ADHD daughter making the entire family late in the morning and I cannot stop losing it on her

[Anonymous]

Oh gosh I feel for you. This was our mornings with our DS for so long. It was tough. He's 10 now and still needs a lot of reminders in the morning, but he does make it out the door to the bus stop in time most days.

At 6, we were 100% putting him to bed in his clothes for the next day. He got a bath every night and I washed his sheets at least weekly. I also got up before him and set everything up. Toothbrush was downstairs in the powder room, backpack was completely packed by the front door with shoes right there, breakfast was on the table. There was really not much for him to do but come to the table, eat, bathroom, brush teeth, shoes on, leave. Slowly, slowly, we added things for him to help with and do on his own. It is a process but he is getting there! We have 6 yo DD now too and while she is not nearly as challenging as he was, she has her days too and if they play off each other, it's all over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She literally eats nothing at school most days. Often doesn’t drink water. So she will go an entire school day without eating so we serve a massive breakfast to remedy that. Her weight gain is not great. She gets cereal, hot eggs/pancakes, sausage, etc. A very full meal. If we just do cereal or something sugary she will be melting down after school so it’s protein heavy.

I see why you are serving protein but could you find a school-based solution so as to avoid the massive breakfast?

[Anonymous]

The schedule is ridiculous. Right out the gate you're setting yourself up for failure. She's tired and needs more sleep and you're forcing her out to bed to have a 50 minute breakfast she's not interested in. Whittle all of this down to 45 mins to an hour. Do her hair for her (she's 6 not 16).

Your kid needs medication. This is no way for any of you to live.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Look, I don’t want a 2 hour morning routine either. But this is how we do it because she is slow with everything and resists it. If we give her shorter amount of time things won’t get done. We give extra time for everything so she can get it done with our help and we have time to work around her resistance and distractability. We are with her every step
Of the routine.

If we don’t give her 10 minutes to poop she won’t poop at school and stool holds. Then is in a foul mood and will tantrum after school and won’t eat until she has a BM but at this point we have to give Miralax because she’s constipated.

If we give her a bar or tiny breakfast in the car it won’t get eaten and she won’t eat or drink all day and will melt down the moment she’s out of school.

Trying to incentivize doesn’t work. The incentive is always expected and she does not connect her behavior to the outcome of the incentive

Trying to create urgency doesn’t work, stresses her out, and causes her to flip out and get stressed out and scream at us.

Forcing doesn’t work because she fights us or just tries to
Make it go more slowly. Refusing to stop moving for getting hair brushed, fighting me getting her pajamas off.

No matter what we do we run up against her behavior issues. Even her therapist has said she’s kind of at a loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The schedule is ridiculous. Right out the gate you're setting yourself up for failure. She's tired and needs more sleep and you're forcing her out to bed to have a 50 minute breakfast she's not interested in. Whittle all of this down to 45 mins to an hour. Do her hair for her (she's 6 not 16).

Your kid needs medication. This is no way for any of you to live.

She gets upward of 10 hours a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Look, I don’t want a 2 hour morning routine either. But this is how we do it because she is slow with everything and resists it. If we give her shorter amount of time things won’t get done. We give extra time for everything so she can get it done with our help and we have time to work around her resistance and distractability. We are with her every step
Of the routine.

If we don’t give her 10 minutes to poop she won’t poop at school and stool holds. Then is in a foul mood and will tantrum after school and won’t eat until she has a BM but at this point we have to give Miralax because she’s constipated.

If we give her a bar or tiny breakfast in the car it won’t get eaten and she won’t eat or drink all day and will melt down the moment she’s out of school.

Trying to incentivize doesn’t work. The incentive is always expected and she does not connect her behavior to the outcome of the incentive

Trying to create urgency doesn’t work, stresses her out, and causes her to flip out and get stressed out and scream at us.

Forcing doesn’t work because she fights us or just tries to
Make it go more slowly. Refusing to stop moving for getting hair brushed, fighting me getting her pajamas off.

