Too harsh on ND child?

I think that many of us have seen that OP is not actually self reflecting on many of the excellent points that have been raised here, in a way to try and enrich her understanding of how her little boy is struggling, nor the harm which she is doing with the way she is currently handling him. It also seems that he is being punished more harshly for things he is clearly not being understood with. There have also been responses where OP has said she has lost her temper e.g. with his behaviour at times of transitions. It's well known that transitions are especially tough for ND children/ adults, and as a parent of an ND child (who is also medicating for this), most of us would hope that OP would be factoring in the additional challenges these every day (predictable) situations present. Not coming down on her poor kid like a ton of bricks, and telling him that it's basically his fault if his friends don't like him. We know that social relationships are challenging for ND kids, who need extra scaffolding to build and maintain them, so responding like this to the lad, who has basically just attempted to enlist his Mum's help with a plea, is actually cruel.

I definitely have to limit tech for my ADHD kids because they have no sense of reasonable limits. However, I agree with those saying don't keep escalating punishments - I have some other suggestions which I'll add later.

First of all: I would honestly speak to the doctor about the risks/benefits of medicating at the weekend - and don't forget to consider the risks/benefits of NOT medicating, because the effect on your relationship and his self esteem is no small thing, IMO. Also, he is going to be entering puberty soon. ADHD boys and puberty can be a bit of an explosive combo. (Not always - it doesn't seem to be for my eldest). Medication is helpful in mitigating risk taking behaviour and impulsive, haven't-thought-of-the-consequences type behaviour. At ten as well, you might want to ask him what he thinks, whether he would prefer to take it every day.

I am an adult and take medication every day. I have ADHD every day and I need the medication every day. Not everyone needs breaks to keep it effective - TBH, I find that if I take a break when I get a cold or something, so maybe 2-3 times a year, which makes sense to me because I just want to rest and sleep on those days anyway, then it's enough. In fact it is highly individual as well - some people find that the days they don't take medication, they retain some residual effect (perhaps from not being exhausted/burnt out from trying to deal with life without enough executive functioning). But some people find that the days they don't take medication, the symptoms come back almost worse in a kind of rebound effect, like someone trying to quit smoking is grumpy and short tempered on the first couple of days not only because of withdrawal, but also because their brain is expecting the nicotine to make the extra dopamine for them. This seems to be the case for me (when I've had a day off for other reasons e.g. supply shortages)

If you're getting a resurgence of symptoms, especially extra-hyper or extra-grumpy in the evenings as the medication wears off, this could be what they call stimulant rebound and again talk to the doctor about this because you can mitigate it a bit e.g. by giving a very small booster dose to sort of taper off the medication as it runs out rather than it all leaving his body at once and leaving him with a total lack of dopamine (I think that's a bit oversimplified, but it was how it was explained to me). The other thing you can do is try to counter this with some sugary food or drink.

90% of ADHD parenting IME is mood management and being proactive in order that you NOT react in the moment, because they can so very easily get into a state where they're sort of exuding this force and it will wind you up if you're not careful. Because once you get into this pattern you're just escalating each other, this is highly rewarding (even though that seems counter-intuitive because it feels horrible/stressful and often ends up with an out of proportion punishment). Brain chemistry wise, it is HIGHLY rewarding and the more you get into this pattern the more you will see it, and it will get more and more explosive. He likely cannot break the pattern - you have to be the adults and do that.

So in terms of how to make that happen - a mixture of things.

Understanding ADHD - I haven't read a lot of books aimed at parents understanding their ADHD kids, because I was diagnosed first, but Sarah Templeton's book How Not To Murder Your ADHD Kid is excellent - if the title makes you chuckle. If the title makes you roll your eyes or feel faintly horrified, it might not be the right book for you. But it's very good especially as a starting point, explaining the reasoning behind a lot of common behaviours and offering a couple of strategies for each. Honestly, although there wasn't a lot new here for me, it was a helpful reminder and I do use some of the things she suggests in here. (If you don't think it's the book for you and/or in addition, maybe look at Russell Barkley's 12 Principles book, as I remember he described this as he spent lockdown distilling his life's work into the most important, clear points that he could, and his talks have always been very helpful for me.)

ADHD Dude and Seth Perler and Russell Barkley's videos online are all really good as well.

Structure your discipline system and make it MUCH clearer and more predictable, and heavily skewed towards rewarding preferred behaviour rather than punishing unwanted behaviour. What that means is that rather than react in the moment to behaviour that you don't like or when you feel like you're losing a power struggle you pull the parent card and enact a ban, you want to sit down with DH and decide on some specific behaviours to work on, clarify between you what exactly it means (e.g. don't use something vague like "being cheeky", but specify words, actions, tone of voice etc - though Sarah reckons tone is really difficult to police because they don't realise they are doing it and so could be unfair). If there's something you currently tend to take away as punishment, flip this and get him to earn the thing back with positive behaviour instead. So for example, if he's normally allowed up to 1 hour of screen time a day, break the day into 6 sections and for each section, if he can manage to avoid the unwanted behaviour he can earn 15 minutes of screen time. Don't expect perfection as you are working on changing habits, and start at a point where it's achievable for him to get at least some of them.

There is a really excellent free course on Coursera called The ABCs of Everyday Parenting which goes into how to work out the positive opposite behaviour to encourage rather than a negative to discourage, how to work towards behaviours you're a long way from, how to use rewards type schemes and other acknowledgements like praise in the most effective way. It also has a short section on consequences. It's very good and it's similar to the kinds of parent training which are effective in ADHD.

