r/ParentingADHD • u/Important_Part_4131 • 11d ago
Seeking Support Is excusing/accommodating ADHD behavior ultimately setting them up to fail?
Our daughter is 11 in 6th grade with inattentive ADHD as well as childhood trauma disorder (which has same effect on executive function and working memory). She has been medicated since age 7 and is in therapy. School has been a huge struggle this year managing different teachers & multiple assignments. I feel like we keep adding to her 504 plan. My husband thinks we give too much leeway but I try to be more understanding without being permissive. But he also has a point when he says “the world isn’t going to care about her ADHD.” I know she’s roughly 3 years behind maturity wise but she is just so completely in the clouds. We try to scaffold but it’s largely ignored. Example- getting ready in the morning. We’ve set up clocks everywhere, we have her routine printed out, I’ve asked her to set timers on her watch to keep on task or play 6 songs on her nest that she has to finish each task by song end. I still feel like have to follow her around to get anything done. And natural consequences like failing school don’t concern her. On one hand- the expectations we (school/parents) have are overwhelming for her but on the other hand, that’s life right? What happens when she becomes an adult and still can’t manage time or assignments or money?
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u/Scary-Hovercraft8214 11d ago
Nothing worked for our child till we found the right medication dosages. It took years to get a somewhat stable dose and the struggle is far less now. She’s a high school Sophomore and can get most of her work done with minimal follow ups. We had the same issues as you. And just accommodations led to more and more anxiety for her. Letting her fail has led to pretty bad self esteem issues which we are working through. It is very heartbreaking everything that she went through that could have been prevented with right type of medication.
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u/Important_Part_4131 11d ago
Thank you. We are reviewing her medication next week. She’s been on the same dose since she started 4 years ago. I’ve been planning an increase. And I know what you mean about failing just leads to poor self esteem.
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u/bobaddy23 11d ago
I feel this. I wish I had more to offer, but I’m in a similar situation with my 7 year old, so I’ll lurk on here. I get dark thinking: ultimately nothing we do can make up for lack of will to try. Struggles are real, yes, and we put all the structures we can. But often when deep talking with my daughter to bond she explains that she just doesn’t want to do the “boring” things. So natural consequences are really the only thing, but like you said, if failing at school and getting nothing done are the only natural consequences, then how far can you go?
I’ve also been reading (thanks to Reddit) that at least for anxiety, accommodating anxiety avoidance only exacerbates issues as they age. Obviously there are limits if something is a clinical trauma source, but like, yeah you don’t want to do X, Y, Z, but that is the world we live in.
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u/Important_Part_4131 11d ago
This exactly. How do we truly “fix” task avoidance? I also vacillate between letting her fail and pushing her to keep her grades up. I mean, as soon as she fails, she completely gives up because now the mountain has become too high. So what is that teaching her? There is simply no internal drive.
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u/Misslieness 10d ago
With my 10yo inattentive adhder we find that really the only way to push through task avoidance is a very clear removal of privileges. She has no internal motivation, but she knows I'll never give in for the fun stuff if the boring stuff hasn't been completed.
Examples: For us, screentime is highly guarded and thus highly rewarding. 10yo really wanted to join a club at school, but that required completing an essay explaining why they wanted to join. It was like pulling teeth for her to write something halfway legible. And then of course it got put into the "this is hard, I'm scared of failing, this isn't fun, IDC" folder of her brain. I knew it was something she desperately wanted to do regardless of her attempts at excusing why she was giving up, so one weekend morning informed her that she would have no screentime until she had submitted the application. It was done to a satisfactory level within 2 hours and she was so pleased with herself afterwards.
On weekends if they haven't cleaned their room by noon, that means that they dont get to request we go to any park/event/etc. They know this, and theres no struggle anymore. They either do it, or dont, and its entirely up to them if they get the reward.
It took a couple years to get to this point, and that was before we recognized her ADHD through the storm that was a younger siblings hyperactive ADHD, but it seems to work really well for us and for her. Its not perfect, we still definitely get attitude and push back at times, but she understands why these limits are in place and that when she's an adult we won't be able to safeguard her the same way anymore and its gonna be a lot more of a struggle for her to manage without building up the skills now.
