Questions I have are whether
(a) anyone has strategies or stories for dealing with ADHD lack of ability to complete simple multi step tasks?
(b) whether there is a difference is multi-step task completion challenges between adult and children?
Here is some background:
So I have ADHD ex wife and ADHD tween son (he youngest of 3) and rest of us not ADHD.
It has been very difficult forever to communicate basic multi-step tasks to the ADHD part of the family.
Until they were diagnosed 5 years ago, I thought it was me not being able to properly describe, even though at work I had colleagues who could listen and retain 10-step tasks and return quickly with perfect execution.
Now I know this is an ADHD challenge, to not be able to easily execute basic daily tasks.
I used to cope by just doing it myself (and still do), but for my own sanity and grey hair abatement, i am trying to encourage skills for them to complete multi-step tasks without me.
For example, regular basic stuff from this past weekend that has been going on for years:
1) "son (12), can you please feed the dog, the new food is at the front door, and put the new bag in the pantry"
(he goes to back door and comes back claiming there is no food)
"the food bag is pink with a picture of a salmon, it is in a black grocery bag at the front door are you sure?"
(he goes to front door and brings back a red back with toilet paper)
"that is red, what about black bag with dog food?"
"try again", i say. he gives up "ohh i can't find it"and starts to get down on himself and almost cry and quit the task.
i have to do it myself, the bag is the same color and place i said.
2) this weekend ADHD ex wife is staying in same hotel another room for 3 day event and the kids are going back and forth between rooms as she is too. Electronic room keys all look the same and she keeps misplacing the keys and forgetting which is which and needs to go to front desk everytime to get into her room. Total chaos since we are coming in and out 10-15 times a day, and after 24hr literally have 10 keys all look the same.
So I go to desk and i get 3 keys for each room in an envelope and label each. I give them to her and say "do not take card key out of labelled envelope".
Few hours later, of course all the keys are out of envelope and she is at the front desk calling my room because her keys are wrong and she forgot her ID back in room.
Basic attention seems non existant and the non-ADHD takes the burden and I am trying to put is back on the ADHD to no avail since they always just give up quickly in my experience....should i just let them fail and fail until they "get it"?
Comments
yes and yes, but they won't get it
I hate to be a downer, but yes, you need to let them fail and suffer the consequences but it most likely will not happen that they will ever 'get it' - because you are there to pick up the pieces. And it just doesn't work that way.
I think you've encaspulated what so many of us are going through and the frustration of the highest degree - some of the things you describe are also me. We are facing an autistic (not ADHD surprisingly) dx in my son and taking the example of the dog food - if you give them a task that is of importance to another living being/creature, you might want to rethink giving those. Not forever, just to amend how you do it. It sounds like you are handing them too many instructions in one go - they just can't compute it all like you can. And that's ok! It's just how it works - try to think of the end result and goal - if the dog needs to be fed, can your child be responsible for it? or it is that the end goal is for the task to be fully completed - if it's the latter, then you have to not give so many instructions to full complete a task in one go. It's just setting them up for failure and you for disappointment.
I'm not saying by changing the above, you wpon't be frustrated. I'm currently wondering if I am staying in my 20 year marriage bc I've had ENOUGH. We all have our deal breakers...and then some. but definitely wanted to give the suggestion to break down the smaller tasks or lower your expectations of a neurospicy person being able to complete a task in the same way as a non.
You probably can’t make it improve
Someone who has succesfully trained an ADHD child with CBT methods might disagree with my take on this. However I’ve spent decades alongside ADD adults and children and feel I haven’t ever been able to help them improve their executive skills. I can show and explain how to do things until I’m blue in the face, they will still lose, forget, spill and knock everything over on their deeply impractical way through life.
This, along with the social isolation resulting from ADD passivity and avoidance, are the things that still make my heart sink efter divorce.
also not listening - need to not take it personally
thanks for helpful feedback,
sometimes when there are not multi-step tasks, there is still repeated failure because it seems i am not being listened to for the one step.
i have got into the habit of asking them to repeat what i just said and for the ex this is demeaning, parent/child. For the 12yr it becomes clear he has no idea what was said and it makes me frustrated, sometimes angry.
But both of them are able to focus properly on thier phone for hours and retain what they saw and dicuss what they saw. It almost makes me want to send a text for simple tasks like "time to get dressed" or "please don't take labelled roomkey out of envelope.".
