New Here and am at my wits end.

Hi Sandy!

I dont want to dismiss your concerns but I have three boys and some of what you are struggling with goes with the territory-maybe you just lucked out with your oldest ;)

I DO have one with ADD, but clothes on the floor, missing the toilet(oh, dont even get me started on this one), food while playing computer games even though they know theyre not supposed to…..we’ve had all of it here

I told the 17 yr old this weekend that any clothes on the bathroom floor would be confiscated.

Monday morning I picked up his pajama bottoms and underwear and locked them in the trunk of my car. Tuesday-no clothes. Wed-no clothes but “when do I get my clothes back? Never expected THAT quiick a response after like a year of nagging with no results

He does his own laundry(which I highly recommend) so having to do it more often because his underwear are in my trunk does indeed have some consequences

I know I could stop the eating at the computer if I followed though too but, frankly, I just havent had the motivation to take it on. Maybe when I free the underwear from my trunk…..

It can be overwhelming and going back to work after SAHM days is a challenge. Is DH helping out or are you still doing all the stuff you used to do as a SAHM? It took over a year and countless arguements to get DH to ‘see the light’ and pitch in. He assumed my going back to work would mean everything was the same as before except wed have more money-WRONG. It’s still an issue at times with dr appointments and the out of routine things that come up

What do you do when he strips his bed in anger? Is he washing his sheets when he wets?(not saying he has control-just saying its a natural consequence and life has its bad moments)

Who is cleaning the bathroom?

Pick the two things that are driving you batty the most and arrange consequences or just look at it as hes old enough to have some responsibility. ALL my boys took over their laundry in the 7th grade(my youngest did last year in 6th because he so wanted to be like the big guys)

Or make the bathroom his responsibility. Yes, you will have to stand over him so arrange it when you or DH can. Wed night and Sat morning, perhaps?

You cant fix it all but start chipping away and let the rest go for now-remember the progress you are making when it gets rough

Have you tried a timer for the mornings? Adders dont have a good concept of time. Maybe setting it for 5 minutes for teeth, 15 min for shower etc will help;he can SEE the time ticking away.

Picture schedules help. Snap some digital photos of him doing the steps he needs to do in the AM. Put them in pockets on a poster board and have him flip them as he does them

YES, I know he does it when youre home but his ‘issues’ are more likely to kick in when under stress and he may need an aide THEN that he doesnt need on a relaxed vacation day

Wish I had some advice on the meds. My 13 yr old is awesome about taking his adderall-we’ve been very lucky that was

Sandi,

I work for a company that provides a program that kids and parents can use to deal with learning problems. Maybe it would be useful to you. If you send me an email at [email protected], I will sent you some information on our program.

-Marty

I think marycas has some excellent advice. I would also consider some type of family counseling. Sometimes an objective third party can be real helpful in helping to resolve conflicts. Your son is feeling anger towards you and is not open to what you are trying to say to him.

What are you doing as a result of him trashing his room? Are you cleaning it or is he? If you are the one cleaning it may help to let him pay the consequences on that one. Meaning, if there are no blankets on his bed then he will have to find them on the floor or sleep cold!

Talk to Steve who frequently posts on this board. Or read some of his old posts (use the Search option at the top of the page.) He has some good ideas about modifying behaviour with natural consequences, setting up a program and following through. His plans are more detail-oriented than works for me personally, but he has a lot of good ideas and practical experience with a couple of kids of his own.

Thank you all for your replies. To answer Mary’s questions. You asked if my DH helps out around the house. Well he helps a little bit. I do most of the housework. He does the dishes, cleans the bathrooms and takes the kids to places where they have to go. Everything else is on me. I guess it could be worse….LOL It’s just that my son with ADHD makes such a mess that it seems like I clean all the time. When my son urinates around/on the toilet we did have him clean it up but he doesn’t do a very good job so we did it ourselves. I feel that I have to follow him around constantly with his messing but I can’t be a policeman. He mostly messes the toilet up in the morning so we don’t have time to wait until he cleans it over and over again until he gets it clean to our liking. That is why we just do it ourselves. Although my older son does miss the toilet on occasion too.

