Family members

You don’t say how old your child is or whether the movie was interesting for a child that age.

Personally, I would be proactive in avoiding situations you know will be problematic and intervening when they happen. If you know your child can’t watch a movie sitting still, suggest another activity. If you get into the situation and you think the dog is the problem, ask if the dog can be put in another room so your son won’t be tempted to play with him and annoy others. I know it seems like others are critisizing you and your child but what is clear is his behavior is annoying to them. They may be less tolerant because they don’t have children but that is where they are at. You also might try talking to your son before visiting—about how they don’t have children and aren’t used to them so could he be on his best behavior—and be very specific about what you mean by that. Don’t expect “best behavior” all day and do take him somewhere he can run off his energy afterwards. In general though, I’d get together with family who is less than tolerant by going to a park, play ground, zoo or something that is less difficult for your son.

My youngest is very active with a very short attention span. I hired a babysitter for his older sister’s piano recital for years, even though other kids his age attended without incident. I knew he’d be trouble. Now he is 6 (but more like most 4 year olds) and I give him a very firm talking to before hand. He does fine but boy did I regret the time we went out to eat afterwards!!! That simply was more controlling himself than he could do.

Beth

I would be furious… I know if someone would have done that to my child I would go off.. You need to explain the situaton to them and they need to just deal with it. I am gladd you family is “normal” but ADD peopl have feeling to and we can’t help the eay we are and for Gods sake he is a child. I would polietly tell them what the deal is and if they don’t like it tough, they have to atleast accept it

As a parent, school volunteer and a Scout leader, I am quite often faced with having to discipline children, even though I don’t like to do it. There is a limit to the discipline though. At school, I let the teachers look after most of it and only speak up if a kid swears at me.
At ‘scouts, myself and the other leader have to deal with the kids like they are our own…for safety reasons. I expect the other leader to discipline my son, the same with her son from me. There is a limit though. These relatives have forgotten what it is like to be a child. That is sad. How could you get mad at a child for not sitting still for 2 hours…a child who probably hated the movie…2 hours would be an eternity! I give you credit for having a child sit still as long as he did. Tell them that ‘kids are kids…you were one also I might add. Were you raised to sit and speak when spoken to?’
Discipline from many sources is great…it keeps us in check. Too much of a good thing though….you know the rest.

I try to put myself in the childs shoes. I would have a hard time sitting still and quietly during a 2 hour Barney movie. I too avoid situations where people just can’t understand and my child is going to be basically scorned. I would try to reason with the adults but they just might not be able to understand. He needs something age-appropriate to do during such a long visit. If you can’t find something then you and he will have a terrible time everytime.

Thank you all. Sometimes things around me are so negative, I start to feel like its falling apart, my world, my sons life. It gets hard for me to see things clearly..am I wrong, am I right, are they right? I don’t expect the whole world to understand, just the people who love me. I don’t feel that is asking too much. I feel like e-mailing this whole page to my brother.

Your brother and his friends are where they’re at, and would no doubt see themselves as well within their right to do what they want, but their behavior toward your son was inappropriate. As they were adults, it was reasonable for you to expect they could control themselves for the duration, turn off the movie and watch it later, or cut the evening short. Their “disciplining” him was due to mistaken thinking that his behavior was due to lack of discipline. Obviously they’re wrong, but there is still much ignorance about ADD.

I tried talking to my brother about ADD, but he maintains that if I just would be sterner with my son and if my son would only try harder that all would be ok. He tried taking on the disciplinarian role with him, with disastrous and very hurtful results. We now limit contact with my brother and when we see him, we always have a quick exit and are ready to take it at the first sign my brother is having trouble controlling himself. Living with an ADD kid, I can easily spot the signs.

You can try tallking to your brother and hopefully will have better results than I did. But if you don’t get the results you’d hoped for, your son and his well being are your first priority and that’s what you have to go with.

Boy, I know of what you speak. Now that our son is 8 and we’ve gotten a little smarter, we try to manage situations to our son and our family’s advantage. We try hard to avoid the situations and yes, people, that lend themselves to trouble. We’ll make a quick and quiet exit if things start to turn.

Fact is, there are many adults who behave inappropriately toward kids. Just this weekend we had a little skirmish. We’d been to a little get together where our son behaved extremely well. When it was time to go, he was having a fine time. I told him calmly and quietly several times”Let’s go. Now.” and he would say, “ok, in a minute.” So this mother, someone we had just met, stated very loudly and really in a nasty way, “You’d better mind your mother cause I don’t want you to be a bad influence on my kids. My kids would get a whooping if they don’t listen when I tell them to do something.” Gee, thanks. Both my son and I were rather embarrassed. She was really mean spirited and nasty about it, not trying to say something in a constructive helpful way. My son told me later that the woman was mean to kids and she didn’t need to embarrass him, that he would never be a bad influence on her kids., etc. He felt bad.

It can be a lonely and isolating experience to have a child like this. We continue to find that the best thing we can do for our son and family is to plan for success. -Avoid those situations and people that set us up for trouble. We’re also ok with making a quick and quiet exit if the situation turns. All planning and new smarts aside, we still have little episodes and new situations. Last month we ran into a friend who is particularly intolerant of our child. He has a lovely, very calm son of his own. We spoke a little too long and there were the 2 boys wrestling in the grass, having fun. While the kids were fine, the dad clearly thinks our son is wild and was clearly irritated. Our son then continued wrestling beyond the order to cut it out, the friend seemed very irritated and clearly would be reporting to our mutual friends that our son was wild. What started out as a pleasant exchange turned unhappy in the course of a couple minutes. With this particular friend (I guess not really a true friend anymore), we should have said hello and kept moving. Lesson learned. We are constantly trying to learn more and improve our skills. Big part of it though is trying to avoid the people and situations that make the job all the tougher. Tough enough without the peanut gallery and the outright hostile individuals that get a charge out of feeling superior because they don’t have a kid like ours or they think they have superior child management skills. The world could use a dose of compassion sometimes.

People who haven’t raised children can have very unrealistic expectations of what children can or should do. In that situation, I’d have said something like, “Tommy’s not into this movie and he clearly just loves your dog. You all are enjoying this film - I think Tommy and I will head home - it’s getting late anyway. Enjoy the rest of the film.”

Sydney,
A woman who loudly announces that her kids “get a whooping” in a public place does not seem like a good influence on your child.
I do a lot of whispering into my child’s ear when she is acting inappropriately in public. People seem amazed that a “quiet talk” works. It’s usually more of a gentle reminder than a tongue-thrashing. She doesn’t want to act inappropriately and appreciates the reminder. Naturally, this doesn’t always work if the situation is such that my daughter is really bored. We try to stretch her tolerance for “down-time” but I’m not going to torture her and that’s just what it can be for these active children.
TerryB (I forgot to log in)

The next time you go to your brother’s, ask him to please control his dog for the duration of the movie. The dog shouldn’t be moving about or acting in any inappropriate manner. It should sit still and not bother anyone for two hours. If the dog doesn’t comply, verbally discipline it.

Later you can explain to your brother that most dogs have ADHD but that if he will give you the dog for a week, you’ll knock the fun and games out of it’s head.

Next, invite your brother and his girlfriend to watch a movie. Pick your son’s favourite laugh out loud comedy. Verbally discipline the guests if they don’t behave appropriately according to your son’s house rules - jumping around, laughing, chattering, spilling, crunching, etc.

Next make a published rule: If my son isn’t fully welcome, don’t expect me.

Go somewhere else and have fun with one of the few people who’ll give a hoot about you when you’re old and annoying.

HEE-HEE. I especially love the dog part.