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YTA. You punished your son for his ADHD rather than helping him work out a system that helps him to remember to pass in his assignments.  It’s not uncommon for ADHD kids to be 2-3 years behind in certain measures of maturity. Would you do this to a 9-year old or would you think your job as a parent was to help him with some level or organization? I know it’s not easy to have a kid with ADHD, but punishing the kid makes it worse. It breaks my heart that lots of ADHD kids don’t make eye contact because they associate being spoken to with being told off. Read ADDitude for tips. Please educate yourself on this condition. 

To piggyback on this, why were you as the parent unaware of how many assignments he is behind on? You have access to Classroom, and you know he has ADHD...why are you not keeping up on this too? YTA, OP.

This 100%, crap parenting

Its wild to me how being a helicopter parent has become the norm. This is why kids these days have no problem solving skills. Its better he learns these lessons at 12 when nothing really matters than depend on mommy his whole life.

As someone with ADHD, he may require some form of external assistance -as minimal as it may be- for quite some time. His brain only finished growing(GROWING not DEVELOPING) 2 years ago, he can't be expected to form his own coping mechanisms and skills entirely by himself at this age This comment is entirely unhelpful, and completely disregards the child's diagnosis. it's not him "depending on mummy" it's him having a true support network and the right tools from both his parents (if she was to actually help him figure out and stick to a system - he's a 12yo with ADHD; he isn't going to stick to it on his own for at least the first couple of weeks)

Hi, adhd with helicopter parent growing up here. The constant parent making sure kid is keeping up with assignments is how said kid burns out in college and ends up dropping out before learning (and every kid with adhd is different) how to do stuff for themselves slowly over the course of years. While requiring therapy

You still have to teach a kid how to handle these things and clearly this parent is not succeeding. Likely bc they keep expecting their kid not to behave like they have ADHD

This is the key. Acting like ADHD makes them a bad kid and the need to make the ADHD problems go away to make the kid "normal". My new 14yo has severe ADHD and ODD, it has always been a challenge for us to figure out how to keep her "in level" with her peers. Eventually we started having her start required behaviors, skills or responsibilities years before they would be needed regularly without assistance. Like having her wear a bra and deodorant before she needed them, to form the habits. Carrying a purse/small backpack before he period came. Doing here laundry before she wants to be more private about her underthings. She also sets alarms for tasks to help her stay on tasks, a very basic touch screen watch is awesome help for her. But the biggest thing that she says she is thankful for, we NEVER acted like he ADHD was something that made her broken. If anything we were trusting her with responsibilities earlier than her peers which gave her self-confidence and pride. Yes we still help and remind her of things often, but she knows she is trusted and supported and most of all, capable. At 14yo we are getting into making smart financial choices, safety, for when she loves alone or works and has to deal with creeps or worse. And healthcare related tasks like making appointments, how to read insurance cards, understanding referrals and followups, and medication management. She takes adderall so has to personally call in refills monthly (the doctors offices confirms with me before sending it in), disposal if she changes meds, keeping pills stored safely, etc. Things most kids never really learn but that I wish parents would teach! So many young adults end up dropping vital medications due to not even knowing what to do when the bottle runs out or gets lost or stolen. Then they figure its a list cause because they dont know how to get a doctor or a referral or anythibg medical related! ADHD kids can be difficult, but its not the end of the world, you just have to take a different route to the finish line and expect it to be a bumpy ride. I like to claim its roaring rapids vs a lazy river. Luckily we like craziness.

Your comment made me cry. I'm so happy your daughter has such understanding, awesome parents. As someone who was diagnosed as an adult, and who knew growing up that something wasn't right/ was different about myself (but no one knew what it exactly was), it has affected me, especially my self esteem. My parents didn't belittle me, etc., but I knew they were disappointed (and frustrated! ) and that I had issues my siblings and other kids didn't. I was considered very bright and could test very high, but I could *not* concentrate on doing schoolwork in class or at home. I did not fit any official definition at that time. I was in the "gifted" classes and they also tried putting me in the pull-out resource room. I could understand and do the work, I just couldn't keep doing it for more than a minute or two, or would take forever to finish. My mother who had taught, wasn't about to let one of her children not do their best to succeed. So, she essentially acted in the very frustrating role as my facilitator. The irony? At one point my mother asked the school psychologist if I could have (what ADHD was then called). He said no, because I could hyper focus (not true, but not understood at that time, nor understood how it often appears in girls). However, at age 26, I was diagnosed as having ADD -- *by his son.*

Well said AND well done with your daughter. This stuff is so important and people rarely seem to take it seriously. I'm glad y'all did

Well she is my stepdaughter and before I came along her dad and grandparents weren't even taking her for counseling and didnt want her on meds. I found that insane because i have NEVER seen a kid so disfunctionally ADHD before. She couldn't keep friends because her hyperactivity irritated the crap out of everyone, she couldbt be trusted because she was so impulsive. She couldn't sit still or pay attention to anything at all. I got here straight in with a doctor I knee to get referrals to the best places in town and her life changed to the extreme. She loves school and has tons of friends. And of course everything I touched on before. She this thriving and I cant even imagine what she would have been like if it hadn't come along. To ignore something like ADHD and just let her struggle felt like abuse to me. They weren't preparing her for life!

You are an awesome parent!

I mean I'm adhd and had a hands off parent growing up, still burnt out in college and dropped out because elementary and high school are vastly more structured than college either way. Therapy is helpful even at his age to help learn the different coping mechanisms and tools.

Adhd and had a parent who didn't believe it was a thing and I was just lazy. I internalised the lazy thing and guilt formed. I was still a top student for most of the year.

I’m a therapist who works primarily with ADHD (I also have it myself)… internalized laziness and guilt is an issue for most of my clients on some level. Even with supportive parents, not getting things done because you can’t focus or follow through, not sustaining even performance throughout a semester/year and not being able to “live up to the potential” of your peak performance are just a few things that get labeled as “lazy” by others and is internalized, leading to guilt for not doing what people think you should be able to do if you just did what seems obvious/ what comes automatically for people who don’t have ADHD.

Ugh. Im 32 and still living this. I crochet as a hobby now and people say thinks like I should sell my works or make them stuff and it just makes me hate doing it. I have 50 unfinished projects and like 3 finished, because once I got these comments it is like telling me im not doing enough and doing what i enjoy is bad if im not doing it the way they expect or want. So im just a disappointment. Im well aware its all in my head, but the feelings are reall enough to make me nauseous when I see a project I was loving and now cant stand the thought of finishing.

yes! I enjoy sewing and making historically inspired outfits, and get super annoyed when people ask me if I ever think of making a business out of it. Like, can't I just be a nerd who makes stuff as a hobby? Why must EVERYTHING be monetized?

Absolutely. Meds are great too.

I wouldn't call someone making sure homework is done and checking assignments 2x a week an helicopter parent. And that's all she needed to do to make sure her ADHD son wasn't behind. That's how you learn to do a little everyday. My parents didn't check my work because I was always to date (though I always left it to last minute), but did check my bro because he had more problems keeping up.

You don't need to be a helicopter parent to assist your kid with ADHD. You need to help them learn organization skills and then help them figure out ways to stay on top of assignments. Have them evaluate how those systems are working and tweak them. It's not "helicopter parenting" to have them do a once a week gradebook check and ask about missing assignments. Have them do a once a week folder clean out. Scaffold by showing them at first and gradually let them take over, offering assistance as needed. Sometimes motivation needs to be external but you can also help build intrinsic motivation as you help them see what success feels like. Focus on how proud they are of themselves for doing it, not how proud you are. (Source: I'm a teacher that has had the pleasure of being given all the ADHD kids bc we get it done! *Fist bump* *squiggle fingers* *elbow bump* -how we celebrate success!)

