Frustration with 2e/gifted child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mentioned your husband is just like her?
Is your husband is being horribly verbally abusive to you (or worse)?
If so, a divorce might be the first step to having things calm down. You would get half of the time free with joint custody & no adult treating you this way. You could recharge so you would be in a better mind set to raise her.

I think family therapy is a good idea reguardless.

He USED to be. We had a come to Jesus moment a few years ago and he has genuinely changed. It was a bit of a work in progress for me to accept that he’s not the same person anymore and to let go of a lot of the hurt and resentment I carried from those earlier years. It also really helped that he stopped working full time. I think for a long time he was overwhelmed and exhausted from his full time job and he was just so angry and irritable from it and he brought that stress home. Now he’s able to spend at least 20 hours a week pursuing his own hobbies and he’s less irritable. He’s also matured, and mellowed out a bit in his 50s.

So your audhd husband stopped working and was no longer angry all the time at home?

And now he spends half if the time in his personal hobbies and feels great?!

Meanwhile his audhd tween is going off a cliff and his NT wife is being verbally abused by the kid and is hanging by a thread.

Sheesh.

What a special guy indeed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and DD are both autistic. It’s really as simple as that. Get a full evaluation and move forward with the right tools.

The school evaluation determined she doesn’t quite meet the criteria for autism. I do honestly think it’s something that presents a lot like autism in many ways, but it’s different.

I think she likely has DH’s traits that are similar to autism- and some of the personality traits. But then she also has some of my adhd traits, which causes a lot of frustration for her because she knows she is smart and yet she gets easily stuck. And I think it’s the combination that is truly problematic. Because DH can’t be taught- he needs to figure out everything for himself. He has never let me teach him anything. He slept through all of his med school classes and yet was able to pass with flying colors because he had the ability because he’s a genius. She does not have that same ability.

He “can’t be taught anything by you” because he knows he’ll fail and fail again. So it’s easier in his mind to be belligerent and defiant. And refuse to be taught or to learn anything other than his pros al hyper interest(s).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and DD are both autistic. It’s really as simple as that. Get a full evaluation and move forward with the right tools.

The school evaluation determined she doesn’t quite meet the criteria for autism. I do honestly think it’s something that presents a lot like autism in many ways, but it’s different.

I think she likely has DH’s traits that are similar to autism- and some of the personality traits. But then she also has some of my adhd traits, which causes a lot of frustration for her because she knows she is smart and yet she gets easily stuck. And I think it’s the combination that is truly problematic. Because DH can’t be taught- he needs to figure out everything for himself. He has never let me teach him anything. He slept through all of his med school classes and yet was able to pass with flying colors because he had the ability because he’s a genius. She does not have that same ability.

He “can’t be taught anything by you” because he knows he’ll fail and fail again. So it’s easier in his mind to be belligerent and defiant. And refuse to be taught or to learn anything other than his pros al hyper interest(s).

I think it’s more that he just won’t learn anything unless he himself decides it’s an important thing to learn, and then when he learns it, he needs to do it his way. He also had really high standards for himself- he was first in his class for both HS and undergrad, and got a full scholarship to graduate school. But he does academic work really easily and quickly and he was able to do all that while having a very active annd involved and college social life. AND sleeping through all his classes. And then in med school, he got over his need to be the best.

Unfortunately I think our daughter’s slowness, disorganized thinking, and complete lack of interest in socialization comes from me. I was socially oblivious until 9th grade when I suddenly wanted to belong and do social things. And in hs, I was easily spending 5hrs a night on homework and it wasn’t until maybe 12th grade that I learned that my other classmates were getting most of their homework done in study period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mentioned your husband is just like her?
Is your husband is being horribly verbally abusive to you (or worse)?
If so, a divorce might be the first step to having things calm down. You would get half of the time free with joint custody & no adult treating you this way. You could recharge so you would be in a better mind set to raise her.

I think family therapy is a good idea reguardless.

