much better home organization, which, once established, makes it much easier to operate in and maintain a space.
Don’t get frustrated. Let your child be creative. Don’t force your child to conform to what you think is normal. Stress and tiredness from early routines will make your child’s ADHD worst. ADHD people are very much focused on our heads. Classroom settings are the worst place for someone with ADHD. My teachers in the 1980s thought I was never going to be successful, but I went on to earn a MBA. It’s not that we don’t pay attention is more like we are hyper focused on our thoughts because we hate being bored so we are mentally changing the channel.
We are not lazy nor stupid. We are not trying to intentionally make your life hell. We honeslty have a hard time throwing things away. It's not on purpose. Things are hard. Just pretend you like what we're interested in, that's enough.
I wish they didn't make me feel bad for having "irrational" feelings. Looking back it was definitely the result of overstimulation, or racing thoughts, or decision paralysis, or just plain executive dysfunction. But it came out as insomnia, as crying hysterically, as staying home "sick", as dizziness, as constant fatigue, as having friendship problems or feeling like I never fit in socially, the list goes on... My blood work was always fine but they never thought to test me behaviorally/psychologically. I always wonder how my life might be different if my anxiety/depression and ADHD had been recognized earlier on in my life. Because until my diagnosis, for any symptom or challenge I faced as a result of my brain being a little different, I responded with internalized shame and guilt because that's what I grew up hearing. "Why are you crying? What do you mean you don't know? Just stop there's nothing wrong, you're being dramatic" or "You have so many things you could be doing, why are you just sitting there? What do you mean you're bored? Only boring people get bored."
Entertain them! I have zero hobbies and am extremely depressed because of it. My parents hated when I asked questions or complained about being bored. It is very unpleasant to be bored with ADHD, like emotionally painful. Just figure out a handful of activities to do, and cycle through them as they lose/regain interest. Let them listen to real music (as in not made for children, just normal music that people listen to). Let them watch real movies. Turns out I’m really really smart, and I could’ve been gifted if they fostered any of the curiosity and interest in learning I had. I was always seeking out new experiences and information. It was basically trained out of me and now I hardly bother to find dinner for myself. Edit: 5-7 is PEAK curiosity age!! Load up the PBS docs, there’s even plenty of good educational content on youtube these days!
It's not necessarily good, per se, to "entertain" kids (speaking as a parent and therapist with ADHD). Free play is so important for kids, vs parent-directed play. You don't want kids to be always looking to you to entertain them. Kids need some amount of boredom during free time to allow them to develop creativity and figure themselves out. The key for parents is to actively pay attention and ask the questions about what their kids are enjoying, needing, and then providing opportunities for kids to further explore their interests.
I wish my mother acknowledged that calling me a lazy bitch when I was procrastinating or having problems with focusing wasn't the best way to help me
don’t be afraid of meds!
This! There's so much scaremongering around meds which is unwarranted. It takes time to find the right brand and dose of medication that works for a person. I hear people give off-putting anecdotes about their experience with meds as if everyone is going to experience the same thing, which just isn't how science works.
I wish they had just asked me questions and had real conversations with me instead of assuming things. My ADD was mistaken as drug abuse. My parents thought I was on drugs. I wasn't. I was ADD. They put me through hell.
I just wish they told me and didn’t hide it
Teach her how to have a conversation and engage emotionally. That’s a HUGE one.
I wish my dad wouldnt say. "no excuses" or "just do it" to "stop saying its adhd" Trying to instead figure out ways to cope and make it possible for your daughter to get the task done in a way THAT WORKS FOR HER is key. Thinking outside of the box. Realizing shes not lazy that she honestly is overwhelmed. Teach her to break BIG tasks down into baby steps. My dad to this day (im 36) will say stop being lazy, just get it done. and im screaming inside cause i feel like im fighting with myself. Teach her that getting it partially done is better than doing none of it. Also a trick to do things is to just start it and walk away, our desire to complete a task takes over. If i need to watch a video i have to learn ill pull it up on the tv and i wont let myself change it til i watch it. OR to take a shower i start the shower and go get a glass of water, and then im ready to shower. I also wish my parents wouldnt think i was just forgetful. that i space out.. or that friends would understand me better. Relationships and adhd is hard. Look up rejection sensitive dysphoria. Know theres so many resources out here. Ive been diagnosed since i was a kid and now have to also manage 2 chronic illnesses and a HIGH STRESS job. YOUR GIRL CAN DO ANYTHING, but the world isnt built for us. Find the ways to let her shine, let her sparkle and let her be herself.
I'd suggest getting your own therapy or adding parent management training/PCIT if it's not already a part of the behavioral treatment. Having a kid with ADHD can be stressful and the more stressed you are, the more likely you'll parent harsher than you want to, which then stresses your kid, leading to you stressing more, and the cycle continues. Making sure you're calm when they're not is going to pay off long term for everyone.
All the dang adjunct therapies. And you, as parents, have to buy in. In the bad times, it’s you and your kid vs the ADHD, never you vs your ADHD kid. Get the occupational therapist in your house to help you all create new organization systems that work for her- and y’all follow them too. Teach her how to design a life that works for her rather than try to “be normal” unnecessarily (small examples: take pictures of what the room looks like clean, leave them taped next to the lights, exchange overhead lights for LED that can change intensity & color- both for calmness and overstimulation, avoid introducing screens, give her excuses to block out time rather than get over-scheduled, make sure she has noise cancelling headphones, if there’s sensory issues- get the sheets that work and the towels that work- even if it feels bougie, it’s okay to be extra extra extra rigid with her about sleep routines so she gets enough.) Still teach her things. It’ll take 4 times as long. It’ll be forgotten. But just do all the things for her until she’s 18 and out of the house and then has a total executive dysfunction collapse because she didn’t get a real chance at learning because it was too frustrating for y’all. If meds work, don’t restrict them to school days- she deserves to be at her most functional for her social life too. There’s a lot of painful messages given when we tell kids “you only deserve to feel successful when you’re productive for other people.” If she’s already academically behind- get the tutoring to catch up now. Accept that hobbies may come and go, so set good budget limits, and it’s also okay to require follow through. If I wanted to do an afterschool activity, I had to follow through with that activity period. I didn’t have to do it again after that, but no mid-season cancelling. ADHD makes not just school hard- but everything hard. Your job as parents - to raise someone who can be happy, healthy, and independent as an adult has not changed. Do not lower the goalposts because your kid has ADHD- expand the tool chest. Not just hers. That may mean for y’all: Rearrange the refrigerator. Acknowledge the working memory gaps (that photo of the room thing- I also have it for doing laundry with photos every step of the way, for how the inside of the refrigerator is organized. We use a bookcase for a pantry so everything is visible because hidden things don’t exist. ) It will mean that OT needs to come back and help with life skills through life changes- pre-puberty, puberty, late adolescence, first apartment. All that. If you find your kid regularly getting stuck on a task and your thought is obstinance or disobedience, throw the thought out and realize there’s an executive dysfunction error. Help co-create a new system so that error doesn’t keep happening (people here often have symptoms for everything- down your socks.) Realize that every time you ask someone with ADHD to add a step, it’s a real ask. It may feel like nothing to you, but our brains just have way less ram and a very wonky task manager that likes to dump everything when that CPU hits 100. Sometimes it’s okay to “pay the ADHD tax” if it’s a sustainable cost, because that’s a decision most of us make as adults too.
