Daughter doesn’t want me to take job offer

[Theyulelog]

I am a qualified gymnastic coach, have been out the game for a long time due to children, hours etc.
my teenage daughter is a gymnast, she’s at the club everyday.
I have another job working in a supermarket, which I hate. I love my old job as a coach but nothing about especially with cost of living crisis.
i have been offered a job at my daughters club. I was over the moon but my teenage daughter is screaming and shouting, crying and begging me not to take the job as she goes there to be with her friends and enjoy time away from home. She doesn’t want her mum there. She says I’m selfish and it’s ruining her life.

im so sad I mite have to give up my dream to have any relationship with her. Our relationship is very strained as it is.

Look, things are miserable without you following your dream OP. You need something in your life and you can't pander to ADHD completely. She needs to learn that not everything is going to go her way. Because one day she'll be an adult and on her own.

Stop talking to her about it. Tell her you need the money to keep sending her and if she's not happy then she can quit and stay home. Let her tantrum.

If you cave now it'll just get worse.

You need something that makes you happy because parenting a kid with SN grinds you down otherwise.

Hi xanthic, I'm truly sorry if my response has upset you. As I understand it, Mumsnet is a forum for discussion and opinions and advice as we see things as individuals. I would never expect everyone to agree with me as I often don't agree with other posters. I truly believe that ND children have the ability to be naughty for want of a better word, and that trying to define the difference between simply being naughty and the behaviour being a reaction to the condition is a very very grey area, and I feel for any parent trying to distinguish the difference, I say this as a grandparent of a child with ADHD. I do stand by my response, It was not an attack on you, again I am sorry if I have upset you

I run her to and from that club five days a week, up and down like a sodding yogo to facilitate it all and also pay for it and it’s not cheap.

if I say I don’t have the money for xyz, she goes on about how poor we are, moans about the type of car we have (it’s a four year old mokka)
im miserable

I'd quit running around after her like a blue-arsed fly for a start.

Take the job. Avoiding her won't be any hardship for you, by the sounds of things.

Take the job. She can quit and save you a fortune if that's what she chooses to do.

@xanthic Interesting about hearing. A friend is pretty deaf and refused to get a hearing aid for years. Dementia now. Wasn’t really interested in hearing anyone. DH has some hearing issues and I do tell him to concentrate on what people are saying! It’s vital. So, those who might have issues that affect their lives, and the lives of others, they can do something to help themselves. Plus it’s being considerate and kind to others.

To me it’s a partnership. DD isn’t the only one that matters here. Why is she preventing joy for her DM? She needs to be told why it’s important for DM. I tell my DH to listen carefully and concentrate if he wants to participate in life. Making an effort matters. Not making an effort can have dire consequences

Sounds like you have fallen into the trap of being her friend rather than her parent, just tell her that’s what you are going to do.

If the coaches thought that , you wouldn’t have been offered the job
they know she is your dd and still offered the role

she is a spoilt brat (sorry)

jobs pay bills

if she can’t cope with it tell her she can stop gym

you won’t be teaching her

@xanthic - I'm sorry you didn't like what I said but I am not sorry for saying it. My lived experience as the mother of someone with ADHD is relevant to the thread. I had a DD who was difficult as a teen - not all of it was down to her ADHD or her other ND issues - there are several - some of it was down to being a teenager. Teens push their luck and manipulate whether they are ND or not and it does no one any favours to ignore it. Arguably the person most disadvantaged is the teen themselves as they need to learn what is and isn't acceptable in society. No employer is going to tolerate that sort of behaviour in the workplace when things don't go their way. Better they learn that in the "safe space" of the home than on the receiving end of a P45.

Unless you will need to teach her directly, the impact on her will be minimal. It's time to train your daughter that she doesn't get to have a say on matters that don't affect her.

Please take the job. If you don’t your DD will have learned that as long as she screams and screams until she feels sick she can control everything. And the miserable teenage years (for you) will last even longer.

its short term pain for long term gain OP.

Tell her you can’t afford for her to continue having gymnastics lessons unless you take this job.

I know it wasn't an attack on me, and honestly, you didn't have to apologise, but I do appreciate the kind response.

