Yep, we all knew we’d hear those words at some point, right. Except instead of it coming out of my son’s mouth it came out of mine. I couldn’t believe I said it, yet I REALLY meant it at that moment.
It was a school morning and I was running around packing the lunches for him and his sister, and had just made him a fresh fruit smoothie for his breakfast when I realized that I had mistakenly eaten the last of the Frosted Mini Wheats last night as my midnight snack. Well, his sister ONLY eats Frosted Mini Wheats so we were in a real crisis moment here. She was running late and hadn’t even started to get dressed for school yet, I looked over and saw him just sitting there reading a comic book. So since we literally live about 10 feet from a Starbucks I asked him if he could run across the street and get a bagel for her while I finished making his smoothie. Well, of course a huge argument ensued as he listed all of his reasons why he shouldn’t have to do it. It was unbelievable! Seriously, this kid who was sitting there doing NOTHING couldn’t do this to help out the morning situation. I was so blown away by the total disregard for anyone/anything but himself that I just lost it and yelled out “I hate you.”
What I meant (?) or should have said was I hate people who are as selfish as you, but no instead of lashing out against the ‘behavior’ of the ADHD kid, I lashed out at the actual kid. But, tell me, was this unacceptable behavior the kid’s fault or the fault of the ADHD? After all that is done for this kid it was beyond me that he couldn’t just do this one thing. He wasn’t in the middle of an X-box game, he certainly wasn’t overwhelmed by anything since he was just lounging on the couch looking at comic book, so was I really supposed to be okay with this incredible level of selfishness just because he has ADHD. This certainly wasn’t any kind of attentional issue, this was just a plain lazy and bad attitude. I couldn’t believe that those words came out of my mouth, but I have to say that I have never felt so justified in making a point.
Ironically, after I dropped him off at school he called to say that he had forgotten to print out his homework assignment that was on my computer so I had to print it out for him and drive BACK to the school. Then he called again, right after I returned home for the second time to then tell me he had forgotten his assignment pad. My desire to say, “oh, I can’t bring that to you because I’m reading a comic book” was so tempting, but of course, like any mother would, I got back in the car for the THIRD time that morning and drove the assignment pad over to the school.
So, again I ask……..ADHD or selfishness. How do we know and when should we treat the bad behavior like we would with any other kid.
life and adhd 