At what point do you punish your adhd kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Time blindness causes them to miss the bus- do you make them walk? School is a mile away - kid is a teenager. Driving them makes me half hour late.

Or they say they didn't get a Christmas present that you know you bought them and put in their stocking. How do you make them take accountability for that?

I'm just imagining them telling their boss they never got an assignment their boss gave them. Or missing deadlines. At times, I am totally out of patience and don't know how I will survive the next 3 to 7 years.

I'd wake them up every morning and make sure they get to school. If it's safe, they can walk. If they want a ride, they need to be ready earlier.

Okay, but leave it to an ADHD kid to actually walk to school on their own with no supervision and report back. I would love to drop the rope, but that would be a guaranteed failure. Natural consequences work to a degree, but you have to keep them moving forward on some things, quite literally.

[Anonymous]

If you're my parents, right away. And yes, I did walk to school, and did once have to call (and pay for) a taxi. ADHD was never an excuse - it just meant I had to work harder to get things done. As an adult, I had to write down tasks I was assigned on post-its and slap them on the corresponding papers if there were any. "Fax to Jen by 4pm 3/17." "Email Ken to confirm registration to Regional XYZ meeting." "Call Ben at Cipriani for reservation - 5 at 7pm 3/20." I had to stay 10 minutes late each day to write out tomorrow's to-do list. To this day, 30 years into my career, I have a lot of reminders in my Outlook calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're my parents, right away. And yes, I did walk to school, and did once have to call (and pay for) a taxi. ADHD was never an excuse - it just meant I had to work harder to get things done. As an adult, I had to write down tasks I was assigned on post-its and slap them on the corresponding papers if there were any. "Fax to Jen by 4pm 3/17." "Email Ken to confirm registration to Regional XYZ meeting." "Call Ben at Cipriani for reservation - 5 at 7pm 3/20." I had to stay 10 minutes late each day to write out tomorrow's to-do list. To this day, 30 years into my career, I have a lot of reminders in my Outlook calendar.

Sounds like by not saving you from yourself as a child, your parents forced you to develop the skills to manage your ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Natural consequences are not punishment, and they are your most effective teaching method. Walking a mile to school is excellent, it will do them good.

I would come down on the lying pretty hard though.

Op here. I hate lying more than anything else in the world. Sometimes he impulsively lies not to get in trouble, but sometimes he doesn't remember. He once said he had the memory of a goldfish. When I said that back to him a few weeks later, he said he never said that. It's pure torture.

You're a terrible parent. I feel so bad for kid with disabilities who have parents who are so ignorant. Go ahead azzhat, punish your kid for their disabilities all day long. That's clearly the way to build a confident, happy human.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're my parents, right away. And yes, I did walk to school, and did once have to call (and pay for) a taxi. ADHD was never an excuse - it just meant I had to work harder to get things done. As an adult, I had to write down tasks I was assigned on post-its and slap them on the corresponding papers if there were any. "Fax to Jen by 4pm 3/17." "Email Ken to confirm registration to Regional XYZ meeting." "Call Ben at Cipriani for reservation - 5 at 7pm 3/20." I had to stay 10 minutes late each day to write out tomorrow's to-do list. To this day, 30 years into my career, I have a lot of reminders in my Outlook calendar.

Sounds like by not saving you from yourself as a child, your parents forced you to develop the skills to manage your ADHD.

What bullshite. People with executive functioning issues and adhd often can't "manage" their disabilities. You are actually denying the kid has a disability.

[Anonymous]

If they miss the bus, wake up earlier, set more alarms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your question shows you don’t understand time BLINDNESS and ADHD.

You need to teach him how to work around the blindness. Get a clock that will announce time to leave

Get support. Punishment doesn’t work in this situation.

You don't think we have been doing that for years? He has a waterproof clock in the shower, alarms on his phone, I go in and wake him up. I've told him the amount of time he has allotted in the morning is inadequate. He's also 14 so I can't physically force him to get up earlier.

Are you helping him go to sleep earlier?

Shower at night? Showering only in the morning is (1) gross, and (2) a bad use of time for an early bus day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're my parents, right away. And yes, I did walk to school, and did once have to call (and pay for) a taxi. ADHD was never an excuse - it just meant I had to work harder to get things done. As an adult, I had to write down tasks I was assigned on post-its and slap them on the corresponding papers if there were any. "Fax to Jen by 4pm 3/17." "Email Ken to confirm registration to Regional XYZ meeting." "Call Ben at Cipriani for reservation - 5 at 7pm 3/20." I had to stay 10 minutes late each day to write out tomorrow's to-do list. To this day, 30 years into my career, I have a lot of reminders in my Outlook calendar.

