Too harsh on ND child?

You connected her parenting to preventing ‘entitled male behaviour” and threw in there the show Adolescence to make the point that harsh parenting prevents your child becoming a murderer.

Studies show the opposite to be true.

Your opinion is her parenting is good and if anything she needs to be more strict and harsh.

I got it, you disagree with me, you’ve made that clear from your very first interaction with me, you couldn’t tolerate my difference of opinion being on the thread, you had to reply to me and kick off this shit show,

Lets just leave it here.

At this point I’m not prepared to engage with you further, @SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice. Despite your claims that others are abusive, it’s very clear that you are the one gaslighting and attempting to twist the narrative even in this one thread to suit you. Claiming to know who is and isn’t ND based on whether they agree with you; implying that someone must be lying if you don’t think their diagnosis is good enough; repeatedly intentionally twisting my point about Adolescence so that you can make a cruel comparison to the OP’s child… I think it’s very clear whose behaviour year merits criticism.

I’ve reported most of your posts but I’m not at all surprised MNHQ is doing nothing about it; their record on reacting to malicious attacks on disabled people like me is abysmal. I only report about a quarter of the attacks I receive and I expect 99% of them to go undeleted. I’m only mentioning this so that anyone else reading the thread knows that I did make reports and wasn’t just allowing these comments to stand unchallenged (including the many where SugarandSpice made such callous and cruel comparisons, and repeatedly called OP abusive with no foundation).

It’s too stressful for me to engage with a gaslighter like this so I won’t be responding to your unpleasantness any further, and will leave other readers of the thread to judge for themselves. To be clear, all I have ever tried to contribute was encouragement for the OP in helping her DS acquire skills to function in the world as well as possible, because I have found that so hard as a multiply disabled (physically and with ND) adult. I deeply believe that it hurts ND children not to bring them up with these skills and leaves them lonelier and less integrated as adults. I also think all kids deserve to be told the truth in a direct and honest way, especially if they are hurting or affecting others. Yes, including ND kids. Calling this abusive is just outrageous imo. That’s all I have to say.

SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice Also you would be surprised at the number of Neurodivergent parents that don't know how to parent their children because they have not been taught.

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.

Yes, well I have ADHD so I have difficulty recalling exact words verbatim over the general gist. It seems a bit nit picky for you to imply that ridiculous is substantively different from ludicrous though. And having ADHD, we do tend to sensitive to people using such harsh criticisms of our opinions and feel it includes an attack on the personal level too. A pp posted a great statistic and study on how rejection sensitivity is rooted in parenting you call “good parenting” whereby ADHD kids are criticised too often and too harshly.

Again, that lack of understanding about a condition you have. Did you just get diagnosed or something? That would explain a lot.

I think you're doing great OP. It's really hard for you but so important not to excuse poor behaviour because of ND.
It takes a lot of perseverance but you're doing the right thing.

Have you also got rewards for good behaviour? My friend with ND children starts from a basis of 0 screen time and they earn it through good behaviour. It seems to work well for them.

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice I never said OP’s son was showing entitled male behaviour. Again, hard to know if you’re struggling to parse what’s being said or maliciously twisting my words.

Why would I say that OP’s son is showing especially problematic behaviour when I’m the one who thinks she’s parenting well? My entire point is that I think she is doing a good job.

The OP’s DS wasn’t/isnt showing “entitled male behaviour” though. It sounds to me like you watched the show Adolescence and are now unfairly projecting the 13yo NT male character onto the OP’s DS.

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice Also I said “calling this abusive is absolutely ludicrous” which is a comment on your post, and not on you as a person. What I might think of you following all your additional posts is another matter, but my first reply didn’t even call you ridiculous!

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice You think that implying I must be lying about being neurodiverse and repeatedly insisting that I compared OP’s actual real life child to a murderer is the same as… finding it ridiculous that you think normal, sensible parenting is abusive? Sure, sure.

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice Wow, you really hate to be challenged on your narrative that OP is abusive, don’t you? This whole thing comes from this. If you actually reviewed my comments, you’d see I have never said “be more harsh”. Not once. Not even one time.

That is something you invented. Just like you invented the idea that I said OP’s child is like the child in Adolescence, when actually I said that boys need direct parenting and referred to a recent pop culture example.

You are right de escalation techniques are worth their weight in gold.

Says the poster who started out by calling me ridiculous.

Yes, and I mistakenly presumed that a person with ND would know that and, in my opinion, not be saying the OP wasn’t being harsh enough and cheering on a parenting style that is known to be abusive to children with poorly medicated severe ADHD.

I forgot you can have a ND and also lack insight and education into your own condition and how it can affect others more severely than you.

@Arran2024 Saying that OP is a good parent for being direct and challenging entitled male behaviour is not claiming he’s going to “turn into a murderer”.

I would be more interested in your perspective if you could respond to mine without twisting my words.

Also I know Neurodivergent parents who are so strict that their children are scared to breathe and watching those children being crushed is awful.

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.

Ahhh, and now I see they are implying I must be lying. Typical.

@Oioisavaloy27 I had actually said I was ND multiple times earlier in this thread! I prefer not to speak about specific diagnoses usually as I don’t think it’s that helpful to focus on as an adult (different for children and during the diagnostic process). The other poster really needs to check her assumptions and stop attacking people who don’t agree with her.

But everyone has different experiences and severity and everyone deals with things differently you can't just come on here and say that it's not a one size fits all.

Good point, I just couldn’t believe a person who says they have ADHD would be so severely lacking in understanding on the needs of a child with ADHD. After all, they’d have been a child with ADHD if they have it.

Edit: they claimed they have ADHD after I presumed they did not.

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?

How do you know this person is not Neurodivergent?

You chose to characterise the parenting many of us with ND kids and who are ND as akin to the parenting on the show- which it is not at all. There was no need to fear monger like that as the situations are not even remotely comparable.

The OP’s parenting is different from the benign neglect shown on the show with a NT 13yo boy but that doesn’t make her actions good parenting for a ND 10yo by a long shot.

Yes you have been saying the OP is a good parent and if anything needs to be more explicit/harsh. That’s not good advice and not good parenting, in my opinion.

I agree with the other posters that long term consequences especially for behaviour that he probably can't control is largely pointless.

I think it can be very easy to slip into a pattern where you want him to acknowledge his behavior is the problem but he is too angry/ upset / triggered /dysregulated to be in the slightest bit rationa.. With DS I have to try to focus on the original issue - eg hassling his sister - then give him consequences for that and then ignore all the rest. I do worry that's not helpful long term as he'll have to learn to self regulate - and arguably, DH did NOT learn and as a result has had some problems as an adult - but I'm also trying to take an age appropriate approach. DS is now 14 so I'm shifting a bit how we handle things.

I would say that find the exercise and activities during the week at school really help that you should consider trying to up that on weekends . A lot of what you describe I see very much with my nephew has never really had enough of the physical activity that he clearly needs and craves and without a doubt his behavior is often worse as a result. This was particularly obvious when he was a toddler and a bit older than toddler.

I would recommend some more hardcore exercise or activity on the weekends. Formal or informal. It can be difficult though, I know. DS got more freedom than some other kids simply because getting out and about was so good for him. He also got signed up to an activity that was 90 minutes starting quite early on Saturdays. He'd come out like a starving wolf and I'd have to feed him something substantial on the way home but it really helped to regulate him the rest of the day.