AIBU about how this autistic/ADHD parent manages symptoms around their children.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178118310126 I know we have gone down the route of diagnostic reliability but just to highlight to those promoting screen time for “ regulation” in adhd, screen time can be used in an addictive way by those with adhd….the husband would be better to go and do 20 mins on the trampoline or something before dinner, this would be a better way to regulate himself rather than escaping into a screen.

There's also the issue of 'doctor shopping'. Someone can go round as many private clinics as they can afford until they get the answer they want. There has to be some quality control to ensure that the diagnosis is taken seriously and that those who need support receive it.

@SuperSleepyBaby I absolutely agree with you, I have spent most of my adult life working in prisons and mental health hospitals, I am vastly more blessed than many and I am sure your relative is too. I just don’t think that means she isn’t ND. If she’s had an easier life she is more likely to have had the space/support to develop coping mechanisms. There must have been reasons for her diagnosis. Like ASD is a spectrum, it doesn’t mean a high functioning person doesn't have it, and of course life is likely to be much easier than for someone who is non-verbal and has gross motor delay etc. Some people with hayfever have it very mildly, others very badly, they still have it and it’s annoying even if it’s not as life affecting as for those who have it severely. Should your relative have been prioritised for diagnosis over someone who has it severely? Absolutely not. Nor should I. But I will eventually take the assessment when it comes so I can be better informed for my DC if they do too.

@Haveyouanyjam
that sounds hard but many, many humans have struggles. I felt been suicidal in my 20s etc. A friend of mine has a severely disabled child. A neighbour’s husband suddenly died leaving her with young children. A colleague in work is undergoing cancer treatment. Most us have something going on and most people don’t find life easy.

I am close enough to my relative over their whole life to understand they are functioning well. No one truly knows any other human but when you see someone succeed from an early age- and continue to do so through life then i think a diagnosis in that case is over the top.

@SuperSleepyBaby but my point is, you don’t know what is going on internally for people, especially women who are socialised to keep things in. If you asked people in my life they would have said I had a happy, easy childhood, that I am successful have good friends and am a good mum. Even on here there are things I don’t want to say I do or don’t do because I feel horribly ashamed. It’s easy to talk about struggling with being organised, it’s not easy to admit you haven’t brushed your teeth in weeks, have suicidal thoughts, drink too much, have meant every day for the past three months to book your child’s optician's/dental appointment but haven’t, have a present for your friend’s child on your bedroom floor who you love very much and whose birthday was 5 months ago but you just can’t seem to wrap it up and send it. Just small examples to make the point. It’s not helpful for anyone to point score about whose life is harder and why. As you said, we all have struggles and just because someone has had it harder doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be able to share theirs. My husband has been through every awful thing a person could have growing up, my life has been much easier, but it doesn’t mean it’s been easy, or that I shouldn’t talk about the things I find hard.

This figure is astonishingly high! Of course there is an element of self selection with all assessments, people will only put themselves forward if they think there is a reasonable chance they have the condition. ADHD though by it's very nature shares a lot of traits with other conditions and can even mimic them including anxiety, ODD, Autism and bipolar disorder. If medically trained professions find it tricky to distinguish between the conditions then it would be miraculous that patients have been able to do this with 95% accuracy. Then of course there will be those that have ADHD traits but don't quite meet the threshold for ADHD. Again, unless you're medically trained then it would be very difficult for people to know they meet the criteria with 95% accuracy.

This all boils down to the assessment, how it's conducted and the space it allows for subjectivity and interpretation. You see a similar thing with autism
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/04/some-nhs-centres-twice-as-likely-to-diagnose-adults-as-autistic-study-finds
There is a clearly a big problem here with diagnostic accuracy and it urgently needs to be addressed. These diagnoses can be life changing for people but if they are predicated on false certainly then this is hugely dangerous.

Seeing them frequently with other is a snap shot. Parenting is a 24/7 job. Work out how many hours you spend with them every week and do the maths.

@amiadoormat
this is a ridiculous and ignorant statement. I work in nhs and a private clinic. Just because someone ‘has got this far’ doesn’t negate the experiences they’ve had. The adults I’ve assessed have self reported feeling like an outcast their whole lives, feeling like an alien etc. often the penny drops when they have kids and the kids are going through assessment that they realise that the things their kids are experiencing are exactly the same as what they did- just that nobody noticed or asked.

Agreed.

(And the subject of the post screams male to me.)

@Haveyouanyjam

i also had lots of struggles growing up - bad social anxiety and depression. In my case it was due to issues with my parents (they problems with alcohol etc). I did counselling and have mostly come to terms with it.

Life was definitely harder for me than for my relative with the ADHD diagnosis. But that’s just life and it doesn’t bother me except when they are constantly bringing up ADHD to explain standard human disorganisation. There is an assumption by them that life is officially harder for them and they have a diagnosis to prove it- the assumption that the rest of us must sail through life and not get stressed or misplace our car keys.

All humans have their struggles. If you are generally functioning in life - have a happy family, a home, a successful job, good social life - then i do question how significant this diagnosis is - or how genuine.

having said that i know there are genuine cases - like my son who is significantly impacted by autism.

What does the mum think about this set-up OP?

Because that is important here.
Is she working all day, doing a lot of childcare at home, you say the dad doesn't work and the children are in full time childcare. So I am assuming the mum is working.

Not that is it for women to sort out the behaviour of men, but there is a 6 and 3 year old in the middle of all this, why doesn't she point out that it is the dad that needs to eat where he feels comfortable? (I say this as it sounds like the dad seems to have monopolized his needs within the household).

