To expect my AuDHD young teen to understand the impact of his behaviour on rest of family?

[Thebabycheeses78]

Trying to get my AuDHD DS to get his things together ready for early flight back home. We are staying with family. It is taking forever to do something that has taken my other kids 15 minutes to do.

It’s not just this evening- it’s the same drill all the time. Constant nagging and standing over him to get him to do basic tasks.

and of course, it always descends into a shouting match. If I sound even slightly irate after asking him to do something 10 times, he starts screaming and shouting about how I’m shouting at him.

I end up frazzled and upset. Every trip, every day out, every weekend is like this. I even have to cajole and drag him around to things he wants to go to.

I’d hoped we’d have all been packed 2 hours ago, but it has taken this long to get him moving and he’s still not finished. It means the evening is ruined for everyone and our last day of holiday has been stressful.

he is high functioning. He does well at school. He is someone who will very likely go to university, get a job and outwardly appear functional. But I worry about him- I can see his wife on mumsnet in 25 years at the end of her tether because he won’t adult.

any suggestions on how to get through to him about the impact he is having on others?

I think you've been given an unnecessarily hard time OP.

We all started somewhere close to where you are. I think it's easy to forget when you've got used to the changes you make in your day to day life. Plus a lot of parenting advice refers to much younger children. You might actually get more out of resources which are aimed at adults who have been newly diagnosed.

You said you don't want to live the next few years as a trial and error process - unfortunately I think it often is the only real way to get anywhere. And IDK what people mean about there not being conflicting theories/advice because there definitely is and just because someone has chosen to only listen to advice from one angle does not mean the rest of the noise doesn't exist. It is easier, BTW, to screen out the conflicting stuff once you understand the distinctions and the underlying ideas beneath the main threads of things. That takes a while though. For now it's probably helpful enough to note that there are conflicting underlying threads/theories and that is why advice can often clash.

I also find it is almost impossible to try to work on everything at once. Picking one area which is causing stress and sort of hyperfocusing on that and exploring it from all different angles is something which has helped me (as an ADHD adult and with my DC).

Ross Greene is invaluable as a guide in general of how to come up with win-win solutions without preconceived ideas about the "right way" getting in the way. If his book The Explosive Child is a bit much there is one called Raising Human Beings which is more universal.

Fluctuating capacity is also extremely helpful to understand. Stuart Shanker is good on this although very waffly and it all only really fits together after a while. Possibly Mona Delahooke too. Or just googling the phrase "fluctuating capacity". But if you find yourself thinking "Why can he do X in Y situation but not when I need him to?!" this probably explains why.