Holy shit this thread is full of holier than thou judgy comments!
I have always been the strict one, no phones at the table, no devices in the room. I taught my daughter to cook, the correct way to clean. I taught her manners.
I learned patience and fortitude as I made her do these things over and over again until they were done right, instead of doing them myself.
My daughter has AuDHD, something that can be a reason but that we never let be an excuse. Part of that disability is struggling with executive function, and you know what? More often than not, she does this same shit. Yes, even at 20 years old.
There are times I needed support and wanted to post similar things somewhere just so someone else could bear witness to how fucking hard it is to raise a kid like that right.
When she was 12 I watched her stand at the sink for I shit you not 6 fucking hours doing the dishes for a family of 3. We watched her and took little notes. Here is a one hour excerpt:
1810 - playing with foam and masher
1812 - playing with masher + silicone mixer (red), then just the foam and silicone mixer
1813 - rubs silicone mixer on spatula, then puts the red mixer in the clean. Lightly rubs once on each side
of the spatula and calls it cleaned.
1814 - playing with sponge. Holding it upright and squeezing to so runs down arm. Then gets a plate to the surface, and uses sponge to drip water + foam over plate (no direct contact).
1815 - refills sponge, and squeezes over arm again. Then gives 2 circles over the plate in the clean area, and calls it done. Goes back to playing with sponge, picking up foam with it and putting it on another dish.
1816 - sponges hand. Then cleans 1 glass. Picks up 2nd glass, but does a water cycle in it. No sponge action.
1817 - after doing nothing for 30 seconds, sponge stuffed in glass then twisted about gingerly.
1818 - glass with inside sponge twisted put in cleaning part of sink, sponge drained over it. Outside of glass not cleaned. Stands there still for next half minute
1819 - stands there still for first half of minute, gets whisk and whisks about. Drops whisk back in water then walks into lounge room
1820 - walks around lounge room, then plays with sponge
1821 - plays with sponge
1821 - still playing with sponge
1822 - rustles some cutlery after being reminded of being watched, then plays with water
??? - wonders off to get hair tie to put in pony tail. Turned on fan.
1829 - 4 things rinsed. Then looking outside. Then playing with pasta strainer
1830 fills pasta strainer, then lifts to see water fall through it. Holds in front of fan towards face. 5 swipes of the sponge, then plays with fan.
1831 - mentions not getting dessert. After being reminded of being watched, starts to sponge correctly.
1833 - handles the pot for a while before touching sponge. Now using pot scraper.
1837 - puts cutlery on clean side even though didn’t clean with sponge. then uses “pot sponge” on cutlery, not regular sponge.
1839 - scoops up foam with large pot spoon, then drops it in.
1841 - now cleans up dinner mess left on table. Out of order on procedure.
1842 - uses sharp side of knife to scrape off cutting board
1843 - confused by used skewers. Puts it down when asked to work it out.
1855 - puts away cleaned knife, then takes another out to look at
1857 - looking intently at finger for a long time.
1859 - using green pot scrubber on plastic containers scratching them
This went on for I am not exaggerating 6 hours. After that I resolved to never judge a parent for not being able to teach their kid something like washing dishes, because for every A type that just fucking does things there is a B type that drives you insane. Most parents give up and just do it themselves.
Now that she’s 20 she is doing better, we estimate she is 2-3 years behind her peers when it comes to this sort of maturity and executive functioning. She doesn’t take hours to do something, but may take 16 reminders.
Anyway OP, keep fighting the good fight. We all do our best and sometimes a kid just … Refuses to learn.
I’m going through it with my 8yo AuDHD boy. I wouldn’t so much mind needing to constantly remind him things if the reminders didn’t anger him. Any wisdom you may have any how to manage them would be like manna from heaven.
Honestly? We had to rule with an iron fist from 8-14. It was brutal for her, brutal for us. The above situation with the standing at the sink for 6 hours? That kind of thing was common for a few years. Any time we let her go without doing them (or any chore, homework, etc) it’s like she knew she got away with it and immediately her behaviour would worsen. She would try to get out of it again and again, regressing to crying etc. if we let her get away with something even once.
