To be sick and tired of neurodivergence being the exchse

[Easterbunny23]

My DS8 is suspected ASD/ADHD.

He is so defiant and oppositional, has been since he was a pre schooler. He has to be carefully managed at school and at home these holidays he’s been a nightmare unless we’ve been out doing fun things constantly.

He winds his little brothers up constantly. He takes forever to do anything we ask him to do if it means stopping something he’s doing. He’s rude, calls us names like “meanie”, he’s rude to grandparents, telling them he doesn’t want to come to their house with no regard for their feelings.

He can be so mature and kind, he sometimes apologises off his own back for not listening/being tricky/moaning.

It’s clear he is ND although we don’t know his exact diagnoses yet.

But I am just sick of his awful behaviour. He’s so grumpy and sullen and tries to spoil things his brothers enjoy.

I am at a loss of how to discipline him. Currently reading lots of different books - 10 Steps to a less defiant child, emotional support for your ADHD child, that sort of thing. No answers yet unfortunately.

No advice but you sound like a great mum, not willing to put up with rude behaviour. So many just shrug and say meh he has SN, as though it were an excuse for not using discipline. Good luck!

Hi OP, I suggest you persevere with the 10 Days book and particularly with the technique where you visualise your child and surround them with positive images of things they've done/said (I've gone as far as making an actual PowerPoint a couple of times!)

If you take the heat out of it you'll probably notice times every day when he does comply/do what you want/put thought in/empathise.

DD (10) absolutely says horrid things she doesn't mean to get a reaction/because she likes the look on our faces/because there's something else going on (fear, excitement, hunger, lack of sleep...) and she doesn't always seem to see a connection between saying them and what happens e.g. saying something rude to a classmate and then immediately saying 'just joking' 😬

She is getting better gradually though.

Yesterday she made a cup of tea for the builder but not for me "because I was mean to her" the day before (she and neighbour's DC had a fight an both apologised to each other but apparently only DD did it properly....)

It's tricky with older generations. DD masks with my 80 year old mum and when that mask slips occasionally, my mum's been kind of horrified which is interesting for me as she's never seen anything like full wattage!

It is so hard. My 8yo is such hard work, I am exhausted just trying to parent without shouting at him.

I find this group on Facebook helpful https://www.facebook.com/groups/207951976411320/?ref=share

Russell Barkley says the screen time link is disproven. ADHD kids like screen time and probably find it more addictive than most people - I know I do (am diagnosed).

However TV can be overstimulating. That's not the same thing as "trauma" (sorry I don't like this theory either) but I guess that's probably what that author is getting at because some people, especially ND, can have sensory sensitivities and a lot of TV can put children with a sensitivity to noise or lights/colours into sensory overload, or the lack of physical feedback from sitting still can put a sensory seeker into a very hyper, almost manic state. I think they are observing that and calling it trauma. A better word which would cover both ends of the sensory spectrum is disregulated.

Mona delahooke is good with the dysregulation stuff. Or looking up info relating to sensory processing disorder.

Thanks everyone for your advice on this.

DH and I have been really careful in our approach again and it has paid off to be fair. I think because of the way DS is there’s just no room for error; and I don’t mean error as such even, just little every day parenting flaws, impatience etc. It just makes everything a million times worse.

I’ve been channelling the 10 days to a less defiant child book, making sure I praise him lots more than say anything negative. It’s working well. He’s also back in his school routine which I think helps.

Such an uphill battle with a ND child!

@Easterbunny23 using the gift example you gave, I still struggle with this as a 32 year old. I'm undergoing assessment for ADHD and ASD at the moment but score very highly on screening tests so it seems likely.

I know what the social requirements are around being polite about a gift you didn't want, but it feels like lying and is incredibly uncomfortable. And I don't actually know what that bad feeling feels like if someone didn't like something I bought for them. People have rejected/not wanted things I've given them before, I just accept it for what it is. I'd also rather be given nothing at all than be tied into a social construct that whilst I understand the rules I see absolutely no point in.