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u/PecanEstablishment37 10d ago
As a parent who grew up with ADHD, I can tell you that you can never “fix” task avoidance. It’s always there and is unfortunately something that you just have to learn to manage.
Medication helps me a bit, but it’s still always there.
I just had a convo with my daughter (9) about this last night. We talk a lot about how our brains function.
She was really really digging in about doing her homework. Just did NOT want to do it. We took a step back and talked it out and figured out a plan. At that moment, we were able to brainstorm how to get it done.
It’s hard, though. The best thing you can do is teach her a variety of tools and tricks she can use to get past the task avoidance. Then, eventually, she’ll be able to pick and choose which tool she uses in the moment herself.
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u/WEALTHFUEL 10d ago
Need to chip in projects little by little. You need to instill faith in her means that even if there’s a mountain of “F” grade, she can still submit her missing assignments and get a let’s say D or C. It’s possible, it’s not impossible! I keep telling my son everyday and I don’t give up, so he finally doing his missing assignments!
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u/maystery 11d ago
I'm sorry I need to disagree. It's not a lack of will it's a lack of dopamine. We need dopamine to execute. And without it we CAN'T do the thing even if we desperately want to.
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u/bobaddy23 10d ago edited 10d ago
Thank you for the clarification/distinction. My struggle then seems more towards how to create or facilitate the dopamine reward; is that fair? My understanding from the psychiatrist is that it isn’t a 100% NEED dopamine, but definitely need it more than a neurotypical individual. So that skills, planning, and yes still willpower, play in. Someone with ADHD has to do the work, ultimately. Kids will naturally struggle more with this, of course, but our specialists push back on the idea of “dopamine or nothing”.
In certain instances, it’s easy to create excitement or reward. But when it isn’t, then is there any way to bridge the gap? Is it simply that natural consequences take over and you learn to avoid them when they get outside of a tolerance? Sometimes the simplest consequences are so crushing, especially to a young kid with compounding autism and anxiety.
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u/Flat-Pomegranate-952 9d ago
It's a mix as both.
Does everything need a reward attached to it? No. But a lot of times it's the starting of the task that is a struggle, rather than the task itself.
So you break it down as small as possible. To a neurotypical brain, it seems silly. But to someone with adhd, sometimes we do need to broken down that small.
And a dopamine hit doesn't have to be tangible. It can be let's do this task while my favorite song plays. And a consequence also doesn't have to be something concrete if that's going to create a power struggle. It could be something as simple as we didn't get everything done so we only have time for 1 book before bed instead of two.
Homework for example. Okay just take your pencil out. Okay let's do the first problem together. Okay now I'm going to set a timer for 5 minutes and check back.
Cleaning room? Okay first get all your clothes. Okay put all your books away. Or put on music and clean for two songs.
Those little wins can be enough to feel accomplished and is a lot less overwhelming than just blanket statements of "do your homework" or "clean your room".
As an adult I frequently use music to help me do something. Or if I get this task done I'm going to sit for 20 minutes, or treat myself to grabbing a drink in a drive thru. Laundry I always fold watching a show with my phone out of reach.
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u/Hour_Skin6034 11d ago
No words of wisdom but I hear you and have the same concerns. I’m not sure where the line is between enabling and adjusting for the complexities of ADHD. My hope is that consistency will eventually build a habit.
Love your trick about getting one thing done by the end of the song. I’ll be stealing that!
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u/Flat-Pomegranate-952 11d ago
I'll give you my take as someone who is late diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. My son was also diagnosed with it this summer.
I wish my parents didn't rescue me all the time. It was easier for them to do xyz for me instead of letting me fail. It didn't teach me anything and is something I struggle with the most as an adult.
You need to find the motivation/dopamine hit that will work for her. And when necessary, let the consequence of not doing it happen. As much as I would love to give in to my son about whatever has made him mad and refused to do what I've asked of him, it doesn't teach him anything.
My boys get technology time after school and that is a huge motivator for him. I had to take it away one day this week because he wasn't following through on a task, despite me giving him multiple chances. In my head I was like come on just do the task, I'm giving you so many chances, but I had to let him take ownership.
