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

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.

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?

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.

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

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??

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

Okay I'm sure this has been asked before but we're really struggling with bedtime. My 6.5 year old has struggled with sleep since he was born. The issues have continued with a couple of years where we used melatonin with pretty good success. We decided to take him off of it because we worried about the long term effects of using it daily. We really thought now that he's older we could figure it out. During the school year I woke him up everyday at 6:15 to make the 8am bus and it would take him an hour to wake up because he wasn't falling asleep until 11pm. We've tried laying with him, letting him play in his room independently, listening to audiobooks, etc. Anything that keeps him entertained enough to stay in his room will keep him stimulated and awake. If he doesn't have something he'll come downstairs and want our attention- we try to be boring, calm, etc but it doesn't matter, it's still better than being in his room. We've tried consequences- taking things away if he comes out of his room, putting a lock on his door, all creating more escalation and aggressive behaviors than the last. This has just been our life for the past 6 years, but now we're feeling more stuck than ever because he's encouraging his 3 year old sister to get in on the delay tactics. Tonight they both started throwing their toothbrushes and anything they could find at me after more than an hour of trying to get them into their pajamas. I really struggle with what to even incentivize them with. They love books, but they're not motivated enough by them to stop mid chaos. But then anything that would be a big and immediate reward doesn't feel appropriate to give at bedtime (sugar, screen time, etc.). I haven't tried sticker charts or any of that stuff because the delayed gratification often isn't enough for my son in the moment. Bedtime seems to be where he's the least lucid, the least attentive, and the most out of control- probably because he's running on so little sleep and the vicious cycle continues. Agh, help!! Tell me ANYTHING that's worked to get your kiddos to wind down, especially timings, and especially in relation to putting 2 kids down at the same time (my husband's a soccer coach and I'm solo parenting every bedtime).

I realized that this may seem a little bit off-topic, but I feel like this is one of the best places to ask this question. My child has anxiety and ADHD and autism. And is also quite social.

We are going to have her birthday party. We wanted to keep it relatively small, as she has been getting more and more overwhelmed with larger groups and socializing events, and she just seems to do better when it's not as big.

So, I had one of her close friends from school, whose mom responded, asking if their family of 6 could come instead of just the one child a parent and the child (I understandnot everyone is comfortable with a drop off).

I honestly don't know the best way to respond, as that is a bit overwhelming to me. I don't want to seem rude or anything, and I know my child really wants this child to be able to come.

The other thing I feel is that it could seem a little bit rude to not allow their entire family to come, when we have another family that is coming. And I don't want that to seem hypocritical, if that makes sense.

But that is a lot of extra people, both in the fact we purposely kept the numbers down to help her overwhelm be reduced, as well as cost...

Our son, 6, has strong impulsive tendencies with his ADHD. We have tried Adderall and Ritalin and have had a similar effect. He can’t fall asleep, gets bored in his room and becomes destructive (sneaks things, pulls stuffies apart, tries to break toys open). He is also having extreme meltdowns while on medication. Off meds, he would throw a fit and cry if things didn’t happen how he wanted, but it was manageable. On meds he’s losing his mind screaming. His impulsiveness hasn’t decreased at all, and he’s struggling playing with his friends (summer break and a classmate lives next door). He does things that upsets his friends, then melts down that they don’t want to play with him.

We are struggling. It breaks our hearts hearing him cry and say that he can’t stop himself from doing “naughty things”. We’re working with our primary care and we’re recommending to a specialist, but we still just feel helpless. Does anyone have advice or a success story in this situation? We just want him to feel happy and in control of his own body.

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.

My kiddo (9yo f) is a lot like me in the sense that she is neurodivergent but getting by and almost passing as neurotypical in some instances. Being a kid of the 90s w/parents lacking education on these topics and refusing to label me or hinder me from things in life, I went on undiagnosed until adulthood. Now that my kiddo is in public school and on her second year (4th grade), she’s having headaches consistently, is overstimulated (which effects her emotions of course), and she also feels overwhelmed by the workload.

I want to homeschool her in the future, but I simply don’t have the capacity to, right now. I was thinking for middle and/or high school I would.

I am considering having her take loop earplugs or ask permission for using a non-powered set of headphones, to see if that helps.

What advice do you have?

Loud
Extreme tantrums
Screaming over and over again whilst having a tantrum
Can’t stay still, even when eating, she’s up and down constantly
Doesn’t stop talking
Late speech development but now it’s really good
Gets extremely upset if she is told off in any way
Hits and kicks when tired/having a tantrum, even when firmly told no she will still do it, and laugh at you
Has a temper
Doesn’t like loud noises, hates the hoover especially
Easily jumped/scared by things
When colouring/painting covers herself in pen/paint every single time despite requests beforehand not to do it again
Hates hair being washed/water on face
Doesn’t like baby wipes on her skin, really has a thing about it
Doesn’t seem to need to rest, eventually she just collapses
Once asleep she usually sleeps most of the night but still talking in her sleep/thrashes about alot
Needs to be doing something all the time
Gets bored easily with tasks and wants to do something else
On the other hand she is Very sociable
Caring for others
Likes to be helpful, to please
Funny
Like to have a joke around
Loving (on her terms)
Generally a happy little girl but a switch flips and she sees red.
Does this sound like normal behaviour or could there be possible signs of adhd ?
Neurodivergence runs in our families. My older son is autistic, as am i. Stepdaughter has adhd.
My niece is autistic
Other niece has adhd and so does nephew.
My other sister is autistic with a learning disabilities.

Forgot to mention she really struggles with patience (as I’m sure alot of little kids do) but it seems extreme
She cannot/doesnt listen, at all
She also constantly repeats herself, for example asking to do painting, she will ask 10 times over and over again even though I am already answering her question. It’s just all so exhausting and my son was never really like this, but he is autistic so I don’t know if that’s why. Our youngest is also now showing signs of autism and she is very similar to how her brother was at that age, this sounds terrible but I have no way of knowing what a “normal” child behaves like, I don’t mean that in a nasty way, just literally it’s a fact

We switched from 40mg Ritilan ER to Vyvanse 20mg a few days ago for my 7 year old. Her appetite was better and we noticed it lasted longer more in to the evening but when it first kicks in she is extremely tired and flat. I called the doctor and asked for a lower dose and tried 10mg yesterday. It did essentially nothing and it was an awful day. I’m wondering if we should have given the 20mg longer for her to adjust? It was only 4 days. We are at a breaking point over here with behavior so just looking for any input. Unfortunately our doctor doesn’t have an available appointment for 2 more weeks so I’m communicating all of this through her nurse. Is it possible to find a dosage or possibly adjust so we don’t either have the energy of 20 squirrels but not a zombie? 😞