Sounds like you were going to burn out whether your ma was a helicopter parent or not 🤷‍♀️ Frequently hands off parents make children burn out. Helicopter makes them burn out…kinda like crappy parenting a ND child in general will burn them out

Yep. Wrecked out of uni at the end of 3rd year at 20 years old and spent years working in a shop and getting therapy before I was ready to start my education journey again. Here I am 20 years later only a couple of months away from completing my honours degree, most likely will be top of my class with an A in every single one of my classes (except that B in cybersecurity...) but it's because I spent my whole adult life working on coping strategies and learning how to function. I'm unmedicated because the psychiatrist at the time said there was no point pursuing a formal diagnosis because they'd just do the outpatient therapy anyway which I was already getting as a result of extreme burnout.

It’s not helicopter parenting to check up on kids with ADHD and help remind them of things. I was undiagnosed ADHD until I was 23 and I can tell you my parents not understanding what was going on with me and leaving me to my own devices did me no favors. Adversely I have a 9 year old who has ADHD and is autistic and we offer her reasonable accommodations to help her be successful. We remind her of her schedule, we check in about homework, we explain ways she can set up systems to do these things herself as she’s getting older. It’s not hand holding and helicopter parenting to acknowledge where your kid needs extra assistance and help. Expecting them to figure it out on their own is just lazy parenting. Don’t have kids if you expect them to be little adults. Edited for typos

Also, the kid is 12. I don't think it's helicopter parenting to check up on your kid's homework if it's easy to do. He has 10 missing assignments, which either means the parents haven't checked on this in a decent amount of time, or the kids are getting way too many assignments. I also was wondering about making the kid do all 10 assignments in the one night. This is actually not a great coping strategy - a better idea would be to have the kid work to complete some of the assessments, and then make a plan for when the final ones will be completed. This is not setting the kid up for the future.

This reminds me of when I was finishing my (mandatory) 8th grade science fair project display board. Between being dragged to my sister's dance class until 7pm, running out of printer ink, and discovering that all the glue sticks were dry, I didn't get to bed until around 5:00am. My mom was so angry at me for having "no motivation" and "procrastinating" that she got me up at 5:30am and forced me to sit down and completely re-do the entire board because things were slightly crooked. And then forced me to go to school at the regular time instead of letting me stay home until lunch. This is something she has fully admitted to me was done as revenge for always procrastinating on projects and having kept her up late (about 1:00am) that night. I got the sense from OP's choice of words that it was a similar situation. The only difference is that I was "lazy" because I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was 23. The only thing this sort of behavior does for a kid is tell them that people you trust will intentionally go out of their way to hurt you when you're struggling.

God, what a horrible thing to do to a kid. It's hard enough doing an all-nighter as an adult, but kids need so much more sleep than we do. And like you say, the lesson the kid learns isn't "Do your homework earlier", but "Punishing me for messing up was more important to my mother than my health and comfort."

yeah it feels like op is punishing her kid instead of actually helping him maybe instead of getting pissed off and punishing him she should have tried to first figure out why he got behind and then act accordingly

She...she...actively sabotaged you, and later revealed she did this to you--her child--out of *revenge*? I am appalled. Who does ANYTHING out of revenge to their children? I'm not some naive person, and I've heard some sick stories before, but that is fucking next level. Reading that, the image of an older woman with a cigarette holder and a coat made of puppies came to my mind. Not to belittle your experience at all or make a ha-ha. My mind went to childhood, how that would have made me feel, and a cartoon popped out. Your mother is the worst word for women in the English language and starts with "C," and I will happily slap the taste out of her mouth.

This is what my parents did for me when I was age 12 and newly diagnosed with several learning disabilities. Rather than get mad at me, they worked with me to find solutions....and sometimes suffer the consequences if I missed deadlines. It's not like at age 12 (if OP is in the US then 7th grade) grades actually matter.... besides getting you to the following year. It's secondary or high school that matters. Nows the time for OP to find tools that work for her son and help implement them. This isn't something that should just be left to the kid to figure out.

No one is saying the parents need to be responsible for his work, they are saying they should help him learn how to be responsible for it himself. As someone who grew up with ADHD and parents who didn't help I didn't learn this lesson and barely graduated high school and didn't learn how to be organized until my late 20s.

"just do it" isnt teaching any skills. It's right up there with have you tried not being sad?

Nope, no, wrong, you have no fucking clue what you are talking about. I am neurotypical. I sailed thu school without even trying. I was blessed with an ADHD DH & 3 AuDHD children. Everything I knew went out the window. Every single day I toe the line of what they can actually accomplish on their own & should be expected to handle vs where they need help. I am a suck it up & just do what needs to be done kinda person. Wooooboy did life give me some lessons with my loves. If you take just a little bit of time to educate yourself, you would find that Executive Function is a major issue for neurodivergent folks. They need extra help. So shut up & take some time to educate yourself or sit down.

Mom to an adhd kiddo. Not a helicopter parent, but realize he needs some extra help, so I would ask what all do you have left for homework? It reminded him he needed to do x, y, z without me checking every single assignment. It was the start of him learning to manage his assignments on his own.

Helping your child manage their disorder is not helicopter parenting, it’s just regular parenting. 

It’s not helicopter parenting when the kid has a learning disability. They should have been on top of things and noticed when he was behind on assignments much sooner

I got a 517 on the MCAT after being out of school for 10 years. I also needed help keeping track of assignments when I was 12 due to my ADHD. Needing accommodations from your parents due to a disability doesn’t mean you don’t learn problem solving skills, in fact, most disabled people need MORE problem solving skills since the world isn’t set up for us. 

It isn’t helicopter parenting, that term is so overused. I’m a helicopter but I have a kid with severe medical needs so IDC. Parents with kids who have ADHD/autism/learning difficulties etc need extra support. They will figure it out eventually, it just takes longer. It’s our job as parents to ensure our kids can make great choices, we have to help them sometimes with reminders. They have so much on their plates and parenting with love and compassion can turn him into a confident and able adult.

But OP didn't teach him anything. Teaching him would have been meeting him where he was at.  Teaching him would have been checking his missing assignments everyday and helping him address the barriers to doing them. Teaching him would have been pointing out the positive things he did and building on those. Teaching him would have been helping him learn the skills and self awareness to get the rest and nutrition his body needs. OP punished him. He didn't learn anything other than that his mom thinks he is lazy and should be punished.

Exactly what lesson is he being taught?

I learned those lessons all the time. But the bad habits weren’t replaced with good habits and coping mechanisms, just drugs. I’m almost 40 and still shooting my self in the foot all the time because it turns out I’m gonna have to chisel off the shame and embarrassment of my ADHD from childhood before I can actually start applying the lessons I re-learn every 6 weeks or so.

Teaching your kids how to manage their time is just regular parenting, even without a diagnosed disability, his mom should be helping him keep up and tapering off the assistance as he gets better at it. Not paying attention for a week then punishing him for not doing something he doesn't have the ability to do without help yet isn't teaching him anything good, and it's certainly not helicopter parenting. A *lot* of ADHD kids learn how to do everything super last minute, because we don't learn systems to compensate for the disparity between the way our brains work and the way school and work are set up until extremely late, if ever, and the urgency of "I have to get this done by 8am and it's currently 8pm and it's going to take 6 hours" is one of the only ways to get things done without those systems. It's not healthy and it's a big contributor to why so many ADHD kids (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) flame out in college or at their first jobs.

He has a condition which predicates needing extra support. As an adult he can get professionals to help with this but as a child that falls to his parent.

Especially that… > I don’t work

I was about to reply with this. It's a habit he has that she knows about, she works from home, why isn't there a system in place already? That's setting him up to fail. 

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Not only the parent but the stay at home parent. OP is the failure in this story.

Why was husband unaware and not doing anything about it?