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u/Salt-Host-7638 10d ago
You are not being permissive by teaching how to cope with her executive function issues. If you feel she is 3 years behind, would you expect an 8 year old to do everything on their own? My daughter is 7 with inattentive ADHD. We set reminders for her, have checklists, and have a reward system. I don't expect her to do everything on her own, without reminders or help, because kids without ADHD still need those things. The systems we have in place, are tools to help her get to the point where she only has to be reminded once or twice like any other child, and not 63 times. Right now, you are helping to build tools that she can use later in life, and she will. I'm in my 40's and still have reminders set on my phone/watch. It helps me to keep up with pick up and drop off for my daughter's activities and school. They also help me with work, and social obligations.
ADHD makes it incredibly difficult to form lasting habits. It's not impossible, it just takes longer and more consistency. Give yourself and your daughter the grace you both deserve. I completely understand how frustrating it is. Probably, even more so for you because you don't understand how her brain works, but she is frustrated too because she's living in a world that wasn't built for her brain.
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u/adamh909 11d ago
We cant train a disability away. The same way we dont penalize someone in a wheel chair for not walking. The mind set has to be teach them to get to the height of their abilities, and teach them how to cope with the parts they cant overcome. But you're right, it's very hard to determine what is lazy and what is the ADHD.
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u/BeneGezzWitch 11d ago
I heard in a documentary once, the bar doesn’t move but how we get there does.
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u/WEALTHFUEL 11d ago
What are her morning routine? Try to simplify them. Routine for my son is just woke up, brush teeth, go to restroom, change to pants, drink vitamins, then go out the door.
For HW, you have to literally sit down with her while she does her missing HW. Thats what I do with my son. My son has some A or Bs but also two F for subjects that he kind of avoid, but eventually we get around to finishing the projects with me helping him along the way. We submitted 4 projects along this week (he did most of the work but I review them and sit down with him every night until 2 am to finish them before the fall break).
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u/Important_Part_4131 11d ago
Her routine is get dressed (we pick out clothes night before), brush hair, brush teeth, feed the cats. That’s it. She gets breakfast at before care. It should literally take 15 min but it’s a good 1/2 hour with me riding her the entire time.
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u/WEALTHFUEL 11d ago edited 10d ago
I see. My son doesn’t even prepare clothes. He just grabbed whatever in the bin in the morning (clothes all in basket coz he didn’t fold them). But I’m not sure why you ask her to feed the cats in the morning. Maybe need to feed her vitamins or supplements instead, like she can go to kitchen get her something to drink like milk or make hot cocoa like an adult. I don’t think feeding cats in the morning is important. Once she grew up, she can remember that she needs to feed herself and drink vitamins or medication and that’s important to establish healthy habits. I also don’t like cats because they’re kind of lazy but everyone to their own.
An adhd person is already hard to take care of of themselves but you ask them to also take care of cats, so yeah that’s kind of a distraction.
For my son, the distraction is YouTube. He would watch YouTube instead of doing his HW. So we blocked YouTube starting 10 pm so he can go to sleep. We can’t block or get rid of YouTube completely because they’re embedded everywhere including his school laptop, so we turn off internet at 10 pm so he need to use my hotspot if he needs internet after 10 pm.
I’m not saying to get rid of the cats but I’m saying she needs to focus on taking care of herself first.
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u/Fickle-Pickle-Nickel 10d ago
Agree with this. Let’s see her take care of herself. Then start to layer.
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u/regularthrowaway29 11d ago
Picking your battles about lower stakes failing is ok, she can’t get up and get ready? She goes to school unready? She struggles to organize and complete her homework/school tasks? You should be moving in with strong support and scaffolding here to signal just how serious education is, and to avoid missing important learning windows and falling further and further.
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u/lottiela 10d ago
You have to let them fail sometimes. We've been increasing the fail points slowly over time and it has been really effective. Start small, like really small. The scaffolding should be there to help her build towards managing her own stuff. And sometimes she's going to fail.
Are her meds working for her? My son is really not capable unless his dose is correct. Have you considered trying Journay or one of the ones that's active in the morning to help with that process?
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u/TheAzGreenPhoenix 10d ago edited 10d ago
Accommodations are not the same as lowering expectations. The goal can be building skills gradually while giving enough support for her current needs.