We had to stick to our guns, every single time. Eventually she would realise that doing dishes was something we were going to make her do, no matter what, and she couldn’t do anything fun until they were done, and finally started just doing them.
However the thing about AuDHD kids (in my opinion) is that they cannot apply a lesson or rule to other common sense situations. Like, you say no food in your room, they think “This is candy, not food, therefore allowed” and you end up having to reiterate and refine the rule for each situation.
The same is true with them learning how to do any chore, school work, life skill like brushing their teeth. It will require an exhausting amount of micromanagement and honestly there were times when we cried, raged, or plain old gave up. Every life skill had to be taught, and each situation that it applied to had to be taught separately.
You say that your reminders anger him? Good. He can be angry, that is allowed. He has to respect you, but he can be angry when you make him do something. Remember that he is 8 and your window to change any dynamics is closing rapidly, so if you need to change your parenting style, get help and do it now!
What helped us with the reminders thing is remembering that people with adhd experience time differently, so when he needs to do something, give a soft reminder first “Hey in 5 minutes we need to do xyz.” and also respect his interests, we never shut off her pc in the middle of a game or whatever. “After that game, I need you to do xyz.”
Of course this gets push back, and that’s when we had to get “mean”. Taking away devices or scheduling when her internet or phone would not work were the big guns, but around 9 or 10 years old she went through a phase where no punishment or incentive did shit to sway her. She literally ended up in a completely bare room like it was a prison because she couldn’t be reasoned with and nothing was a consequence to her. She just doubled down until we had to take something else away. This is typical of AuDHD kids I think, they are strong willed and can go full “monk” and nothing will bother them. Which sucks when you must get through to them when something is not ok. Thankfully that stage didn’t last long and it quickly got better after that.
Also, we put her into social activities immediately and through her whole time in primary and high school. Kids with AuDHD are… assholes. People don’t like them. Teachers don’t like them. She would come home and tell me a teacher was mean to her and I felt terrible for her. Kids were just awful to her.
Putting her in drama classes, dance classes, judo, scouts, you name it meant she had to learn how to deal with other kids, and the acting and drama classes were great for helping her learn how to mask in public. The short one hour class meant everyone had a chance to cool off until next week.
We spent a lot of time watching her social interactions and asking questions about them, examining them with her. “Do you think that girl was backing away from you because you might have been in her personal space?” “Why do you think your friend got mad at you earlier?”
At home we don’t have to mask, but in public, around others, the reality is we do. We cannot say to our friends mom “This is disgusting” when they ask what we think of dinner. We cannot tell a friend they look fat in that dress, or invade people’s personal space etc.
When we don’t learn how to act we hurt people we care about, and we end up hurting ourselves.
She’s now 20, going to uni, and doing well. She still sucks with executive functioning, the dishes are still her nemesis, but I am so proud of her. For a while we wondered if she would ever be able to live independently, and now we are sure she will be ready in a year or two.
Sorry for the novel. I know how hard this is for you. Sending you strength!
Thanks for the novel - seriously. There have been times when I felt like my kid is just an asshole too, reading that was oddly healing. If I wasn’t his loving father, I could easily write him off as no good. I see the good though, and I’ve worked to make him self-aware about the things he struggles with. He definitely knows he’s time-blind.
Recently he told me he thinks I’m unreasonable, and I explained that it’s now how I prefer to treat him, and that sometimes he’s so unreasonable himself that being unreasonable is the only possible response. He seemed to understand. He knows we love him.
He’s more ADHD than spectrum (according to the expensive private assessment we ended up getting after years of waiting). But I definitely see him completely failing to generalize rules. He seems to do better when he knows the reasons for things, but he will still struggle with any frustration, distraction, understimulation - basically executive dysfunction.
I can’t imagine him even attempting to stick with a task for six hours, even in a completely dissatisfactory way. He would sooner fall asleep on the kitchen floor than even pretend to try to do dishes. So at least yours had that much going for her!
I appreciate the validation about ruling with an iron fist (as often as possible with a really soft glove on it, right?). I used to be the most easygoing one in the room, but dad life with AuDHD has turned me into a stereotypical stern-faced patriarch and I often struggle with the role self not matching my true self.