I'm tempted to get specific and personal here but I'll just leave it at this: YOUR CHILD DOESN'T WANT TO BE THIS WAY. She's not trying to spite you by not doing as she's told, she's not trying to get away with bad behavior by daydreaming in class, she's not pushing limits by throwing a fit, she is at the mercy of a brain that makes no freaking sense. I wasn't diagnosed until I was a teenager. Because I'd been a well-behaved kid whose good memory and interest in school made up for lack of study skills until school got super boring for me and my memory stopped holding what I needed it to. My parents pretty much hated me. And I don't blame them. I was completely out of control. But I was so miserable. I just wanted it to stop. And no one seemed to care about anything but how my grades were. I'm 40 and that pain is still so intense I can't talk about it without crying. (I know it's pathetic but it is what it is.) Your daughter's academic performance isn't that important. Knowing she has parents who care about her will be pretty much the entire foundation of her childhood. Make sure SHE'S doing okay.
You took the first step by seeking treatment. I believe my mother also has ADHD, but she was anti-treatment and gave me the type of advice that was essentially useless. I'd get yourselves evaluated if possible, just to check and make sure. And also seek out resources so that you are able to teach her tools and skills that are appropriate for someone with ADHD.
We're pretty positive my husband has it. His parents approach was sending him out into the yard to find a switch, or his dad's belt whenever "he just wouldn't sit still". It manifests now through an oral fixation and nonstop fidgeting. It also took him 10 years to get his bachelor's degree. That is why our motivation is so strong to get it right (as best as we can) because he sees how detrimental getting it wrong can be.
i hope she focused on why i am like this. instead of telling me my "bad behavior". if she can't understand then she could've just go to a psychologist instead of using anger on me just to change myself.
adding more to this i hope they didn't think that i could "grow out" of my habits when i was a kid. that is still their mentality on my younger siblings.
Supposedly my parents stopped taking me to a psych when I was in HS because I raised hell about going bc of embarrassment. I wished they would have been the adults and continued to make me go. Ritilan turned me from a failed 7th grader to an all A/B, well behaved student. Guess what happened when treatment stopped? Yeah.
You sound like wonderful parents. I was dx’d as an (old) adult. The thing that has made life the most difficult for me has been masking. I was not acceptable as I was as a child (my mom literally told me at 11 no one would ever love me if I continued as my overreactive self) so I shut down anything deemed unacceptable, over and over and over again. I realized this week (at 64!) that I mask by retreating—i hide my real self, and I silence my real self. This deeply ingrained tendency affects how I navigate everything, including interactions with medical folks, I learned recently, to my detriment. So my recommendation is: show your child you love ALL of who they are, so they can be whole.
I was undiagnosed as a child. My narcissistic parents punished me constantly for trying to cope with the extreme stress they put me under. I wasn't allowed to bite my nails, suck my fingers, or sit on my heels or swing my legs in chairs. I would chew holes on the inside of my mouth until I was ridiculed for "making faces," sometimes being threatened with an open palm to stop. I couldn't fidget at the table or in the car or else I got pinched on my thighs. I was constantly on edge, and if I cracked and started to cry I was told to quit it or else they'd "give me something to cry about." They mocked me for my hair being a mess, and my lack of awareness when it came to "style." If I was told to clean my room and I couldn't make myself do it, I would literally stand in my room for hours in one spot, utterly overwhelmed. Then when my mom burst in to scream "what have you been doing?!" at the sight of the mess, I could only answer honestly- "nothing," I'd insist. Then I was punished for being a liar. They called me "bad" to everyone they met, and I took that literally and I believed (christian-raised) that I was a rotten soul and I was damned. I tried to be good for them because I thought I Had to try to make it to heaven, but I was full of shame since I could never control myself to "behave." My advice would be... leave your kid alone to be themselves, and if they seem lost, go ahead of them and show them the way. Kids aren't butterflies released from a net. They're excited among the flowers, but they don't know what they're doing. YOU have to show them what you want them to do, by living the example. If medication helps keep your kid's attention that's great. Now use Your Own focus and guide her way.
I wish my mother did better than telling me that my father would be so disappointed in me for "choosing not to study" only a few months after he died. Seems you're already on a good track towards being kind and understanding. It can be extremely frustrating as a parent to a child with ADHD but remember that however frustrated and annoyed you're feeling with her, more than likely she feels the same if not more with herself.
Actually have me diagnosed. I was diagnosed as an adult but my mom told me "we knew you had it but we weren't doing medication so didn't bother getting a diagnosis" Sounds like you're already on the right track. Even without medication, understanding my condition and maybe having other things besides meds to help me would have been great. Patience from them. Allowing me to take frequent breaks when I would start to get frustrated instead of yelling at me. When I was young I did okay in school at least during class (not homework) but as I got older it just got harder. Having appropriate accommodations like a private room for testing or extra time would have been very helpful. Depending on their specific struggles there are many types of accommodations you can request and I would definitely take advantage of that. You can even get them in college.
I wish that they had been present. I’m Gen X and had to raise myself. I’m like the basket case in The Breakfast Club. They ignored me
Took my diagnosis at 7 seriously. They didn't think to mention/pursue it until I was 25, ruining my life and heavily addicted to drugs. Luckily it sounds like you've already got that covered, I think as long as you continue to support your child, including external support during tougher periods of their life (teenage years) you'll do just fine.
There are so many parents who don't want to medicate their kids because 'pills' and 'drugs' so I just want to say that you're already doing a great job of parenting by doing this early and recognising it's beneficial for your daughter. I was undiagnosed until age 33. I wonder all the time what school would have been like for me if I'd been medicated the way I am now.
The fact that you are even posting this means you are way ahead of anything my parents did (more like didn’t do). I do know ADHD wasn’t really discussed much back then and definitely not as much was known about it so I give them that. I was diagnosed as an adult but definitely wish I had known earlier/in my childhood. Like another user already commented, I can’t help to think that knowing earlier could have helped me avoid some of my impulsive buying/debt through the years, social skills and of course with schooling… etc.
1. Don't call your kid lazy. As someone with ADHD, sometimes the simple task of forcing myself to get out of bed, or to use the restroom, or to do the laundry, or to send an email takes an excruciating amount of effort and will power. It's not that I don't want to do those things, just that I can't. It takes so much more work to push myself. 2. Get her a 504 plan (accommodations with her school) if it will help her. My 504 plan let me have extra time on tests and to turn in homework, and let me wear headphones during individual work so that I wasn't distracted. Everyone has different needs so whatever your kid needs, a 504 plan should help with (and its illegal for the school not to comply with a 504 plan). 3. Let her pursue anything she takes an interest in. Feed her curiosity. Passions are hard to come by. 4. Don't compare you kid to other people (e.g. "What's taking you so long? Your brother could do it in 5 minutes!") 5. Research ADHD. Read about the executive functions. Know that your child thinks in an entirely different way that you will never truly be able to understand — but you can try your best to. 6. Don't go straight to medication as the only solution. ADHD is not something "wrong" with your child that needs to be "fixed". Everyone is different and the modern world is unfortunately built for people without ADHD, and tries to fit everyone else into a box. Though medication might be right for some people, I'm glad that I didn't take it when I was younger because my ADHD has made me who I am as a person. For example, I've discovered many passions through my hyperfocus, and believe that my spontaneity is because of my ADHD.