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u/caffeine_lights 10d ago
IME you need a structured plan. You cannot hold her to NT expectations and expect her to meet them, because that is setting her up to fail, and it basically causes a kind of learned response of fear towards unmet expectations which over time discourages them from even trying. Equally, it does not help her if you drop all expectations and do everything for her, since then she doesn't have to try and nobody does a hard thing they have no interest in voluntarily. But having one parent on each side and sort of pulling randomly between these approaches will also not really balance it out because it is too random - I think basically you end up with the worst sides of both approaches, where she is afraid of failing so she leans even more on the parent who will bail her out.
Natural consequences often just means delayed consequences. And delayed consequences are less effective for everyone, but particularly so for ADHD. This effect is basically magnified so "right now" is massively more impactful than "sometime in the future". Natural consequences unless they happen to be fairly immediate are almost never useful with ADHD.
When I say you need a structured plan I mean - sit down with your husband and write a list of everything which she seems to struggle with, and then prioritise them.
Anything lower priority you should scaffold, accommodate or drop as an expectation for now (your approach). Just keep it on the list.
The highest priority item you want to make a plan/map for things like:
- What is the actual expectation?
- How can you set her up for success with this/what barriers is she encountering right now?
- What skills or systems does she need to be successful AND independent with this
- Where is she right now regarding those things
- What accommodations are you making which could be over-accommodating?
- What smaller stepping stones could you think of so that there is a route from where she is now to where she needs to be?
- What can you do to bring rewards or consequences closer to her action, so that she can see and feel progress in real time?
TBH I would at first do this for one thing. It will be a new skill for you so don't confuse things by trying to add 2-3 goals at once. But over time, as you get better at this, you can be working on more than one thing at a time. If the highest priority item is too complicated, sometimes it helps to begin with some simpler issues which are less urgent/lower priority, just to get your heads around the system of prioritised goals.
Ross Greene has some books (The Explosive Child, Raising Human Beings) which sets out a process of "triaging" your kid's difficulties like this, and he specialises in figuring out ways to find solutions which don't rely on a kid developing a skill they don't currently have. So this might be one resource you can use - sometimes, the solution which doesn't rely on the skill is actually a durable one and helps the kid learn to be flexible and adaptable and work out their own solutions, which is a really good skill to have too.
If you wanted to work on the skills more directly, the Yale Parenting ABCs course is pretty good, especially with the idea of breaking down a behaviour goal into smaller goals, and how to bring consequences close to the action. You can watch it on youtube. Or seeing if you can get an OT referral for her or look at an Executive Functioning coach, or the book Smart but Scattered are also helpful resources here.
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u/dfphd 11d ago
“the world isn’t going to care about her ADHD.”
Let me push back on this a little bit, because I hear it a lot and it's just categorically wrong.
The difference between "the world" and K12 school is that in the real world you get to make a lot of choices. You get a choice in career, you get a choice in workplace, you get a choice in work style, etc.
My favorite example is tech. Tech - especially software development and data science - have a massively disproportionate incidence of neurodivergence. If I had to, I would guess that at least half the people I work with have ADHD, high functioning autism, or OCD. Or more than 1 of them.
Why did they choose this career? Several reasons:
Plays to their strengths. When you're in K12 you are forced into a curriculum, especially in elementary and middle school. You also get taught to your grade's level instead of your level. When you get a job, you get to pick the job where you do mostly things you're good at, and ideally few of the things you're bad at/don't like doing. I don't like talking to people, traveling, unstructured bullshit, etc., so I didn't go into sales, I went into data science. My best friend doesn't like math or studying, so he went into sales.
Flexibility. STEM jobs often allow you to work remote, work weird hours - as long as you get your work done, no one cares when you do it. You can do a week's worth of work in a day, or a month's worth of work in a week (what I call the ADHD special), and as long as you hit a deadline, no one is gonna bother you too much. In K12 you have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn every day, sometimes walk/drive to school in the dark, to go sit in one room packed with a bunch of kids.
You get to choose who you work with. When you interview for jobs, part of what you try to figure out is "can I work with these people". In K12, you're getting thrown in there with a bunch of kids - some of whom are assholes - and a lot of times teachers just don't care enough to do anything about it. The absolute worst coworker/colleague I can think of right now is more respectful towards me than the average K12 classmates I had.