He USED to be. We had a come to Jesus moment a few years ago and he has genuinely changed. It was a bit of a work in progress for me to accept that he’s not the same person anymore and to let go of a lot of the hurt and resentment I carried from those earlier years. It also really helped that he stopped working full time. I think for a long time he was overwhelmed and exhausted from his full time job and he was just so angry and irritable from it and he brought that stress home. Now he’s able to spend at least 20 hours a week pursuing his own hobbies and he’s less irritable. He’s also matured, and mellowed out a bit in his 50s.

So your audhd husband stopped working and was no longer angry all the time at home?

And now he spends half if the time in his personal hobbies and feels great?!

Meanwhile his audhd tween is going off a cliff and his NT wife is being verbally abused by the kid and is hanging by a thread.

Sheesh.

What a special guy indeed

He’s able to work, spend time on his hobbies, AND still engage with the kids, make meals on most of the days he is off from work, do his own laundry, and fix things around the house.

His ability to make meals has exponentially expanded since he went part time. It went from knowing only how to make 3 dishes, which each took him 3 hours to prepare, to now knowing how to prepare like 10 dishes and getting them done in an hour. I really can’t complain, it is a complete turnaround from how things used to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mentioned your husband is just like her?
Is your husband is being horribly verbally abusive to you (or worse)?
If so, a divorce might be the first step to having things calm down. You would get half of the time free with joint custody & no adult treating you this way. You could recharge so you would be in a better mind set to raise her.

I think family therapy is a good idea reguardless.

He USED to be. We had a come to Jesus moment a few years ago and he has genuinely changed. It was a bit of a work in progress for me to accept that he’s not the same person anymore and to let go of a lot of the hurt and resentment I carried from those earlier years. It also really helped that he stopped working full time. I think for a long time he was overwhelmed and exhausted from his full time job and he was just so angry and irritable from it and he brought that stress home. Now he’s able to spend at least 20 hours a week pursuing his own hobbies and he’s less irritable. He’s also matured, and mellowed out a bit in his 50s.

So your audhd husband stopped working and was no longer angry all the time at home?

And now he spends half if the time in his personal hobbies and feels great?!

Meanwhile his audhd tween is going off a cliff and his NT wife is being verbally abused by the kid and is hanging by a thread.

Sheesh.

What a special guy indeed

He’s able to work, spend time on his hobbies, AND still engage with the kids, make meals on most of the days he is off from work, do his own laundry, and fix things around the house.

His ability to make meals has exponentially expanded since he went part time. It went from knowing only how to make 3 dishes, which each took him 3 hours to prepare, to now knowing how to prepare like 10 dishes and getting them done in an hour. I really can’t complain, it is a complete turnaround from how things used to be.

I will also say that it was actually DH who ultimately pushed for an intervention for our daughter, after seeing that she was spending so much time on homework. And that is what led to the evaluation. This was after 4 years of him being very against her being evaluated even though I pushed for it - previously he accused me of trying to destroy her by getting her evaluated by trying to pathologize her differences. I think he saw it as an attack on him since he so closely related with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm back again - so it's been about a week. There are 2 issues that are coming up for me with my new approach.

1) Younger siblings, who were at first cooperative with helping out, even though older sibling has not been helping out at all, are now refusing to help out when the older sibling is getting away with not helping out around the house at all - even though they are older. So now I'm picking up slack for everyone.

2) This is worse because I'm sick this week, but I'm already getting and tired and resentful about the kids not helping out. I don't mind picking up their rooms, and making their lunches and breakfasts and dinners. But I do mind when my daughter threatens to kill me for going in her room. And I do mind when she complains about the lunches I make for her. And I do mind when the younger siblings just flat out ignore me when I ask them to do something. And I mind when they literally leave trails of mess as soon as they get home from school. And in 3 years I still haven't been able to figure out how to get them to put their bookbags away and unpack their lunches without nagging them 5 times daily to do so, so this week I've given up and am doing it myself.

This is easy, OP... if they do not do their chores, then you take away their phine/iPad/TV or take away some other privilege that they care about.

Make sure you are continuing to do the same for your older DD, which should be relatively easy since you said that she doesn't care.

Come up with a list of daily things they need to accomplish. Print out a checklist and go over it with them. If they do not do the tasks on one particular day, then they lose their screen/privilege for the next day.