No matter what we do we run up against her behavior issues. Even her therapist has said she’s kind of at a loss.

Then maybe you need to try medication.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She literally eats nothing at school most days. Often doesn’t drink water. So she will go an entire school day without eating so we serve a massive breakfast to remedy that. Her weight gain is not great. She gets cereal, hot eggs/pancakes, sausage, etc. A very full meal. If we just do cereal or something sugary she will be melting down after school so it’s protein heavy.

I see why you are serving protein but could you find a school-based solution so as to avoid the massive breakfast?

She’s a picky eater. Will refuse any food that isn’t home prepared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Look, I don’t want a 2 hour morning routine either. But this is how we do it because she is slow with everything and resists it. If we give her shorter amount of time things won’t get done. We give extra time for everything so she can get it done with our help and we have time to work around her resistance and distractability. We are with her every step
Of the routine.

If we don’t give her 10 minutes to poop she won’t poop at school and stool holds. Then is in a foul mood and will tantrum after school and won’t eat until she has a BM but at this point we have to give Miralax because she’s constipated.

If we give her a bar or tiny breakfast in the car it won’t get eaten and she won’t eat or drink all day and will melt down the moment she’s out of school.

Trying to incentivize doesn’t work. The incentive is always expected and she does not connect her behavior to the outcome of the incentive

Trying to create urgency doesn’t work, stresses her out, and causes her to flip out and get stressed out and scream at us.

Forcing doesn’t work because she fights us or just tries to
Make it go more slowly. Refusing to stop moving for getting hair brushed, fighting me getting her pajamas off.

No matter what we do we run up against her behavior issues. Even her therapist has said she’s kind of at a loss.

Medicate her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She is 6. 6 years old. I have one kid with ADHD and one without. I also have ADHD and I can assure you that non-ADHD 6yr olds also struggle with some of these things.

What systems are you putting in place to help her be successful?

What behavioral supports are you providing? Checklist on a dry erase board? Visual timer? Constant routine? Minimizing distractions while she is eating or finding a nook for her to eat away from the chaos if there are lots of people running around, asking about lunches or other questions.

What are you doing to teach her executive functioning skills? You can’t just tell a kid (with or without ADHD) “pack your backpack” or “clean your room”. You literally need to teach them every step of the process - how to do it, what order to do it in, and how to know if it was done correctly.

Why can’t she get up in the morning? What is her bedtime? Can she fall asleep on her own in a reasonable time?

Running around shouting reminders in the morning and expecting her to magically “get it” is not helping and is probably making her feel like crap about herself. Kids do well when they can. It’s on you to create the environment to support her success. Take a hard look in the mirror - are you chaotic, frazzled, and stressed in the morning? Kids with ADHD often have at least one parent with ADHD. She’s 6. You are an adult. Put your own life jacket on first and then he’ll your kid if she’s struggling. She is not making you late. Your family dynamic and morning routine is making you late.

This and same. My nin-ADHD 5 y.o. can never wake up, so I get her out of bed, dress, and feed. At the same time my ADHD 9 y.o. follows the prompts, but we put her clothes out, check the backpack, and prep breakfast. We make them get ready independently when we are not in a rush as a family. Stressful mornings are hardly great learnignexperiences.

[Anonymous]

You shut down every suggestion and then almost act like you're mad at what people are telling you. What you are doing isn't working. Maybe actually listen and try the advice instead of immediately dismissing it. It also sounds like meds may be needed if shes at the point of barely being able to function

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schedule is ridiculous. Right out the gate you're setting yourself up for failure. She's tired and needs more sleep and you're forcing her out to bed to have a 50 minute breakfast she's not interested in. Whittle all of this down to 45 mins to an hour. Do her hair for her (she's 6 not 16).

Your kid needs medication. This is no way for any of you to live.

She gets upward of 10 hours a day.

That's not even a lot. Some kids still get 12 hours at that age. Let her sleep.

