#adhd parenting

I asked my MIL: “he really never took ANYTHING as a kid? Cause that means in terms of Sky, we’d really be experimenting if we decide to give her meds later on”

My PHD in Biology, College professor MIL: “well, if she needs it to sit still in class…”

This is where me & most of society really disagree. If my daughter is not being educated in a way that serves HER wellbeing and I’m paying upwards of $15k for her tuition, you’re telling me they won’t adapt to HER needs? I will have to MEDICATE a 5yo with a chemical I know next to nothing about because she “can’t sit still” (news flash peeps… 5 year olds aren’t meant to sit still)

If she’s older and her ADHD is compromising her quality of life and she can’t remember lines for her school play or can’t focus for her Physics final — sure! Try the drugs. Makes sense.

Giving drugs to my 5yo so she can sit calmly like a well behaved robot from 9-3p… no. Absolutely the eff not. Let her climb the walls. Let her run outside and make fairy houses under trees. Let her learn math by counting rocks and twigs. Let her learn to sound out words by reading time with family members. Let her learn about gardening & baking bread with her Bubby. Yoga with me, meditation with her dad. Let her come to the bank with me so she can see how an account gets opened. She’s 5 and could go through an airport with more confidence than a LOT of adults I know. She can speak to adults without ONLY seeing them as authority figures, because she has never had to ask permission to do something as basic as pee.

So when I get massively dysregulated (and sometimes I do, despite my best prevention efforts), I want a way to cope that isn't screaming, sulking, throwing things, slamming doors, blaming.

❤️Also, thank you to each of you who check in on Coit! You each mean so much to me!

Ok tumblrverse, I need some help. I know there’s a lot of neurodivergent folks here, and a lot of them specifically adhd. I have an 8 year old who has three more weekdays to put in while my spouse and I work from home, before school starts. There weren’t any camps for this week. My child is the most adhd gifted poster kid you ever saw. If left to her own devices, her immense artistic creativity results in rapid depletion of household supplies (she’s gone through an entire box of chemical gloves, one of bandaids, and one of tongue depressors in the last day, and also the living room is covered in shimmery glue and glitter). (She also ate like a quart of blueberries in a couple of hours, and opened four cans of carbonated water and took one sip from each. Those suckers are expensive. But that is a different problem.) So I tried to give her some structured crafts to do instead, like paint by numbers or those little felt sewing things with pompoms and stuff you get from Joann’s. But she’s so adhd that she can’t get beyond the first couple of steps, I assume because she’s not getting constant incremental rewards for each tiny fraction of a step. What can I give this child to do that will let me get my work done and yet not have the house destroyed??? What kind of activity is rewarding enough? Interesting enough?

Like I have kids AND ADHD, I have loads of energy really early in the morning, which I use to help them get ready for school with everything they need and on time.

And then I try to work while the house is empty and quiet, and yknow I might get a couple of hours done, before I take a break, look at my phone, get back to it. Then it's lunch, and that's when I really switch off. I can get a bit done as part of procrastinating lunch because I can't decide what to eat.

Then I eat a bowl of cereal, watch some TV, exercise self control and stop watching TV, open up my work again and ...

And then suddenly it's time to pick the kids up and I do that from 3-4.

Relief from the mind numbing guilt of sitting at my desk working/not working.

Then cram in another hour of hopelessly staring at my screen in the hopes that something will come out.

And then it's time to cook, time to clean up after dinner, time to put the small one to bed, time to fold laundry, water the plants, feed the cat, then I have about an hour to spend time with my big one who is growing too fast and then a second bedtime in which I am less and less involved.

After that, my partner and I might get a chance to talk for half an hour before we both fall asleep on the sofa.

So no, I'm using all the spoons I have to keep my family functional and any left over can go to work. I hit my deadlines, I attend meetings, but the vast majority of the time

I'm just banging my head against an illuminated screen.

my name is Hallee. I’m an avid journaler, musician, birthworker, and collector of little things. I have ADHD (diagnosed at age 25) and like most of us my passions are many — I can weave, mend, knit a little, crochet an even smaller little, and right now I’m enjoying making dolls out of whatever I have around. I’m not a master of many things but I really, really enjoy dabbling in whatever I happen to find.

I live in a tiny cabin in the Maine woods, which we’ve been building (slow as molasses) for at least 5 or 6 years now. it has been grueling at times, but it is a wonderful place to be.

I live there with my husband and our son, both of whom regularly stun me with their goodness. my husband, Logan, is an ecologist and wildlife photographer. his work takes him all over the state in the warmer months, where he takes beautiful photos and writes beautiful things, all the while doing research that informs bird conservation. our son goes everywhere with us — up mountains, long camping trips, rainy walks in the woods. he’s an all-weather tot.

here are our actual faces—though you get a better sense of who we are in the other photos 😅

we both grew up in gardening families, but over the last few years we’ve been striving to learn more and more about growing our own food. we get a little better each year and it brings us tremendous joy.

these are pieces of my life — the good pieces. and they are so good. we are so fortunate! and yet, if you’re caught comparing or you’re deep in scrolling paralysis, please remember that they are just pieces. there is worry, pain, isolation, all the strife that comes with needing money, needing sleep, needing help. there are “unaesthetic” things just to either side of what my iPhone camera captures. this is me, but not all of me. it isn’t dishonesty that keeps the rest of me at bay so much as it is my desire to keep it all safe and sound.

I want to share the things I find beautiful in my life. I talk a lot about grief and the struggles that come with being neurodivergent, though I do like to focus largely on the wonderful, the sweet, the sacred. but not at the cost of anyone else’s peace.

and that’s on being paranoid of perpetuating harmful social media cycles.

so welcome, all the new followers (who are probably regretting their decision and on their way to reversing it), and thank you for liking anything I have to say. that alone means everything to me. I feel more connected because of you, even if to you it isn’t that deep. I read every tag, caption & reply you contribute to my posts and it makes me glad as hell.