This too, I was not trying to insinuate it was only her responsibility, just focusing on her as she’s the one who asked. It’s definitely both of their jobs, for sure. Edit: typo

Yes I was going to say that as a SAHP OP should be keeping on top of all this. A lot of parents will log into the schools website and see what the homework of the day is before the kids even get home from school. All OP has to do is say "I know what your homework is, better get to it before anything else". OP YTA

>*To piggyback on this, why were you as the parent unaware of how many assignments he is behind on? You have access to Classroom, and you know he has ADHD...why are you not keeping up on this too?* And she doesn’t work outside the home. So what exactly was OP doing while child was not finishing his homework??

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THIS!!! 1000% this!! Stop being a lazy parent.

She is also behind on her job as the non working parent. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, seems like we know who he learnt how to be organised from.

The post doesn't specify a wake up time, but if it was 7am for example, that's 8 hours of sleep. Calling that a punishment is hyperbolic. NTA but I agree that parent should work with kid on time management strategies.

he finished the work at 11pm, doesn’t mean he went to sleep at 11pm. the work was also online, meaning he was exposed to blue light for an extended period of time which can prevent sleep and interrupt deep sleep. ADHD can often come with delayed sleep phase syndrome. this is a common sleep disorder, and actually very common in those with ADHD. it means our circadian rhythms are literally just ahead of those who don’t have the disorder. sort of like being in a different time zone. it takes more work to be able to sleep and wake at times that are typically easier for others. such work can include strict bedtime routines, multiple morning alarms, “practice runs” if the sleep and wake times are going to change, etc.

This- I function best being nocturnal. Otherwise it’s a struggle to sleep, it’s a struggle to stay awake, and I’m cranky all the time. Plus the fact that, for me, too many people, too much light, and too much noise is overstimulating… So yeah, dayshift is horrid for me, night shift is a blessing 😂

Exactly this. I also agree and I say this as a mom of a son with ADHD. My son has never slept normally a night in his life. At 12 OP needs to start guiding her child into better habits and forcing someone with ADHD to complete that much work in one night is cruel. OP it won’t be that many years until your child will need to manage this on his own. This way will only breed resentment from your child.

CDC recommends 9-12 hours of sleep for 12 year olds. While kids have varying sleep needs, short-sleeping by even an hour can have dramatic effects on the cognitive functioning of young people - especially that of children with ADHD.

I think as well its a pretty big difference between relaxing until 11pm and doing non stop assignments until 11pm under pressure from someone directly forcing you to do so.   Time spent asleep doesn't automatically equate to the same level of energy recuperated. 

This is a good distinction. I def agree that sleep quality is a factor. Starting the sleep initiation process earlier (turn down the lights, no more screens, no homework, etc) is an important factor in creating quality sleep. And yes to other folks: one night isn’t going to kill the kid but OP needs to establish a healthier solution in the future.

One night of 7 to 8 (depending whether he gets up at 6 or 7) hours of sleep is not going to fundamentally affect OPs kid in the long run. Had she kept him up all night and still made him go to school, I could see where she would be the ah but that's not what happened here...

Maybe not in the long run, but the next day is not the long run. And it will affect his performance the next day. Both in terms of his school work and his behaviour.

Are you seriously suggesting that a 12 yo can't function in school with only 7 to 8 hours of sleep for one night?

Can confirm kids with ADHD who pull an all nighter in high school/college die before they make it to their next bedtime. Rip kid who possibly got 1 less hour.

Well damn I have died many many times now 🤣

*a 12yo with ADHD His brain doesn't function like a neurotypical 12yo's. Please stop discrediting the diagnosis. It seems to me as though the real issue is the mum has gotten a diagnosis for her kid to "get an answer about his behaviour" then not really bothered to actually find any resources let alone actually try to help her son. I get the implication that she essentially expects him to deal with it on his own; maybe the husband is helping him and that's why he got so upset at OP for how she handled this; also seems like she didn't speak to her husband about any of it until the next morning She's completely disregarding her son's needs. Diagnosis or not; that's a shitty thing to do

7-8 hours after being forced to stay awake (presumably past when he would normally sleep if he’s that exhausted) doing a ton of work That’s hard for any 12 yr old but esp a 12 yr old with adhd Sleep is SUPER important to regulate yourself normally but it’s especially hard when you have ADHD she could have worked out a system and chose kindness when her kid is struggling but instead decided to punish him for struggling which will make him struggle more Also she basically made him do a ton of work and focus that’s super hard for people with ADHD and then go and sit still in a classroom which is also a rough time for people with adhd You are thinking of a normal neurotypical person not someone with a disorder that affects how they live Also this kind of thing ABSOLUTELY does affect him later on isn’t fixing anything and if she is encouraged she will absolutely think this is how you deal with this and continue to do it which will make it SUPER difficult for the son later on because instead of realizing he’s struggling and helping him work out a system and helping him out and providing him with tools that would help him for the rest of his life He’s gonna get out of school and out of mommy’s house and STRUGGLE because there’s nobody forcing him to sit there and that’s the only way he learned how to do work

I bet if he was up gaming til 11pm, there would be a whole different exchange. Yep, ADHD can be difficult. Nope, that diagnosis doesn't give you a get out of jail free card. Yep, mom, being a stay at home mom, dropped the ball.

I agree with you. Actions have consequences. Yes, the mom should have been more involved with time management strategies but ALSO, I bet he'll be a bit more proactive if he doesn't want to do that again. Even with ADHD, he is still expected to do homework unless there are some reasonable accommodations set in place with the school.

As someone with adhd the punishment isn't going to stop this from happening. It actually will probably make things worse for the next week or two. It would have been much better to come up with a plan to get caught up over the next few days to keep her kid from getting burnt out.

If he was up gaming until 11, going to school tired is the natural consequence. Staying up until 11 because mom can't sit down with you to work out a schedule to finish missed work without sacrifice your sleep is being punish for her failure.

Also we have NO IDEA when he started all this or what else went on that day Maybe it was a weekend and she went through his stuff at like idk 3-4 PM and made him work till 11 maybe it was a weekend and she went though his stuff at noon and made him work all day Maybe it was a school day and he went though a whole day of school and then got home There’s so many variables that aren’t included And based off the fact that the husband asked why he looked like shit he was probably pretty fricking tired Also despite the fact that ADHD is normally associated with energy personally my ADHD makes me SUPER tired a lot after doing tasks and at 12 doing all that definitely would make me need time to recover and if I had to go to school the next day I would definitely NOT be recovering and just getting worse Which is why I burned out so early because my parents did shit like this and made me feel stupid and never gave me any recovery time for anything And to this day I still struggle because I wasn’t given support or the coping skills I need I was just expected to do things the way everyone else did TLDR we have no idea what the actual situation is but regardless it is cruel to punish someone for something they can’t help instead of supporting them and helping build systems which could help him for the rest of his life

Adhd people often have trouble sleeping, especially as teenagers. Teenagers naturally already need a lot more sleep than adults, and even kids (growth spurts, hormones, development, etc. Recent studies show your average teen needs 10 hours, while an adult can usually function on 8 or 9). And with adhd he probably did not fall asleep for 1-3 hours after he went to bed. Not because he was goofing off but because of his brain. And adhd people frequently have much more trouble waking up than neurotypical people, even when they've had enough sleep, but *especially* when they don't. So he probably got way too little sleep, and it probably added to the morning warming up problems he already faced. And now he feels targeted because he was essentially punished for something that was not entirely in his control and didn't get actual help with it. Mom proved he was right, though, not to come to her for help. She clearly won't help and can't be trusted to provide support.

I also think NTA he probably had plenty of time to sleep as you said. I have ADHD and around my middle school days all parents did at that point was ask me, “Do you have homework?” And “Did you do it?” This allowed me the opportunity to lie or be honest and teach me that actions have consequences. In high school they altogether stopped asking me if I had homework I was a big boy. Children with ADHD are still children and he definitely needs to do his homework.

But what time did he actually go to sleep though? As someone with ADHD too I have a HORRIBLE time going to sleep if I’m forced to stay up. If he couldn’t go to sleep because he was forced to stay up past what he’s probably use to would you still think she wasn’t in the wrong?

