r/ADHDparenting

I don't know what else to do. My husband cannot control his anger. He gets irritated, frustrated, mad and that's it. There is no going back. His mood can last an hour or it can last days. And in these fits of anger he gets mean!

We have 2 daughters 14 & 11(ADHD). He has called them assholes, pieces of shit, brats, bitches. And there are times when our youngest with ADHD has an outburst and he spanks her...like a really hard smack across the bottom.

He just did it again tonight. I was in the shower and I get out and I hear a scream... everything was completely FINE when I got in. 10 min later and it's absolute chaos. The 11 year old is hyperventilating, the 14 year old is crying, screaming because her sister was hit. Husband is yelling that she deserved it and they're both spoiled assholes. I'm trying to deescalate but he then turns into "well, I guess I'm just the horrible parent"

I don't understand why it's so hard to NOT hit them! And everytime I call it hitting, he says "it was a spank". No, it's hitting.

And then after he's got everyone in tears and struggling to regulate, he just goes to bed. THAT'S when he finally walks away.

Tonight I told him that's it's a really sick thing to be able to cause this much angst and emotion and just walk away and be able to just go to sleep. Like who can do all that, make your kids so upset that theyre telling you to your face that they can't stand the words you say to them, and you just say more harmful things and go to sleep!

I don't know what to do. It isn't always bad but when it's bad, it's BAD. And the girls are amazing and don't deserve this at all, but the alternative would be managing this through split custody and I can't imagine doing that!

My son is 8, diagnosed ADHD at 6 but every professional called it by the time he was 2.5. E started medicating him a few months ago with Quillichew. He is funny, brilliant, great at art, super social and curious. He also is impulsive, emotionally explosive, just started pooping in the toilet 6 months ago (multiple trips to the ER from withholding poop so badly), needs to be told 10 times to complete a task, co-sleeps with me because it’s the only way he will sleep, and excellent at pushing buttons.

My mom yelled a lot when I was a kid and I didn’t like it and always remembered it. I try so consciously to not be that parent and yet, thanks partly to the above, I find myself losing my patience and yelling what feels like all the time. And then he says devastating things like “I wish I had a better mom who loved me” and I cry myself to sleep. I am trying so hard. I repair after the yelling. I try to point out the good. I know kids with ADHD have lower self-esteem because they’re always being corrected and I feel like I’m doing it to my own kid.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for right now. Reassurance I’m not ruining his childhood? Tips? Solidarity? I’ll take anything.

Please be gentle, it’s been a morning.
Just so we are clear from the start, she’s booked in with her paediatrician for a medication review a week after she turns 6 (less than a month from now) and we have her in with an occupational therapist every fortnight. I’m posting this for support and to see if anyone has had any similar experiences with their kid.

We live in Victoria, Australia. My daughter is 5, officially diagnosed with ADHD 6 months ago. We started slow on meds. Dexamphetamine 5mg, a quarter in the morning and a quarter at lunch time, moving up to half in the morning and half at lunch, then eventually we have ended up at 5mg morning, 5mg at lunch.
We noticed immediately the improved focus and impulse control, but it would slump pretty quickly (around 1.5 hours - 2 hours after taking) and she would become incredibly agitated and quite emotional, especially if we needed to do something that she didn’t want to do. She is pushing her friends away at school and all she wants to do is sit quietly and draw. Loud sounds bother her, they didn’t before (or maybe they did and she would express it in a different way). Anyway, all of that is still happening, even on the higher dose. We make sure that she has a good breakfast before I give her the tablet and send her off to school, but it also suppresses her appetite so much that she’s coming home with a mostly full lunch box. Even by dinner time, she’s disinterested in food, which escalates the agitation and emotional dis regulation. I’ve expressed my concerns with her doctor and only ever moved up the dose under his advice.

I booked an after hours appointment around a month ago to discuss moving her to a longer acting medication (vyvanse or concerta). I was told he can’t put her on longer acting until she’s 6 years old and to give her another half dose of Dex in the afternoon, after school. It didn’t help. As we could guess, it suppressed her appetite even more and moved the meltdown to bed time, instead of earlier.

