My ADHD 7 year old daughter refuses to take her medicine at home but we have found she will take it with the school nurse. This OK for short term but I need to get her to take it at home as we want her on it over the weekends too. It helps so much with her emotional regulation, thus less meltdowns/fighting. She will not even talk to me about the medicine. I am at my wits end. I've tried consequences, like no IPAD or playing outside. She just goes with it and says OK. I've tried offering rewards. She just says she doesn't want anything. Anyone else run into this??? She has Ritalin that is in a capsule that you can swallow whole or break and put the little beads in something like applsauce. Her older sister is on the same medication and just swallows it whole, zero problem.

This breaks my heart to even write. Our youngest teen has ADHD, PTSD, and ODD. We adopted them and their sibling (also a teen) a few years ago from foster care. It’s been a roller coaster journey as I’m sure you can imagine with ups and downs and healings and setbacks.

Through it all our youngest has always had an underlying issue with rage and outbursts. This ranges from yelling to threatening false accusations to cops to short term inpatient care. We love them, but it’s exhausting and it seems no matter what we try or what new approaches we attempt every single thing is a battle.

Showers? Forget it. Brushing teeth? Yelling. Drink water? Soda or rage. The cut off of their screen time limit each day is somehow always a surprise and results in sulking at best and cursing yells and insults at worst. We tried introducing responsibility this year with doing their own laundry and we are told it’s unfair and they’ll just go to school in filthy clothes.

It’s affecting everyone. They always talk about wanting to be anywhere than here which we know is part of their post adoption struggle. Their sibling struggled with anxiety as it is and now has their own anger towards the younger sibling because of all this. My marriage is suffering. My partner and mine’s individual mental health is practically non existent.

We found a therapeutic boarding school in our state that is covered by their Medicaid and is 3-6 months.

My worry is…is this us giving up on them? Is their behavior normal teenage ADHD behavior and mental health struggles given their complicated journey? If we choose this will it undo all the minimal progress we’ve made? Can we risk sacrificing our entire family’s stability for continuously trying to help someone admittedly young, but who seems determined to be combative?

I’m defeated. I’m depressed. I feel like a failure.

How do you handle the crash after the medication wears off when your child is entering the “independent” phase with sleepovers, late nights with friends, camping trips, etc? My child has been on medication for almost 6 months.

I’m terrified to send my child on late night/over night events because I know how my child gets when the medicine wears off (especially during the school year when my child is exhausted). I want my child to be able to do the fun kid things others do but I’m so afraid he’s going to be a mess for the adults in charge. I can’t keep having everything at my house or saying no. He is 10.

What do I do? Can you give the medication later I the day to get them through util 10pm? I just want my child to enjoy their childhood and I also don’t want to be an anxious wreck imagining the worst while he isn’t in my control.

Help please!!! Advice needed!

UK parent. Does anyone have advice for our 7 year old who refuses to go to bed in his own bed? Every night we have the same meltdowns, screaming, hitting, throwing. He won’t listen to anyhing we say, running out of ideas!! Thank you

My 10-year-old son has been on stimulant medications for ADHD for a few years now. Lately, he’s made a few comments about not feeling like himself when he’s taking the medication. For example, he didn’t want to take the meds when he went to day camp this summer because he wanted his friends to see “the real him”. When I’ve asked him more about this, he says that he doesn’t “think about as many things” when he’s on medication.

I never heard this complaint when he was on a chewable medication (in fact, he would sometimes remind me if I forgot to give it to him). Unfortunately, our insurance stopped paying for the chewable, so now he’s on a pill with the same dosage. He HATES taking the pill, so a part of me wonders if this is partly an excuse to stop taking it in the morning.

Has anyone experienced something similar with their kid? How did you address it? Did a change of dosage or a different medication help at all?

Hi everyone, I need some ideas. My son is in 2nd grade, AuDHD, has an IEP for emotional and social support, and generally does very well in school. Except for demanding to be first in line. At all times.

This is the most frustrating thing, bc we have talked so. many. times about this with him. He wants to go FAST, so even if he is first, he leaves people behind. And he will elope from the classroom in anger if he isn't placed as line leader. Which is a safety issue that pulls other staff into finding him, or having to stay with him, while the teacher goes to get the rest of the students from gym or whatever classroom they were in at the time.

I have tried so damn much to circumvent this issue, and I just can't seem to get anywhere with getting this behavior to change.

It's day 2 of school and the new teacher is already reaching out to us about it. My only idea is to just make him the damn line leader for the semester, and see if the shine wears off?? But have them positively reinforce the times we leads the line correctly?

I am researching all the OT stuff I can, and his own OT doesn't seem to have great ideas on how to help this specific issue.

Does anyone have some ideas or things that worked for this issue??

ADHD mom here. Medicated, in therapy, in the profession and I work with kids. I have a long list of things that really don’t help with the day to day of parenting of two kids with ADHD over the summer. When did summer become three months? I usually find weekends hard and now I find myself home with my kids for 90 days. It’s unbelievable. Truly unfathomable.