Sounds like by not saving you from yourself as a child, your parents forced you to develop the skills to manage your ADHD.

What bullshite. People with executive functioning issues and adhd often can't "manage" their disabilities. You are actually denying the kid has a disability.

So what's your advice here? Helicopter parent forever?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your question shows you don’t understand time BLINDNESS and ADHD.

You need to teach him how to work around the blindness. Get a clock that will announce time to leave

Get support. Punishment doesn’t work in this situation.

You don't think we have been doing that for years? He has a waterproof clock in the shower, alarms on his phone, I go in and wake him up. I've told him the amount of time he has allotted in the morning is inadequate. He's also 14 so I can't physically force him to get up earlier.

Are you helping him go to sleep earlier?

Shower at night? Showering only in the morning is (1) gross, and (2) a bad use of time for an early bus day.

Yes of course. Do you have a teen? I can talk until I'm blue in the face. Also he showers both am and pm. He says it helps him wake up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Time blindness causes them to miss the bus- do you make them walk? School is a mile away - kid is a teenager. Driving them makes me half hour late.

Or they say they didn't get a Christmas present that you know you bought them and put in their stocking. How do you make them take accountability for that?

I'm just imagining them telling their boss they never got an assignment their boss gave them. Or missing deadlines. At times, I am totally out of patience and don't know how I will survive the next 3 to 7 years.

I'd wake them up every morning and make sure they get to school. If it's safe, they can walk. If they want a ride, they need to be ready earlier.

Okay, but leave it to an ADHD kid to actually walk to school on their own with no supervision and report back. I would love to drop the rope, but that would be a guaranteed failure. Natural consequences work to a degree, but you have to keep them moving forward on some things, quite literally.

My kid with ADHD has been walking to school for years now. Frankly, the morning exercise is good for her focus at school.

[Anonymous]

The thing with ADHD is that they have essentially a learning disability around time management and organization. Would you punish your dyslexic child for reading slowly and making mistakes? No, you would help them put supports in place that help them cope with a disability, and expect a certain failure rate. Kids with ADHD experience "natural consequences" ALL THE TIME. They learn to live with much more friction as a result of being "different," and basically become resigned to a suckier life. But do get them on medication if they aren't already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Post on Special Needs forum. Natural Consequences approach doesn’t fit with ADHD brain.

Eyeroll. Yes it does. What is your genius plan for when this kid becomes an adult with "ADHD brain"? Just tell their boss consequences don't fit?

But more importantly, a mile is a reasonable distance for a teenager to walk for any reason or just as part of the daily routine. It isn't harmful, it's beneficial to them. So there's no reason for OP to be late to work to spare her kid this healthy walk.

Yes, parents of ADHD kids need to be VERY careful with the "it's not your fault, it's just your brain" approach to ADHD. It's your brain AND also it's your responsibility.

This is how you wind up with adults who do things like lie and procrastinate at work or in their important relationships, and then when it causes negative impacts on others, say "well you can't be mad because it's my ADHD." Actually, it's your ADHD and also people can and will be mad. Everybody has problems and you need to figure out how to deal with this one. Scapegoating your neurological disorder is not a longterm solution.

Agree with others that walking to school is both a natural consequence and a perfectly good work around for missing the bus. Rescuing him by driving him is not goign to help him fix it in the future, and it's going to be useless in a few years when he's no longer living at home and has to get to college classes or a job on time without the option of you driving him.

It's important that kids with neurological differences not be shamed for those differences, but that doesn't mean they don't need to take responsibility for figuring out how to be functional. You can help them find the solutions and provide supports (which it sounds like OP has done) but at the end of the day they have to be responsible for it. It's not an excuse. It's only an explanation.

I am a parent of a child with severe ADHD who also has anxiety and other mental health issues. I agree with you. But, I also think that as parents, we need to be sure we've done what it takes to ensure our kids have the tools to be successful. And we need to realize that there is a lot of trial and error in figuring out what is going to make them successful, with failure happening in the process. I'm not opposed to having a kid walk to school if they miss the bus if it's an occasional thing. If it's a regular thing, then there is a question of whether the parents provided the tools. And if you're requiring that they walk to school before they have demonstrated proficiency with performing the skill (here, getting out the door in time in the morning), then it feels an awful lot like punishment for not performing a skill that they don't yet have.