Surviving at home with the kidsMar 20, 2020Well, the world has changed quite a bit since I wrote a blog post about 10 days ago. Thankfully, my family and my friends are all well. I have three freezers and am a classically trained chef... so we aren't going to starve. I hope all of you reading this are well and secure. Of course there are many long term, societal, and economic consequences of this situation. But for those of us with kids, the battle is more day to day at this point. As there is talk of school being done for the YEAR, I'm pretty psyched my wife and I survived week one. I thought I would share some insights over the next few weeks about how to survive our sequestration with ADHD kids... and an ADHD dad. First check out the picture below. SCHEDULING IS KEY! It's less about the specifics or even if you stick to it. But it sure beats the, "what do we do now" discussion. That's usually when my kids go off the rails. Bear in mind that I have a relatively independent 11 year old and an extremely needy almost-six-year-old. Your needs and results may vary. Here are some specifics of what I try to put in my schedule every day.
If anyone wants my Excel template for the schedule, just send me an email. Good luck and stay well. Standard Disclaimer: In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts muh, if at all. Please excuse typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. In my humble opinion, an imperfect post posted is infinitely better than a perfect post that goes unfinished.
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In any relationship it's not always the ADHD person's faultMar 13, 2020I work with many ADHD adults who have wonderful marriages / relationships. But I also work with many ADHD adults who have significant relationship struggles. It is well established that ADHD can make things difficult in any partnership, especially a romantic one. Here are a few of the highlights of how your ADHD can lead your relationship down a challenging path.
Alright, so we've established that it can be a challenge to me married to an ADHD adult. But, if you always assume that every problem that your marriage has is about the ADHD partner and their ADHD, you might be barkin up the wrong tree. As I said, a marriage is a complex system. Problems are, more often than not, more than the "fault" of one person. The neurotypical person needs to have realistic expectation for the ADHD partner. What I see a lot in my practice are ADHD partners who work really hard to address their weaknesses. And, in some cases, whatever they do doesn't seem to be enough for their partner. Often this is because the partner has decided that all the problems are about the ADHD and aren't willing to look at themselves and consider that they contribute to some of the relationship struggles. The things I see most often are anxiety, depression, and control issues with the non-ADHD partners. Perhaps people who run like the German train system are doing it because they are anxious or are perfectionists. Anyway, my point is that when a relationship is challenged or even broken, it's often not just one person's fault. Keep working on your ADHD issues, but don't assume everything is your fault. Standard Disclaimer: In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts muh, if at all. Please excuse typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. In my humble opinion, an imperfect post posted is infinitely better than a perfect post that goes unfinished.
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Lasting relationshipsMar 6, 2020I was talking with a client today about relationships/mariage. And I articulated something that I don't think I've said in such a clear and concise way. So I wanted to pass it along. It is my opinion that much of the success of long lasting relationships has to do with finding a way to prioritize things that are of importance to your partner, even if they aren't inherently important to you. Of course this is even harder for ADHDers because we have a hard finding the time or energy for things that we aren't inherently stimulated by. As for how to address this... I don't know about you, but I enjoy doing nice things for my wife. And frankly, if you don't enjoy doing nice things for your partner, I'm not sure you should be together. Now you just have to figure out what's "nice" according to her, not necessarily according to you. This concept can apply to everything, from the mundane to the monumental. As a small example, maybe starting her car on a cold morning is something that makes her feel loved. You might not care about your car being warm, so you don't want to bother to put your boots and jacket on to do it for her? On a larger scale, maybe you both have very different needs on vacation and need to understand each others' points of view to be able to make it a vacation for both of you.
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New resource for parents of ADHD kidsFeb 21, 2020I saw my ADHD Dr. on Wednesday and he told me about this new texting program that he developed with MGH to help parents manage their kids' ADHD. Anyone can use it. The first month is free. And, it may be available for adults in the future. Please check it out and let me know if you like it.
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I've only been inside myself.Feb 16, 2020When dealing with brain chemistry issues it can be really difficult to know that what we are experiencing isn't "normal." After all, we don't have anything to compare to how we feel. ADHD is particularly hard to identify because it doesn't develop later in life. Depression, for example has an onset. So there is an opportunity to compare how you feel when you are depressed with how you felt before you were depressed. Not to say that that is always easy. But I feel like we, as a society also have a better vocabulary to talk about depression. As ADHDers we also get so much negative feedback telling us that we are lazy, unmotivated, not reaching our potential, that it's hard not to internalize at least some of that. I guess my point is that you should trust yourself. How you feel is unique. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't valid.
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GaslightingFeb 4, 2020As I continue to recover, here's a low hanging fruit post. Great article on ADDitude about Gaslighting... really about how classic abusers operate. I've seen it far to often in my practice. Check out the link.
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