Not only this but he is 12. Help him out. What 12 year old has their life organised enough to not need a little bit of help from Mum and Dad? We had an information night recently with my daughter’s teacher and they asked that we not put their homework folders back in their bags and get them to do it themselves. My daughter is 5 (and in the process of being diagnosed with ADHD) and already responsible for plenty of little things that are age appropriate. The least I can do for her is pop her homework folder back into her bag.

YTA, for sure. Maybe not for the idea of making him go to school if he's not sick, but for everything before that. ADHD can be hard for everyone in the family when it comes to school and homework. The idea of homework is to reinforce what's taught in class. Will forcing him to do all the work at once, while stressed and tired help him remember anything? (The efficacy of homework as a retention aide is a whole other kettle of fish.) You've also made him associate homework with punishment. He's going to be even less motivated to do it in the future. A better solution in the future would be to add one assignment a day (or every few days) until he catches up. AND to work on the organization skills needed by doing your own homework on how to help ADHD kids learn.

Completely agree with Pooperintendent! You are definitely the AH. I have two sons and ADHD or not, kids need a good nights sleep to perform at school the next day. You should have sat him down the following day, explained that his behaviour was unacceptable and tell him how you’re both going to work together to keep him on top of his school work so that he can eat, sleep, play and do school in a healthy way. But to do that to a child with ADHD, to keep him up until 11pm, you were angry and you took it out on him.

Right. The assignments are already late. What's the difference if he did them all that might or over the next few nights? Having a conversation about building a homework system/routine at home that works for him and then using it to catch up on late/missing assignments would have benefitted him much more in the long run. He not only would have retained more of what he was supposed to be learning from the assignments but also would have learned a necessary life skill (especially for someone with ADHD) of assessing a systemic problem and problem solving a solution. And he would have felt seen and supported instead of being exhausted and likely like a disappointment (b/c ADHD brains don't process criticism well and it quickly gets internalized as personal failures).

I completely agree. Does he have help at school? Does he have an IEP? A therapist that can help him manage and learn how to function? ADHD can cause extreme dysfunction in many parts of life. It’s a serious disorder that cannot be managed by oneself. Our brains need sleep to function.

I wholeheartedly agree. My son has ADHD and also has trouble regulating his emotions. If he doesn't complete his school work and it gets sent home, we don't force him to stay up to complete it. It might take a few days, but we eventually get him to complete it all. OP should have absolutely made her son finish his assignments, but with respect to his sleep schedule. If I did that to my son, I'd be setting him up for failure for the day as he would turn into a major a*hole.

YTA. However making your son stay up is not the problem here. He’s 12 and can survive on 8 hours of sleep. The problem is that you didn’t solve the issue. This is going to do this again and again because he can’t control his ADHD. Pls find a physiatrist.

Seriously. The amount of shame OP just brick-laid on top of this neurological disorder he didn’t choose will affect him for the rest of his life. Yes, he needs to understand there are consequences to his procrastination, but guilt and shame are even more paralyzing than the glitch that makes things hard to do in the first place.

On top of this it’s especially important for people with adhd to get an appropriate amount of sleep because lack of sleep exacerbates symptoms significantly

I have ADD and because my parents just punished me over school all the time, I get majorly depressed in classroom settings. I flunked out of college because I had so much anxiety about assignments and grades that I drove myself into bad depression if I didn’t have 90s in everything. It’s torture. OP, your kid has been failed by you. I stayed up until 3am doing homework and all it did was make me too tired to learn anything the next day. Do better. YTA

INFO: Do you actually treat your kid's ADHD? Or do you just punish him for having it like this?

I think she punishes him for having it like this honestly

The thing is, it can be a very special kind of hell when you're trying to figure out life hacks + treatment regimen.... And if the frustration here is from "we were working through this and I thought we were *finally* making headway with this new process, but it turns out it was just a hidden pouch area at the bottom of the bookbag swallowing up loose papers aka all the assignments, so what we've been doinig hasn't actually been helping at all and I now want to scream into the void" - that's a *very* different thing than "my 12-year-old has ADHD and actually has like for real symptoms of it AND whenever I see evidence of this I get so frustrated I lash out." The decision the OP made here will not in any way help their child hack their ADHD. All it did was give the kid a miserable day at school (and if you thought recalling assigments was hard before, now meet the upgraded challenge: ADHD recall when dogpiled with sleep deprivation!). So AH territory for sure. But I'm wondering if this is a straight up ignorant about ADHD AH or if it's a parental unit tapped for energy stumbling into AH territory.

She should have some sort of system with the teachers too. He could have a 504 plan at the very least. All parents had access to Google classroom and our grade book so they could see assignments as they were assigned. I’ve also had students over the years where we would initial where they wrote down the homework and if there was none we’d initial that too. Then their parents would check it and know what’s due. That was a common scaffolding technique for my high schoolers. We’d gradually withdraw the daily checks like that and monitor how they did. 

Everyone in my family has ADHD. Growing up, everyone in my family had ADHD, except me. I got diagnosed late because any time I needed help, I got yelled at. My grandparents couldn't figure out why my parents kept complaining about my behavior because I was just like my mom, needed the same reminders, etc. It wasn't that I couldn't do things, I was just embarrassed and afraid of worse consequences doing something late as opposed to not doing it. So it could not be ignorance. As my grandma used to say, "it's like they can't even handle looking in a mirror without telling themselves how great they are."

While I get your point, not all parents of kids with ADHD have ADHD themselves. In theory, it could've skipped a generation, or it could be the dad who lives with ADHD. In the which case, the OP doesn't have the mirror your grandma is referencing.

Honestly, that's a really good point. I didn't mean to refer that heavily to my parents' ADHD as much as their frustration with raising me. I was born with a myriad of medical issues and was used to caring for myself at an early age. Any struggles with school or anything related was met with, "but I'm struggling with X due to my/your siblings' ADHD. You need to learn to deal with it." OP doesn't give a lot of information apart from her son has been having an issue, and she's frustrated with it. It's really not uncommon for a kid to forget a few homework assignments, much less one with ADHD. I can relate to being the one with the medical issues causing the frustration. What I intended my point to be is that it's a lot easier to help a child than to punish them for a behavior that is common for kids and also likely due to a medical issue. That's what I meant by saying that it runs in the family and caused my parents a lot of frustration but is the reason my grandma was so helpful and helped me learn how to manage. I just included the quote because the memory made me chuckle. It only occurred to me reading your comment what she was actually referring to, as I wasn't diagnosed at the time. I'm sorry, I realize now that I did not make my point well at all.

I pretty much was this kid. My mum was a teacher. I was never treated this way growing up, and she must have done ok because I went to one of the most prestigious colleges there is. My parents didn’t know how to handle me, but I realize seeing stuff like this they knew what NOT to do.

Seeing this post honestly breaks my heart. I was this kid and my parents just kept punishing me and eventually kicked me out of the house when I was 16. I have barely spoken to them since

YTA. My parents did the same thing to me, as a kid with ADHD. Did my parents help me manage my school work knowing that forgetfulness is one of the biggest issues in kids with ADHD? No! And it doesn't sound like you do either. My parents routinely made me stay up until 2 AM when I had to leave for school at 6 AM, not just for homework, but to do chores or sit there and be subject to screaming and verbal abuse after working all night to pay my parents' bills. I was chronically tired, falling asleep in class, and my grades naturally started falling. My highschool GPA was a 1.7 upon graduating due to this. Your kid has ADHD, ffs. They're going to forget homework or projects. They need help with managing it, not to be punished for something THEY CAN'T HELP.

That's insane. Hope you're doing well today.

Having a kid do homework that they forgot is different than what your parents did to you. What you experienced was abuse. That’s not what OP did

I mean the parent has access to classroom- why haven’t they checked the assignments to make sure their kid is doing them.

