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?

In this situation I’d pack for him. Why does he need to do it himself if he finds it so hard?

So you want your child who is autistic and has adhd to be better at managing themselves but you are not capable of managing your own emotions?

You need to manage his environment better, just because he is academic does not mean he excels in all areas of life.
plan ahead, lots of pre warning of plans, a visual timer. Lots of time between steps . One step instructions.. find what supports him and stop expecting him to be capable of things that are impossible to him

It is taking forever to do something that has taken my other kids 15 minutes to do
Fellow old high functioning adhd here....so here it goes...if it only take 15 minutes, why dors he have to pack so long in advance?

That would do my head in because I would like still be using most of the stuff I need to pack in the evening. It would annoy me. However, no problem packing in 15 minutes 15 minutes before its time to go. No problem, get on with it like a life or death mission, all sorted.

So yeah sorry, I'm team DS!

Ps: I'm doing very well in life, still marries at 55, good job, and very well organised...just not needing to plan hours or days in advance.

Ok, well packing:

advice:
on the way out to holiday get him to lay it all out in a bed several days before you go.
have multiple sets of toiletries etc so he can leave a toothbrush and toothpaste (eg) at home and have the same type lying in the bed.
you then check the bed (or give him a list which he can check).
it can then go in the case.

do this a few days before the holiday.

on the way back:
do it for him if you are space or weight constrained

or like me we tend to only go to car places: take six million ikea bags so that all the stuff can go in Ikea bags into the car.

allow a full afternoon for packing. Transitions are stressful.

Because it takes him forever yet other 15 minutes? Hence reason starting earlier?

Pack up his shit for him, if he complains then explain that this the consequence for him not doing it.

or tell him that if he doesn’t pack up his shit you will nominate a sibling to do it for him.

Both.

eg today we left an Airbnb where we’d done a family Xmas.

my dd was last out at 10am and the only reason she was out at 10am was because the Airbnb people said we’d be fined 25 quid if we were late out.

she went to bed at 2am after worrying about being late, and got up at 7am.

she had one suitcase and a stuffed toy.

she’s a lot better than she used to be, she used to be incredibly emotionally volatile and would often miss deadlines and then self harm because she was ashamed of her own inability to get shit done.

Fgs , just pack for him or alternatively, write a very specific list and help him work his way through it. He needs you or another adult to actually be there the whole time. Point to the first thing on the list and help him do it, then the next, then the next.

Maybe he can only do the first few things then you finish the rest . He needs to have much more time, scaffolding and help to do the same things your other children do easily

The problem is though that your relationship with him needs to be such that he is willing to do it with you and he needs to feel that you are on his side and not blaming him . You need to work on your relationship with him first. You absolutely cannot show any impatience at all. I know how hard this is and am not very successful at this myself but I really do try to keep it calm and positive if at all possible.

Until your relationship improves, ask him how he wants to start getting ready to pack, offer the option that you do it for him or he works through a list with you. If he says he wants to do it from a list with you, tell him clearly when it needs to be done by and if it is not, that you will do it for him

I know it is not easy . DS is AuADHD and at 21 , we still help him pack, though he is better now at following a list. The list has to be very specific though and he still needs prompting at regular intervals with timers set and clear instructions as to how much time he has left to finish packing . We also explain that if it is not done by x time, we will go into his room and do it for him . As he has gotten older he does not want us to so that so is more motivated to follow the lists but he still needs regular checks and prompting

When he was younger, we did most of it for him. It took about 6 years of us scaffolding for him before he could mostly pack for himself. You may be expecting too much of him

He’s already dealing with all the Christmas changes to routine and emotions and expectations, he’s dealing with seeing different people and probably less time and privacy to himself while away, he’s dealing with stuff being in different places to at home, all the expectations around gifts and socialising….

I’d have packed for mine, recognising that everything else was taking up his mental capacity for adulting and that maybe life skills work on packing could wait for a less fraught moment than the day after Boxing Day in an unfamiliar house with an early flight to catch. Yes, that means that I still do things for my kid that their peers have been doing independently for years. But he has a disability- I wouldn’t shout at my Dad for the impact his mobility difficulties have on everyone else or guilt trip my Mum about her deafness spoiling yet another TV programme so why would I get cross with my child over what are very common symptoms of how his brain works.

