ADHD

I'm parenting two kids with ADHD. One is also ASD.

1. Sleep. They won't get ready for bed. They won't go to bed. They won't get out of bed in the morning. They won't get ready for school.

2. They struggle a bit. They can make 5 minute friends, but they often become demanding or lash out at the first sign of frustration and their friends don't hang around. They can offend people easily.

3. Meds. Melatonin and stimulants. Super effective. The school will call me within 90 minutes if I forget to administer meds. It's that obvious.

4. I am burnt out. All the time. It's hard to do anything but raise the kids and go to work.

5. Probably a reliable babysitter. The grandparents have very limited capacity.

The most challenging behaviour is his executive dysfunction. He has problems transitioning to a new task and he lets out his emotional distress on me. 2. He is suspected to be autistic as well, so take this with a grain of salt. Since he let's out every frustration he feels, he often insults his brother, he complains about everything to me, and he withdraws from his classmates because navigating them as well is too much for him. 3. He has an emergency box with fidget toys and communication cards at school. They allow for him to retreat to a quiet room if necessary. Of course we have fidget toys at home, he just finished 1.5 years of behaviour therapy and he has an indoor trampoline in his room. We talk with him about his problems and offered strategies on how to solve them. Only since he changed to an inclusive school he has the mental capacity to use them! He needs outside help and support for this. 4. We have been ostracised by people. Since we are neurodivergent ourselves we resorted to mainly live in this bubble where people understand this. Of course helping a challenging child is more exhausting. We have a very strong relationship as partners and make it a point to build a strong family bond with our kids. This is helping us immensely. We know that we are not always equally well mentally and take each other's load if one needs a break. We're in this together and we are better and stronger together. 5. Our inclusive school has been a great resource so far, and also our psychologist. For me as a mom my own psychotherapy equips me with the tools I need to help my kid. The main support are people who believe us instead of blaming our inconsequential and poor parenting skills. The approach to my kids challenges made and makes the biggest difference. Feel free to contact me if you have more questions!

ADHD dad with 15 year old ADHD son here (also, I have a severely ADHD dad... undiagnosed / untreated, probably like most boomers with ADHD). Second what other's said. My son is like the least aggressive person ever. Observations of his childhood vrs my childhood vrs stories of my dad's childhood make me STRONGLY believe aggression in ADHD kids is environmental / cultural in nature... for whatever that's worth.

1. Homework and chores, hands down. My son says he'll do it, and doesn't want help / doesn't want to be reminded. But GFL unless I sit down and do it with him.

2. Son is an only child, but he gets along REALLY well with his 9 year old cousin (who also has ADHD) and his friends. My son runs LARPs for them. If my son gets angry / aggressive toward anyone in the family, it's his mother, who sets the strongest boundaries with him. It's been like that all his life. Mostly they have a good relationship, but whatever social strain he has going on, it's there.

3. N/A. My son is not aggressive (and never has been). When faced with aggressive behavior from other children, he tries to talk them down and withdraws / gets depressed if it doesn't work. Again, I attribute this to his early childhood education and to the culture he grew up in. I would say changing the culture / teaching self management and communication tools EARLY is the best advice possible.

4. Worst case, my son and I can enable each other with some of our dysfunctional ADHD behavior and tendencies and we need help from other family members to keep us all on track.

5. See above about culture and education.

My ADHD kids are not aggressive, on the contrary. And each one of them behaves and reacts differently, especially without/after medication.

I'll try my best to give some answers.

1. Lack of focus, getting lost in thoughts, or hyper focusing on the wrong thing at the wrong time - my kids get up at 6:15am to catch the 7:25am to go to school, and somehow that's still not enough time... Also, taking 4h to do homework that otherwise would take 30m.
2. Like I mentioned, my kids are not aggressive or hyperactive, they are on the other side of the scale - while my boy has a large group of friends, my middle daughter has none (she is also diagnosed with ASD), and it's really difficult for her to fit in. My little daughter does have a bit of an extroverted personality, and she really tries to fit in and grab the attention of people, but most kids push back. She fits right in with the adults though, becoming fast friends with our (the adults) group of friends.
3. Nothing in regards to aggression, but my son and middle daughter go to therapy, my middle daughter also goes to group therapy (for kids with ASD). Also, they all take Ritalin in the morning, and that helped quite a bit, especially at school, but it was not a "fix", just a helper.
4. It can be overwhelming at times - mood swings, overreacting to the smallest issue, crying for hours for not finishing the test in time, or forgetting the school account password... We have many talks, trying to reassure them as best as I can.
5. We did a lot of reading, from online articles to books about ADHD, talking to a couple psychiatrists, but probably the best resource was my wife's own ADHD diagnosis. She did a lot of research!

If you have any questions, please ask.

That's not a 2-3 minutes survey 😅 Each of these questions would take significant time to answer.

PS: Don't you have an survey-taking tool? Asking raw on lemmy like that seems...sub-optimal.