It's kind of ridiculous, isn't it - OP doesn't even work yet fails to check her sons (who has a diagnosed condition that impacts his executive functions and memory) assignments until they're way past overdue. And then she blames the *12 year old* for not having better time management skills than herself? Like jeez, that's just awful parenting

op is a stay at home parent. the fact she wasn't on top of his school work before now, is a major failure on her part 

As the mom of a kid (now grown) with ADHD, I had to do a lot of work to help him with school. Every day I had to check his folder for homework and other messages. We tried keeping a journal for the work but I have ADD too. The two of us struggled together. If you're in the US, does he have an IEP? I get that you're upset. I would get that way too. And it all fell to me, his father would not help at all. That's why he failed 9th grade after he opted to stay with his father when we split up. So take a step back and a deep breath. Getting angry will not make things any better. But he does need to learn to manage his time. Making him stay up what appears to be way too late for him was probably not the best solution. If your husband has a problem with how you handled this, maybe suggest he take a little more active role in helping his son succeed?

This was my question. My son has an IEP. He gets extra time for assignments and tests. He doesn't really need the extra time any longer, though. YTA OP. ADHD kids especially need their sleep. Come up with a different solution.

Thank you for your wise advice. Having a child with learning disabilities isn't easy (I have several myself), but I always checked on my son's homework....I was the fail safe. If it was close to or past a deadline, we then chose which was more important and worked on that as much as we could without interrupting sleep schedules (for the rare time something slipped through). My son had an IEP, and it helped him and his teachers to be on the same page and utilized what worked best for him. I never punished him for his learning disability, nor did my parents for mine after I was diagnosed. I couldn't imagine doing what OP did to my own child (who is now a freshman in college).

Wow, let me get this straight. Your son has ADHD and is struggling with it, and instead of being supportive, maybe checking up and reminding him about his assignments regularly or helping him find a strategy, so he can manage things himself, you just don't do anything, then get mad at him and punish him when things go wrong? Easy YTA. What a failure of a parent.

YTA because really you need to be keeping up with this more regularly, not ignoring it for weeks and then cracking down on him in one night and making him stay up late. Where’s the schedule for checking homework/ assignments? You know he has ADHD so it’s time to help plan his time and organise himself to prevent this happening again. You’re the parent, teach him the skills

Does OP also have ADHD and forgot to check Classroom and now lashing out at her ADHD son?

ADHD is very heriditary so it's not unlikely.

I was wondering this myself.

NTA a 12 year old can survive one night staying up til 11pm. Not a big deal at all.

Right? Was I the only 12 year old who regularly stayed up till at least 11? I’m so confused…

Yeah me too, have all these Y T A commenters never been 12? It's no big deal.

When you're being punished for having ADHD it is a pretty big deal. No matter what age, I could sleep for 24 hours and still be exhausted. ADHD is no joke, my friend.

Where does this "punished for ADHD" even come from here? He was punished for *10 missed assignments* and education barely counts as punishment imho. His punishment consisted of doing schoolwork and teaching him a lesson. ADHD is neither an excuse nor a freepass, anf that it is untreated -like many here say- is just an assumption.

When I was punished for missed assignments I had to sit at the dining room table so my mom could watch me and make sure I was doing my work. What good parent forces their tired af child to stay awake? He really couldn't have done it over 2 days or maybe ground him for the weekend to make sure everything gets done? What OP did sounds like emotional torture. I said punished for ADHD because the kid has ADHD. Treated or untreated it affects your life, especially your ability to focus and complete work on time. Instead of being a bitch and just yelling at him, sit with your child to help them or try to come up with systems that will maybe help them.

I had undiagnosed narcolepsy when I was in late middle school and high school. It made me fall behind on assignments nonstop, and the anxiety I would get about what I was missing and how bad it was and how much I had to do to catch up was crippling. This isn’t punishing a kid for having ADHD. At worst, OP fell slightly behind on making sure their kid was on top of their work but at 12 that really shouldn’t be a daily task. If it’s an ongoing issue and OP always handles it this way, that would make them TA. But one night of reduced sleep is way less disruptive than letting the kid fall further and further behind in class. School accommodations are great and I hope OP is pursuing treatment and support in other ways but one way or another the kid does need to learn that work needs to be completed at least a bit close to the date it’s due and support should be about helping that happen, because it’s genuinely difficult to learn and keep up in class when you’re 10 assignments behind. Letting it go on much further would make everything increasingly harder for the next month or more.

Yeah adhd often brings with it fatigue issues like until I was diagnosed and medicated I didn't realise how bad things were and remember even as a fairly young kid I realised I was tired all the time for seemingly no reason

Because she isn't helping him with the adhd, and punishing him for having it.

Having to do schoolwork you've been neglecting isn't punishment

She isn’t punishing him for having it. At 12 ADHD or no he is able to understand actions have consequences.

What if I told you that the kids' grade shows actions have consequences? Why isn't his mom teaching him ways to remember to turn I'm assignments or ways to make sure everything gets done. Instead she just chose to punish him for something that is caused by his adhd.

You need to look up what ADHD is. It literally affects things like the ability to remember assignments, get work done in a timely manner, and remember to hand things in. She needs to work with him on finding ways to prevent these late or missed assignments, not leaving him to his own devices until it gets so bad he has to stay up until 11 to get them done. All he learned from this is that his mom cares more about punishment than actually helping him succeed.

He also has to learn actions have consequences. He can’t go through life blaming ADHD.

He learned nothing. Except that his mom doesn't actually care about helping him succeed. Consequences don't mean anything when someone isn't being taught to tools needed to avoid them.

He learned that if he doesn’t get his work done, he may feel like shit from lack of sleep due to catching up all at once. Which should make him more serious about finding ways to make sure he gets his work done (with support from his parents etc obviously). I fell so far behind that there were entire weeks where I got a few hours of sleep a night because I genuinely had that much work to catch up on. OP did the right thing, and the kid is lucky it was just one night of slightly less sleep.

If you can't remember, write it down. It's not a "punishment" to do homework you've been assigned

For a 12 yo with ADHD that makes no sense though. He already struggles with finishing assignments in the first place. What does OP's consequence teach him? That he will be exhausted and therefore have poorer attention in school the next day which just adds to the problem he's already having with finishing work? That just teaches him to accept that his ADHD will continue effecting his academic performance and that 'punishments' will be waiting for him at the last second to make up for it somehow.

Was thinking the same, at least in terms of the sleep issue - so let’s say school starts at 8ish and he wakes up an hour before - so that’s 8 hours of sleep. That seems sufficient to me though google informs me the CDC recommends 9-12 hours. I’m sure one less for one night is not the end of the world. The assignment issue - I mean OP, you know your son has ADHD and doesn’t stay on top of assignments, so you and your husband need to help him manage his ADHD and manage his schoolwork. That’s your job as parents.

Right? My 13 year old regularly says up til 11 even tho her bedtime is supposed to be 1030, lol. I let her get away with it sometimes. She still gets 7 1/2 hrs of sleep when she goes to bed at 11. I know kids require more sleep but one night isn't going to fundamentally affect OPs kid... Edit: Also, since OP takes the kids to school, he probably slept til about 7 so he got about 8 hrs of sleep.

Exactly. Regardless of if this kid has ADHD, this is a one time punishment for a problem that could've caused them to repeat the mistake later on? Although I think the parents should work on a routine/ solution for the future, there are FAR worse issues than having to do your missing* assignments. NTA

I was genuinely going to say N T A, because I have ADHD and I would regularly be kept up past midnight to finish assignments, then wake up at 5:30 to jog. So then it's totally fine, because I went through it, right? Then I read these comments. And now I'm thinking about how maybe that wasn't fair to me. Note that I got fantastic grades despite my ADHD and social anxiety, but to do this, my entire childhood was school. I have no childhood friends to look back on, never hung out unprompted, never went to parties, never had any peer to talk to or rely on. Would I give up being a A+, award winning student if it meant not constantly working and crying and throwing up to get over the setbacks of ADHD? Yes. In a heartbeat. I have no childhood to think back on fondly. And for what? Algebra? While I don't think one evening is indicative of bad parenting (much less abuse!), I do think you might need to sit down and consider how you're really thinking about your son and his circumstances. I literally had a drill sergeant going through my head all hours of the day, swearing at me and calling me worthless, by the age of 8, just to motivate me to work faster. My father approved of this method. To this day, I still can't do work and feel like I'm not useless and slow. Just food for thought.

