the real story
Can anyone who hasn’t lived with an ADHD kid ever really perceive
the amount of stress parents like us endure every minute of each waking hour
when these kids are around?
Does the parent of a "normal child" have any inkling of what
it‘s like trying to instruct, or negotiate with a child who constantly
moves the goalposts?
Will pediatricians, psychologists or psychiatrists ever really understand
that the problems we encounter with these children on a minute-by-minute basis
– they are NOT isolated incidents dotted throughout an otherwise normal or
peaceful day?
Sheer Frustration
It is frustrating for parents to have to pick out incidents or altercations
to be analyzed by these specialists because they don’t occur in isolation.
They carry on throughout the day, each one systematically going into the next
and compounding the original problem.
It is this constant battling about every point, the literal way these
children take your words, the aggression and attitude these children use in
their daily life, the tantrums, etc. which can sometimes have you about a centimeter
from a nervous breakdown. Add to this the impact these children have
on other family members, how they affect the overall dynamics of family
interaction, the frequent school problems, hospital appointments and the rest,
and you have here the potential for a lethal brew!
Livin' La Vida Loca (Living the crazy life)
Following is just one interaction (if you can call it that) that occurred
about halfway through the school summer holidays.
This morning, I was playing with my daughter when my son, George,
came down stairs. “Hello Sunshine,” I said.
“Hello Moonshine,” he replied.
(George is ADHD, but there is now some discussion as to whether he is
Asperger's too. He takes things completely literally and has extreme difficulty
in understanding nuances of speech, tone of voice, facial expressions etc. He
can also be extremely fastidious and has to have things put to him very
precisely. This causes many, many hypothetical arguments, wastes lots of time
and can be extremely exhausting for me.)
George gets under the duvet, which happens to be covering my three year old
daughter and they start tittle tattling. So I ask him to move. He pointblank
refuses, so we get into an argument and he tells me to f*** off. CHARMING! I
fine him 20p from his pocket money for swearing (he’s now at about minus
£1.20 for this week) and eventually he calms down.
I pass him a magazine to look at to try to get him back on an even keel.
“Here, George.” He ignores me, so I repeat, “here George.”
“Eye, Mum eye,” he replies. Again, he has perceived “here”
as “ear.” It is so frustrating! I know George has a problem but this
is not a now-and-again thing. It is constant and frankly it gets boring having
to explain words, expressions and meanings the whole time. This sounds very
unkind, but this type of thing wears on your nerves and simply the amount of
talking one has to do in a day explaining things, or arguing, is simply
exhausting for a parent.
We then have the usual breakfast argument. In a nutshell, he doesn’t want
any of the options I offer him so he ends the conversation with “I’ll
not have anything then. I’ll just starve!” Starve, starve! I’ve
just offered him a larger breakfast menu than he’d get at the Hilton!
By this time, I am starting to lose my patience. He gets up and goes to the
door. “I’m going upstairs,” he snaps.
“OK, I’ll see you later,” I reply nonchalantly. 2 seconds later,
he’s behind me. “I thought you were going upstairs?,” I yell.
“Don’t see why I have to!” he screams.
What do you do? Just what do you do? If only some of the people we go to for
help could live in our houses for a couple of days and just experience the
enormity of the situation, they would soon see that we are not overreacting or
being incompetent parents. I would like to see anyone solve the problems that
we have to contend with every hour of every day.
George returns to his chair and starts ragging his sister again, so I warn him
that if he doesn’t stop it, I am going to ‘count’ him. This is
where you use the 1, 2, 3 – then time-out method. He hates this and it
usually sends him into fits of rage. But what the hell do you do? It’s
like trying to juggle mercury. “When you do that with Ellie,” he
shouts, “she gets 2 and three-quarters and 2 and nine-tenths!”
Oh God, here we go again. He tries to goad me into another argument. He’s
always doing this by either mouthing off, or saying something extremely emotive
or offensive to family members or teachers. He certainly knows which of my
buttons to press that’s for sure. The time is exactly 8.45 am. George has
been out of bed approximately 20 minutes, my head is exploding and I am ready
for walking out already. What a life!
Can anyone imagine what it is like in term time for mums trying to get these,
(and any other) children ready for school? On top of the above aggravation, we
have to somehow get these kids into uniform with their lack of motivation to
get ready and often their inability to even dress, wash themselves or brush
their hair/teeth. (George is 11 and-a-half, but I still get him ready in the
morning.) Their poor planning and memory means that books and equipment, which
have to be in school on certain days, just don‘t get there. No wonder we
mums feel puddled the whole time too!
So anyone out there with a suspicion that these problems are of our own
making, or who feels that maybe, just maybe, our parenting skills are at fault,
remember that ADHD knows no boundaries. ANYONE can give birth to a child like
this and only when one has lived with the daily turmoil and devastation this
condition leaves in it’s wake, does one really understand what living with
ADHD actually means.
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