For Jen:

My son goes to counseling once a week with a social worker. My DH and I see her once a month to talk about his progress and how we are doing with him. All of this has put such a strain on our marriage. It is affecting my older son too. He can’t stand his brother anymore. That really hurts me.
When he throws the stuff on the floor of his room, most of the time I am the one who cleans it. It is such a fight to get him to do anything and I don’t have the emotional strength anymore to fight with him so I find it easier just to do it myself. I know thats the wrong approach but when I come home from work and have to cook dinner I am just so tired. I just bought two books from Barnes and Noble. One is called Taking Charge of ADHD, a complete Guide for Parents, and the other one is called The Defiant Child, a parents guide to ODD. I think he might have that too.

In the morning when we are trying to get him to get dressed we do remove his blankets so he can’t wrap himself up in them or throw them on the floor.

Does anyone know how many hours Ritalin LA lasts? To me it just seems that it lasts maybe 4 or 5 hours at the most in his system. Isn’t it supposed to last longer? Also, they say that with Ritalin the child loses his/her appetite. My son has an insatiable appetite. He is always hungry. He, thank goodness, has not gotten heavy from this. He is thin and just has a little belly. I think his activeness keeps him from gaining weight.

We also tried different sports. Baseball, football, karate. He didn’t like any of them. We tried to get him interested in something but to no avail.

Thanks again for all your advice.

Sandi

I don’t want to appear harsh but your son really has you wrapped around his finger. He does whatever he likes and there are no consequences for his behavior. If he is like many ADHD children, he gets a certain thrill out of causing trouble (I know my son does). And you are paying the cost.

Do you have more than one bathroom in the house? If you do, I would have the rest of the family use one and let the son with the bad aim use the other. I would buy those wipes for the bathroom and tell him to clean up after himself. I wouldn’t worry about standards, at least during the week. If you are tired, don’t fight him. But don’t do it either.

I would not clean up his room after he trashes it no matter what. When my son was 3, he did the same thing. We took out of his room whatever he trashed. If he throws his things on the floor, I would either remove them so he has less to throw around or ignore it all. My son basically ended up with very little in his room. We also took a priviledge away for trashing his room. We used to invent good things to do just so we could do them and he couldn’t.

On the other hand, if he pees his bed, I would clean it up. My eight year old still does sometimes and I know it embarasses him to no end. I do not think this is a behavior issue and would not treat it as such.

On the weekend when you have more energy, I would make him clean up his messes. I wouldn’t let him go anywhere or do anything until he does.
I would start this on a day that you have no where else to go or nothing you have to do.

I understand you have to work. I do too. But I wonder if either you or your husband could find a job with hours that would allow you to not have to send your son to a babysitter in the morning. Or could one of you negotiate with your boss to start later. I know my children would abs. hate having to go to a babysitter in the morning (as well as having to get up at 6 am.)

Beth

I agree totally with Beth.

Just a thought that occurred reading Beth’s post — I do not do at all well getting up at 6AM and never did (one of many reasons I tutor privately instead of class teaching.) In my case it doesn’t matter when I go to bed, I don’t sleep well until late, and in fact an early bedtime can be counterproductive because then I don’t sleep at all. My deepest sleep is in the early morning and if I miss that, the rest of the day is chaos.

If your son is like this, he could be suffering from sleep deprivation. And sleep deprivation, anger and irritability, messiness, clumsiness and disorganization all go together. If there is any way at all to reorganize your schedule so he can finish his deep sleep in the morning? Even if it means one parent coming home later and doing supper in shifts, it still might be a lot better than what you have now.

Beth:

Thanks for your reply. I know my son has us wrapped around his finger. He has had us this way since the day he was born. He was colicky for 9 months so I have had my hands full with him since birth.

Yes we do have another bathroom in the house. I know I shouldn’t worry about how the house looks during the week but I just can’t stand the dirt. Before I started working my house would always be spotless. I was a clean freak. Now, unfortunately I don’t have the time and/or energy to keep up with it. I also know that I shouldn’t clean his room but since I have to go in there at times I can’t stand to look at the mess. I just feel like I am in a no win situation with him. I do blame a lot of his behavior on myself. I should have nipped some of it in the bud when he was younger, but I didn’t.

Unfortunately there is no way my husband or I could go to work later without losing the money. Like I said in my original post, this all escalated when I had to go to work 2 years ago. It wasn’t that easy when I was home, but it was a whole lot easier then it is now.