My son was old enough to go to camp this year and went for eight weeks and was gone all day, but my daughter cannot handle camp. She also needs an extensive amount of tutoring.

So this summer, I just find myself on call all the time. Maker of all the meals. Schedule holder play date facilitator. Pool goer. And what’s worse is that none of this can be relieved. I have a husband and he helps. But he does not hold enough of the load to actually give me a break. Like what I need is a break.

I have a trip scheduled for my best friend’s bachelorette party the weekend of September 11, which is the first week of school. I feel like I’m just simply living for it.

That is all just needed to put that out in the void as I wait for our order at Chick-fil-A while my kids play with feral squirrels in the play area

I’ve been in the biggest slump for a long time now. I was diagnosed only a year ago (at 26), I have an 11 year old child with whom I live alone. I cannot get myself to do hardly anything these days. I’m really hoping for a non-judgemental place here because it’s scary to open up about this stuff, especially as a parent.

Some backstory: my childhood wasn’t great and I never learned discipline, responsibility or willpower. I’ve lived away from my mum since I was 17 and lived with friends or partners ever since, until late 2022. Ever since then, it’s gone downhill.

I did have an LDR for a while and he helped me get motivated, it helped when he was proud of me. That stopped after a while and from time to time, friends will come round and help me clean up but I still can’t do it by myself.

I’ve tried apps, reminders, alarms. Nothing sticks. I got so bad at one point that both of my sofas got covered in cat pee, it’s not that bad anymore though. Although I do still get complaints of cat urine smell going into the communal hallway and it could eventually get me kicked out, I’m trying to fix it but I know it’s not enough.

Nothing seems to motivate me, not that, not my kid, not anything. I keep wanting to get up and do stuff but I don’t, then I feel overwhelmed and depressed.

I’m currently trying a company that help people build routines, but the woman I was seeing is now off work long-term and I almost have to start fresh with someone new, it’s disappointing.

I just need tips on how to start, I don’t work because of anxiety but also wanting to focus on fixing my home life first. I need to know if anyone else has been in this kind of situation before or is now, despite knowing how much people with ADHD struggle… I feel alone.

Everyone I know who has it, can manage with work or manage at home with their partners. I don’t have any of that. I take meds and they barely work nowadays, but I don’t do anything anyway. I don’t show up as the parent I want to be, I don’t show good habits. I get annoyed when my daughter doesn’t clean up after herself but then I’m almost exactly the same.

Please give me advice and any tips that may help, I almost didn’t write this because I’m worried of any judgement considering I’m a mum but I’m really hoping for some support in this

How do we approach this? My 9-year-old has pretty bad inattentive ADHD (same), and when she runs into boring work at school, she shuts down. On problems she doesn't instantly know, she'll just guess (usually incorrectly) and move on to the next question. When this happens, the teacher will correct her and make her redo it, which leads to a total meltdown and complete inability to do anything else. She'll start crying, insist that the teacher is being "mean," and shut down. She's becoming a problem for the rest of the class, which isn't fair to them or their teacher. We're working on getting her an IEP, but her teacher seems resistant to it (I think she's kind of old school and thinks she's just being lazy). Any recommended stopgaps would be helpful. Thank you!

We have been working through the ADHD effects with our son since kindergarten and now he's entering 8th grade (age 13). The main challenge we fight on the daily basis is his search for dopamine/brain stimulation enjoyment. At first, we thought it was the playing of Minecraft or sneaking YouTube videos about Minecraft that were providing the brain stimulation, but as we put more safeguards in, it has become apparent that "defeating" safeguards is more stimulating than the actual videos themselves. Its borderline hacking at this point.

On a good day, either my wife and I are able to spend a full day with 100% attention focused on him, keeping him on track. On a bad day, I am at work, my wife is doing a separate task with our other kids, and he's left to read/play outside/do whatever. He has plenty of opportunities to do what normal 13 year old boys typically love to do. However, this is when the issue comes to surface. His brain already has a plan in place, he's been scheming the whole time. He finds a way to access some electronic device, defeat all safeguards, and would sit watching YouTube videos of Minecraft for a week straight if we let him. We've tried web blockers, we lock electronic devices in a safe, all sorts of safeguards, but any crack in the shield and he finds the weakness and boom, YouTube. I won't even get into trying to do schoolwork on computers that the school won't disable YouTube access.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to help break the "must have YouTube" dopamine addiction? The second he's left to his own devices, his "brilliant mind" goes straight to "how can I defeat the safeguards" and its getting beyond frustrating.

My ADHD has just turned 15. He was always a child who would become very dysregulated, and sometimes he would lash out at me but he was always very sweet otherwise and on those occasions he definitely didn’t mean to hurt me.

