How to manage mornings with ADHD DC, it’s breaking me!

[Catingle]

DS is 10 and has inattentive ADHD..

Getting ready for school in the morning is just such hard work. If I leave him on his own he gets distracted and it frequently takes 45mins just for him to put his clothes on.

Urgency seems to be the only thing that motivates him and I don’t like to shout but it often seems the only thing that gets through to him as he just has his head in the clouds.

I have ADHD myself and know how hard it is but trying to have enough executive function for two (and another more NT DC) is exhausting me every morning.

DS is going to secondary in September which is super strict (detention for forgetting a pencil kind of thing) and I don’t know how we’re going to cope.

How can we make this easier?

Honestly? Some dc are just like this. I swear my dd (autistic in her case) would be in bed now if i hadn’t have been firm. Yes a nagged but I made her operate in the world she lives in so on time etc etc and yes my voice did get raised but she never was late for school. The good news is at some point, around 17 (so good news for the future) she learned to get up on time and somehow she in her late twenties lives independently (sort of at least) and is married, a surprise to me I can tell you! They do learn their own techniques I suppose

DD has inattentive ADHD and takes medication for it. She moved to a secondary that was super strict and had so many detentions in year 7. It worked though! In the same way that urgency works the threat of yet another detention gave her the motivation to organise herself. The change has been remarkable.
It was a bit miserable for her in year 7 but as we all know, just because we find it harder doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for us of forgetting stuff and being late and she was equipped with another coping strategy in a supportive environment.

I used to wake mine up with breakfast in bed. Not as a treat or to spoil them but because it meant that while they were waking up and getting their brain in gear they were also eating breakfast. When they’d finished, they just had to get up and dressed and do teeth. (Bags were done the night before)
It did mean I had to be up and ready before them but I didn’t mind that as a pay off!

Thank you some really useful suggestions here. Will read again when have a bit more time and see what we can steal. Toothbrushes in downstairs loo I think for starters!