Thanks again.
Sandi

sounds like you have had a really tough time since going back to work! Good advice so far…but I wanted to chime in and say to just fix what you can! Don’t feel guilt that you must work — most of us have to! One day, your son will, also — and it might not be fun. Might as well learn to live with it sooner, rather than later.

I wanted also to point you to a good ODD site with many helpful, knowledgable parents — www.conductdisorders.com. I have seen a book there called ‘Parenting with Love and Logic’ that is supposed to be helpful for severe ADHD, ODD, and other ‘high maintenance’ kiddos. Beth’s comments basically echo what I read on that site for advice, even for kids with severe behaviour problems.

I also wanted to chime in re the bedwetting — this runs in my family also, though it luckily skipped us. IT IS NOT HIS FAULT — it is not wilful. Have you tried the meds for it? If you have, and they didn’t work, you must just deal with it — use pull-ups or double sheeting with rubber protection, so he can handle it himself without a big fuss in the middle of the night. A friend’s son is 11.5 and still suffering — in my family, it tends to last until age 13 or so. Like the 6am wake up call, we don’t always get to choose what we must accept — he needs to learn that tantrums will NOT get him his own way. But being ADHD, his emotional age is likely far below his chronological age — so maybe, emotionally, he IS 5! Though according to the usual ‘rule of thumb’ for ADHD, that says he is about 2/3 ‘average’, making him about 8 – still, for an 8YO who has been inadvertantly ‘indulged’ in some ways, tantrums are still pretty common.

Lastly, don’t be blaming yourself. You did the best you could, given your situation and skills. They don’t come with instruction manuals! NOW, you are learning to ‘close the gaps’ in your parenting skills, and so don’t waste time blaming yourself. You did get a ‘high maintenance’ kiddo, so just take it from here.

Best regards — hope you will check out conduct disorders, as many folks there have much worse behaviours to deal with, and there is plenty of good advice on what to do!

Hi Sandi,

I can relate to some of your problems. I could feel all my past frustration welling up within me reading your post.

Elizabeth mentioned a book that I have read called “Parenting with Love and Logic”. It is not specifically written for kids with ADHD or ODD, but of all the behavioral tecniques that we tried that one worked the best.

I actually posted about this book on this board a few weeks ago. The thread is titled “Wonderful book on parenting”. Even if the book does not address all of your problems I think you will find that one of the things it does do is take a lot of pressure off you as a parent. There are simply some things that you cannot and will never be able to control, and you eventually need to accept that. Another big issue that it addresses is that of cultivating responsibility for one’s self in your child. If you are constantly doing everything for your son, he will never learn to be responsible for himself. The authors really drive home the idea that little people make little mistakes, but big people make big mistakes. Let your kid learn his lessons from the little mistakes.

Even if your son with ADHD gets nothing out of these methods, I bet your other child will.

Hang in there! And keep trying and learning and reaching out to others all you can!

Take care,
Hayley

Hi sandi, I feel for you, my son is also ADHD and a bed wetter. He goes all day long, gets his 5 year old brother wound up as much as he is. As far as bed wetting goes,I know for my son(he’s going on eight)he is very upset if he wets. For him its a matter of being a very sound sleeper. If he does wake on his own he is usually still asleep and will pee wherever he is, the tub his floor the stairs etc… My husband and I get him up before we go to bed. I’m told this isn’t great because the child needs to learn to wake on his own, but its better than changing sheets at 3am.

Although I havent done it yet, I just bought some bristol board for both my boys so I can make a chart of thing I expect. My older son has a big problem with remembering what is expected after school even though it is the same each day. Put shoes and jacket away, empty lunch can. bring agenda and hang up backpack. He gets very confused and upset if I don’t tell him to do each item individually. Multiple tasks just aren’t something he is able to cope with. This chart will have a spot for each chore so it is visible for him, he wil get a star for each thing accomplished without a big fuss. There will also be a bigger reward for succesful completion of the whole week. If it is not done there will be a removal of privilege eg.no computer for the day, no t.v., no bike for the day. Would this work for your son for some of his”issues” keeping room neat, hitting the toilet(I have a husband and 2 boys with the same problem yuck!)making sure that he knows the advantages and consequences of his actions. ADHD or not if he is going to live in the real world, he has to realize that there will be consequences for improper behavior. Rewards can be things such as renting a movie, a treat at the store, having a friend sleep over it doesn’t have to have a high monetary value, just find out what he values. I read about this in a very good book that unfortunately I can’t remember the name of. Hopefully I can find it, I think you would benefit by reading it. The big thing with this is consistancy or it won’t work. Start out with only two or three items so he isn’t overwhelmed all at once. I know from experience the more you do for your child the less he will do and push further and further so don’t give in he needs to be responsible. Also make sure you give him lots of love and attention.

