Is this the way the world feels to an ADHD kid?

Mother’s Day – No Different Than Any Other ADHD Day

reprinted from May, 2010

Well, what was I thinking! Did I really think that my son would rein in his behavior for one afternoon with me because it was Mother’s Day?

Spoiler alert here……..this story ends in tears. Yep, tears on Mother’s Day, and not the “tears of joy” kind.  Since it was my ex-husband’s weekend with the kids, I was only going to have them for two hours to grab a Mother’s Day bite to eat with them. So, let’s see, only 2 hours and add on the fact that it’s Mother’s Day……didn’t see a huge opportunity for disaster, I was actually feeling quite optimistic about the approaching afternoon.

Let me just put the following 2 hours in bullet points for you to save us all some time……

• son repeatedly flying his arm across the table with his french fry (that he had just licked) to dip it in his sister’s ketchup instead of his own.
• a huge glass of milk spilling everywhere due to one of the french fry ‘fly overs’.
• running a butter knife over the concave surface of a Snapple lid so that it made the most annoying sound EVER, and the very real moment when the man two booths over almost lost it on my son.
• son CONSTANTLY degrading his sister even a “I wish you would die” uttered much to the next table’s horror.
• went to book store after disaster meal only to have son go to kids section where they sell hand puppets which he proceeded to put the majority on at the same time just to terrorize his sister with until we were pretty much asked to leave.
• constant ‘drumming’ on EVERY surface possible.
• the on-going non-awareness of his own personal space which meant never was he not leaning on me or pushing up against me, etc.

But all this aside, what blew my socks off was that after a good hour and a half of me just trying to pretend none of this was happening and doing my best to keep everything pleasant, the drumming and hand puppets finally got to me and I started in on the list of what he had “done wrong” and “why couldn’t he behave” for just the few hours he was with me that day?

Then came my most favorite line of his “why are YOU always getting me in trouble?”  Is it just me or is that some screwed up logic right there?  In his mind it wasn’t HIS actions that led to him getting in trouble, it was ME.  Instead of being aware of HIS actions, he could only fall back on something that his sister had done back on March 3rd of 2004, or something that I might of, or could have done that would have made him into what he is today.  WHAT?????????  What kind of logic is this, what kind of brain thinks this was?  (I know the answer to that question is the ADHD brain, but really, after all of this I, myself was now not thinking too logically either.)

Oh my God, I had only been with him for a short while and already everything was a mess because of this horrible misbehavior, yet, he honestly did not see that he had done anything wrong. Could this possibly be true?  Was this child a budding sociopath or just a genius at deflecting blame.  Of course, I knew the real answer, I had just been trying to forget………..oh yeah, my kid has ADHD. Later that night, after my tears had dried, I ran across this article in one of the ADHD publications that talked about how ADHD people actually have no awareness of their behavior.

“Individuals with AD/HD are unaware of the behaviors that provoke negative reactions in others.

They are aware, however, that others hover around them nagging.  The connection between their

behavior and this nagging response remains opaque.  The white noise of nagging becomes an

ever-more-distant hum, which the patients tune out; meanwhile, their families turn up the volume,

becoming even more angry and controlling.”

So if I buy into what they’re saying, then he’s not just trying to get to me, he actually doesn’t realize how he’s acting.  Well, I don’t know about you, but that is a very hard concept as a parent to process.  So, just what the hell are we supposed to do as parents?  Allow, excuse, or overlook the bad behavior?  Honestly, once again I am baffled as to where the parenting line is supposed to fall for ADHD kids.  When do you discipline and when do you default to the diagnosis?

The kicker in all of this for me is that I will spend the next 12 hours beating MYself up for my behavior towards him. Inevitably when all calms down it’s MY behavior that I question……could I have done something better, been more understanding, etc.  I end with this question to all of you…………what do you do??  How much of a pass do you give your kids bad behavior because of the ADHD, do you feel like giving up and just using the syndrome as an excuse for not disciplining?  I don’t know about you but this is question is what is making me beyond exhausted and feeling really freaking old.

Please let me know your thoughts………

+credit to CHADD magazine for quote+

Control Issues

If I can’t control this child at least I can master this bush.

That will make me feel better………..right?  right?  hello?

The Therapy Session

I decided to do a joint appointment with my son at the therapist’s office tonight.  I

had given up on him seeing the therapist alone because he refused to talk to her.