[Anonymous]

Honestly it sounds like she's at a point where she needs medications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I should have added - we follow the same routine every single day down to about the minute with many cushions of time built into the schedule.

7:30-7:45 wake-up and use the bathroom
7:50-8:40 breakfast (plenty of time for her to focus and eat)
8:40-8:50 bathroom (pooping time and brushing teeth)
8:50-9:00 get dressed and hair combed (clothes are laid out for her)
9:00-9:10 get shoes and socks and coat on (all laid out for her)
9:10-9:15 walk out the door (we get her lunch and backpack, she just has to walk to the car)

We have a visual schedule for her. We have used sand timers and phone timers since she was in preschool. She hates them and throws the sand timers or flips them. Phone timers she ignores or just asks for more time when they run out. Or she gets upset and starts crying “no timer no timer!” When we put it out and it becomes a fight/distraction and not a tool.

She’s in weekly therapy and the therapist is working on listening and following directions.

I am ADHD myself and have had to figure out how to survive with no diagnosis til I was 33 and no medication. My mom gave up on me when I was young and just let me nearly miss the bus most days. She didn’t ever break tasks down or help me move from one activity to the other.

Our mornings are not us just yelling at yer. They are a series of us kindly saying, Larla, it’s time to get out of bed. Larla, please go use the bathroom and wash your hands, Larla,
Please go to your room and take your Pajamas off and put on your clothes. We walk with her through every activity. We give warnings repeatedly for everything - you have 5 minutes left to finish breakfast, you have 2 minutes left for breakfast, ok now breakfast is over and it’s time to go to the bathroom. She is only left alone to poop and if she skin picks when the door is closed the door is then left open, she loses her privacy, and we cover her wounds with bandaids so she can’t pick them.

She doesn’t care about rules. It does not matter if we say, no toys at the the table or in the car. She has no respect for what we tell her to do if it opposes what she wants. If we take away privileges as a punishment she just screams and flips out and has an epic meltdown that can take 20 minutes to get her to reset.

She doesn’t get out of bed often in the mornings because she doesn’t want to. She had an appropriate bedtime. She often takes 30-45 minutes or more to fall asleep. If we give her melatonin she has emotional outbursts the next day so we don’t use it anymore.

We aren’t just some a home parents screaming at our kids. We are providing extensive scaffolding, support, etc. and she just won’t comply. If we move her through activities she doesn’t want to do she hurts is because she’s 45 pounds now and big enough to do damage.

omg this is one hour and 45 min of getting ready in the morning! That is seriously wild. I'd want to throw the timers too. I don't think 6 year olds can follow timers.

Get yourself completely ready. Then go get her. Breakfast is too long and maybe she's just not hungry. Pack a bigger lunch. You need to cut this whole thing down to 30 min tops. Stop arguing with her because it's not working. Just calmly dress her. If she tries to tantrum or hit you, just hold her hands and keep on dressing her. Tantrums mean she gets carried to the car and handed breakfast in her car seat. Epic meltdowns are fine, just keep carrying on with the routine and don't feed the tantrum or acknowledge it.

But she is hungry because she doesn’t eat lunch every day. Literally she will maybe eat half of one nugget or drink some slurps of her milk and the rest of the lunch I stayed up preparing is untouched. She eats it after school often in the car on the way home.

If I am calm and force her to get dressed she will fight me. She’s nearly broken my glasses. I’ve been hit and punched in the stomach. She’s old enough to do damage and she’s too old to force.

[Anonymous]

Let her sleep later and feed her in the car where she's strapped in with no distractions. Be with her while she's getting dressed and brushing her teeth. If needed, keep a pair of shoes in the car and put them on her when she's already strapped in (and eating breakfast). I know you said she won't eat in the car--what about a smoothie or protein shake in a straw cup? What you are doing now is not working, so it's time to try something different.

[Anonymous]

OP this cannot be only ADHD. Get her a more serious eval.

I'd be shocked if she didn't also have autism, specifically the PDA type. https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/what-is-pda-menu/about-autism-and-pda/