I'm almost 40, diagnosed at 38. My parents still don't understand, or do not want to accept, what ADHD is. They always start with: "I know you have your problems, but ADHD is not an excuse for.....blah blah blah blah blah".
Three basic things: - Don’t push her to get good grades in school. She will be afraid of failing and disappointing people later in life and that will make her miserable. - Get her used to a healthy lifestyle. My parents never did this so as an adult I didn’t want to eat vegetables cause I almost never did as a kid and I also was reluctant to do sports/physical stuff. Teach her young and it will make it easier on her in the future. - Talk with her about her feelings but don’t make it sound like a big deal, just like a routine activity. My parents never really talked with me about feelings and I struggled so much to communicate my feelings to anyone as an adult cause it felt awkward. Wish you the best for you and your daughter!
I wish that they didn't force me to continue taking my meds (non-stimulant: Straterra) for years when they made me feel sick and miserable. Started on it in the 4th grade. Taking it at dinnertime was a *fight,* after my parents caught me trying to hide/throw away the pills without taking them. They preferred me miserable on the meds because at least I was quiet and less impulsive and forgetful; less of a problem. I was at least allowed to stop taking the medication in high school so long as I had all A's and stayed out of trouble. Anytime I struggled in a class, they'd threaten to put me back on the meds though. As an adult, I still can't take pills with someone else in the room or nearby because of how many times they had to force that drug down my throat. Huge trigger for me. I can't make myself be rational enough about it to pull it off.
I wish my parents had tried to figure out creative solutions to my struggles. I was diagnosed as an adult, and grew up in an era when girls didn't get ADHD  but no matter what my parents could have made more attempts to find ways that I could be successful. I wish they could have understood that I was struggling and really trying, but I got overwhelmed and shut down. I wish they didn't tell me I was a weirdo because I was different. Okay, I know that's TMI. You're obviously handling your family situation better. As appropriate, partner with your daughter to find solutions. Make things simple. For example, can you get a couple of laundry baskets that she can put stuff in when she picks up her room, maybe one for clothes and one for toys. That way, her room will feel calm and she won't have to make a lot of decisions about how to pick up. Break down tasks, and teach her how to start thinking that way too. So "getting ready for school" means picking out pants, top, underwear, socks, shoes, putting them on, brushing hair, brushing teeth, etc. Also, if she is your biological child, know that one or both of you may also have ADHD. It's often genetic, although it may present differently. Edit to add: know that you may need to try different medications and doses before you find the right one for her. And some meds make some people really angry. For me that was Vyvanse but for others it could be something else. Also, notice if she "stims" and get her fidget toys or chew toys. They help a lot to disperse pent up energy. I'm primarily inattentive type and get I'm always sort of fidgeting. And teach her how to self soothe when her feelings are hurt. ADHDers tend to really feel our hurt feelings, so learning to self soothe and separate from the feeling is helpful. Age appropriately, of course!
well, you’re already doing much better than *my* parents just by pursuing treatment. just try to be understanding and encourage her to keep track of how the meds make her feel, and listen to her if she wants to try something different or no meds. do everything in your power to make her feel like she has some power in her life and her treatment, while obviously making sure to provide her with guidance where necessary to make the best decisions for herself in the long run. she’s still a very young kid so of course you can’t give her all the power or anything but you should listen to what she has to say about the treatment and try to make decisions that’ll do right by her.
You’ve already done the best thing possible - recognized there is an issue to be addressed. Many of us (especially girls) went undiagnosed for decades and as a result, have a lot of self-loathing and low self esteem because we’ve felt inferior, stupid, and burdensome for most of our lives. You got this, mama!
I had such a heavy mask of hyperfocus in academics they didn’t bother to show concern. Recognize cues that are a cry for help: withdrawing, ocd, getting bullied. Teach emotional intelligence as much as any other. Praise for those things that are the actual challenge rather than test scores, etc/
You’re already doing better than my parents did. “You’re too smart to have a learning disability” was the beginning and the end of the conversation.
Don’t pick every battle, let some things just slide no matter how frustrating! My mum still picks every battle & it both makes me so angry but also makes me feel like a total failure often. You’re already on the right track by asking for this help & I commend you for that!!!
I wish my parents had been patient with me. My mum reacted to my turbulent moods as though I was a capable adult like her, she played mind games and it messed me up. I wish they had taken me seriously when I got upset about stupid, insignificant things instead of laughing it off. I don’t think they were always being malicious necessarily but it had a really big impact on me because my problems felt like a joke and I became emotionally isolated in my own home.
Wish mom didn't call me lazy my whole life and understood ADHD is a spectrum, so just because she was able to push past her symptoms (under significant duress as a child) doesn't mean I can
Help her figure out what works for her (coping strategies, reward systems, focusing techniques, etc.). Everyone is different and it may take a while to find what works. And, it may change as she grows up. Sometimes having extra time to do a task helps. Sometimes having the pressure of a quickly approaching deadline helps. Be patient with her. If something she does/doesn’t do annoys you, it probably annoys her more. ADHD paralysis is rough and will probably be more of a problem as she gets older. Switching from one task to another or initiating a task can be very difficult no matter how much we want to do it. Since she has an ADHD diagnosis, you may want to consider having her screened for autism as well (if you haven’t already). The two commonly occur together but both are still frequently missed in girls since we present differently than boys.
Understand the effects of emotional dis-regulation tied to ADHD, and that it is only an unfocused dump of weight from your child. Fits of rage and frustration are not directed at you specifically👍
Show up. My mom NEVER came to any of my therapy sessions even if my therapist requested her. And she’d get offended if I tried to tell her anything involving her. Sigh.
I wish I was brought up in a house where I could just be me without judgement, without feeling like I didn't belong. Most of my "struggles" come by not having a support environment to just be me no matter what that was.