I no longer have the energy to give up and do it myself, i am burned out from doing it last almost 20yrs. I need strategies!
Also Swedish, mentioned isolation which has been a big issue on the playground. I have been reading up and trying to encourage strategies for 12yr olds. it doesn't involve sports since he definitely can't coorperate in a team. it is more social. i think he misses cues. at home he has verbal salad that doesn't make sense and is fantastical, unreal and he once complained he wasn't allowed to sit next to a classmate on bus because he talks too much. So it seems he is trying to connect but is being rejected. Swedish in your experience of isolation related to withdrawl?
Tween/teen alone
The children’s severe ADD father has social anxiety and therefore avoids everybody, but skillfully so only I noticed how terribly alone our family became. (And I was already so exhausted from family and professional life I felt social occasions drained me, as were painful by association.)
ADD tween and teenager behavior, has for us been happy and relaxed in family settings and also content in school and extracurriculars but apparently avoiding peers otherwise. NO contact with classmates or anybody else for weeks or months until school resumes. NO desire to catch up with others. NO friends visiting. NO mention of friends. It’s stressed me terribly.
I’ve done what I could to stimulate social interactions but realized I was just being annoying and couldn’t change anything. They’re happy the way they are. Their way of life will never be the same as mine. Perhaps that’s ok. They might eventually find their group of people, or perhaps never. There’s very little I can do about it. Right now I’m just grateful they at seventeen prefer to spend time with me, which is sweet and might not be forever.
I think the best we can do is sometimes to cherish them. Letting go of as much as possible might benefit our blood pressure and also the relationship.
social connections vs nature
Swedish,
Can you please elaborate on your post regarding statements like:
"happy and relaxed in family settings and content in school and extracurriculars?"..that sound good to me!!
Are you actually in Sweden? We are in Canada and the summers are spent in remote communities by lakes and ocean, and there a few other families except when going into village few times a week.
my ex claims (legally actually), that me bringing the kids to the family island remote is causing social problems for the children, but my view is that rather it is creating independance and confidence - the ex wants them in large groups in city during summer, urban daycare basically, as was her experience.
my culture background is remote nature builds strength, and i feel is especially good for ADHD kids, but maybe i am wrong?
Nature vs screen time
Funny, the remote summers is something our families seem to share (at least before, now I can’t use the family remote house because it’s a huge trigger to my divorce and difficult marriage pain).
I think spending time in nature is the ideal way for any children to build resilience and a healthy self-image. I couldn’t agree more.
But then there are screens… which I cannot regulate effectively because of the children’s father. And there’s a ton of entertainment at children’s fingertips that make their healthy initiatives never happen. I’m EXHAUSTED at trying to make children experience real things and discover things themselves. ADD youngster never leaves the house unless I drag them out and walk them every step on the way.
Screens and ADD combined have literally sucked the life out of me. I’m so tired of worrying.
remote is a reset
for us the phones don't work unless village.
athough reception better over years we still take phone away until village.
i love this - the way i grew up!
however lots of screen withdrawl sadness for days once arrived remote. pouting.
but making rope swings, fishing, peeing on trees, driving boats, making fires, helping with meals...
and then the ex sends messages we wll get in village, and convinces them they are being abused due to unreliable reception. (and i think they actually believe they are being abused).
even if we get Starlink, i still want them off thier phones for days at a time.
this is relevant for ADHD phone obsession: both the adult ex and her ADHD kid feel abused when when phone doesn't work...
I’m sorry she does this
I’m sorry she tries to disrupt your precious remote time.
I think removing screens will never be popular with children, but to offer them the alternative - boredom - is a great gift. Boredom always has to precede creativity.
I wish I didn’t use my phone as a comforter either, but I do. Scrambling together a life after divorce is hard, with habits and precautions all tailored to severe ADD. I don’t know who I am anymore or what I can manage. Sometimes I feel my ex husband’s weakness has been contagious, and that I’m now just as helpless.
"scrambling" meaning is both chaos and combining
my personal opinion is that if there are children involved you will never be able to extricate yourself from the ADHD partner chaos.
but you can manage it.
and that the peace is achieved during thier absence, although it is fleeting.
and so you need to live in that moment, where without the ADHD partner there is temporary peace.
"get away, get away, get away now!!"