My point is... I can articulate this as a fully formed adult. And I can stop my mouth from saying hurtful things. But my face betrays me and if someone probes then I often can't think of a socially acceptable alternative to give someone unless I've predicted the interaction and have a preformed response ready.

This isn't to excuse your DS - just saying I definitely agree with the idea previous posters say about practicing scenarios repeatedly. It'll eventually become second nature for him.

Also I've seen this book highly recommended. I haven't read it myself but have been considering it for my DS, The Explosive Child: https://amzn.eu/d/hX99wcS

The ASD with ADHD and PDA traits is particularly difficult to manage. PDA requires a completely different approach so worth going to the PDA society website and looking at their resources.

It's hard work op. I'm not going to slate you as you are obviously at the end of your tether

My 7 year old son has adhd and awaiting assessment for asd. He struggles with emotions and filter.

My youngest daughter is coming up 12 and we are awaiting assessment for her.

Eldest daughter is 16 and school want to refer her for adhd assessment

They sometimes are brilliant together. But most days they wind each other up using each others triggers to piss them off.

It's hard work. But you will get there

My son was planned and born into a well to do professional family. My husband and I are happily married. We live in a large detached 4 bedroom home in a very nice suburb. My son has had the best of private medical and dental care. He still has ADHD and it would be difficult to find any trauma in his life that caused it If trauma was the cause almost every child who grew up in wartorn area would be ADHD - whole generations would be affected.

My eldest has ADHD. My youngest has ADHD, severe dyspraxia and ASD. I learned to adapt parenting style to give them space and time. My youngest was prone to temper tantrums, huge emotional meltdowns and very task avoidant. Time, space and patience...almost boring them into it worked for us. Modern fast pace life does not always suit children (and adults) with cognitive and behavioural divergence. My youngest has transformed by giving her the power to choose what she wants to do (and doesn't), and this is within reason. She knows she has to do maths, for example. Hates it, but will do it because it is followed by two hours of arts and crafts. I have explained that she cannot be rude to people and then expect them to take her seriously in the future. I have explained that we all need to do stuff we don't want to, but then we can choose something we like.

@palelavender, same. I think trauma can cause symptoms similar to ADHD but the suggestion that trauma is the main cause of ADHD doesn't fit with the evidence that it's substantially genetic. My DS has ADHD and has had a really easy life. We practiced attachment parenting (by accident really as he needed so much input), but have firm boundaries, including screen time limits (although calling screen time 'trauma' sounds like bullshit).
DH has undiagnosed ADHD and is really very similar in lots of ways to DS. He had a happy childhood too.

I struggled to understand my DS behaviour in the classic sense of ASD, because he didn't seem to have the obvious needs. No rewards or consequences really worked and it was absolute torture trying to get him to do anything. He would simply answer NO to everything, even things we knew he liked!

I now look all his behaviour in the light of pathological demand avoidance. It's part of the AS but is quite distinct. I see all his behaviour as minor panic attacks about being asked to do things. We have changed our language to indirect requests, we explain things more carefully, we give him choices and power more like a small adult, and we allow more time in general for transitions. He has really become much more manageable, although he will occasionally have outbursts that can be embarrassing at the wrong time or place, but he's only 9!

The simple rule with PDA is always defuse, do not escalate with shouting, ultimatums, threats, laying down the law. You will never, ever win, except by extreme force, because the person is panicking about what you're asking them to do and is in defence mode. They need reassurance and comfort and safe, familiar choices. That doesn't mean you just give in and allow bad behaviour, it means laying a little breadcrumb trail of small, safe steps to the actual thing you would like them to do. It takes time, practice and a huge amount of patience, but it can be a calmer house all round.