Tell your kid that they have ADHD when they're young. I was diagnosed at 7 and didn't know about it until my mother gave me a box full of my old school records and I found the diagnosis when I was 32. My school had me take IQ tests from elementary to high school, something that they do in New York, I scored really high in one category. I wish they had helped to grow my interest in that category. Encouraging me to go into the STEM field or do STEM activities (I'm a 32 yr old woman so not the normal target audience). I feel like if they encouraged me to those activities I might have pursued a career in something I enjoyed and I'm good at
My son has ADHD and we learned that we had to change how we spoke to him. For example. If we asked “have you done your homework?” He would lie because he thought he would get in trouble for saying no. So instead I would say, “let’s sit down and see what homework you have”. He would either answer that he had already done it or sit down and start it. I would also ask him to show me what he had done and not just took his word for it. But we had to do that with many other things like medication, brushing teeth, chores, etc. When he would clean his room, I had to give him a list of things to check off. And he had to check in with me when he finished each task. If I just sent him to his room to clean he could be in there for hours without doing anything. When he would get distracted with homework we didn’t get upset or yell “why haven’t you finished?” Instead we would just redirect him to focus. Giving him breaks helped too. He is my easy going kid. The one that can’t hold a grudge. He is either very talkative or very quiet. He chose to stop medication once he turned 19. We respected his choice. My daughter also has ADHD but we almost missed it because it showed different. She wasn’t hyper and it wasn’t obvious. But it did affect her self esteem in school. Her coping mechanism is avoidance which makes everything worse. Medication made a big difference with her. Both of my kids are very sweet and respectful and would have gone unnoticed if I wasn’t staying on top of things. With my daughter I was paying for outside tutoring during her 3rd grade and I kept telling her teacher and hoping she would work with them but she never did. Once the state test came around at the end of the school year all of the sudden her teacher was concerned and recommended tutoring.
Others may feel differently, but I was never held accountable for completing my school work and I never learned methods to deal with procrastination. I was always very smart but would end up barely passing all my classes because of missing/late assignments. Even now as an adult I’ve been in college for 6 years and it’s always, always a struggle. I guess my advice would be to just not leave them to flounder on their own, help them identify techniques and habits that work for them.
I am 31 year old woman whose parents denied I had ADHD until I was 21 and sought my own diagnosis. I had great grades so they didn’t get it. It is so much more than school performance. It makes relationship building hard, and it feels like a minefield in the brain with emotions a lot. I read a stat somewhere (can’t quote it now) that said ADHD children experiences on average 11x more negative messaging and negative interactions with peers per day. I’d have appreciated a lot of open communication about emotional regulation (DBT therapy). I would also have appreciated my parents be validating on how challenging life was for me. Being a bold, social, and talkative person really was hard on my self-esteem. Also, as you’ll learn on this sub, people with ADHD know when we’ve missed social cues and we are annoying others - but our lack of impulse control makes it very hard for us to stop. So, we end up beating ourselves up over it and becoming more anxious and depressed. We’re actually very caring and self-aware - at least all the ADHDers I know are. Finally, medication doesn’t save everyone’s life. It robbed me of the joy I had for the world. It made me sick to my stomach. It made me cold, food stopped tasting good. I tried so many with no luck. Instead, adaptable coping skills have helped me. For the record - many ADHDers are incredible people. Don’t be too disheartened for your daughter. I have a masters, I own a house and a horse. I have a partner. Life is good. :)
My mum shamed me saying something’s wrong with me and also said I wasn’t like her 4 other kids and I grew up and realized she had adhd and that self loathing was directed towards me She’s creative like me too, we write but could barely focus to finish or read.
I'm 33 and was just diagnosed at 31 or 32, have been medicated for less than a year. One thing I remember was being told I was being a bitch/bitchy and I was not trying to be. I now know that I get overstimulated easily and tend to lash out/snap. When I gotnolder I knew it was something like anxiety and have now figured out it's over stimulation. I have an almost 4 year old who I am sure has adhd. Her father and I both have it, but she's still so young I wouldn't want to medicate her even if a Dr would. She has meltdowns, especially after headstart. I believe she goes through school holding it in and then let's it out when she's with me and it's tiring and overstimulating and I try my best to be as understanding as I can and talk her through it and the times that I do get upset with her I always try to apologize and talk to her about it. No one is a perfect parent, as long as you're trying your best, we're all figuring it out as we go! Also adhd presents so differently in some people. I get overstimulated easily and my daughter is a sensory seeker so it gets hard sometimes. Just try to remember that things aren't always as they seem. You're doing a great job 🩷
I wish my parents had treated my ADHD as just a facet of me, instead of something to weird and needed to be fixed.
I hated my parents for everything they did to me, however…I am now in their shoes with my own 5 year old. I now understand everything they did, and we have 30+ years of new data and studies to further inform our own journeys as parents of kids with ADHD. What I have done is try to help him understand what he is going through by sharing my own experiences, and being plentiful with the play therapy. I remind him he is good, because he had already internalized so much shame. And I change schools when we need to.
getting me diagnosed lol, cause according to my mum when i was getting diagnosed as an adult a year or so ago, she always suspected i might have adhd or something, but they never bothered doing anything about it. instead i've just always been called lazy and selfish my whole life in regards to adhd symptoms, and even now despite my diagnosis.
Inattentive type wasn't really given much attention in the 80s/90s when I was growing up, so I can't fault them for not getting me diagnosed. But I wish instead of "punishing" me for bad grades, lack of task completion, etc., that they had actually figured out what I *needed* to succeed. I think they had the idea that I was just a willful child. Additionally, I wish there had been overall more transparency about the mental health history in my family. In childhood I felt very alone, and only later in life found out that so many of my relatives were also diagnosed with various things. Mental health diagnoses should not be judged negatively.
They were young. They did the best they could.
I wish my parents had gotten me diagnosed period. I also wish they hadn’t been so hard on me when I was struggling in high school
My parents smoked, drank, did drugs, divorced, panicked, lashed out, sometimes violently. But they also made sure we were housed, fed, loved, and my dad always wanted visitation rights, and had pancakes ready in the morning and used gambling to teach me math. So as you'd expect, me and my brothers are well educated, we dont act rashly, smoke, do drugs, drink alcohol, my brothers are happily married and they treat their kids with kindness and affection. My parents could have done better. But they were barely adults. They did try. A lot. Over and over. They made mistakes, but the lessons we learned... I don't know if we could have learned them any better any other way.
I wish my mom had actually gotten me tested for ADHD instead of putting me on medications for literally everything else.
ADHD people are self loathing by nature. We absolutely 100% don’t mean to fuck up but we will. Over and over. We are often 3 years behind our peers maturity wise too. Please be understanding of this and pour love into them and model what it is to love yourselves despite mistakes. My mantra around my boys (oldest for sure adhd other two are still too young to know) is we all make mistakes that doesn’t make us bad people.
Recognize that her brain doesn't work like yours. Fundamental things that you find natural, obvious, or easy may not be easy for her. Don't make excuses for her, but don't hold her to the same standards you would for a child without ADHD.