Instead, he had decided what he would take from these meetings was a running

tally of how much we were spending for each appointment where he did nothing

but just sit there and not talk. Then, later whenever he would ask for me to buy him

something and I would say I couldn’t afford it, he would say, “my point EXACTLY,

if you hadn’t paid for those 9 appointments @ $175 each then we would not be

having this problem, and I would have the X-box game I want.”  At these moments

I don’t know whether to applaud his multiplication skills, reprimand his smart

mouth, go for the never successful quoting of the life lesson that there is more to this

world than just “his needs”, or to simply grimace and grit my teeth which have

already become nubs from always defaulting to this decision.

Anyhow, since my current dealings with him were reaching new volume levels and

starting to incorporate swear words (on my part), I decided that we could both use

a little therapy. In my optimism (misguided thinking) I thought that if I laid down

the  gauntlet by admitting in front of him that my ‘swearing & yelling’ was not right,

perhaps my son would be willing to make a team effort along with me to improve

our home life.

As we walked into the therapist’s office I took a seat on the couch leaving the cozier

looking chair for him.  Just as I was getting situated he lopes over and proceeds to sit

on top of me and refused to move.  We’re not talking about some cute cuddly way, it

was alarming actually.  I wasn’t expecting it so I hadn’t moved my hands quickly

enough and he ended up sitting on my hands and due to him being bigger than me I

couldn’t get any leverage with any other parts of my body other than to just sort of lift

my “lap” up and down trying to knock him off.  He had pressed his back onto me so

my face was squished making it impossible to speak much less even see the therapist.

From her perspective it must have looked like some strange animal mating scenario.

Horribly embarrassing.  I’m surprised she didn’t yell out that she didn’t do this kind

of therapy.

After I was finally able to shake him off me, he then proceeded to lay on the couch,

take his shoes and socks off and go to work on some long standing toe jam.  What

the heck!!  (See, I said heck where another word here would have been much more

soothing to me, but I’m trying) I had never seen him act this way in public.  The

entire appointment he used this strange baby talk.  As all of this was going on I was

wondering if I should correct him, ask him to sit up,  put his shoes back on thus

risking coming across as the kind of mom that is controlling, therefore, undoubtedly

becoming the “reason” for his behavior, or did I just sit there maintaining eye

contact with the therapist thus being deemed either the cool mom who doesn’t get

hung up on the small things or would I become the other end of the diagnosis,

“no-wonder-your-child-is-impossible-you-do-nothing-to-discipline-him” kind of

mom.  You know what I’m talking about, right?

So, instead of dragging you through any more details of this appalling appointment,

let me just share with you what I learned. DIS-ENGAGE, yes, that was the big lesson.

Just step back from the behavior.  Not saying to ignore it because then you are still

engaged due to your effort to ignore.  Disengage meaning it has nothing to do with

you, let yourself mentally release yourself from having any responsibility or duty to do

anything about your kid’s behavior.  And you know what?  The more I try it I realize it

works!  The therapist was right.  By disengaging I can get MYSELF back.  I separate

and put distance for myself from the irrationality of his behavior.  Once I allowed

myself to do this it gave me an amazing sense of freedom.  It made me feel strong and

capable because it was MY decision to put the distance there.  Another plus of this

new paradigm was by gaining this distance I then saw how that put the onus on him

to become more responsible for his actions.  It was nearing the end of the session and

the therapist gave the signal by standing and saying, “okay, then”.  I said, “OK, can

you put your shoes and socks back on now” to my son.  Not surprisingly, he opted

instead to start to play with the flexible arms of her floor lamp, instead of swooping

down and repeating his name numerous times and then lower my voice to an animal

like growl to put his shoes on, I simply said “I’m going to the car” and I turned and

walked out.  I heard him say, “mama” in a really small voice as I exited the room.  In

that moment I realized that by “dis-engaging” I gave him the gift of being embarrassed

by his own actions, because there was no audience except for the person whose

property he was hurting, and thank God at least most of these ADHD kids are smart

enough to know they don’t want to look stupid, and standing there twisting someone’s

floor lamp into a topiary he was looking pretty stupid.  So, he put his shoes on

lickety-split and off we went.  Unfortunately we’re  not riding into the sunset where we

live happily ever after, we are  inevitably only off to our next battle which will most

likely be happening within the next hour.  But for this moment, in this particular day,

chalk one up for mom.