I do need to get him mixing with kids more often in clubs and what-not. He’s a social sponge, and the more time he spends gently being asked not to act like shit by people who aren’t me, the better for everyone in the long run.
I wish there was a silver bullet for the mess that gets caused when we let them off the hook one single time. I don’t like being strict, it takes a toll.
feels like reading my parenting journey. ours just turned 9 and is on “house arrest” like you described lol. after a couple years of horrendous behaviour with no consequences working, they decided it was a great idea to purposely fuck up an eye exam so they could get glasses like their friend and it was obvious they couldnt see with them. they ended up hiding them for MONTHS and would spend hours “looking” for them. they finally fessed up when we told them if they couldnt find them, we were taking all their pokemon money til they were paid for. we knew they were lying, and sadly they are a compulsive liar. even the therapist told us we were wasting our money bc he believes it is a will issue, not a skill issue. they are diagnosed with ODD but as an audhd person myself, i know they is audhd as well.
thank you for saying it got easier, sometimes i am terrified of what the teen years will bring…
Holy shit this thread is full of holier than thou judgy comments!
I have always been the strict one, no phones at the table, no devices in the room. I taught my daughter to cook, the correct way to clean. I taught her manners.
I learned patience and fortitude as I made her do these things over and over again until they were done right, instead of doing them myself.
My daughter has AuDHD, something that can be a reason but that we never let be an excuse. Part of that disability is struggling with executive function, and you know what? More often than not, she does this same shit. Yes, even at 20 years old.
There are times I needed support and wanted to post similar things somewhere just so someone else could bear witness to how fucking hard it is to raise a kid like that right.
When she was 12 I watched her stand at the sink for I shit you not 6 fucking hours doing the dishes for a family of 3. We watched her and took little notes. Here is a one hour excerpt:
This went on for I am not exaggerating 6 hours. After that I resolved to never judge a parent for not being able to teach their kid something like washing dishes, because for every A type that just fucking does things there is a B type that drives you insane. Most parents give up and just do it themselves.
Now that she’s 20 she is doing better, we estimate she is 2-3 years behind her peers when it comes to this sort of maturity and executive functioning. She doesn’t take hours to do something, but may take 16 reminders.
Anyway OP, keep fighting the good fight. We all do our best and sometimes a kid just … Refuses to learn.
I’m going through it with my 8yo AuDHD boy. I wouldn’t so much mind needing to constantly remind him things if the reminders didn’t anger him. Any wisdom you may have any how to manage them would be like manna from heaven.
Honestly? We had to rule with an iron fist from 8-14. It was brutal for her, brutal for us. The above situation with the standing at the sink for 6 hours? That kind of thing was common for a few years. Any time we let her go without doing them (or any chore, homework, etc) it’s like she knew she got away with it and immediately her behaviour would worsen. She would try to get out of it again and again, regressing to crying etc. if we let her get away with something even once.
We had to stick to our guns, every single time. Eventually she would realise that doing dishes was something we were going to make her do, no matter what, and she couldn’t do anything fun until they were done, and finally started just doing them.
However the thing about AuDHD kids (in my opinion) is that they cannot apply a lesson or rule to other common sense situations. Like, you say no food in your room, they think “This is candy, not food, therefore allowed” and you end up having to reiterate and refine the rule for each situation.
The same is true with them learning how to do any chore, school work, life skill like brushing their teeth. It will require an exhausting amount of micromanagement and honestly there were times when we cried, raged, or plain old gave up. Every life skill had to be taught, and each situation that it applied to had to be taught separately.
You say that your reminders anger him? Good. He can be angry, that is allowed. He has to respect you, but he can be angry when you make him do something. Remember that he is 8 and your window to change any dynamics is closing rapidly, so if you need to change your parenting style, get help and do it now!
What helped us with the reminders thing is remembering that people with adhd experience time differently, so when he needs to do something, give a soft reminder first “Hey in 5 minutes we need to do xyz.” and also respect his interests, we never shut off her pc in the middle of a game or whatever. “After that game, I need you to do xyz.”