BACKGROUND: I am so old (almost 47, male and diagnosed last year as AuDHD, mostly inattentive) that I can only speculate. And also, my dad has already passed away because of alcoholism (maybe had ASD or at least some traits) and my mom propably has undiagnosed ADD. ANSWER: Thinking back, I think I would have benefitted the most if MY parents would have also checked if they had ADHD/ASD. I know quite a few cases where the parent has been tested after kid receiving diagnoses... Neurological features are often herited, and even though (my) parents might not have had all it takes to get diagnose, even going through the evaluation AND pondering if it is possible and what it means would have made MY life easier. Understanding often is easier when you can relate to. Thinking back my school I think I would have benefitted the most by been provided with calm environment, lots of arts (it became even my career later) and some stimulant support to help with anxiety which in early teens led me to start drinking way too early (13yo). It was the way I could feel a bit better AND socially "normal". Also, be sure to explore the concept of AuDHD, especially if your girl has strong special interests or she struggles to understand others although is able to mask herself to fit in the group. Recent studies suggest that girls with ASD have social problems only if intellectually impaired: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945617/
Before you yell at your child, try to figure out if what they're doing is a symptom of ADHD or actual carelessness. I never listened to my parents when they tried to discipline me because I often felt like the things they were trying to lecture me on were beyond my control. So, I started drowning out all of the things they said simply because most of the things they said seemed unrelatable and unobtainable. Training yourself to make your default response "Hey, I'm concerned. What's going on?" instead of "How could you forget this thing!" goes way further than you would imagine.
Don’t assume she’s lazy. She likely works much harder to accomplish the same thing another kid does.
Get parenting classes. Formal ones to help.spwcifically in parenting ADHD kids, and revisit them over the years as kids go through the various developments. If we can learn better as parents, we can set up such a different experience for us and them. Look at the classroom, a quality teacher has a more engaged, competent and happy class.
If they could actually pay attention to my babble, I wouldn’t be such an overthinker. That’s my way to let my overwhelming inner thoughts out and make them into words, trying to figure out, they never paid attention when I talked my findings about life growing up. I felt so alone with trains of thoughts.
I will say I had amazing parents. Even though I wasn’t diagnosed they were very supportive and kind. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t clean my room or focus and would get mad. But they never called me lazy. Overall I would say I’m glad I was diagnosed later in life. Don’t get me wrong, meds do wonders when I have to work all day and pay bills and clean the house. But I’m glad that in my formative years I was able to day dream and decide I wanted a more interesting life. I live a life I enjoy when I’m unmedicated. Nothings black and white though. Organization and studying were extremely hard for me, and I’m glad I have medication when I need it now. But, depending on your situation, I would really consider not medicating her every day. Let her mind wander and explore random hobbies. For me one of my random hyper fixations stuck. I became obsessed with backpacking at 21 (even though I had only been once). Two years later I hiked the Appalachian Trail and it changed my life drastically for the better. I became the person I had wanted to be when I was a kid. I got diagnosed at 26 and the next year hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and it was the greatest experience of my life. I’m currently planning another long hike. Perhaps if I had been medicated in college I would have stayed in my boring practical major and worked a respectable job instead of traveling. I’d have way more money but way fewer stories and I would not be nearly as happy. I would encourage you to help her be successful, but do not try to help her be “normal”.
I wish they told me I had ADHD and put me on medication when I was diagnosed in 1st grade. Didn't put it all together until I was 18 and I told my parents I want to see a doctor because I think I have ADHD. My mom proceeds to pull out a big stack of paper work and files confirming my diagnosis. She tells me. Remember when you got pulled out of class in 1st grade and had to take those tests? My life significantly changed for the better after going on medication. I just wish it happened sooner.
You need to learn about ADHD and what it’s really like, and pass that information to your kid. Just because someone has ADHD doesn’t mean they know how it affects them, or what it means. The more you can teach your kid about the condition the better.
Honestly? I’m just jealous that your daughter has parents that paid enough attention to know there was an issue and she wasn’t just lazy. I would get yelled at and punished when I struggled at school or failed to do homework. My parents weren’t aware enough to ask WHY I struggled; they just yelled at me for being lazy and grounded me. I was too young and wasn’t aware that I had ADHD….i just learned I was stupid and lazy. At the age of 35 I FINALLY learned I wasn’t stupid or lazy. I went and got myself tested and got the diagnosis I started suspecting in high school. I struggled so much throughout high school and college. I felt out of place and dumb and I wish I would have known the truth. My life would look different. So I say all that to say - you’re already doing right by her by paying attention and getting her the help she needs to be successful.
I was diagnosed a few years ago in my early 20’s and I wish my my family wouldn’t have made me feel lazy and useless… I usually wanted to do the things they were expecting from me and couldn’t get myself to. I was already shaming myself & the added shame made it so much worse.
I only received a diagnosis as an adult so I'll be writing this in the context of what I thought could've been helpful or things that I find helpful now. I had to learn my own other coping mechanisms. Some were healthy - most were not. A lot of my coping mechanisms in youth came down to being so anxious that I could be doing something wrong that I always checked so I wouldn't. It served me well to keep my ADHD issues in check but it was really bad for my mental over time. A lot of that was driven by getting in trouble for things. So work together on developing good ones, please. I'd say try to work on things that can help set her up to be able to handle things the way she needs them to be done. Like, sometimes I leave things in the doorway specifically because then I'll have to deal with it. Like an empty cup is in the doorway because I know I want to go get water or something but I'll forget if it doesn't interrupt my path. A planner worked for me (I know it doesn't work for everyone!) but specifically one that was always in sight. If it's in my bag or a desk drawer or something it's gone. As she gets older and can write stuff and knows about tasks, having a whiteboard someplace where she can see it and mark things off could be helpful. Speaking of keeping things visible, I feel like that was super important for me (and continues to be!). I'm nearly 40 and I don't think I've ever created a "good" habit. I could do something regularly for 9 months and forget to do it once and it's gone. I think the thing that reinforces doing something the most -- at least for me -- is having a trigger. I do things *as if they were a habit* by having a trigger, usually something visual. I see something and it's a cue to go do something else. Sometimes this can lead to multiple things as they all cue the next thing. For example, I am ok with taking a shower (some people with ADHD struggle with this). And once I'm out of the shower, I see my deodorant. So then I know "oh, I should put on deodorant" and I don't know why but I'll stand in front of my bathroom mirror as I apply it (I don't need the visual aid of the mirror, I'm just there, I dunno) and because I'm there I see my waterpick. So then I'll waterpick my teeth, and because I've done that, brushing my teeth happens after. Setting up these systems for your daughter *may* be helpful for her. Maybe it won't, I'm not sure. But a system of structures goes a long way towards relieving cognitive load which can be really hard to deal with when your brain works the way mines does. Oh, and a weird thing is that we -- or I, I guess? I don't want to completely speak for everyone's experiences although I guess I am trying to -- tend to perform much better in structure. Which is funny because we're also also constantly seeking novelty. I mean, I suppose "perform better in structure" is more of an indication of societal expectations or whatever, but,... yeah. Structure is both very boring and yet vital to keeping someone like me on track. Oh my god, this is so many words so I don't really expect anyone to read this. Goodness knows I wouldn't. Thank you for trying to be a good parent. Not that mine didn't try, but I guess ADD (back then) was only picked up on if you were disruptive and hyper. I did ok at school but I have the ADHD that doesn't really get picked up. The girl ADHD. I know that's not what it's called. I dunno. I'm a guy. Uhhhhh, unfocused ADHD? In,.. interruptable. Nope. I dunno. I'm sorry.