Yesterday I took a dive and decided to take the day off from medication, what was the harm? It’s a Sunday and we have nowhere to be and nothing to do. Yes, everything came flooding back. The impulsive behaviours, the loud constant noises, not following directions/instructions, boundary pushing at every opportunity. Most importantly though, she was genuinely happy. She snacked all day, ate three good meals and actually wanted to play, not just sit and do crafts for hours and hours while zoned out.

I don’t know, my gut is telling me the meds aren’t right and while we are seeing some positive changes, there’s so many negatives and she just seems miserable.

My worry is that when she does turn 6 and is prescribed Vyvanse, that her appetite will be non existent. I had a really hard time adapting to Vyvanse myself, it took months for me.
What do we think? Is it worth the conversation for a swap over to Ritalin? If anyone has had any similar experiences or can offer a shoulder to sob on, I’d be forever grateful. Thanks in advance ❤️

Hi! Very very new here. My son is 9, diagnosed ADHD, with a possibility of AuDHD. He's currently on Vyvanse. I just saw an ad today about something called a panda drum, which is supposed to help calm kids down.

Is this valid? Or snake oil. I cannot find any straight forward answer. I Google it and just find more ads for it.

(And if this is breaking any rules please let me know. First post here)

I spent the first month of second grade taking things away. Red day at school, no video games. Two good days to earn it back. It made everything worse and I couldn't figure out why. The stress of all of it was causing my face to breakout, (when I've never struggled with ache) and I started having trouble sleeping at night. I knew I had to put the extra effort into learning more about what I needed to do to get the peace I needed. I started reading books, listening to podcasts, scrolling YouTube, you name it. So, with all that this is what I finally got: once he'd lost it, he had nothing left to lose. The rest of that day and usually the next one, there was zero reason for him to try. And he'd started telling me he was scared to go to school because he wouldn't do a good job. He was hiding the daily report in his backpack.

So I flipped the whole thing. Upside down. 180. I started over. He can only earn now. Nothing ever gets taken away. So now it looks more like this: Green day = 2 chips. Yellow = 1. Red = 0. But a red day never costs him anything he already had. 1 chip = 1 hour of game time.(his favorite thing to do is play his game with his classmates) He hands me the chip before it turns on. Three bonus chips he can earn on ANY day, even his worst one: telling me honestly what the hardest part of his day was, doing his whole morning routine, and taking care of his own stuff without me doing it for him. The honesty chip was the BIG one. He gets paid for telling the truth about a bad day. Now he hands me the report instead of hiding it.

Other things that moved the needle more than I expected: protein at breakfast instead of just carbs, 10 minutes outside before school. NO EXCEPTIONS. and screens off a full hour before bed. I also stopped lecturing on bad days. The consequence already happened at school. Now I read the teacher's good notes out loud first, then ask one question: "what was the hardest part today?" That's it.

Total game changer for both of us now. Yesterday he got in the car and said "guess what?!?! i had a green day, and the hardest part was moving to a separate table for reading because I didn't want to distract everybody." It's heart warming to see both of our efforts coming together as a team.

I'm not a professional, this is just what finally worked for my kid after a lot of reading and getting it wrong. Happy to answer anything in the comments.

Started in a SEND school this year and typically teach year 4 students - specialist autism pathway. The children are non verbal and a lot of them are 1-1. What I see constantly is teaching assistants ‘gentle parenting’ them when they’re being violent, as if they don’t know what they’re doing is painful and as though they arent clever. The children are comfortable biting and scratching/hitting certain TA’s because they use a soft approach and know no discipline will take place. other TA’s, who are more strict do not nearly get hit/scratched as much or bitten.

An incident recently happpened in the ohtside play area where one pupil (young girl) threw a tantrum because a young boy was on the big swing. She went to hit the boy and the two TA’s nearby gentle patented, told her she had to share and even praised her when she stopped hitting him for a few seconds. They allowed her to sit right next to him and continue to try and hit him. I asked if they wanted me to move her to another area, they said not to as she needs to be taught to share. They thought she had calmed down but merely 10 seconds later she grabbed him by the hair, smacked his face and went to kick him. At this point I was appalled and picked her up myself, moved her away from the boy and held her back whilst she tried to hit me in the face. I told her not to hit and that she is not allowed on the swing any longer today. She eventually calmed down and did not attempt to go back to the swing as she knew I’d be watching, left the boy alone and did not attempt to hit me again that day. On the other hand, she continued to throw tantrums around the same other two TA’s and even bit them an hour later. Which they continued to gentle parent. They did not tell the teacher about this and did not write up any reports on the matter.

