u/AcademicFilmDude

Can anyone offer some advice for teaching my 13 year old how to hold a conversation? It's driving me nuts, especially as I have ADHD too and find it *insanely* frustrating.

He isn't exactly hyper verbal - more that he either makes random
noises or comes out with random stream of consciousness words that have no relation to the current conversation, usually when he's bored or engaged in a task.

But the most frustrating is that it's impossible to hold a conversation that lasts more than a few minutes. He has deep interests, so we'll begin talking about them and then three exchanges in he'll switch to something utterly random or inappropriate as if the previous exchange never took place. It's impossible to have any sort of two way exchange, even on his terms. Eg this eve:

Him: what's the atmosphere like on mars, Dad?
Me: well it's mostly carbon dioxide and very thin and...
Him: Whoa bro... you growin' that beard to impress mum? Wouldn't it be weird to live in the jungle?

I mean, sometimes it's funny, most of the time now I get deeply concerned. Again, as someone with ADHD Im constantly aware of my own tendencies to over-talk, but I'm not sure it was ever this scattershot and random as a kid. It makes me sad too because I can't find a way to connect with his interests. I sat and had an hour long chat with my 9 year old the other night. It's something that would be impossible with my teen.

Any tips?

Hello, I know I'm overlapping with a lot of existing posts on here, but I've just had another bedtime fight with my son, and I'm at the end of my tether. My wife and I separated last year, or marriage could no longer take the strain, and single parenting is just... insanity.

He's 13 and on methylphenidate for school. He won't eat during the day, is doing more and more things like football and athletics, his body is growing fast, and so he comes home crashing off the meds, blood sugar through the floor, and I spend the whole evening shovelling calories into him, while he is mean and abusive, and also trying to be there for my youngest son. I feel like an indentured servant.

My ex - because she always felt guilty I think - refused to offer meaningful consequences when he was younger, and so he does nothing. Other than clearing his plates, he sits around exhausted from masking all day, and on weekends I might get him to do one or two minor jobs with me around the house but mostly his reaction is to shout and meltdown because he's too tired. God, I sound like a 1950's Dad and I'm really not. I have ADHD too, I was a nightmare for my Mum, but I was never verbally abusive.

I'm just incredibly concerned that his behaviour is becoming increasingly surly and out of hand - especially towards my ex. I try and do things with him like hill walking and football, but tag teaming my younger son makes it really difficult and I have very little family support. I try to explain this to him in an appropriate way, but his reaction is passive aggressive (another trait he's becoming good at). He'll smirk and say things like, 'I'm used to you not being there for me', which absolutely kills me inside.

This evening he was beating himself up because he came last in his first ever athletics comp, the day after doing his first 8K run. I know what he's feeling, because I know how it feels to have ADHD and need to be validated, and I was gutted for him. I tried to empathise, but he started banging around, and when I asked him to stop because his bro was asleep, he told me to F-Off and that he didn't like me as a person.

I lost it, didn't shout, but said I didn't like him either and we wouldn't be doing any other activities together until he learns how to show some kindness and respect.

If it wasn't the athletics it would be something else. It's every single night. O go to bed feeling like a terrible dad, occasionally I manage to repair, often that's how the day ends and we wake up with him not speaking.

He was diagnosed with ODD at 7 but I'm not sure it fits. It's not vindictive, more like deep unhappiness and an aloofness towards his family life, something I don't know how to remedy. I know he picks up on the fact that we all struggle with him, and again I remember that feeling with my own mother and hate myself for it. With the best will in the world we try and fail to hide the struggle, even his 9 year old bro just rolls his eyes now and avoids upsetting him.

When he's off his meds away from school he's so much happier, but without his meds he can't do school.

Sorry, that's a long rant. But I feel like I'm losing him.

Hi all,

I'm 51 and getting back into running after a year in which I became seperated, finished a PhD, and got a three month long back injury. My fitness has cratered - 2 years ago I was regularly finishing sub 57' 10Ks - now I'm huffing through a couch to 5K trying to build back. I'm finally with it enough to really put some effort back into food and training, and want to anchor my nutrition with protein to lose the weight I've piled on and get back in shape.

But my goodness - a protein centred diet is incredibly expensive (in UK). Chicken, seafood etc is killing my budget. Yogurt is a good bulker at breakfast. What are some other good cheap(er) and crucially low effort (single parent of 2 nutters) ways of getting macro nutrients onto my plate to fuel runs and recover?

Side question: does anyone know of a good C25K app that isn't the BBC one. It's great and the structure works for me in forcing me to walk and get the HR retrained, but finding it really demotivating when the presenter says things like, 'I bet you never thought you'd run for 5 minutes!' and I'm thinking.... 'aye, 2 years ago I was running halfs, cheers.'

Thanks!!

Hi all,

I passed my viva with flying colours last week, woop! Examiners said it was timely, important, one of the most original practice based theses they'd seen, basically my head has been swollen for a week. I crashed pretty hard two days later, and now I'm putting my head back up over the parapet and keen to get my feet back on the ground and push on.

I'm 51 with ADHD, under no illusions about how bloody difficult an academic career is going to be at my age and stage, and with the sector crumbling around me. But I have 20+ years of professional practice experience and now a PhD in it, I've been freelance for much of that time too so I'm used to the idea of portfolio careers with a good dose of precarity.

Challenges currently in my head are these:

1. How to maintain research momentum without academic affiliation, and what I should be doing 'right now' to leverage a thesis which has pedagogic applications around neurodivergent approaches to learning/knowledge and arts practice as research.
2. How to position myself with academics outside of my institution so that when the individual module teaching/designgigs arise I'm front of mind and can build up a patchwork of teaching.
3. Kind of ties in with 1, but whether to refocus on the 'biggie' projects - e.g. potential monograph of thesis and a big project I have in mind that really develops it further in super interesting ways - or focus on small wins e.g. low hanging fruit of quick turnaround papers that relate to the work.
4. I have some ideas to build my own external teaching practice which has a strong community focus but need time/space/resources. I'm looking at external funding, but is this something the university might engage with in terms of a civic engagement agenda and assist with resourcing. Or is this a hiding to nothing?

All of this tempered by the fact I'm a single dad with two kids in school, so need to be super strategic with my time.

Would love thoughts. Thanks!

Any academics in the sub? It's my viva day after tomorrow and wondering if anyone has been through a viva and survived. I've overprepared to within an inch of my life - completely outsourced my terrible working memory and delayed recall to a 'meaty' set of notes.

Adjustments are all good, examiners are aware.

My main concern is meds. I take methylphenidate XR but it wears off mid afternoon - the viva time has just been shifted at late notice to 1.30pm. I could take it late, but worried taking it on a stomach just before lunch will lessen the effect (always take it at 9am about 2 hours after brekkie). Planning to take some short release in with me, but never usually take them so it would be an experiment! Any advice?