Haven’t read the thread.
Look at PDA - the parenting techniques were life changing for us (ds is now 18, has PDA, but it seems that’s a common presentation of ASD/ADHD).
The PDA society website has some excellent resources.
I thoroughly recommend The Explosive Child and Lost in School (both by Ross Green), and low arousal parenting on YouTube by Bo Elven.
We spent years trying to use normal strategies, followed advice from CAMHS, from school, from behavioural “experts”, all it did was make life harder and harder.
Using strategies that actually worked for ds - very low demand - made things so much more manageable.

I’d also recommend looking into sensory stuff - ds would calm if squashed, but due to the demand avoidance we had to find ways to do this without him thinking we wanted him to!

Honestly I think you need to read up a lot more on ASD traits.

You seem to be setting yourself and him up to fail. Stop expecting him to be NT.

From your comments he seems to have PDA (pathological demand avoidance). So stop asking him to do things. It's hard and feels totally counter intuitive to what 'good parenting' is supposed to be but needs must. Don't expect him to do tasks asked. It is a lot more work having a ND DC.

Also you say you are asking him to do a task when he is absorbed in another task! You need to read up on how hard ASD DCs find 'transitions'. It's a nightmare! You have to be very thoughtful in how you try to manages changing from one task to another. Sudden forced transitions will just result in meltdowns.

Don't expect him to get along with siblings. You seem to be projecting that he is windows g them up as if this is deliberate. He most likely does not have the theory of mind to think ahead to what someone else's feelings will be to an action of his. He will be just being himself (stimming/sensory seeking??) and others being 'wound up' is just collateral damage. Instead of trying to change the NT DC (you won't), teach his siblings to be more tolerant of his behaviour.

He probably needs more 1:1 time with someone making no demands on him, letting him talk at them and being focussed on his special interest activity and having complete control over his sensory input.

I just don’t feel I can ignore rude or unkind behaviour. He went to his first drop off party recently and was so rude to the birthday child during the happy birthday singing. I gave him a big telling off when he got home and made him apologise. What kind of parent would I be if I let that slide, ND or not?

Think yourself lucky that he's able to go to parties at all. Soon enough he may stop getting invites...
What NTs label as 'rude' is often just the ND dc being honest/ speaking their mind/ having no filter. They don't think ahead about how what they say will effect others. Tell the other parents he has ASD. If they aren't disabilist scum they will understand.

This isnt about you. You need to give up thinking about what others think of you for having a disabled DC. It will be hard and you will get nasty looks and horrid people saying unkind things about you behind your back. This is the life of a Mum of an ASD DC.

He probably needs more 1:1 time with someone making no demands on him, letting him talk at them and being focussed on his special interest activity and having complete control over his sensory input.
This is good advice.

Thanks @yoga4meinthemorning for the huge assumptions you’ve made! I have been reading up on ASD since my DS was 3, he’s now 8 so a very long time. I have been managing his transitions since then.

He does have PDA/ODD tendencies, but these aren’t every day. Thankfully the defiant child book tactics are working well, so far.

I know my child, and I know when he is deliberately winding someone up. He most certainly has the theory of mind to anticipate how someone will react. He’s impulsive for sure and will quite often react off the cuff and then realise he’s stepped too far. But he also deliberately winds his siblings up and if I prioritised his needs over my other DC and expected them to put up with unacceptable behaviour, then I wouldn’t be a very good parent.

Your comment about the parties is quite rude to be honest, I’m not sure you meant to come across that way.

I don’t expect my DS to be NT, if I did, I would be accepting his school’s opinion that he “can just be challenging/silly” instead of fighting tooth and nail to make sure he gets the adjustments he needs. What I won’t accept is awful behaviour and treatment by him and expect other family members to put up with it.

Thanks @mostlysunnywithshowers those are helpful tips. Yes patience and understanding wins here every time. My DS does respond to consequences but I don’t use these often because I don’t want them to become meaningless, nor for it to affect his self esteem, plus the Defiant Child book suggests using them can make defiance worse, so it’s not my go to by any means. He responds very well to kind but firm, patience and understanding. And reassurance.