And perhaps he does when they are alone, you only see them when there are many people around, so why he was sitting in headphones at the table instead of eating off in the kitchen is a bit of a mystery.

You can have selfish twattish parents who are NT and selfish twattish parents that are ND, that's just life and obvious, using whatever you do as an excuse is detrimental to the children you bring into this world.

There is a elevated possibility that their children are ND, so this needs to be taken into account, because as many have said, for children to mask is not a good thing. And eventually the mask will slip, if it's there. Because if their children are ND they will need patience, understanding and guidance as they go through life, there will only be so many jobs that ND adults can do, look at this dad in question, and they will be competing against other ND peers for these positions not NT adults.

You are not unreasonable to notice this, outwardly at least, selfish twattish behaviour from the adult at the dinner table, I would talk to the mum. Personally I couldn't put up with him being at off work without kids all day, then being present but zoned out at the dinner table, and what else? Bedtime too chaotic, he needs more downtime? Whilst you run around ragged because of you know "his" ND. This is part of the reason it's good for adults to get a diagnosis if they didn't in childhood, if you have a ND adult, you can make a more informed choice if you want to become a parent with them, with the increased possibility you might have ND children. Information is important especially when making the decision of having children. Hopefully adult diagnosis will gradually reduced in future because more are being diagnosed during childhood.

Ah that's OK then. Kids just suffer then.

@Flamingmango I can understand what you’re saying and I think everyone would agree it’s not ideal for the children. But, you’re assuming that ND can be managed and social norms adhered to as an adult. That might be true for some ND people but not all I would imagine. Just because you are older doesn’t mean the triggers are lessened or that you are necessarily able to cope with it and if you can appreciate the need to accommodate a child you should understand that an adult with ND may also need accommodations. It depends how strong that trigger and need is for each individual so none of us can comment on whether that’s appropriate or not. I imagine that if they are working all day and socialising with non family that a degree of exhaustion may have set in and need to regulate again.

They all do otherwise they wouldn’t get a diagnosis .

Not saying you but it’s the prevailing message from several ignorant posters on here.

You're confused I think, I haven't declared that at all.

@SuperSleepyBaby i get what you’re saying but that sounds like me because people didn’t/don’t see what is going on behind close doors. I have had friends since school got straight As in my GCSEs and have a Master’s, but I also started self harming aged 13, had binge eating disorders, took hours writing a script and working up the courage to call so much as a taxi, had unhealthy relationships, panic attacks when I went to uni, can go months without brushing my teeth (never told anyone except my husband). The year after getting straight As in my GCSEs I was made to sign into the library for all my free periods because I wasn’t doing my homework and I didn’t know why, I just couldn’t physically bring myself to do it and the ones I did do were essays written on the bus on the way to school.
Even when I first considered the possibility I might have ADHD I thought I was only the way I was since having children, but looking back it was the opposite. I was fine in my 20s because I had near enough total control which meant I wore headphones everywhere, exercised regularly, could impulsively spend without it impacting me significantly. Could take whatever time I needed and as I’ve had the same friends since school felt no guilt about only socialising when I felt up for it and leaving when I wanted.
I haven’t been formally diagnosed yet because I am functioning but it would have made a massive difference to me to have known as a child/teen. I want to follow through with assessment when it comes so if my children present like me I will know what to look for even if they are doing well academically.

I generally was privileged and had loving parents, though DM is definitely ADHD, and that’s why I functioned alongside a good long term memory (terrible short term). My husband had terrible trauma alongside adhd and though he was diagnosed as a child had no support except medication that didn’t work well for him and therefore struggles a lot more than I do. So I know I’m still privileged even if I am ND, but people making judgments just from what they see doesn’t tell you much.

Again that's incorrect, "all" people with ASD do not face severe/significant issues. Some do. Some don't.

I agree with that and I don’t necessarily think men have got it right.

I notice on MN there is often a drive for women to put themselves first more like men, as though not doing so is weak and a bit shameful . But I tend to think the world might roll along a bit better if instead of berating women for being overly compliant or “ doormats,” we focused instead on encouraging men to be a bit more giving outside themselves. Of course some men are - but that only goes to show it’s possible. Saying “ why should I if you’re not?” seems only to have resulted in a more selfish society all round.

I didn’t use severity in the same context at all. I didn’t distinguish between “mild” and “severe” autism. All autistic people face severe/ significant issues. The level of support varies but there is nothing mild about autism

But obviously only people who think they have ADHD seek a diagnosis - so how does that figure compare to other conditions? If 95% of people who seek to have a private knee replacement end up having one does that prove you can just 'buy a diagnosis of needing a knee replacement', or does it just show that not many people who don't need one try to have a knee replacement?

It isn’t used as “mild support”- it’s used as “mild autism” Autism isn’t mild regardless of the level of support needed

I'm curious whether or not this is new behaviour following their diagnosis, or if this is old behaviour which has simply continued following diagnosis? I'm an ADHD mum, and I am definitely guilty of using my phone around DD more than I probably should. It's my downtime and give me 10 minutes of doom scrolling to calm down, then I'm usually more refreshed and recharged to come back and be present in the moment. I do try to make a conscious effort to limit this, and I would never dream of putting headphones in too. But it almost sounds like your family member is now using it as an excuse to ignore the children? Which isn't fair or right. Being a ND parent is hard, but you can't just shove your headphones in and ignore your children during mealtimes because you now have an excuse to do so.

Oh come on now.

I imagined it as the dad.

He sounds absolutely shit and needs to find better coping and management strategies that don't alienate his kids.