How to cope when your entire family has ADHD
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Anonymous
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People with ADHD are not stupid and they are not helpless. Many lead highly successful lives. While they certainly have challenges, there are strategies and medications which can help.
There are some good suggestions on this thread. The adults in your life that should be helping you need some accountability. It is tempting to let others take care of the unpleasant parts of running a house. Your job is to focus their attention on it so they can’t avoid it. Cut back, on stuff, on outside obligations, and most importantly, on the devices in your home. iPads and IPhones and video games are constantly tempting to the ADHD brain - just get rid of them. |
Anonymous
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I have a husband with ADD/ASD, a son with ADD/ASD, and compared to those two, I am the executive marvel, with my mild symptoms of ADD. My daughter is also quite organized and a decent time manager.
So I don't know what to tell you, OP, except that we're missed a plane due to my husband's inability to leave on time, he never pays the taxes on time, he's been fired from jobs... and my son has double time and a slew of accommodations in school and I wonder how he'll cope in the workplace as an adult. I cannot lift everyone up. My son is medicated and tries his best. My husband refuses to medicate himself - this is a source of contention, obviously. We lead a small life with the minimum of activities and appointments. My husband is underemployed and underpaid. Because of this, we can't outsource anything, and we do everything ourselves. The house is always a cluttered mess, because my husband is also a borderline hoarder. I think you can hire a more competent nanny and it will perhaps help. Drop as many items off your to-do list as you possibly can. Right now some of our grass stalks have sprouted. The neighbors are very kind and forgiving, and don't mind. We're not mowing today. I have too many fires to put out, and my husband... won't do it today. |
Anonymous
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Lots of resources here
https://www.additudemag.com/ |
Anonymous
| At least you don't have it too! In our house we all have it! We parents are good at our jobs, struggle on the home front, but help each other meet important personal deadlines. One of us pays taxes, the other handles medical appointments and school enrollments. |
Anonymous
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OP, if people are not cooperating with your systems, you need to re-think your systems. Set up your systems to anticipate people being lazy and forgetful, that's the fundamental premise here.
I would suggest you get rid of a lot of the objects in your house. Have your DH take the big kids out during the baby's naptime each weekend. Lie down for 30 minutes and devote the rest of the time to getting rid of things from your house. Doesn't matter what. Just get a big cardboard box and fill it, then take it to Goodwill. Then repeat. |
Anonymous
This X10000. |
Anonymous
Let go of your systems and set expectations. Let your ADHD family create their own systems. It will feel worse, but then it will get better. But you have to let some things fail before it clicks to others and they become intrinsically motivated to manage. |
Anonymous
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Accepting imperfection is key. Along with not creating the expectation that I’m going to fill every gap.
We have a nice life. Look for the good of it’s there. |
Anonymous
I pay our nanny above average. I laid out expectations in her contract around tidying, cleaning, organizing, homework, and the kids' laundry. I had to train her on certain things, like just don't leave for the day until everything is wiped down and put away, even if I come home. Stay and finish the job. For the first two months, I printed a detailed daily checklist for her. It set expectations. It was probably annoying to her to be micromanaged, but again, I paid her above average for putting up with me. Is there anything you can delegate to your husband to ease the resentment? |
Anonymous
This is self-contradictory. In your OP you said you are losing your mind with a DH and kids (and nanny) with ADHD. Now you say he is "functioning" (I think you mean high-functioning?) and he thinks that medication would "alter his abilities." (Yes, that's the point.) If he is losing things constantlly and forgetting minutae about the kids, the house, etc., then he is emphatically *not* high-functioning. It is completely disrespectful and inconsiderate of him to say he won't seek a dx and medication given that the burden of compensating for his inability to keep his act together falls on you. Why does he think that is ok? |
Anonymous
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Here is my take as an adult with ADHD in a house with 2 elementary kids and 2 adults who work full time. One of my kids probably has it, the other does not.
1. You need a nanny that does NOT have ADHD 2. You potentially need a separate house manager that does NOT have ADHD. My NT husband fills this role for us. I still do plenty of things typically allocated to the mom, but my husband manages the calendar entries, signs us up for conferences, makes appointments, etc. If neither of you can handle that, you need an assistant who reads your emails and updates your calendars with the whole season’s worth of baseball games, sets a reminder for spirit week, and gives you a run down every few days of things like: Venmo the class mom Do you want to bring snack to soccer on 5/10 or 5/17? Billy need’s to order this year’s team swimsuit by 5/10. 3. Hire a professional organizer. Mine is a mom of 4 kids the same age range as mine. They will help you declutter and set up systems that actually work for your family - not some idealized Instagram family. 4. You relentlessly train your whole family - Don’t put it down, put it away. A place for everything and everything in its place. You create routines for daily / weekly / monthly actions like getting out the door on weekday mornings. You post lists or have prominent white boards for kids to check off. 5. Get Alexa or Google Home assistants and use them to set alarms and reminders. Get multiple “Time Timers” to help people visualize when you need to leave the house or transition activities. 6. You coach, scaffold, and support your kids to strengthen their executive functioning skills. You don’t just tell them “unpack your backpack”. You teach them when a task needs to be done - is it on a schedule like every day after school or is there an observable indicator like the green light on the dishwasher? You teach them what does it mean to complete the task. How can the break it down into steps? “Unpacking your backpack means putting your water bottle and lunch box next to the sink, taking any papers and putting them in the “new mail” basket, and hanging it on the hook for tomorrow. On Wednesday it means collecting library books to return on Thursday. You teach them what a completed job done well looks like so they can eventually quality control themselves. You tell them what is next. “When you complete that task, you can play Minecraft for 20 minutes”. Trust me this last one is the hardest because as a person with ADHD I do not always want to do the right thing at the right time. I am not consistent when left to my own devices. Sometimes when I model these behaviors for my kids, I pretend I am acting in a play and following a script. BUT my kids are 7 and 9 and they are exceptionally responsible. We lost 1 hoodie the whole school year and we even got it back from Lost and Found. My kids each have a luggage tag on their backpack with a checklist by day of the week - mostly for me to ask them before we leave school pick-up, but they just do it themselves now. |
Anonymous
ADHD is genetic. Do you think it's a coincidence that four blood relatives share a diagnosis? |
Anonymous
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To add on to my long response at 17:21
You say you have systems and no one uses them. Then they are not the right systems. You need to be flexible. My husband wanted us to use a joint calendar and that would mean I would have that calendar, my personal calendar, and my work calendar. I cannot handle that mentally. He refused to give in until I had a complete meltdown and couldn’t stop crying one night because I was extremely stressed with work emergencies and he was mad I forgot about Cub Scout meeting. Now everything is sent to both my home and work calendars. My work calendar has everything and that’s what shows on my Apple watch. To his NT brain, a joint calendar made sense. Lots of people use that system. But it does not work for me and he needed to change to accommodate my preferences if he wanted me to follow his system. |
Anonymous
Yes. Many. Maybe you should refrain from posting on topics you obviously know nothing about. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.751041/full |
Anonymous
Lining your pockets, huh? |