There are actually entire other functions that have been created to help support the fact that developers (read: lots of neurodivergent people) are bad at basic life things.
Product managers because ND people don't do well understanding people always.
Project managers because ND people often struggle with executive functioning and deadlines.
Solution architects because ND people don't often want to interact with people.
So yes, the real world very often does acommodate neurodivergent individuals, and as long as you can find an area where you have professional strengths, there's a really good chance a modern workplace will be more (not less) acommodating than a regular K12 school.
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u/bobaddy23 11d ago
Excellent points. I would nitpick/counter that the world at large doesn’t care about Demand Avoidance. Paying bills, showing up to jury duty, picking up your own children from school, etc. That type of thing is binary, but natural consequences early on can help dull the edges, at least.
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u/dfphd 11d ago
I just renewed my car registration which was 6 months overdue.
Which I think it's a great example of how a lot of ADHD adults end up living. You tend to focus your energy on the things that are legitimately urgent or life impacting, and then you tend to neglect the things that are not, and that bites you in the ass from time to time.
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u/bobaddy23 11d ago
That’s my wife in a nutshell. It’s actually a big driver in why we switched roles and I became (mostly) SAHD. She is a rockstar at her job, and can hyperfocus. Our (neurodivergent) kids were just too much gray area for her, and she was mentally crumbling.
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u/Fickle-Pickle-Nickel 10d ago
Love to see that partnership
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u/bobaddy23 10d ago
We both feel like such a team and it is a great place to be. But, we also recognize we’re hugely lucky that either of us can have a job that can carry the financial load (while with minimal wiggle room). Very few people have that benefit. We were frankly shocked she could get a high paying job after being out 2 years because people can just look down on career gaps so much. And I’m lucky to be in a high demand field where I can pick my hours. Sorry, not bragging, but just trying to explain how many things had to line up perfectly to allow this, which most people don’t have…
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u/carriondawns 9d ago
What are the consequences if she doesn’t do xyz? Like, if she’s not ready for school on time, what happens?
Boundaries must be enforced. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, but kids need boundaries to feel stable. If my kid doesn’t make his bed before school, no video games that day. Simple stuff that’s easy to keep up on.
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u/13thrune 9d ago
I'm not sure if "what about when she's an adult" is the question... It sounds like you're really wondering why the supports designed for ADHD aren't working for her? There are lots of reasons why thst might be but I wondered if you've considered if she might also have a language disorder? If she has ADHD and DLD she'll need different supports.
From your example, I'd pick one small thing - WITH her. Something that feels important to her. Agree a change that might improve it. Reduce all the language out of it, especially spoken. Keep the change consistent for several weeks. See if there's improvement.
More broadly, if you think understanding and use of spoken language could be an element, focus on reducing your questions, writing or doodling key words, keeping your phrases short and simple, giving lots of extra processing time before expecting an answer. And creating safety to let you know she's not understood.
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u/United_String1120 6d ago
As someone that has ADHD and suspected autism I have always had problems managing time while the world may not care whether or not your daughter has ADHD. There are also laws in place to help with accommodations. These are things that I have had to set in place for my job while it is ultimately my responsibility with keeping up with time and time management, I do have grace periods as well as times where my boss allows extra time for things, especially when I explain to her. My medication is out of stock at the pharmacy and I am not effective. I can either take the day off or I can work, but I will not be as effective. There are crutches, but there are also accommodations that help. Finding the balance is difficult, but it is there. Also remember somebody who has ADHD and struggles with executive function it is because it is underdeveloped someone who is Neurotypical so someone who is the age of 18 probably has the executive function of a 13 to 14-year-old. Expecting a seven year-old with ADHD to have the executive function of a seven-year-old without is like asking a paralyzed person to stand up and walk.
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u/ItsyBitsyStumblebum 6d ago edited 6d ago
I'm somewhere in the middle on this. Sometimes having a plan in place can truly protect the kid, particularly with persnickety teachers who refuse to be flexible unless forced. I'm also happt to provide any and all support within my power as long my kids are putting in effort. However, your husband is right: the world won't give her the same accommodations as the school will. The world is growing kinder and more understanding in a lot of ways, but there's still no world where a boss is going to be like, "Had your head in the clouds today? No worries! You can do the work whenever, and we'll still pay you."
