Really tough morning with teen - did I do the right thing?

[Anonymous]

I cannot believe anyone would consider letting a kid who got VIOLENT and disrespectful go anywhere or do anything after neglecting to do school work.

[Anonymous]

I have no input but wanted to say I feel for you, OP. We have a newly diagnosed 8th grader, a lot of this sounds familiar and it's very, very hard. I'm sorry you are going through this.

[Anonymous]

I have two ADHD now ACs, one with severe dyslexia, the other with some heavy psychiatric diagnoses.

First, OP, you are obviously a devoted parent doing the best you can. I want to say that first because I don’t want you to feel attacked by any of my takes here.

-I don’t think taking away ski club should be on the table. It’s a positive, pro-social activity that likely provides a lot of release and relief. If you’re able to undo that decision, take the equipment where it needs to be or whatever, I would. For me this kind of activity is different than going to a party or hanging out. I still think if you’re going to have a consequence he should know in advance.

-What happened this morning is bad. Shoving his dad is a 🚩 and you should take that very seriously. The good news is that he is young. His brain has a lot of capacity to rewire.


-I don’t know what therapists have been advising, but it definitely is not working. That doesn’t mean you’re doing a bad job or that your son is unreachable. You need a new team with different strategies. It sounds like you have been getting pretty standard ADHD advice. That works for many, but not all.

-If you haven’t already, get a thorough neuropsych evaluation and find out if there’s anything else going on. Especially since he’s erupted into violence, you really need to understand what you’re dealing with.

My DD (severe dyslexia) was generally accepting of accommodations/interventions and had a lot of internal motivation. Even so, some “out of the box” solutions were better for her.

My DS was the opposite and had a lot in common with what you described. No consequence that we could lay down ever motivated that kid. We wasted a lot of time banging our head against the wall repeatedly following pretty standard advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a kid like this your #1 tool and natural consequence is the phone time. He probably cares about it and it’s also very likely a root cause of getting the work done.

In my experience for ADHD teen, natural consequence parenting did not work. You need to work with what you have - not what you wish you had.

I said this as a parent of an ADHD teen. The phones are really terrible for all of us but particularly bad for ADHD teens. So the natural consequence part is your brain and the way it functions, the phone is a real barrier for you that you can't handle. You probably can't interact with a phone the way a typical teen might be able to. YMMV.

[phone] never get a teen a smartphone, but getting and ADHD teen a smartphone is sabotage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He pushed your husband?! Hell, no.

You did the right thing in theory but tone of voice, previous experience, all that will add up to your kid exploding. But he needs to learn that getting physical is never ok.

But you need family therapy is what it sounds like to me. Have you tried that yet?

We have tried family therapy. He's tried individual therapy. He's had an executive function coach. I'm a teacher and have been putting strategies in place and giving him tools to manage work since he's been in kindergarten. He has refused it all. There has never been a night of homework that I haven't offered my help - he refused it every time. I am in touch with his teachers regularly, his school counselor. At some point, he needs to make some effort, and so when he asked for more independence and for me to lay off, I gave him that chance and he didn't use his time wisely.

Have you considered the possibility he has oppositional defiant disorder?

Yes, we have worked with doctors to see if that's on the table, but it was ruled out with his psychoeducational eval.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think PPs appreciate that this isn’t a special trip. It’s an afterschool activity he does regularly for two months. I would totally tell my kids no for a night of ski club if they did not follow through on a more important commitment (ie schoolwork, chores they are expected to do) and needed to reclaim that time.

I think not letting him participate is appropriate - but it would have been much better handled if you laid out the expectations ahead of time and let him know it was coming. When he asked you to back off would have been the time to iron out expectations and consequences and opportunities to check in and change course… in a perfect parenting world. I can see why finding out day of would feel like rug was being pulled out under him, especially if he has felt like he has been trying.

I think you have an opportunity to do that now. Missing ski club tonight is fine and a logical consequence for not having made time for school work and he needs to know you’re not going to just tolerate that. But I would apologize to him for not more clearly laying out your expectations in advance, acknowledge that you understand why he is upset and you could also have done better, and brainstorm with him on a better system where you don’t need to be micromanaging him but he’s more aware of the consequences and can check in with you along the way.

OP here - it was laid out ahead of time. I told him all week that if he still had missing work by Friday, he would not be allowed to participate in anything this week. Yesterday afternoon immediately after school, I reiterated that I still see he is missing all of the work and that he would not be going on the ski trip Friday if he doesn't get it done. I offered my help, as usual. He did nothing.

We have taken away weekend plans in the past when homework wasn't finished. This isn't the first time - just the first time it was a ski trip.

[Anonymous]

If this kid did not have UMC family would already be in the system.

[Anonymous]

I feel like you’re trying to punish a disability away and that’s not ok. On top of that I don’t see that you gave fair warning of a really huge punishment.

Personally I would have viewed this as yet one more intervention or strategy that didn’t work as well as you had hoped. I’d be working with my kid to develop a new strategy or tweak this one. I’ve found that requiring my son to develop his own strategies for success has been more effective than me doing it but not everything he comes up with works.

[Anonymous]

Everything is fine as long as you mentioned that if he didn’t do his school then he might not be able to do his activities. Apart from that, yes, this is parenting. We all want to give our kids everything and let them be happy all the time. But that’s not being a good parent.

