My husband is a great dad, really. We have four teenagers. He loves his kids, spends tons of time with them, is super involved, etc, and he has always been like this. His biggest parenting flaw is that his ADHD tends to make him have disproportionate knee-jerk reactions. If the kids do something wrong, or I have to relate a problem, he tends to over-react, frequently without knowing all the details, and dole out some ridiculous consequence that he'll completely forget about two days later and won't follow through with. This is a difficult co-parenting situation. I want him to back me up when I encounter a problem, but I want him to actually understand what's going on so we're on the same page. He sometimes decides on a punishment and two days later when I'm trying to enforce the consequence, I learn that he's let it go. Or he might over-react and I'll take him aside afterwards and try to explain the details and he'll get mad at ME... even if he recognizes he was clearly in the wrong. The kids don't like approaching him with their grievances, which hurts his feelings, but they have experienced his reactions so they come to me to present to him. And then he lashes out at me because he wants them to come to him directly. It makes both the kids and I hesitant to discuss these kinds of things with him. I HAVE to, as a parent, but I hate it because it may not be a reasonable "conversation". We've discussed making sure we're on the same page before determining appropriate consequences many times, and we usually are until he impulsively goes rogue and then it's a total mess. The kids get confused, I get frustrated, and he can't understand how any of it has anything to do with his reactions or behavior.
Does anyone have any experience with kind if thing? Were you able to resolve it? If so, what did you do?
Yes we used to have the same problem...
Submitted by Non-ADHD-Hubby on
Yes we used to have the same problem. My wife (the ADHD partner) and I have 2 ADHD teenage daughters. There would be an issue with one of the kiddos that would need addressing and we would decide on an appropriate course of action. More often than not when the time would come she would decide that course of action was not necessary or would have forgotten about our conversation all together. I would take it personally assuming she did not value my opinion. Confusion usually followed among all involved.
I ended up figuring out that most of these conversations were happening when she was preoccupied (synonymous with what we both lovingly refer to as Brain Noise). Eventually I shifted these conversations to more strategic times, mainly when we were both in bed about to hit the sack. I would prefer to have such discussions any other time than right before bed but that is when she is most relaxed.
This approach has not solved the issue 100% but has definitely mitigated it, which is a successful outcome in my book. I also don't take it personally anymore (most of the time) if it happens knowing it is unintentional on her part.
This was a big problem for us
Submitted by shevrae on
This was such a big problem in our house for such a long time! We didn't know about ADD until last year, so I admit I just started not discussing things with him. If he happened to be there and made a proclamation of "you're never doing that/going there again!" I would find the kids after and remind them that he was likely to forget in a few days time and just to wait it out. I'm not saying those were good things to do - they weren't - but I had no explanation for his behavior at the time and we all walked on eggshells around him, which he would occasionally notice and then be upset about that too. Sigh.
After his ADD diagnosis it was a little better but still wasn't great until he received a second diagnosis of anxiety. Going on medication for anxiety was the best thing to ever happen at our house. Suddenly you could TALK with him about things. It's only been six months but in that time my kids are regularly remarking that "Dad has really chilled out." and "I can actually talk to Dad about things now". We still have ADD issues that can make co-parenting difficult - like not remembering the conclusion of a conversation - but with the anxiety managed we can revisit the conversation without a blowup or a shutdown.
So I guess I might suggest looking into a secondary diagnosis. Whatever you decide to do, it's an extremely painful and frustrating situation and I'm so sorry you have to deal with it.