The point is, my ADHD comes with RSD, which means I take things far too personally sometimes. I can't help the natural reaction - my brain works that way. My go to response is 'everyone hates me, everyone thinks I'm stupid', and it's not usually the case. The fact that you didn't mean to upset me didn't stop me from feeling upset.

Now that I know I have ADHD, I can take steps to rationalise that. I can remove myself from a situation that is making me feel that way - like I did the other day by closing down the thread and getting on with my day. I have those kind of coping strategies. I can let go of the negative feeling, distract myself, and make sure I have enough distance and time to process before coming back.

As a teen, I had no idea why I felt like that. I had no explanation. I was a really angry, emotionally turbulent teen - obviously, being female was blamed for it. It's the go to explanation. She's just moody because she's on her period. Actually, I just had difficulty regulating and making sense of my emotions because of the way my brain is wired. I think if I'd known I'd had ADHD, and had coaching to understand and accept why I was the way I was, I'd have a been a lot nicer to my mum.

People with ADHD and without ADHD are both just people. All people are capable of good and bad - all children are capable of being well-behaved and naughty. But when it comes to things like task initiation, executive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation, I think teens with ADHD deserve to be a cut a break.

ADHD coaching and medication are wonderful things, and I think it's terribly unfair to judge someone with ADHD who hasn't experienced those against someone who is NT. I look back on all the things I was told off for as a child with regret - rarely was I actually being naughty. Most of the time, I just couldn't do the thing I was supposed to do, and I couldn't manage the way I felt about that.

My ADHD lets me do some really brilliant, really clever things, and that's why I have a high flying job. But it genuinely makes it hard for me to look after myself and my environment, which is why I outsource that (thankfully I earn enough to pay for that). It's one of many masking tools I have in place as an adult - paying for a cleaner means everyone thinks I'm organised and tidy. Or maybe I'm just some rich bitch outsourcing the tasks she doesn't want to do. Either way, they don't know I have ADHD, because I'm a pro at hiding it.

A teen girl with ADHD isn't going to be able to follow the same strategy of paying for a cleaner. She isn't going to benefit from being shouted at to clean more. But if the OP helped break down something as overwhelming as cleaning her room in a oner to doing one distinct tiny task in 15 minutes, that could help her start. You can't treat ND and NT kids the same - all that does is frustrate and upset them and you.

Medication isn't for everyone, but coaching makes the world of difference. It's available for people with ADHD and for people whose loved ones have ADHD. You have to remember that ADHD is generally treated as a disability due to the impact it has on your day to day life.

So many posters have interpreted this situation as a mum rightly yelling at her kid for being a lazy little shit. It's actually a mum yelling at her child for not being able to do something that her disability makes a million times harder to do. It's not impossible for the child, but it's difficult - and it could be a lot easier if the mum tried to understand her point of view and tried to help her come up with strategies for her specific disability.

There will be things your grandchild is absolutely brilliant at because of their ADHD. There will be things they suck at. I really hope that you recognise that, and help them accept that it's okay to have different strengths and weaknesses to most of their peer group, and give them creative ideas of how to approach the things that don't come naturally, rather than berate and judge them like the OP has been doing to her child.

Yes, teens can be horrible just because they're teens.

But you cannot expect a teen with ADHD to instinctively react the same way as a NT teen, especially if the teen with ADHD hasn't finished the assessment process and doesn't have an explanation for why they often feel the way they do.

All teens feel misunderstood. Now, imagine being a teen with a hidden health condition that hasn't been diagnosed and that makes you act a certain way. Of course, that's going to compound the usual teen angst.

I don't disagree that the teen needs to learn coping strategies. I just don't think the OP has tried to teach her any. She seems to acknowledge that her child is likely ND, but hasn't done anything to adapt her parenting style accordingly. You can't just shout at a teen with ADHD for having poor executive function. You have to help them find a way to better manage that. I agree that so many of the negative aspects of ADHD make holding down a permanent job difficult, and that's why the OP needs to work with her daughter to find ways of working around them.

There is a difference between someone who is lazy and someone who has ADHD. Shout at the former, and they might change their ways. Shout at the latter, and they'll just feel angry and inadequate, and even less likely to do anything about it.

Crucially, I don't think the OP should turn down the job. I just think she needs to understand her daughter's reaction, and help her process and come to terms with it.

My mum got a dinner lady job at my senior school in the 80s.
i said she’d ruined my life.
it was fine