If he gets married then his spouse will be fully aware ahead of time of his neurotype, I’m not spending his life until then trying to somehow train him into being a NT husband in a decade or two’s time.

So basically…. Hey mum this is all your fault!!

I'm autistic not with ADHD so I cant speak on that bit, but i also get very anxious around packing and timings. My DH says I have time blindness. Something that has helped me is not to unpack everything, to only unpack what I need as I need it. This can be quite frustrating to others, as it means I live out of my suitcase, but it helps me by reducing what needs to be remembered and packed away, and minimises the anxiety of leaving something behind. I also have my day rucksack that always has everything I need in it. It's quite heavy because of that! Maybe its a case of reducing what he takes, and only taking out what he needs, keeping g the things he takes out near the suitcase to be remebrered, and in that way reducing the whole packing time?

What I find works is always including an element of choice or control. Eg

Do you want to wash or dry?

Are you packing your suitcase this morning or this afternoon?

Very roughly where in the country are you, @Thebabycheeses78? If you're near my neck of the woods, I may be able to point you in the direction of some local support groups!

I think you need to adjust your expectations OP. YABU.

@Thebabycheeses78 there are no ‘competing theories’. Have you read up about PDA?

You need to take a massive step back. Any kind of demand has the potential to complete have the opposite effect of the desired outcome one. And although it is incredibly hard to always remember, this comes from a place of ‘can’t’ not’ won’t’ as PP have said, so cut him some slack. Standing over and nagging is a complete waste of time. Time would have been better spent helping him pack.

It’s shit. But as his brain matures and with support from you it will get better. Just thankful he’s doing ok in school.

I would hazard a guess that he’s completely burnt out by being around other people / on holiday / Christmas. Autistic burn out is real and the only way to navigate it is to do less. How much of what you’ve been doing does / did he actually want to do?

he got his diagnosis 6 months ago. Have had to fight his father ( ex DH and highly likely Autistic and ADHD) to get him a diagnosis.

also lots of resistance from school who seemed to think I was over reacting.

finally got him in front of Psychiatrists who couldn’t believe no one thought he was autistic.

im very aware he missed out on a lot of appropriate support over the years, so im keen to get it right asap. I don’t want to spend the next few years in a trial and error experiment.

i thought I’d post to see if anyone knew how to tackle it. As well as my DS , I have 2 other kids who are impacted by his behaviour and it’s not fair on them either. It’s really tough trying to get the balance right.
they often complain about him ruining events and days out, which isnt great for their relationship.

Because it takes him forever yet other 15 minutes? Hence reason starting earlier?
Because he doesn't want to do it hours ahead. Which frankly is ridiculous. If the others can do it 10 minutes, why getting them packing at 7pm?

I bet if he was told in the morning that he had 10 minutes before they go and if he is packed, his stuff stays behind, he'll manage just fine.

ok - poor use of language…not ‘competing theories’ but competing advice. Not all of same quality.

people spend their whole lives researching Autism and ADHD and still don’t have all the answers, but despite this there’s the usual tone from some posters on MN pouring scorn because I’m not a parenting or AuDHD expert.

London

Thanks this is really helpful advice

No a realistic interpretation and constructive advice. From an autistic person and parent of an autistic child who has worked with autistic people for over twenty years.

I don’t shout at him - it sets him off, so I speak to him gently, calmly and encouragingly the first 10 times…the problem is when I remind him for the 11th (20th ,100th time and sound slightly rushed or stressed because I’m dealing with a load of other tasks). He picks up the stress in my voice and starts shouting that I’m shouting at him ( I’m not!)

he just starts shouting and bawling if he is asked to do anything he doesn’t want to do.

I get I have to manage my expectations of him, but I also want him to develop his own mechanisms for getting himself ready ( I help him, but don’t want to do everything for him because he will need to function in the adult world eventually)

in many ways it would be easier if I did it for him, but I worry I’m not preparing him for independent life.

How does that work in practice? So never ever able to make requests,asks or demands of someone with pda… do people with pda expect the same? They can’t ever ask for something from someone? That they can’t ever have expectations of anyone else?

This.
Is he medicated?
My ADHD highly functioning dc need a lot of support.