Of course this gets push back, and that’s when we had to get “mean”. Taking away devices or scheduling when her internet or phone would not work were the big guns, but around 9 or 10 years old she went through a phase where no punishment or incentive did shit to sway her. She literally ended up in a completely bare room like it was a prison because she couldn’t be reasoned with and nothing was a consequence to her. She just doubled down until we had to take something else away. This is typical of AuDHD kids I think, they are strong willed and can go full “monk” and nothing will bother them. Which sucks when you must get through to them when something is not ok. Thankfully that stage didn’t last long and it quickly got better after that.
Also, we put her into social activities immediately and through her whole time in primary and high school. Kids with AuDHD are… assholes. People don’t like them. Teachers don’t like them. She would come home and tell me a teacher was mean to her and I felt terrible for her. Kids were just awful to her.
Putting her in drama classes, dance classes, judo, scouts, you name it meant she had to learn how to deal with other kids, and the acting and drama classes were great for helping her learn how to mask in public. The short one hour class meant everyone had a chance to cool off until next week.
We spent a lot of time watching her social interactions and asking questions about them, examining them with her. “Do you think that girl was backing away from you because you might have been in her personal space?” “Why do you think your friend got mad at you earlier?”
At home we don’t have to mask, but in public, around others, the reality is we do. We cannot say to our friends mom “This is disgusting” when they ask what we think of dinner. We cannot tell a friend they look fat in that dress, or invade people’s personal space etc.
When we don’t learn how to act we hurt people we care about, and we end up hurting ourselves.
She’s now 20, going to uni, and doing well. She still sucks with executive functioning, the dishes are still her nemesis, but I am so proud of her. For a while we wondered if she would ever be able to live independently, and now we are sure she will be ready in a year or two.
Sorry for the novel. I know how hard this is for you. Sending you strength!
Thanks for the novel - seriously. There have been times when I felt like my kid is just an asshole too, reading that was oddly healing. If I wasn’t his loving father, I could easily write him off as no good. I see the good though, and I’ve worked to make him self-aware about the things he struggles with. He definitely knows he’s time-blind.
Recently he told me he thinks I’m unreasonable, and I explained that it’s now how I prefer to treat him, and that sometimes he’s so unreasonable himself that being unreasonable is the only possible response. He seemed to understand. He knows we love him.
He’s more ADHD than spectrum (according to the expensive private assessment we ended up getting after years of waiting). But I definitely see him completely failing to generalize rules. He seems to do better when he knows the reasons for things, but he will still struggle with any frustration, distraction, understimulation - basically executive dysfunction.
I can’t imagine him even attempting to stick with a task for six hours, even in a completely dissatisfactory way. He would sooner fall asleep on the kitchen floor than even pretend to try to do dishes. So at least yours had that much going for her!
I appreciate the validation about ruling with an iron fist (as often as possible with a really soft glove on it, right?). I used to be the most easygoing one in the room, but dad life with AuDHD has turned me into a stereotypical stern-faced patriarch and I often struggle with the role self not matching my true self.
I do need to get him mixing with kids more often in clubs and what-not. He’s a social sponge, and the more time he spends gently being asked not to act like shit by people who aren’t me, the better for everyone in the long run.
I wish there was a silver bullet for the mess that gets caused when we let them off the hook one single time. I don’t like being strict, it takes a toll.
feels like reading my parenting journey. ours just turned 9 and is on “house arrest” like you described lol. after a couple years of horrendous behaviour with no consequences working, they decided it was a great idea to purposely fuck up an eye exam so they could get glasses like their friend and it was obvious they couldnt see with them. they ended up hiding them for MONTHS and would spend hours “looking” for them. they finally fessed up when we told them if they couldnt find them, we were taking all their pokemon money til they were paid for. we knew they were lying, and sadly they are a compulsive liar. even the therapist told us we were wasting our money bc he believes it is a will issue, not a skill issue. they are diagnosed with ODD but as an audhd person myself, i know they is audhd as well.
thank you for saying it got easier, sometimes i am terrified of what the teen years will bring…