By the way, I suggest letting the housework slide a little, relax, I’ve just about given up on it until my three kids(the youngest is my 20 month daughter) are older. It can be clean but not tidy. Just go to bed and ignore the last two or three things on the floor. Better yet just tell your husband if you both work full time then you both share the housework evenly. This isn’t 1950 Like my mother-in-law thinks it is. Men should’t be able to get away with coming home and putting their feet up while women do all the work. You need to look after yourself, I found this out the hard way after suffering from depression alone for a long time. It’s still not completely under control, but I’ve learned that I’m no good to my family if I’m burned out. Good luck Hope it gets better Tammie.

We used these methods with our ADHD boys and never resorted to medication. It is amazing what you can do if you take it from where they are and build one step at a time rather than trying to have them somehow magically become more organized. The keys are clear expectations that are within their ability but force them to stretch, consistent reinforcement, and about three times more attention to positive than to negative reinforcement. Another thing I learned is to always give the child some way to “dig themselves out” if they get into trouble. If they have earned certain negative consequences (like being grounded, for example), if you let them earn a reduction in the lentgh of the grounding by working around the house, they regain some control and start to feel good about all the work they are doing. In fact, my boys always cheered up when they were doing useful, physical labor, and both were quite proud of their ability to do an exceptionally good job (which we certainly reinforced in a big way!) In fact, one of the challenges for our kids in school is that they receive very little positive reinforcement in most settings and are unable to do anything they think of as productive. We even used to get them started doing work BEFORE they got into trouble, which really helped them start off the day on a good note.

Good luck, take it a step at a time, and be POSITIVE!

I agree with you Steve. It seems that the school and Joshua’s teachers are quite eager topoint out his shortcomings and behavior issues. Very rarely do I hear about his successes. I also find that it seems I’m always giving a hard time about misbehaving, I have to make myself remember to praise good behaviour and successfully completing tasks. This makes me feel awful that I’m contributing to his poor self esteem.

I know what you are talking about! First off, schools seem to be designed to do the OPPOSITE of what our kids need - they set unrealistic expectations and punish anyone that doesn’t measure up! There are exceptional teachers who buck this trend, but I can tell you as a former teacher, there was no encouragement from the administration where I worked for doing anything beyond assuring compliant children and orderly classrooms. And positive reinforcement seemed like a foreign concept to many of the staff! That’s one of the main reasons we kept our kids away from the regular classroom - I knew it would be about a week before the notes started coming home!

It is also very difficult at home to maintain the positives, in particular because these kids actually seem to get some sort of a kick out of getting people upset! I think it is stimulating and gives them a sense of control. I would suggest using the same kind of thinking on your own behavior - take your time, work on one thing at a time, and reward yourself for your successes. Remember, three positives for every negative in your self-talk! It also helps if you can have some fun with it - you might want to look at my post under “questions about Adderall XR…” where I talk about using betting to get oppositional kids to comply. I did learn a few tricks working at the day treatment center…

Anyway, it sounds to me like your son is lucky to have you. Be patient with him and with yourself, and remember that unreasonable expectations and negativity in the school environment is usually a big part of the problem - a bad fit, rather than a bad kid. You are the biggest variable that can make a difference for him. Keep the faith, and know that you don’t have to be perfect to be doing a good job. Hang in there!

Hi I am new here. But I had a thought and a concern that may or may not be relevant. Since your son developed issues only after you went to work have you looked into what goes on when your son is at the babysitter? Do you have input from a number of other parents who have used this sitter? Does the baby sitter have a thorough grounding in understanding ADHD and positive reinforcement techniques? Is there a particular interest of his that could be pursued only when he goes to the sitter?

I only wonder about this because I have a grandson who had a very strict baby sitter, clean, intelligent, but a perfectionist. He did not thrive, and was later diagnosed with autism (Aspergers). Luckily, my daughter sensed that this lady was not a healthy caregiver for her particular child, and found other day care for him.

Just a thought.