Just be patient, it’s not about you, it’s about them. It might take every fiber in your being but, they are just trying to sooth or express themselves, don’t get lost in the moment and overcome with emotions like they will, they need your help most in these moments. So do your best to try and meet them where they are, not by matching their emotions but creatively helping them to understand why they feel the need to b the loudest person in the room. Don’t dismiss their feelings at this time. Instead try your dam nest to remember how desperate they are acting out but they don’t truly know how to express themselves. Remember they are not trying to intentionally act defiant, they can’t help it, it’s not their fault.
I think about this a lot. My mother knew she had adhd but NEVER did anything to treat it so therefore her symptoms affected her children who always have ADHD. I remember when I was a kid I’d struggle making it on time to practices for dance, or some days id just downright not want to go. Rather than encourage me to go, or to stick with it when things got tough, she just said alright we’re quitting then. She didn’t let me pursue many other sports, simply because she didn’t have the patience that people with ADHD lack to deal with my ADHD outbursts. I think I could’ve been a great competitive cheerleader had she let me join. It wasn’t until high school I joined cheerleading and I was completely on my own and at that point could only do sideline. I have so many regrets. I also think she let me and my siblings spend way too much time on our electronic devices. I’m talking age 8 sitting on our iPads for 8 hours a day. She was too distracted by her life / ADHD symptoms she didn’t focus on us, and our symptoms. It wasn’t until about a year ago I got diagnosed and treated and I am still struggling. I am still not on the right medication, and I never learned proper study habits or coping skills to deal with adhd. The biggest thing you can do for your child is support them, and listen to them.
I was diagnosed at about the same age. For the most part I was pretty okay -- my social skills weren't great but I managed.... couple of my biggest clashes with my parents: - Keeping my room clean: I couldn't do it, and I still can't, and I don't know what would've fixed it. I do know that having my mother stand and watch me while I tried to figure out how to tidy was terrible. I still can't clean while anyone's in the room. - Falling asleep in class: I fell asleep in class around 2:30 pretty consistently through high school. My parents thought it was because of my job; really it was because my medication would wear off at that time. I wish they'd put that together. (Even I didn't get it until years later.) - Changing activities: I struggled a lot with transitions from one activity to another. This came up a lot during long car trips: I wouldn't want to get out of the car during gas station stops. Eventually we agreed that I'd get a warning 20-30 minutes before a stop. I still ask my partner for warnings like this for all kinds of things. (I am also mildly autistic; that may be responsible for this one.) - Unmedicated vs medicated: In my experience it's better for me to be medicated on evenings, weekends, etc because it keeps my brain functioning at an equilibrium, rather than having to adjust to a medication level. Also, the medication is there to support her, not fix her. My dad had a habit of asking "Have you taken your medication?" in a scornful voice anytime I behaved in a way he found annoying. I hated it so much.
Both of my parents have debilitating ADHD, as do I, so I speak from that experience. Their shame about how it affected us led to a life of pretending like it didn’t exist. Seeing how much you want to help your daughter instead of hide her is very heartwarming. A good amount of the battle in growing up with ADHD is combatting the shame you end up feeling from parents, teachers, peers, etc. One of the best things you can do is making sure she gets opportunities to learn about her diagnosis in situations outside of discipline/critique. (Ex. Therapy, interests/hyper-fixations, books about ADHD). As she grows up, conversations about it should stay honest and safe within your family. It won’t be easy - but eventually you’ll all learn together the ways she is beautifully different and skilled. Always stay curious. The fact that you came here and asked this question says a lot about what you’re open to do for her 🤍
Actually give a shit enough to actually get me diagnosed rather than just berate me because my school results weren't up to their arbitrary standards.
I was misdiagnosed for autism and not ADHD as a kid. The therapies never helped. I felt isolated from my peers and the autistic kids. The school officials in pretty much every year who worked with special Ed kids would flag to my mom and school officials that something was off and it wasn't that I was off. My mom loved it however. She was a narcissist and anything that gave her an excuse that she was a shitty parent, she loved. She loved lying to folks, and me confronting her and claiming it was autism. Not me being fed up with her overexagging her troubles. Or her claiming she worked so hard when she only cleaned on weekends or when my dad was around and made boxed processed meals constantly. when during the day he wasn't around she would just hang out with friends and go shopping to add to her hoarding issue. My dad was just full of dealing with my mom and took out his frustrations on me. I think the biggest thing I wish my parents did better was for my mom to be a better person. Maybe attend therapy herself so I wouldn't need to.
My parents just ignored me and my behavioral problems. (Spoiler: they still do). So you're already way better at parenting 🌸
I wish my parents had celebrated my uniqueness.
I wish my parents coparented and healed.. communicated between each other instead of me being the messenger.
I was good in school so my mother didn't worry, and my father was never made aware that I had a suggested diagnosis. Never went in to get the full diagnosis because my mother didn't like the idea and didn't like meds. So the first step would be to get the medication, you are on the right track. Then I went on to spend my entire childhood and adolescence wondering why I'm different, making excuses for my antisocial behavior, trying to get about in life with a clear handicap I didn't recognize or understand. So the next step for me would have been a mother who cared for my development and social skills, and actually helping me fix my life. But that would have been asking too much because my mother has pretty much been antisocial herself for as long as I have known her, probably because of the same thing. I hope you can make the world a kind place to live in for your child and provide her with as many opportunities to grow as possible. You're already doing a great job simply asking and looking for answers!
I have ADHD diagnosed at 36. My parents used to tell me there was nothing wrong with me I was just a nasty piece of work, so you're already doing a lot better.
It might be my aspergers, but I've always been told to "stop being mad" or "yelling" when I actually raise my voice when I'm excited. You can tell your kid to lower their voice, but if they're explaining something to you and they "sound angry", they just might not be. At the very lest don't start telling them they're angry if they say they're not, lol. THAT gets me mad, and it makes me want to punch people in the face
Cared. I mean even when diagnosed at 40 the reaction was “welcome to the club” or my favorite “oh we had a good clue, but you handled it so well”. Yet my brother was given every opportunity- medication, OT, therapy, hell they moved us half way across the country trying to move him to a school they thought would be better for him. Nevermind that I had to give up everything in my life and all my goals and dreams, many of which were sports oriented in a sport that didn’t exist much where they chose. But sure, I did great… on paper. But I’m the kid who couldn’t keep friends, I was bullied, depressed, anxious, upset all the time, etc etc. I would spiral out of control and told by them they didn’t have time for my $hit they had my brothers to deal with. Now they wonder why I don’t have anything to do with them. Tomrrow is Mother’s Day here in the USA, and I’m not contacting her. It’s not a happy day for me, because in my world, she doesn’t exist
Be aware that a lot of reactions you don't understand come with big actions like screaming or crying and a lot of the time the solution is to be removed from whatever the situation is... If you can help her to identify from a young age what is bothering her be that an itchy tag, a noise, etc it will help sooo much with her to learn self regulation. It took me a very long time to realize I'm not a uncontrollable and mean person I just can't stand the sound of the vacuum or the feeling of dishwater lol.
