4YO Suspected ADHD and a burnout Mum

[Ljpoz]

Hello everyone,

I was hoping for support or advice. I have ADHD and although not diagnosed it is incredibly likely my 4YO ds has it too, potentially alongside SPD. I am so burnt out.
My husband is understanding to a point but is much more likely to lose patience; which I get because he has not concept of how hard it is to live with. Our main struggles with ds are reckless impulsivity, emotional dysregulation and listening.
I’m luckily school are amazing, they have put a sensory diet in place which we also follow at home and we are always in contact to share ideas. However, he is obviously below diagnosis age so that is the only support we get.
does anybody have any online parenting courses they recommend? Relevant support groups? or amazing advice they have learnt along the way?
Clutching at straws but I just really want somebody to say ‘we totally get how hard this is, I have been there’ because I am yet to get any parent-to-parent support and I think it may help. Also I have heard parent training helps?
Massive ramble so thank you for reading!

I'm surprised no one else has commented on your thread yet OP.

I have been in a similar situation with my youngest DC, now 6. So far I've had no professional support with it all but am about to have an 'early help' meeting next week at school.

My DC masks at school and often in public too but is like a whirlwind at home and DOES NOT stop.

Your local authority should have a SEND advice service. Also look up your LAs Local Offer, although I'm not sure if your DC needs to have an EHCP in place or not.

Thank you for responding! I really appreciate it.

I Hope your meeting is helpful! Ds does not mask. He is full on or asleep with nothing in between.

I have applied for a parenting course with our local council but as always the waiting list is huge and I haven’t even heard back yet.

We just keep getting through a day at a time.

Parent training is essentially this... you can do it online for free: https://www.coursera.org/learn/everyday-parenting/home/welcome

With ADHD, you'll want to lean much more into the positive than anything punitive, and particularly look at the ideas which help you break down the steps from the behaviour you have now to the behaviour you want. Overall that course is very positive, calm, and gives you a framework to follow which can help with parental confidence which should help reduce incidence of where you're getting overly frustrated and responding in kind.

However, I would say that it doesn't really take emotional dysregulation (or any underlying reason for behaviour) into account at all. The adult(s) acting calmer and having more positive interactions with the child and communicating expectations clearly should help, and so should your sensory diet stuff.

...combined with an education part around how ADHD manifests and what is caused by ADHD. Russell Barkley videos are good for this, though can be a bit dry: https://www.youtube.com/@russellbarkleyphd2023/videos

There is also an Open University OpenLearn course on ADHD which is pretty decent.