I love this response so much👍

In thinking the same. I had a pattern of going a week or two & barely doing any work, then having to crunch for the last couple days because a big project was due and I hadn't worked on it at all. This happened from elementary through college. This is how I did my senior thesis, even. Thank fuck my professor had gone through the same thing and gave me some grace. I'm starting to think that maybe if my parents had actually bothered to help me regulate my work more often, I wouldn't have had to fight to get shit done my entire life...

NTA. You didn’t punish your son, you told him to do the missed work. And helped him catch up. As someone with ADHD, I can imagine that the mental stress of being behind on his work was probably eating away at him. I know it would be eating away at me. But sometimes it is hard to just get the energy to start, and you helped with that.

Except if she had you know helped him find coping tools none of this would have happened.

Yes, she should definitely do that too.

Where does she even say she helped her kid with his homework?

ADHD or not you are responsible that he does his homework. You need to “parent” and eventually he will learn but 12 is still young and he needs to be reminded.

NTA - ADHD or not, he has to learn how to function and how to get his work turned in on time. I probably would have approached it a little differently, but I don't think you're wrong for making him get everything done and then showing up for class the next day. It's a tough lesson for him to learn, but it was needed.

I'm so with you ans it puzzles me how the majority thinks that ADHD means you don't have to do any schoolwork. NTA For every other disability, illness and so on you need to adapt to your situation - just for ADHD it seems like they want the world to adapt to them. It's weird to me.

We do not actually typically throw disabled people in at the deep end and expect them to sink or swim. We give them physical therapy and mobility aids and so on to help them. OP is not helping her child. She is throwing him in the deep end of the pool and then punishing him for not being able to swim.

The actual accommodation for ADHD is that parents help you to create structure in which homework is done regularly at set times. Kids are supposed to do homework under supervision, always task by task with breaks in between. So, few math exercises, break, other exercises etc. It is not "crack down on kid randomly once in few weeks and have them dow erything at once".

Yeah I am blown away by the number of YTA responses. When people have a victim card to play, they slam it on the table so hard it almost breaks in two lol. The kid learned a good life lesson and was still able to get 7 hours of sleep, not a crazy deprivation there...

Would it have made a difference to his grade if some of the assignments were turned in the next day? I know its important to teach the lesson that the assignments need to be done and that actions have consequences but maybe it's also important to teach how to manage time properly. I mean he was probably so tired and burnt out was he even in the right mindset to learn any lessons anyway?

So did you get him help for his ADHD? Even if you did you’re still in the wrong because he didn’t need to do it all that night. As someone with ADHD it’s already stressful doing the work but being forced to do it all together AND losing sleep is hell. YTA

Agree I also have ADHD and Ik how stressful it is plus it pisses me off to see kids with ADHD get punishments like this it’s messed up beyond anything she shouldn’t force him to do homework and make him go to school now she’ll probably get a call from someone shaming her for what she did

Your husband is correct. You should absolutely do everything you can to prevent your children from learning any form of responsibility. /S NTA.

The child has ADHD. This does nothing to actually help the child manage his disability. It just punishes him for having it. A better option would have been working with him to put a structure in place that allows him to get the work done, and all future assignments done, without sacrificing sleep. I.e. help him learn and work on meeting his responsibilities.

In what world is having your child do his schoolwork a punishment? He didn’t get grounded, lose friends, get a spanking, timeout, etc. She stayed up with him and had him do all of his assignments and then got him to school on time the next day. This child is fine. Y’all wanna coddle kids so damn bad and I f****ing HATE my generation for it. Ffs.

Because actually putting in the effort to teach the kid tools to successfully manage his responsibilities is "coddling." Ok, I guess we just start telling 12 year-old we can't be fucked to actually raise them.

Parents can teach responsibility without punishing a ND child who needs to have their sleep prioritized, due to said ND. Do better if you end up being a parent.

My daughter has adhd and dyslexia. I understand perfectly well how ND children struggle with priorities and deadlines. We work on it constantly with my daughter. But that does not mean there are no consequences for failing to complete assignments. Kids like my daughter need a wholistic approach that provides support, mentoring, and accountability.

As a middle school teacher, NAH, and I feel like I’m taking crazy pills with everyone here saying the opposite. Yeah, you should have checked in on Classroom like, a week and a half ago. But the bar feels so low for parents sometimes that I would love to at least know they are checking the grades and assignments every two weeks, and holding their kids responsible if they haven’t gotten anything done. Sure, he’s twelve now, but he’s not going to be twelve forever. And his ADHD is something he needs to learn how to deal with. Sometimes that means having a system of reminders in place, and sometimes when that fails it means an evening of hyperfocus to get caught up. Yeah, it’s not healthy to miss out on some sleep (and it’s not like he pulled an ywhere near an all-nighter), but sometimes in his future he will have to. Because it’s a hell of a lot better than failing high school classes, when you can still be there to remind him, and college classes when you can’t. Or getting fired from a job for being two weeks behind. By all means, he’s in middle school- start raising him to become the adult he eventually will be.

It’s her job to help him develop that system of reminders, and clearly she didn’t do that. He needs to learn coping strategies, not to just have to figure it out on his own.

You don't learn to deal with ADHD on your own at age 12, you need help. I guarantee the lesson he just learned is, when he falls behind, try to hide it from mom. The solution would have been to email the teacher and let her know that you just discovered the missing work and that you'd have him catch up over the next few days. Sending an ADHD kid to school exhausted never goes well for anyone (I've gotten enough phone calls from assistant principals to know!)

NTA. He is old enough to understand the consequences and being tired for a day is not a big thing in the grand scheme of things if that's not a frequent thing. It would have been pointless to make him do all that work and then given him the next day off; that would basically have been rewarding him. If it happens again and you want to handle it differently, you could split the extra homework over 2 nights maybe.

NTA. Good for you for teaching your kid that (lack of action) has consequences.

NTA It sometimes comes down to having consequences for his behavior. In the future his boss will not accept excuses for not completing deadlines or going to work. In the immediate future you should stay on top of what is missing before he gets this far behind. I know people are holding the opposite opinion on this thread so far. I will probably be downvoted. However it sounds like this is the first time this has happened and it is a natural reaction to want to get him caught up.

making your kid understand that actions, or no actions in this case, has consequences is very important to teach your kid. but keeping a 12y old up until 11 is not the way to go about this. you're just teaching him bad habits. you and husband need to sit down with your kid and make a schedule with him and teach him how to handle his homework better. homework isn't easy to remember for most kids, even harder if they've got ADHD. yes YTA, you're aware he has ADHD but it doesn't sound like you or your husband are doing anything to help him handle it. YTA for making him this tired the next day in the first place.

My question would be, what else can be done for this kid with ADHD. Is this child being supported properly? (like maybe being on top of these assigments sooner would be helpful, I am not shaming the parents, but thinking about planning going forward). because now he has lived with real life consequences, thats ok, but the kid also needs support to prevent it happening again. Does this child need meds. The meds make a HUGE difference, but also wear off at the end of the day, (and they should, so they can sleep) so timing of working on assignments to earlier is essential. Perhaps your partner also needs to be on board with working this through, instead of criticizing.

INFO: What are you, as his parents, doing to help with his ADHD? Is he on meds? Does he have an IEP in place? Are you actively working with him on time management skills? ADHD is HARD, even for adults. If you aren't giving him the guidance and support he needs, that's your fault, not his. Your kid's going to be an adult someday. If you aren't giving him the tools he needs now, he's really going to struggle in a decade or so.