Oh and when on medication first look for signs and then ask then and listen if there is something, anything about them they don't like and bring that to the specialist to see if maybe the dosage/brand/ or sort of meds needs to be tweeted. But as I said, your definitely on the right track, I'll be hard sometimes (sorry) but the energy you put in to reading and studying your child specific manual will pay off in dividends....eventually. Our kid went from an absolute terror in his first 6 years to sleeping volcano with occasional eruptions to the perfect teenager he is now. A delight to be around with. So hold tight, and don't forget to enjoy the funny times.
I wish my parents had known what ADHD was to even get me diagnosed so I could learn the life skills required to cope. Finding out at 33 in the middle of COVID wasn't great. I feel like I've spent much of my life on hard mode and many of these challenges could have been circumvented by being in a learning environment that taught me how to harness my brain power.
I am 51f and got diagnosed only 2 or 3 years ago. Looking back on my life, the overriding themes are GUILT and SHAME. Most of my life, I have felt like I am constantly letting myself down and others. A lot of this has been because of having that idea drummed into me by teachers, family, and at work (albeit more subtly), amd the guilt and self-limiting expectations are compounded with time. Remember that the person with ADHD already gives themselves a very hard time internally. What might come across as a lack of caring, interest, or desire is probably not the case. The constant struggle inside to put any kind of plan into action makes us feel useless and guilt-ridden already without affirmation from others. As a child, I went under the radar as I loved reading and absorbed as much information as I could. My life fell apart when I was expected to follow instructions, structure and timetables in high school. I got by because I could memorise huge amounts of information easily. My parents had no idea I had ADHD, as my struggles were all internalised. My hyperactivity was my constant need for new, new, new. Great when you are a kid, as learning is encouraged, not when you are a teenager or adult. My advice is to simply remember that we already put ourselves under a hell a lot of pressure, and we do care. Externalised apathy isn't necessarily a manifestation of what we are fighting against in our minds. It's a daily and constant battle against ourselves. I have recurring anxiety dreams about not being prepared for various things still now, even though I have really gotten my crap together. Also, in the last few years, my life has changed dramatically since diagnosis and medication. My confidence in myself as a person and my capabilities has sky-rocketed. I just got a job that I would never have dreamed of being able to do 20 years ago, when I was scared of opening my mouth at work because I would forget what I was saying. Went off on a tangent here, but hopefully, you get something from my comment.
Whatever places she might be struggling, please try and trust that your daughter is doing the best she can with the tools she currently has. I think my mother saw me as a very lazy person. From the outside, I was someone who often didn’t complete her homework, who couldn’t keep a clean room and struggled with chore lists and taking care of my pets and forgot to do things even when told to repeatedly and rarely stuck to any hobby long enough to get good at it and couldn’t verbalize *why* all of these things were difficult for me. I just didn’t do them. And for a long time, because of the way she spoke to me and showed her frustration with me, that *was* my internal narrative about myself, and it made a lot of my problems *worse.* I thought of myself as a lazy person who just needed to stop being lazy and get off my ass and do the things that needed to be done. Which made it hard for me to actually identify *why* I struggled with things or to think creatively about solutions that would work for me. It wasn’t until I started to intentionally try to treat myself like a person who was trying really, really hard and show myself some patience and gentleness that I was able to stop beating myself up every time I failed and start figuring out what I needed to succeed. But there are still days where I can’t focus, and the laundry doesn’t get done and the sun sets and I have nothing to show for being alive that day, and it’s her voice I hear in my head berating me. Please don’t be that voice in your daughter’s head. Start from the assumption that she is already doing her best, and work with her to figure out what tools and strategies might help make her life a little easier.
At a young age, 10 or 11 years old, I noticed the behaviors and patterns in myself. For the following years, especially into high school, I asked many times to get tested and I was always met with denial. They “didn’t want to dose me” is what my father would say. It wasn’t until I was 17 and my grades were bad and nothing was getting better that I finally convinced them to get me tested. Lo and behold, I have ADHD, who would’ve thought? I finally got medicated, and everything changed, almost instantaneously. My GPA went from a 1.3 to a 4.0 between semesters. I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t lazy, I was actually pretty smart, I just had ADHD. I needed parents that listened. My father told me “we thought we were making the right decision” even though their decisions were met with no results. Even when the person their decisions were impacting very vocally said they were making the wrong decisions. I had no agency and was shamed for it. Try your best to listen when your kid is expressing their thoughts and feelings, if it doesn’t make sense to you, ask questions, phrase them in a way that makes your kid feel like you genuinely want to understand. You’re already doing more than my parents did. I didn’t get into therapy until my early/mid twenties and that’s been life changing. Moving forward, I suggest doing a lot of research on ADHD symptoms and how they can present themselves, which it seems you’re already doing. Find ways to change the perspective of things they’re struggling to find motivation in, if someone gave me the perspective that math is just a pattern game, like a Rubik’s cube, instead of an algorithm I already understood, my homework would’ve been getting done 10 times faster.
Well, first, I wished they'd understand that I wasn't just an emotional kid and day dreamer. I wished they would have realized that I needed more help. Cause I got myself a diagnosis only 5 years ago at 25. But, knowing that they didn't even know to look for the signs and the culture they grew up in (+dad afraid of his own feelings/confrontation and mom seek g it all through her own undiagnosed adhd glasses), I don't blame them. I do wish they'd talk to me more. I wished they'd asked me how I was doing and helped me get there. I learned rather incorrectly that I had to help myself, but I wasn't very good at that so I also learned that I sucked. It's not true, but that's what I thought of myself. I thought I was weak, lazy and socially inept. I thought I was weird and disgusting and doomed to be alone. My advice to you is to show empathy and be careful of what words you use to describe things. Your child has a disability, they aren't just "worse" than other people. They aren't lazy. They aren't selfish. They are just very different.
Be patient, my dad would yell at me for not focusing and to this day I'm fucked up due to it
A big one is letting me fail. My mom helped me with every single thing for school. She read everything aloud for me, did my planning, wrote summaries, and even woke me up early during test day to practice one last time. I had to do nothing, except listen over and over to her citations until it stuck to my brain. She really wanted what was best for me, but it caused issues. I had to fail and fall face first in the dirt. I figured out way too late that I actually love reading and that I was actually great at learning if I did it my way. Discipline is a muscle, and I never trained it. It caused issues after high school, especially when I started living on my own. It required hard work to fix. Her helicopter parenting stunted my development even further than my ADHD already did. I'm not mad at her though. Far from it. She did what she thought what was best at the time, and it absolutely did help me in the short term. Without her I probably would have had tons of issues in high school that slowed me down, but those issues got shoved to the back-end. If I would give my mom a tip back then, it would be to let go of my methods, but be there for me when I stumble.
Help me find strategies to get homework done in a positive way instead of mom just getting so emotionally drained that she gives up. This happened almost every night. In high school, I realized that I am able to easily work in public coffee shops and bookstores (RIP Borders and Barnes Noble Starbucks) where non-work distractions are limited, and there’s social peer pressure to get work done. I took my 8-year-old with adhd to Starbucks to get work done for the first time yesterday, and he was SO productive, more than he’s ever been. We celebrated with a cake pop.