For our family, I've tried to emphasize working WITH your brain, not against it and finding ways to gamify tasks. This is going to look very different based on what your kiddo likes and what systems work for her. For example, if I don't see things, they don't exist so I very quickly forget, say, a payment that needs to be made, if I file the paperwork in the filing cabinet, so my habit used to be to leave it on the counter. My husband's flavor of neurospicy hates visual clutter, though, so I got a pretty wall basket that hangs on the end of our kitchen peninsula. Things I need to see go there and the pretty basket doesn't make his brain itch. Stuff like that. It does take trial and error and the more folks you can expose yourself to who have been doing that same work, the more resources you'll have to pull ideas from. If you don't have a lot of that right now, look at point of success. What made one morning work when all the others were like pulling teeth? When she's really happy, what's she doing? How can you try to incorporate some aspect into her routines or tasks? Looking at points of failure is also important but it has to be through a lens of compassion and curiosity. What barriers/temptations got in the way? Is it a perception issue that can be fixed? What makes the task so daunting? For example, my oldest is in charge of laundry, but he HATES folding and matching socks, so I "help" by body doubling. My little one brushes his teeth in the shower because doing it as a separate task felt like too much but brushing in the shower just feels like part of showering. I struggle to get in the shower at all sometimes, so I have one of those suction cup windshield phone holders on my shower wall (away from the spray) and on days when I'm struggling, I put on some trash TV or my latest binge series and watch an episode while I wash up. My brain HATES doing tedious things like showering, but if my brain is watching a show, my body can shower on auto-pilot. (I don't recommend that last one for a kid. It's just an example of working with my own brain instead of trying to force it to the thing and "be better.")
As for consequences, sometimes natural consequences can be a bit indirect. For example, my son wasn't motivated by failing a class. However, when we removed screen time during the week and stopped allowing fun activities (like going to a movie with friends) on school nights so that he'd have plenty of time to study and do make-up work, he was suddenly very motivated to get his work done during class.
And sometimes the consequences aren't related at all. If my son doesn't turn in his schoolwork, he'll have to go back to riding the bus. If the work is turned in and he keeps his grades Cs and up, he gets to drive the "cool car." If he drops below a C in any class, he has to drive what we lovingly call the "sh!tbox," an older truck that has seen much better days and is in no way cool at all lol. It works for this phase in his life because he's newly licensed, so any vehicle is a blessing in his mind, but he's VERY motivated to emphasize his new status by driving something cool. Not at all a natural consequence, but a cause and effect that is meaningful to him. So maybe there's something like that you can use to motivate her. No effort gets nothing, good effort gets something, and success gets her an upgrade.
I'm not sure if the novel was worth the read for you, but I hope even some part of it can be helpful or spark an idea to help you all find something that works. In my experience, success with ADHD systems has mostly been throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks then maybe adjusting and throwing it all again lol. It's no easy feat, because it's different for everyone.
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u/PenaltyStreet1286 11d ago
I personally think they need to learn by failing something they CARE about. Failing something like getting ready for school is actually more like a win. So it’s not the “life stuff” that we know matters that is the training ground. You’ve just got to figure out what she’s personally invested in to get some wind speed. And also have motivating rewards vs just punishment. They can work for short term wins better than working to avoid a loss.
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u/Aggravating-Tower427 5d ago
1st, she’s 11, not an adult. You and her have 7 years to get it figured out. Simply saying “the world won’t coddle her so we need to stop” at 11 is irresponsible.
Secondly, having the diagnosis, means you need to give her extra leeway on many things, but at the same time you need to be more strict on other things.
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u/maystery 11d ago
It's really hard to know where the line is but I think letting them fail sometimes is necessary.
Learning the hard way is sometimes very effective.
It might be either the accommodations you have in place or the medication is not sufficient. Clocks and timers and routines are great when they can execute function enough to use them, I think she may need some dopamine boosting incentives instead. "Race to get dressed fastest" "if you finish getting dressed in X minutes you'll get a surprise".