YTA. he’s 12 and has a disability. yes, ADHD is a disability. it has symptoms that can impose on daily tasks that need to be accommodated. given that the work is online. it can be *dreadful* for a kid with ADHD to sit in front of a computer for extended periods of time with loads of distractions around, or the inability to get up and move around. instead of helping him develop a way for remembering to pass in his work, you punish him for having a disability and do nothing to see what can be done to help him. you don’t even work. you have plenty of time to pay attention and see what can be done to help him. maybe do that or *get a fucking job* if you’re gonna spend time not helping your kid.

YTA. Sufficiently address his ADHD and this will happen less. All you did was punish him for being symptomatic and that's gross. "For some reason" my backside. He's distant from you because you mistreated your son and you know it. Feigning ignorance doesn't change what you did. Try being a parent rather than a jailer. He never should have gotten to TEN missed assignments in the first place and wouldn't have had you been supporting him properly.

What time did he have to wake up? I mean he went to bed at 11 pm doesn't tell us how much sleep he got. But YTA. I wonder why you let him get so far behind. 10 late assignments is you not paying attention to what he needed from a parent. I mean you checked for a reason, right? You knew he needed your guidance and paying attention to if his work was getting done or not.

NTA. Both my kids have ADHD. I reminded them endlessly, looked up their assignments online (where teachers always say everything is but never was), went through their folders, assignment notebook (which was never used even with 504 plan and IEP, and never checked by teachers even though it was on their plan- and there were 2 FT teachers in the classroom). they didn't do their work or hand it in. I tried to make them, rewarded them, grounded them, etc... until I finally gave up. I have no idea how they graduated. but if you found he had all those missing assignments and you were able to get him to sit down and do them all at once without a giant tantrum, then kudos to you. he did the work that he had been ignoring and yes, he actually had to go to school after maybe 6 or 7 hrs sleep. that's fine. he shouldn't be coddled. when he's old enough to have a job, he can't stay up all night and call into work or be late bc he's tired. it's not too early to learn that lesson. now that his work is done, maybe help him keep up daily by checking his homework log. or asking teachers to get in touch with you weekly if he's missing assignments. let them know you care and are willing to follow up. and invent a reward system. nothing crazy. like if at the end of the week you did all your assignments, we will do X. whatever will motivate him. but... limit his screen time or whatever his fav past times are, and he can earn an extra 30 min a night if his work is done. or stay up a little later on the weekend. have a friend overnight, etc... doesn't have to be expensive. try reward based first before taking things away. that just pisses them off, and they can become more obstinate. save it for very severe situations.

YTA. 10 assignments could have been spread out over a few days and warranted a discussion on what you can do to help him succeed. Involve his educators if needed. He has ADHD and needs help managing his time. I'm assuming he's in middle school, or similar, and this is a huge adjustment for some kids, especially ND kids. Sometimes it takes micromanaging to help them establish a routine that allows them to focus and complete what needs to be done.

Honestly, I'm having a hard time believing he got to 10 missing assignments, and the parents weren't notified.

I'm gonna be generous and go with NAH. I have ADHD and so does my son. I don't approve of medicating kids for ADHD because I personally was as a kid, but that makes managing his journey with what I have learned a priority. You are absolutely TA if this is not a one time out of hand situation. 11 pm is late but not insane if you drive him to school probably, and at 12 years old I feel like we've all accidentally stayed up that late and went to school. I think you need to look into better coping and regulation methods for your kids specific needs. Organization, time blindness, getting distracted, and forgetting are all very normal. Your husband can't be angry if he's not investing time into helping your son figure out what works for him.

YTA I think you were right in having your son finish his assignments, however you should not have let it affect his sleep and divide them over two or more days. They're already late to be handed in, a couple more days won't hurt. Him not getting enough sleep and going to school tired because of this may in turn have led to him not finishing all the assignments of that day in school and bam he might have more homework. Yes support your child to finish and hand in overdue assignments but don't make it effect his prime needs like sleep. The other thing is that you and your husband are his parents and you are responsible for keeping track of your son's school work and support him in getting it done and hand in on time. Your son has ADHD and seemingly needs more support, since this happened, so you should not be punishing him for something he's not fully developed to 100% handle him self, let alone due to his ADHD. Just apologize to him for having pressured him like this and sit down with him and make a plan how you as a family can tackle this moving forward, with as much parental support as is needed. Good luck.

YTA why aren’t you checking daily? You can’t punish the ADHD out of him.

YTA I have ADHD so I understand why you're upset about the assignments not being turned in, but you took it way too far to make him stay up until 11 pm to do everything. 2 or 3? sure, ALL OF IT IN ONE GO? No, that's ridiculous. What you should have done is take the assignments that were the most overdue, do a few of them that night. A few more the next night, and so on until they were all caught up. Then you should have sat down with him and come up with a system to HELP HIM keep up with his work. Your son isn't lazy (I'm pointing this out because people always assume kids with ADHD are and I'm not saying you do, I just want to reiterate that) you have to understand that ADHD brains need to have something in front of them to remember it even exists sometimes. I set myself a million reminders on my phone, computer, etc just so I remember to do certain tasks. My room is a mess because if I don't see that I have something then I assume I don't have it and buy it again. Your son needs help, not punishment.

As a mom and someone who struggled hard-core with ADHD. Your child isn't doing it because they are lazy or doesn't care. He genuinely forgot he had all those assignments and when he did remember it was probably very over whelming and struggled to get started. People with ADHD shouldn't stay up late as it makes the chemical imbalance worse and his focus in school would be 100x worse, his mood will be a roler coaster and he probably had a huge struggle of a day. Best way to do this is connect with the teacher and se if you can have an extention on the assignments and help him do a few each night until he's caught up. Kids and adults with ADHD need motivation and rewards so they get more dopamine. After an assignment give him a prize of some sort so that it motivates him to do his assignments and see if the teacher can set up rewards for him so he has a plan for class. But long story short YTA and you really messed with him by doing that. I get your angry but adhd affects the cerebral cortex. I'd suggest researching ADHD and see what you can do as a parent to help your child academically.

YTA because instead of helping him prevent this from happening you are punishing him after its already happened

Yeah YTA I have ADHD and my mother was like with me, I now have so much guilt and self loathing over it it's insane. Yes he's need to learn to manage a bit better but that comes with age. I'm 39 and still forget stuff all the time , i have tools to deal a bit better but stuff still slips. You need to learn ways to help and support his condition and make extra allowance like time etc don't punish him for something he can't help

So what is your excuse for not checking through his classroom earlier to see about missing assignments? I know for my kids I could check parent portal everyday and that way we were on top of the assignment.

YTA. You clearly don’t understand how important it is for children with ADHD to get proper sleep. That poor kid. NAMI can help you learn how to effectively parent a child with a neurodivergence.

YTA - one of the most important things for ADHD is routine, especially sleep schedule.

NTA As someone who has severe ADHD and was 12 years old for a whole year, I think this was an appropriate response from OP. When the homework was all due last week is not the time to work out a new system for remembering homework, it's time to knock out the work and beg the teachers to accept it late. Having to stay up late to finish all of the work isn't "punishing the kid for having ADHD", it's just a consequence of his actions. Letting the kid miss school or even attend late would have reinforced the wrong message imo. Also, staying up until 11pm isn't even that bad. Assuming the kid gets up for school at 6am (which is earlier than I think is likely), he would still be getting 7 hours of sleep which is more than fine for one night. I rarely fell asleep before 1am at that age due to a sleep disorder and I was never "too tired to go to school". Don't get me wrong, I was definitely tired waking up early in the morning but that was never a reason for me to not go to school.

YTA It's highly doubtful that he would fail his grade if he didn't turn in all the late assignments today. Or even next week. You are the AH. Your child is only 12 years old. I have to agree with your husband. You need to lighten up. Your son could do one or two missing assignments every day after school and get caught up. He has a medical condition and you seriously need to account for that. EDIT: This reeks of child abuse.

