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+
life and adhd 
I don’t think all of the things you described are “bad behaviors.” Drumming on things is subconscious for many (my husband included). Yes, it is annoying, but not an intentional rule broken. I think the quote you placed is very true, they don’t recognize many of their behaviors. And a lot of it can be stimulation seeking. Lots to thjink about. It’s taken me quite a while to learn to not take that stuff personally — I think sometimes that’s really key.
Agree with Penny.
I have ADHD. It’s sort of like… can you hear music in your head? Imagine you can if you can’t. So, you are bored and you remember a song that you heard someone singing on the way to the restaurant. You hear it in your head and your hands follow, keeping time. It can be quite fun. Now, when you are doing this, you are not thinking, “what do the people around me think about this… are they upset?” you are imagining that you are in a music video… and you think about all the different imagery and angles you might include. It’s like… being absorbed by an interesting science problem, or reading a book. When you read a book you don’t see paper with ink on it. You see the story and its pictures in your mind, and the physical concrete world drops away.
I would say that if you see someone with ADHD doing something that seems weird, or motivated by the sole purpose of annoying you… probably wrong. Probably part of a bigger picture. Using a bunch of animals to harass his sister? Did he see a discovery channel show on animal stampedes recently?
Finally, the best way to deal with someone who has ADHD and is doing something annoying is NOT to tell them to stop. I hate that. Honestly, like I said, the tapping (for me) would be a part of the bigger “music video” picture. Telling me to stop just knocks me out of that fun, fluid place. I refuse to stop when people tell me to, and will actually do it more intensely to prove that I can’t be shut down like that… and also I prefer to bring them to a peak so that I don’t have to worry about when they will explode. Best to just get emotions out there and be done with them. Actually, bringing people to anger fast when you notice that they are frustrated makes them much more blunt and upfront, so confrontation is done in a shorter amount of time, and it keeps them from ruining a bunch of the day with mounting tension.
That said, the best way to deal with kids who have ADHD and are annoying you is to play along. If I was tapping the table, the only thing that might get me to stop would be being kicked under the table. I would stop tapping and I would kick back. I will never let anyone STOP my game, but I will let anyone join in, which gives them the potential to alter it.
Dear Q<
Thank you SO much for that incredible insight. I would love to have more dialog with you. I feel that you could give me insight to my son that all the doctors and therapists cannot. I will really try to apply the perspective that you just gave me over the next few days.
Thanks again!