For behaviours you're not currently working on, it helps to just deal with them neutrally - either ignore or redirect or de-escalate while keeping everyone safe as much as possible. But IME having a behaviour system like above can also help take conflict away from in-the-moment behaviour.

Understanding regulation and how to judge your child's mood/mental state can help a lot too - this is a bit of a bugbear at the moment because the word regulation is everywhere and most people using it aren't really understanding the proper definition, they are sort of using it as a kind of shorthand to mean "my child is calm [regulated] vs agitated [dysregulated]" - which is sort of right but it's a bit more complicated in reality. I won't go into the full explanation here but I would recommend the book Big Baffling Behaviours by Robyn Gobbel as I really like her animal "brain" metaphor and I find her descriptions of how to recognise each "level" of dysregulation and what to do at each state to be extremely helpful. The other thing to look at here is sensory input - find out what types of sensory input help your child to regulate and what they might be seeking especially with hyperactive type behaviour. This I've found difficult to find good cohesive info in one place, but I've read some helpful things on The OT Butterfly and Occuplaytional Therapist. I think OT would be useful for this but I don't know how easy it is to access. I get the sense that understanding sensory input can help when you have a child for whom "get their energy out" is unpredictable or doesn't work at all.

But sometimes this can also be as simple as the fact that ADHD children often don't pay very good attention to their own bodies so they don't notice easily if they are hungry, thirsty, need the toilet, tired, hot/cold etc. He might seem to be a bit old to have to prompt these things but think about whether any of them might be an issue and if so, try prompting or offering so that they are happening regularly. I often find with my 6yo if he's suddenly in an antagonistic mood it's because he needs the toilet and has been ignoring it for ages.

ASD and ADHD children react better if there is a "treat" they are hoping to get rather than being punished after the fact. Those punishments usually trigger in my experience an unpleasant meltdown. There are some things I'd let go or you just run out of punishments. Have you tried talking to him in a calm moment about how disappointed you are when he misbehaves like this? Explaining to him how this sort of thing will hold him back from achieving things and having friends etc. I think you do have to tackle the pushing quite strongly. You do not want to be facing off with him when he's a six foot teenager.

I always told my ASD/ADHD son that the world wouldn't bend for him and he'd have to bend for the world. I also think it's important to compliment your child on good things they do rather than always being critical. I admit at times it was hard to think of something and I was once reduced to saying he was very good at finding the fastest, shortest supermarket check out queue. Strangely he was quite proud of that and always insisted on choosing the supermarket queue.

I did find some outdoor exercise was good. An hour or two on a horse kept him focussed because the horse certainly isn't going to be making allowances for ADHD if he wasn't riding it properly. But even just a walk round a park can be helpful.

Is he keeping up at school? If not, think about some extra tutoring. It is absolutely miserable to be left behind and struggling. One of my children was effortlessly brilliant and the other had a real struggle. The struggler had a lot of extra tutoring and support. He said the extra work was worth it not to be struggling in class all the time and being able to pass his exams. He has a reasonable university degree and is currently doing a post graduate diploma for a vocational qualification. We did medicate but more for him to concentrate on studying than behaviour modification. It might be a possibility for you though for behaviour.

A lot of children do discover coping mechanisms when they get older. To do lists, wall planners, always putting their keys in the same place, working with only the relevant papers on their desk etc. They learn a few more social graces. My son just naturally stopped jumping up and down on the spot like Tigger as he got older.

You have to parent ND children carefully. Obviously he can't be allowed to be an active threat to his sister, but that's not what we are talking about here - it is about the wisdom of using punitive methods on a struggling child who needs more scaffolding than the average child.

Some of us are suggesting ways to provide that scaffolding. Shouting it down on the basis he's going to turn into a murderer or similar in a few years is not helpful.

I have two adult adopted children. Adopters often find they are parenting children with incredibly challenging behaviours and for the last 25 years or so the adoption community has been heavily involved in finding strategies that work. Most adopters I know have had to completely change their natural parenting style to accommodate the Nero divergence, special educational needs, trauma etc they are dealing with.

And I can tell you that shouting, punishing, time out etc is not recommended. Firm boundaries are in but in a loving way.

And any parenting course will say much the same.

Look at NVR, for example, which is becoming increasingly popular. You choose your battles, learn how to keep a child regulated, how to de-escalate, how to stay calm calm yourself, how to use conciliatory gestures. But it also includes firm boundaries.

Imo the main thing with kids like this is not to focus on the punishment after the event but to stop the event in the first place. That's where sensory strategies come in - lots of active play, hard pressure activities, use of snacks (find out if crunching, chewing, licking, sucking helps your child and choose snacks accordingly). And parenting support for the parents like a parenting course or even just seeing a counsellor.

Shouting and punishing just leaves the child to deal with the too-big feelings all on their own. They can't do it and it will continue.

My daughters have grown up to be able to self regulate - the gold standard for adult behaviour - but that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't helped them.

This is not soft parenting btw but it is highly engaged parenting, which takes a huge amount of effort. So much easier to scream at a kid and send them to their room for half am hour than to have planned a physical activity and monitored your children's interactions and intervened at the first sign of trouble with a redirection.

Op as a matter of interest why is your child not medicated at the weekend and what do you actually do with him over the weekend? Does he get lots of exercise?