ADHD

[bella2007]

Hi my 10 year old daughter has been very emotional lately and her behaviors have been so extreme, how do most cope with this without yelling all the time?

[KosmicKapri86]

My 12 year old is like this too. It has been so hard because I also have adhd and we both just found out so we are going through this together. I have such a short temper and she is hypersensitive and blames herself for everything so no matter what I say she starts crying and it is so hard for me to keep it together. I have been doing therapy and want us to start family therapy soon because even though she also has her own therapist, I think we need someone that we can both see together to work on our relationship and to help me understand her better. I have discovered that I push away my feelings and do not even know what I am feeling most of the time because I was never allowed to express it so when my daughter cries or is sad, my go to has been to tell her just suck it up and don't show it or let it bother you (because that's the only way I know how to handle it) but that's the wrong way to deal with it and my therapist says it's ok for her to feel the way she does but what you focus on and teach her is how to cope with those feelings and to stop trying to fix her or tell her not to feel that way. So I try to keep that in mind now and this week my homework was to not let anger be the first emotion I feel when she starts getting emotional. She said stop and think about 2 other feelings you are feeling beside anger and that will calm you and direct your attention to what you are feeling.

[vam05 in reply to KosmicKapri86]

Hi - 12 is a tough age, I remember when my son was that age and we had to keep him busy and structured. We put him in a school that helped us do that as well. If private school is not an option, magnet schools are structured public school environments. My son is now 21 and we struggled for years because, I'll admit, I refused to think there was something different in him. When he was younger, reading was a big part of his daily routine, but he told me when he was 7, that he didn't like to read. I remember saying to him, there is no such a thing as not liking to read, you just haven't found the right books. We spent a lot of time in the library and he discovered Greek Mythology. There were a lot of series on this topic for his age, like the Mary Pope Osborne series, these kept him busy most nights. My husband was also very engaging and talking to him about his daily activities. He was a lot of work when he was a baby and he is still the one child out of the 3 we have, that needs the most attention and guidance. Sports and extra curricular activities, whatever interests them, will help them structure. He also went to a private school during his Freshman year and did awesome, made Dean's List. We thought he would be ready for public school and we moved him to the Public HS to save the money, big mistake, he struggled keeping up with assignments and was at the rebellious age when they don't listen to parents, and had no structure in the public school. He scored very high on his SATs and it got him into a great college, but he flunked his freshman year, then Covid hit and we are still trying to get him back to school to finish his degree. An expensive lesson and we are still not done. He stayed home through Covid and took classes in the community college, which helped him add a couple of credits back. It has been a journey. Online classes were terrible for him, so he took this Fall semester off. He has been working with his dad and adjusting to a new routine to get rid of bad habits: video games, social media, sleeping late. I'll also add that as a parent of an ADHD child you should try to be very strict with the electronics. We didn't handle that well and social media and video games are the worst for kids with ADHD. He never took any ADHD meds until 2 years ago, which was also not helpful, because adjusting to the meds routine takes a while. Another suggestion to parents of ADHD high schoolers is to add a GAP year to your ADHD child after HS, it will add maturity and help them adjust to the ADHD meds routine. Environmental culture also has a big impact. If their environment has competitive students around them, it would be a good motivator to work hard and help meet their goals. This is our story, I'm hoping it helps most of the parents with young children so that they don't fall into the same pitfalls we did. Best of luck!