there was also another incident in the sensory room where a boy ran up to another student and grabbed her hair, ripping a fair chunk out. Just for the sake of doing it. She did not interact with him whatsoever, he just ran over and attacked her. Again, no report or write up was made. probably because the school staff don’t want any trouble with parents so they just pretend things have never happened.

now, I’m all for remaining calm and talking the children through their behaviour. But essentially letting a little girl attack another boy and not implementing disciplinary action or telling her otherwise is one of the worst I’ve seen TA’s act. And this shows in the way the children act towards different staff members. I have never been bitten or scratched As I don’t allow the children close to me when they’re overstimulated and being violent.

Why is it that in SEND schools violent behaviour is normalised? Is this particularly in the school I’m working at or is it common across the board?

We’ve been telling her for four years that she needs an agenda to keep track of assignments, deadlines tests, etc. To no avail. It’s literally a screaming match every couple weeks because she falls behind on everything then winds up with terrible grades on her report card.

What is so hard about writing things down, then crossing it off when it’s completed? As a Type A personality, I can’t function without a constant to-do list, calendar and whiteboard, helping me during the week.

What can I do to get her to listen? She is on Strattera and will be increasing the dose soon. But ultimately, this is her issue. She will be an adult in three years, and I cannot constantly babysit her, reach out to her teachers, beg for more time, etc. What’s gonna happen when she gets to college and can’t function?

I just don’t know what to do anymore. We’ve tried therapy, it did nothing. I’m considering an ADHD coach, but I don’t know anything about it and I’m just exhausted from life.

It took two years, but my 6YO with ADHD finally has some reciprocal friendships in our neighborhood. The only problem is...now all she wants to do is play with her friends.

I kept the rules simple: tell Mom where you're going and wear shoes. She doesn't do either.

She has no concept of safety. She runs off when I have my back turned, just for a minute. She is so fast, and I can't catch her or keep track of who she is with or where she is. If her pack of friends is out, she roams with them. If they are not out, she goes house to house until someone lets her inside. She stalks her friends; she chased one home when they got off the bus.

I have some of the parents' phone numbers, but not all; I don't even know where they all live. The kids never want to play at our house because we have the smallest house in the neighborhood, and all her friends have wealthy parents and big houses with tons of toys.

She wants to play over EVERYTHING else. She skips meals. She won't even pause to go to the bathroom. She comes home with soiled underwear. She comes home without shoes.

When I go to get her from a friend's house, she won't leave. She runs through people's houses like she owns the place. She climbs on their furniture. It takes forever to get her to come home.

I was so happy for her when she made friends, but this has made our everyday chaos even more chaotic.

I feel helpless and out of control. She has outsmarted all the lock systems I have in the house. I can't afford a fence (and I'm pretty sure she would climb over it anyway). I thought about an AirTag, but again, she doesn't consistently keep her shoes on.

HELP.

I was diagnosed with ADHD over a year ago at age 44. My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD in June and we are trying to navigate things. Lately we've been struggling on the weekends with getting her to eat, then she shuts down and won't talk. On a typical weekday she doesn't eat breakfast and I've given up the fight because it makes our mornings much less stressful. She does eat lunch at school and her appetite is fine the rest of the day. She usually sleeps in on the weekends, and then doesn't eat for hours. When we try and get her to she says she doesn't feel like eating, but then inevitably shuts down. Today she sat on the floor in the living room for hours with her head in her hands saying she hates her brain. I sat with her, I made her plate of safe food, I was calm and told her she's not a bad kid, she's having a hard time. I tried to share relatable stories, I gave her a weighted stuffy, I just sat beside her and stayed quiet. I went to the bathroom and when I came back she had snuck off in her room and hid under the covers. This has been going on for almost 5 hours. She still hasn't eaten which is making things worse. I have no more patience and I feel like a bad mom for not being able to help her. My husband and younger daughter are decorating for halloween which is her favourite holiday. We tried to lure her to go buy Halloween decorations and nothing. This has ruined our entire Saturday, and I'm at a loss of what do do. This is not the first time this has happened. When she is in a good space we talk about the importance of nutrition, just getting small into your belly in the morning, even if you don't feel like it etc. Any advice is much appreciated.