Something else that might also help is to offer your son an 'escape' for things or situations. I'm now an adult and I have ASD/ADHD with a PDA profile, and there's two reasons I'd behave like your DS. One was as you say, to get a reaction. Boredom led to impulsivity, and if I wasn't sufficiently stimulated I would be either verbally or physically abusive because I needed something to happen.

More often than that though I would act out because I felt trapped. Situations such as having to go to your grandparents when you are doing something else or aren't expecting it or don't want to lead to anxiety and literally trigger my fight/flight response. I tend to gravitate to flight nowadays, but as a child you have less agency over your own person and don't always get to cancel a situation that is overwhelming you, so the other option is to 'fight'. Upsetting people, so they leave you alone, so you can get out of the situation. Yes it's on purpose, I know I'm about to hurt someone's feelings, but I need to get away.

Now that I'm an adult, I have to come up with plans to ease my anxiety. I'll go somewhere, but only if I can leave on my own accord. Or I'll hike with auntie Becca, but only if I can listen to my own music and can go back when I want. Usually, the mere acknowledgement that I'm uncomfortable and the theoretical offer of an exit is enough for me not to need it.

Switching tasks is a nightmare. If my DH asks me to do something now or imminently, I will break down in the same manner a seven-year-old might. It's embarrassing and I hate doing it, but I can't help myself. I need control over the situation, so instead it would be 'can you do such and such by the end of the day?' 'Would you like to choose which of these two things we're eating today, and we'll have the other one tomorrow.' 'I would like to go to my parents at x time, is that enough time for you to get ready?' this is how DH speaks to me as an adult with a fully developed brain, so I can't imagine how it was for people around me when I was growing up.

It's all about control. I agree with you btw that actions should have consequences. I just wanted to offer a perspective from the other side as someone who exhibits these behaviours and where they might come from. Glad to hear you're having success with the book.

Sorry I haven’t rtft so this might have been mentioned but I was listening to an interview with Steph West of Starfish Social Club (she teaches social skills with natural consequences and no masking - definitely worth exploring) and I was really struck by her observations on how the kids she works with don’t always understand how their behaviour impacts other people’s perceptions of them.

It really felt like a missing piece of the jigsaw for my ds. The first lesson on reputation is free and I’m going to have a look at that when I get a chance.

I’m finding sibling interactions a nightmare because while ds is problematic, dd isn’t innocent either and can sometimes blow him up with a sarky eyebrow. Listening, it sounds like ds is completely out of line but it’s not always 100% him. It’s tough to try and untangle and arbitrate.

OP I sympathise, he sounds like my DS who has autism and ADHD and it mostly manifests itself as ODD.

Hardest part for me is not being able to relate to others. People presume there are problems at home or that its poor parenting. I sometimes think like you, that maybe he is just a brat and these diagnoses are just excuses. We find is so hard to tell the difference and we have to choose our battles to avoid arguments as otherwise his life would be nothing but conflict. Its meant turning a blind eye to some things that now look like poor parenting. It's exhausting and thankless

123 magic is a great book / programme for children like this. It's a simple discipline system relying on natural consequences and using a hand signal rather than words when DS has broken a rule. It's used as the bible for parent training courses for ODD and ADHD by CAMHS in Rep of Ireland.

It certainly has been the mot du jour for ages now - aka ND.

So what, you're saying being ND is fashionable? Ffs.

For instance there’s a strong link between screen time and ADHD symptoms in boys.

DH grew up in the 60s, when his parents only had a black and white television, and as far as we can remember, there was only Children’s Hour? DH spent most of his daylight hours after school, playing football with other children in the street. He was far too hyperactive to be bothered with screen time much! There was no trauma in his childhood!

If there is a strong link with screen time, why has DD inherited ADD; and DGD seems to have inherited ADHD? Neither of them had much screen time; and looking back symptoms were apparent by age two - no trauma then either!