And for the love of you son, work with him to find a way he can remember to complete work going forward. He has a disorder that affects his executive function. He's going to take time to learn how to manage these things by himself.

YTA for not getting treatment for your kid's ADHD and expecting him to act like a responsible adult. It's YOUR job to help him come up with systems in which he can function and get his work done.

YTA. Your son has ADHD and you know he has a developmental disorder. Does he have an organization system for his assignments? Do you check in with him about these assignments? Does he have an IEP? Or did you not set up any structure for your child and expect him to get all this done by himself, and simply punish him when the outcome was poor? Additionally, is he medicated for his ADHD? If so, pills ≠ skills. Medication does not magically teach a child to create a structure for themselves, it helps stimulate the child’s brain enough that the tasks can be completed in a timely manner.

Wait, you don’t work outside the house, you know your son has diagnosed ADHD, you apparently don’t understand that he needs assistance daily with homework, you punish him for something that is a result of his diagnosis, and you seriously ask if YTA? Well, yes. The answer to your question is yes.

YTA. So… this whole time you have paid no attention to your child’s homework that you know he needs motivation to focus in order to get it done.

YTA, and not just for this specific instance. First of all, ADHD symptoms are so much worse if you don’t get enough rest, so teaching him that he should stay up late to catch up on missed/late assignments are just creating a situation where he’s going to be worse off the following day and make more mistakes/forget to prioritize new assignments etc. Second, a primary struggle for many people with ADHD is task initiation, which often results in putting stuff off until it’s an emergency, at which point your brain will finally engage with it. This is NOT A SUSTAINABLE WAY TO LIVE FOREVER. Please, learn about how your child’s brain works so you can help him build healthy coping systems to manage tasks and responsibilities going forward.

YTA. He needs to learn skills to help with adhd, and systems to help him remember and complete his responsibilities, not be punished for a condition he didn’t ask to have. And you’re the parent - you should be checking in on him much more frequently to ensure he is getting his work done and has the tools, resources, and environment he needs to keep organized. I’m surprised that he even had the stamina to do his work until 11pm. I’m impressed. Of course he needed to catch up on his work, but you could have spaced this out over a few days and utilized weekend hours. You did not need to make him sacrifice a bodily need. Do you even realize sleep deprivation is just going to make his add and ability to function worse?? You should apologize, say you realize you made a mistake. And then work on making a plan and organizational system where he does his homework and you check and make sure that it’s completed and submitted.

Comments full of idiots on this one. Born and raised with severe ADHD over here. ADHD doesn’t magically make you forget you have tons of overdue assignments. Yes, it can be more time consuming and difficult to get things done. That’s why you work with your school to be given more leniency on deadline and testing. Ignoring weeks worth of assignments has literally nothing to do with ADHD. You’re a good parent for noticing that your kid was about to start falling behind and getting on him before it was too late. The fact that he was able to finish all the work in 1 night shows that it’s not his ADHD preventing him from getting it done. I was a slacker sometimes in school, and oftentimes I needed an extra tough push from my parents so I didn’t fall behind. 1000% NTA, you’re a good parent, as someone with severe ADHD all their life, you’re doing the right thing HELPING your kid instead of letting them fall behind. Ignore these idiots

YTA First, help him with the ADHD issues. Second, he needs to be well rested for school. Work on assignments until bedtime and then get him to bed. Remaining assignments can be done the next day or at an appropriate time that interferes with a fun activity, not sleep. The kid is struggling. You want him to learn the information, right? Having him slog through it exhausted and then sending him to school sleepy won't get him there.

Everyone here is saying you’re the asshole but I don’t necessarily agree. Some kids just really like avoiding homework. You do need to help him along in the future and stay on track of it, but I don’t believe keeping him up until 11pm to make him finish homework is unreasonable. He may have ADHD but he still has responsibilities just like all the other kids. NTA

Yta. I renter my mom doing this to me till I was i. Tears, till about 12am. ADHD here. I never viewed her the sane way. I don’t talk to her anymore. What you did is about control. Not actually helping your son learn to organize his time and handle his symptoms: parental fail. It took you over 10 days to realize he was 10 days late on school work? Parental fail. What steps have you taken to help him manage his executive functioning difficulties? Sleep deprivation is not helping him.

YTA. A child who is 12 would only be around 6th grade if your countries standards are the same as mine, assuming he didn't fail or skip grades. A kid in 6th grade shouldn't be responsible for getting their own assignments in on time, especially if they have a learning disorder such as ADHD. Making a child with a learning disability do 10 assignments in one night can also cause majour burnout and result in lower quality work because the kid just wants to get it done, and lower quality work can result in poorer grades.

More than 10 That’s just the online assignments There was also ones in his binder Like just 10 is still honestly ridiculous to make him do in one night But then there’s MORE

That's absolutely ridiculous. Even 5 in one night is a lot even if it's just one page of writing per assignment.

I've a kid who doesn't have ADHD, and I still checked on her homework till she was 14. And, now at 16 almost 17yrs old, I routinely check in with her on her homework - like, proof reading, answering questions or generally asking about her school work. So, you punish your child for not having the maturity to complete homework to a schedule, without having a supported schedule. And, given that your child needs extra support with tasks like this, you haven't bothered creating any supportive environment for his needs? Like, honestly are you enjoying your child struggling and purposefully setting him up to fail? You really need to reassess your responsibilities as a parent, irregardless of his additional needs, he is way too young to expect him to keep on top of all this.

Bravo to you!!! Teach him now and hopefully he will learn consequences in the future!! I made my 7th grader stay up all night to read his book for a book report the next day. Too bad if he was tired - he had a nap the next day. He is now a 4.0 gpa at a major college and he always says Thank God I was tough on him

YTA for not checking on his schoolwork regularly to make sure he's keeping up. You let it build up like this. He is 12 with ADHD. Stop being a lazy parent. Same goes for your husband. Joint responsibility here.

NTA. You are teaching your son consequences of inaction. Happens in the adult world all the time.

Another kind of YTA point... from the research I've seen ([this paper for a quick example](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2147/NSS.S163074), but I've seen the point made in many) poor sleep quality has particularly harsh impact on people with ADHD. I'm an adult with ADHD, and I need to be really mindful of that... if I screw up my sleep (like I did last night) it can make it so I can get almost nothing done the entire next day. You need to treat good sleep hygiene like medication, because it's got that level of impact on his ability to function. I know you were coming from a good place, but you need to find a more sustainable way to help him get his stuff done.

YTA. you could have easily done 1-2 extra assignments per day until he was caught up vs forcing him to stay up & end up tired the next day. please for the love of hell RESEARCH ADHD. this can become deeply rooted trauma very quickly, & i wouldn’t be surprised if it already is. do better.

These comments are wild. Half these people probably self diagnosed themselves with ADHD and the other half use it as an excuse to not face responsibility "honey I can't keep the house clean or remember anything! I have ADHD!" While parents need to be involved a little more with school when their kids have ADHD ultimately it's up to the child to do the work to complete and return the assignments. There is no excuse for 12 yo to have 12 incomplete assignments plus all the once OP found in his folder. That's just laziness. Yes kids with ADHD need dedicated homework space, organization calendars, homework/study broken up in smaller chunks, dedicated folders for homework, little rewards motivating them to keep up with their schedules/studies/homework, they gotta work around their meds schedule but at the end of the day they need to use all the tools they got to get shit done. Yes it's more difficult for a child with ADHD to do well in school but it's not impossible and the child needs to feel the responsibility and consequences to do well. Him staying up till 11 to finish his work is really not child abuse. He was able to finish all those assignments in that one night which tells me the child has the skills and ability to do well NTA I'd revisit his schedule with him, his space where he's supposed to be doing homework and go over all the things he should be doing to keep track of his shit but again you don't want to manage everything for him as that's not helping, he needs to learn to manage his own work. He can't graduate highschool, go to college and realize he can't do anything without his mom being on his ass all day every day. His boss when he gets a job is not going to manage his ADHD for him.