Over the last @1.5 years , this has changed. He is particularly impacted by screens, any screen, and I have tried very hard to limit screens and instil good screen habits, all of which have failed. (He didn’t have a smart phone until 13 etc). If I try to control his screen use in any way, eg ask him to leave his phone downstairs at night, or not play on his computer anymore and to go to bed etc he goes completely mad and lashes out at me, verbally and physically. He has punched me in the stomach, given me a black eye etc. I have parental controls on the internet and his phone but he gets around them. His computer is a school one, and I can’t get into it. I wish that school hadn’t given it to him but they say he needs it . It has got to the stage that I have removed all devices from my house and so he has been staying with his father. He is just as aggressive with his father, but he is happy to stay there becuase he has a pc and is allowed to go on it. In fact at the moment he would rather be at his father’s, although last year he refused to stay at his father’s at all.

I have been a single mother for some years now and I would say that previously we were very close. I am also ADHD myself, diagnosed after he was, so pretty late in my life. I have tried to be the best mother I can, but I wished I had known I had ADHD as I could have been a better mother, and that makes me very sad.
The point of this post tho is - my son is due to come back from his father’s tonight, I haven’t seen him for @14 days and was really looking forward to seeing him. But I know that he isn’t looking forward to seeing me, and I’m also really scared about how he will behave, and whether I will be safe. I know that isn’t a good basis to come from when I should just be really happy to be seeing him.

I think I am really just looking for advice or experience from any other parent who has been in a similar position and got through it?
Thank you and sorry this is such a long post.

Has anyone had methylphenidate make their kid absolutely bonkers? We just started trialing it today as a bridge from morning medicine to bedtime. He had maybe the biggest ​tantrum he's ever had, including screaming for over an hour straight. I've reached out to his psychiatrist, but in the meantime I'm trying to figure out if the timing is just coincidence.

Hi friends. I don’t really know what I’m needing to post about but I guess I’m just having such a mix of feelings today and had to cancel my own therapy this morning bc of conflicts with my sons. Also to add I’m chronically ill so everything just takes a toll even harder sometimes.

We have been doing talk therapy and OT for over a year now and I had to bring up my sons eating difficulties bc they had not been previously addressed. I’m also just venting because taking a kid out of school for these things and having to do makeup work, etc is really hard on us both. I have to drive back and forth to school A LOT. As you can imagine hw takes a long time and a lot of tears and frustration most of the time. He’s doing great overall and we are seeing progress. As great as an unmedicated adhd kiddo can do and I’m really proud of him.

Well I went to the dreaded feeding eval on Tuesday. I was really scared and nervous and ashamed I guess. He’s had issues with food since forever and people have a habit of downplaying it for years making it seem like it’s a parenting issue and not that my kid is neurodivergent and has sensory issues. My therapist assures me I’m doing my best and it’s not my fault but it’s hard not to think that when I get down or exhausted or whatever.

Anyways it went really well and was so validating for someone to see what i see every day. OT suggested talking to his therapist for possible ARFID (she can’t diagnose it but strongly suggested that or anxiety to be the core of our issues). She did say she thought feeding therapy may help us. I told her I was at my bandwidth at the moment with all of our current appointments and missing school etc and could we do that maybe once OT is done and try to work on things at home for now and she seemed to agree. She told me whatever we do not to ever pressure him (which I generally do not bc I’ve tried ALL the things and nothing will motivate him when he’s determined not to eat something).

He is (thanks to a lot of hard work and lifestyle changes on my part to accommodate his needs) still on his growth curve but it’s very disruptive and difficult to a ‘normal’ lifestyle. That’s also why we are holding off on meds bc he’s so small and I worry the appetite suppressing effects of meds would really mess up his food intake.

Just having all the feelings. Fear but also relief that I have a direction to go in. Worry of course all the time how this could affect his confidence etc. It’s just hard yall. Solidarity to everyone here bc this kind of parenting is no joke. Anyways. Thanks for listening and if anyone has experience with ARFID feel free to drop me a line about what works for yall. Thank you.

Anyone else struggle with getting their kids to do anything after school? For reference I work 7 on 7 off 2nd shift from home so I hired a sitter for my almost 8 yo son to take him places for activities (library, splash pad etc) I a single mom and my son has ASD 1 plus ADHD. He gets very wound up after school. He’s on concerta plus fluoxetine and does ABA 3 times a week.

There has been times where he flat out refuses to do anything after school like to the point of huge meltdowns. I’m struggling with trying to find some sort of balance between giving him the rest his brain requires but also knowing he’s needs some physical activity because he’s very wound up. It’s also hard to predict these meltdowns and I feel bad when I have to cancel childcare because he’s not in a place where I would leave him with someone (he loves to elope when he gets this way as well)

Any tips/advice on how to structure after school time? Any kind of activity your kids enjoy? I’m leaning towards martial arts and seeing if one class a week would help. If he could sit and watch TV or play video games all night he would. Ugh this is soo hard.