Apologies, long post! Really need some advice. I’m an incredibly positive and proactive person but our DC is completely grinding me down and dominating our whole family life, daily. I feel crap saying that and cried a lot in the car today in front of both our DC (younger sibling is 2) and my other half.
Our older DC, 6, was diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago. Over the last 12–14 months their personality has completely and utterly changed. A real 180. They are bright and used to be SO happy, fun and lovely to be around. Now they are angry and moody so much of the time. Their mood can change at the drop of a hat over something completely insignificant.
They have always needed a lot of our attention and can barely play independently for long. Everything we do seems to centre around them. Bike park, activity, day out etc… then they moan and moan for the next thing until it becomes unbearable. If we stand our ground, we risk the house getting trashed, a remote being smashed or similar.We have tried psychology, but because of their age they would only offer expensive ‘parent sessions’, which we found utterly useless and condescending — basically telling us things we already know and already do. They won’t actually work with DC for a few years, so we stopped.
There are still glimmers of the lovely child we knew, but far fewer than before. It genuinely feels like a personality transplant. I’ve wondered whether their pretty formal single-sex school could be contributing, but the summer holidays have been just as up and down. (DC didn’t meet enough criteria for ASD — I specifically asked during the assessment.)
Life simply couldn’t continue with the level of purposeful damage to belongings and sometimes us, so for everyone’s safety we turned to medication.
We started Equasym 10mg, then 20mg, which seemed to work… until it didn’t. Xaggitin was awful — appetite disappeared and DC hugely went into themselves. We then tried Elvanse, but the angry outbursts continued/worsened. Today we went back to Equasym XL 20mg and I was hopeful we might get back to the semblance of balance we had a few months ago. Instead, we went to a fair. DC played a football game, lost but was still offered one of the ‘lower’ prizes. They hated the choices, I picked one up, and they snatched it and smashed it on the ground. We left after 15 minutes.
Later at home they randomly thumped me because I didn’t know where their shorts were. Then 30 minutes later they picked up their 2-year-old sibling (which we repeatedly say not to do), dropped them onto the sofa and sibling banged their face and got a lump.
Frankly, I need a rest from the daily toll of it. I’m sick of the behaviour. We DO have boundaries and consequences but they seem to make absolutely no difference going forward. DC is very smart in many ways, but lessons just don’t seem to get ‘learned’.
And that’s the bit I struggle with most — this is a child who genuinely used to be SO happy. They feel like a completely different child.Could some of this be anxiety about school returning? I’m clinging to the hope that getting back into a routine after 8 weeks might help. But then I worry — what if the new teachers don’t ‘get’ them or support them in the right way?
I constantly ask for help. GP etc. sent us a council family support worker who regularly checked in, but again it felt like someone reading from worksheets rather than actually helping. Our ADHD consultant seems useful mainly for medication and we lead that by feeding back behaviours.
I strongly feel now that we need someone to look at the WHOLE child rather than simply trying another ADHD medication — perhaps a child psychiatrist/second opinion.
I don’t really know what I want from this post. Maybe just to hear from someone who has been through something similar and come out the other side. Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Did anyone else see this kind of huge personality change at 6/7, and did you ever work out what was driving it?
Any constructive thoughts or experiences would be hugely appreciated. Thanks for reading if you got this far! X