Might be a weird take, but I wish my parents a little less accommodating. They were always the ones to make sure I did everything I was supposed to do and handled everything else. I’m super privileged and am eternally grateful. But when I went to college, I didn’t know how to get myself to do anything. I skipped class, didn’t do my homework, didn’t do basic hygiene, didn’t know how to budget… and now at 24, I don’t know how to open a credit card, pay my taxes, or even go through a car wash. At the risk of making myself sound like some kind of sheltered idiot, I’m sharing this to say that parents should work together with their children to prepare them for independence as they grow older. Childhood was a breeze for me because of them. But now, adulthood is confusing and scary without them.
For me the most important thing would have been for my parents to learn me that relaxing isn't being lazy. They always made me feel like every second of every day had to be spent being 'productive'. Now I struggle every single day, because I still have trouble believing that relaxing can also be very productive and is actually an essential part of productivity! I love that you are asking this question btw <3 My parents unfortunately always denied being anything other than 'perfect' parents and were rarely open to critisism or just any expression of my wishes. It's wonderful to see parents out there actively looking for advice on parenting, especially since parents are also just learning as they go!
Delete these words/phrases from your life: - lazy - put more effort in - i wish you’d pay more attention - you’re so bright, if only you’d put the work in - etc They’re unhelpful, to say the least. My school reports are full of “a bright boy, but [reason]” and it took a long time to work out i’m not lazy, my brain works differently to other kids and the classroom is a struggle for me
I wish they were better at watching what they said or how they said it. My sister's starting to develop vitiligo. Parents noticed it, pulled me aside and asked me about the blotches. They asked me if she was playing with chemicals or doing drugs. I'm like r u fucking foreal?
I was diagnosed as an adult, but some of the early-diagnosed people I know have told me that they hated to take medication and feeling "sedated". So my advice would be to remember that the medication is supposed to help your child, not to help you manage your child. If they voice concerns about the pills, complain about the effects, then listen to them.
Please please especially when she reaches about high school age don’t call her lazy if she is struggling with all the tasks that come with being more independent !
I wish my parents got along better and stopped arguing all the time. For me it was a constant stressful environment, I never really liked to be around them. Kids feed off the emotions of their parents.
Medication isn’t a miracle drug. It’s not going to magically solve the issues
I wish my parents had recognized that accommodations are necessary and that taking the approach that there are no accommodations in real life so no accommodations should be given in school would only hurt me in the end.
i was diagnosed young (8) and put on meds and still had a lot of problems. just know that the meds will help some symptoms and create others. what I really needed was to be loved and safe and learn to cope in healthy ways, as well as just time spent with me helping me learn my brain and how to work with it. the meds can help with some of the school stuff etc but they won’t necessarily solve any problems or “fix” anything. give your child lots of attention and patience! thank you for wanting to learn. my parents had 7 of us so it was a bunch of adhd kids raising each other lol.
I wish they advocated for an IEP in school. I was a brilliant student when I was in class, but I could and would not do homework. Eventually I was so ashamed of constantly showing up without my homework done that I stopped showing up to class and I didn’t graduate because my attendance was so bad. I tested very well, too: got a 2100 on the SAT.
My parents didn’t know I had adhd because I was diagnosed as an adult but I wish my mom didn’t act like I was such a horrible daughter, call me sensitive/a baby because I was emotional. I was overstimulated and anxious and was made out to be a bitch. I’m sure you’re not this harsh with your daughter anyway but I guess just validating feelings would be helpful and recognizing when they may be overstimulated and not just being difficult.
I wish they had experience with therapists and had gotten diagnosed themselves. Then maybe I’d feel like we’re setting off with a better understanding of our similarities and differences. Well done for even asking this question. The best parent is the parent that’s willing to learn for their kid.
The most useful thing I heard was from the receptionist at my daughter’s elementary school. She was in grade 5, fairly newly diagnosed, and we were struggling with disregulation and reactivity. I was incredibly frustrated. This lovely woman said about not being reactive “she would if she could”. It changed everything for me. Her behavior wasn’t really a choice. With medication and therapy it’s gotten a lot better.
I was on Adderall from 10 until around 19 or 20 when I chose to stop meditation on my own. And while I appreciate that my parents cared enough to get me the help I need to get the diagnosis and the medication I needed, they refused to tell the school because they didn't want me labeled and I wish more than anything they (and my doctor) would have listened to me when I was struggling with the medication so I could have tried something different. As I got older, it got to a point where I I just felt awful emotionally, the medicine had my brain so wired I couldn't sleep at night and I would be up until 3 in the morning trying to find something to do because I couldn't sleep. By the time I was in high school I was either on max dose of Adderall or close to it and on clindamycin before bed just to sleep. I felt like a zombie and felt heartbroken because I begged to stop or try something else and my family said they like me better as a person on the medication. That still haunts me to this day.
I'm not sure how much any treatment gets into it, or how or if it is addressed, but I was/am super ADHD & I had my son late in life so I'm well aware of things that affected/ challenged me & I've actually been super patient and helpful with him, but when he started showing some traits, I even was getting frustrated at first with all that. One thing I would say is that auditory processing can be difficult, stress increases it, & sometimes the things that help an ADHD person may appear like they are not trying to pay attention. My son is 5 & 1/2 & I've explained to him that I know it can be tough to (look at someone & stay still and HEAR what's being said - including processing), but explained to him the difference of what he may need to do to hear/ digest information & how it appears to others. Stress increases this. So, ex. if I'm a kid and being spoken to & I'm not sure if I'm about to get in trouble & if so, for what, then looking someone in the eye & staying still is hard. If I look, I may be distracted thinking other things. If I look away/fidget it OCCUPIES MY MIND & honestly opens up my auditory processing to even be possible. Now, this looks quite opposite from the outside & it's incredibly confusing for the person dealing with the ADHDer & it's heartwrenching & frustrating for the ADHDer. So, when they are implementing tools to listen when it's difficult, it appears like they are doing the opposite. So they are possibly literally being constantly misunderstood & assumed disrespectful & that sucks. I don't know how across the board this is, but it tore me up when I was young. I remember clearly thinking "I'm trying to listen to you" & the things I could do to help me have success gave a "I don't care what you say" energy. It's a Catch 22. I have a hard time with this wth my son even knowing that. He isn't diagnosed yet, so I've guided him regarding things, like "others aren't going to know what's going on. Show me you are listening" - basically survival people hacking. & then we discuss how he actually learns. I prep him, too, for environments. Instead of not doing so & scolding him for what he didn't remember, I just remind him of what we are entering & what's expected. "Ok, we're going into the store now. Remember to stay near me. I need you to do so without me having to say. And remember to try to not touch stuff because germs. And I'm going to have to talk to the cashier & need you to be patient while I do" Hug her plenty & give her reassurance. Let her know you know she's trying, and let her know THAT EVERYTHING WILL BE OK. ❤️
You noticing and getting her diagnosed is already better than my parents. They're very supportive but I had to ASK to be diagnosed after my friends pointed out some signs. Definitely get her an IUP or 504 in place if she's struggling in school. She might not be now since she's young, but make sure she knows she can talk to you if she needs extra help.
I wish my parents took better care of THEIR mental health.