I’ve taken away things before and it feels awful at the time (and also a massive inconvenience - one time we were ALL going somewhere and turned around and came back and just didn’t go even though we were all looking forward to it) but the kids really do learn. Or on the flip side, they learn the opposite bad lesson if you don’t follow through, that they can do whatever they want and get away with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think PPs appreciate that this isn’t a special trip. It’s an afterschool activity he does regularly for two months. I would totally tell my kids no for a night of ski club if they did not follow through on a more important commitment (ie schoolwork, chores they are expected to do) and needed to reclaim that time.

I think not letting him participate is appropriate - but it would have been much better handled if you laid out the expectations ahead of time and let him know it was coming. When he asked you to back off would have been the time to iron out expectations and consequences and opportunities to check in and change course… in a perfect parenting world. I can see why finding out day of would feel like rug was being pulled out under him, especially if he has felt like he has been trying.

I think you have an opportunity to do that now. Missing ski club tonight is fine and a logical consequence for not having made time for school work and he needs to know you’re not going to just tolerate that. But I would apologize to him for not more clearly laying out your expectations in advance, acknowledge that you understand why he is upset and you could also have done better, and brainstorm with him on a better system where you don’t need to be micromanaging him but he’s more aware of the consequences and can check in with you along the way.

OP here - it was laid out ahead of time. I told him all week that if he still had missing work by Friday, he would not be allowed to participate in anything this week. Yesterday afternoon immediately after school, I reiterated that I still see he is missing all of the work and that he would not be going on the ski trip Friday if he doesn't get it done. I offered my help, as usual. He did nothing.

We have taken away weekend plans in the past when homework wasn't finished. This isn't the first time - just the first time it was a ski trip.

Thanks for clarifying OP. Then I think you stand strong. No ski trip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think PPs appreciate that this isn’t a special trip. It’s an afterschool activity he does regularly for two months. I would totally tell my kids no for a night of ski club if they did not follow through on a more important commitment (ie schoolwork, chores they are expected to do) and needed to reclaim that time.

I think not letting him participate is appropriate - but it would have been much better handled if you laid out the expectations ahead of time and let him know it was coming. When he asked you to back off would have been the time to iron out expectations and consequences and opportunities to check in and change course… in a perfect parenting world. I can see why finding out day of would feel like rug was being pulled out under him, especially if he has felt like he has been trying.

I think you have an opportunity to do that now. Missing ski club tonight is fine and a logical consequence for not having made time for school work and he needs to know you’re not going to just tolerate that. But I would apologize to him for not more clearly laying out your expectations in advance, acknowledge that you understand why he is upset and you could also have done better, and brainstorm with him on a better system where you don’t need to be micromanaging him but he’s more aware of the consequences and can check in with you along the way.

OP here - it was laid out ahead of time. I told him all week that if he still had missing work by Friday, he would not be allowed to participate in anything this week. Yesterday afternoon immediately after school, I reiterated that I still see he is missing all of the work and that he would not be going on the ski trip Friday if he doesn't get it done. I offered my help, as usual. He did nothing.

We have taken away weekend plans in the past when homework wasn't finished. This isn't the first time - just the first time it was a ski trip.

I'm the person who used the word surprise on the last page and I take back everything I said. With this context, you did the right thing. Maybe tempers got heated this morning when you and your husband could have kept your calm, but the overall strategy of clear expectations, communication, and a consequence related to the offense all seem perfectly fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this kid did not have UMC family would already be in the system.

Not true. I'm the OP and he's an incredibly sweet and pleasant kid 90% of the time. He has never once been in trouble outside of our home - we are the only ones that he gives a hard time to. He has a wonderful group of friends since kindergarten, teachers love him, he's sweet and respectful to his aunts and uncles...he just saves the hard stuff for us, which is normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like you’re trying to punish a disability away and that’s not ok. On top of that I don’t see that you gave fair warning of a really huge punishment.

Personally I would have viewed this as yet one more intervention or strategy that didn’t work as well as you had hoped. I’d be working with my kid to develop a new strategy or tweak this one. I’ve found that requiring my son to develop his own strategies for success has been more effective than me doing it but not everything he comes up with works.

Having ADHD doesn’t mean that he should refuse help. Or that he can’t look at the portal and see that work is missing when his mom reminds him. And she IS letting her son develop his own strategy for success and figure out what works for him (or doesn’t). The kid has now figured out that if he wants to go skiing then he needs to get his work in, and if he doesn’t know how to do that then he needs to stop being a brat and accept help.

[Anonymous]

OP I think you are fine to follow through on your consequences. You were clear and he ended up being aggressive as well.

As an adult with ADHD, future consequences do nothing to motivate me to work. When I was trying to finish my masters thesis, I had to buy those locked boxes off of amazon and lock up my phone and devices, I used the website blocking tools that didn't allow me to go to any of my scrolling / time wasting websites, and at one point, I hired someone to basically sit beside me and keep me on task (I also gave them small jobs like getting my references in order).

[Anonymous]

I would not do the ski trip.

Disability aside he needs to learn to do his work despite not wanting to. I have adhd and my son has adhd and if he wasn’t doing his work there’s no way I would let him go.

IF he was doing the work and still got bad grades because of a disability, then I would let him go. It’s the EFFORT that needs to be rewarded.

If you let him go to ski club you’re essentially saying “our words mean nothing!” And next time he’ll push harder.