I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit

[SewingGreenMama]

A job being hard for ADHD, esp inattentive type is more then just the work. Laundry is more then just the physical aspects of picking up the clothes sorting etc.
If there has been any point of failure, (forgetting to move the laundry to the dryer and not having clothes for church, it stinking and needing to be redone, or forgetting to treat a stain ruining our favorite shirt) that emotion is tacked onto the task adding a brick we have to step over to do the laundry.
Then we shrink our favorite sweater we feel so cozy and pretty in. The emotions of loosing that sweater. The feeling of embarrassment, self-consciousness because we don't feel good in what we had to wear instead. The money lost if the need is great enough to replace it. The difficulties in getting the laundry folded and put away rather then piling up on the couch or chair. The embarrassment of anyone seeing that and starting to block it out.
Each of those different things is a brick in the wall of awful. Each time they happen another brick is added. So we not only have to actually physically do the work, and have to recon with the executive disfunction to manage the job in general which we deeply struggle with, we also have a heavy wall of emotions that are tacked on to the job.

There is a second video about how to get over the wall.
There is also a video on motivation. Honestly the whole channel has been gold to me. It's help me understand myself so much better and find tools to help get past things.
I suggest watching them with Early Bird and, only focusing on ONE task at one instance in time, "you struggled starting school yesterday" finding out what is in the wall of awful for her and helping her find ways to insert handholds and slowly shorten the wall.
It's a slow process.
A huge wall for me in laundry is there is pieces I don't know what to do with. I'm stuck on whether to store for later, sell, or donate. So the laundry is never "done". And every time i see the pile I can never full get rid of because I can't make those choices right now I feel like a failure and it makes doing laundry next time even harder.
Eventually I'll realize my mental health is more important, throw everything in a bag and take it to the thrift store. Then one item in there I'll regret getting rid of and it will make it harder to get rid of things next time.

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[knitlove]

I get that I have add as well. I get all the baggagged all the falure.. but I guess I figured out I could choose to add more falure to the laundry by not doing it making it harder tooreow or next week or I could just do it.

I can fill notebooks with all the falure and all the walls and how horeable everything is. And doing that does me no good. It only makes things harder and harder.

And ya yesterday I chose falure on laundry and I know I made the problem worse and hadsr for me. So today I have the choose of making. It worse or making it better.


I guess that is the thing. There's is a wall and I have the choice of adding more bricks or climb.

I don't always make the choice to not add more bricks but I know that is the wrong call.

The right thing to do is always to sick it up and get it done because doing anything else is only making it worse and harder.

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[SewingGreenMama]

That is partly the difference in personality, and with your daughter too, maturity.
Ahdh is effected by age, by personality, by past experiences, etc.
Some things I'm able to do that with. Some things I'm not. And if I push through like that too many times in a day without correcting baggage that makes it hard I become emotionally exhausted and my brain shuts down and I can just think clearly enough to feed myself and the kids let alone do anything extra, it feels like I'm thinking through a thick fog. It can take days to recover.
I wish I could just push through every time. Because it would get better over time. But I can't. The second video about the wall actually addresses this.

https://youtu.be/hlObsAeFNVk


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[knitlove]

I am sorry I shouldn't have written all of that out.

I am at the end of my rope in so so many areas.

Or maybe I can say that I am surrounded by walls but I still have to do all the things.


I should t come here and say things, and wallow and think about it and add more bricks .


I should do suck it up and do the thing.

Ask set up incontives. Be yelled at have things thrown at me. Be kind and clam and aks again. Sit and wait doing nothing untill she comes to actuly do the thing.

Give her grace and plan c and hope that in 10 more years she won't yell and throw things at other people who will not plan b and plan c her.

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[SewingGreenMama]

Originally Posted by knitlove

I am sorry I shouldn't have written all of that out.

I am at the end of my rope in so so many areas.

Or maybe I can say that I am surrounded by walls but I still have to do all the things.


I should t come here and say things, and wallow and think about it and add more bricks .


I should do suck it up and do the thing.

Ask set up incontives. Be yelled at have things thrown at me. Be kind and clam and aks again. Sit and wait doing nothing untill she comes to actuly do the thing.

Give her grace and plan c and hope that in 10 more years she won't yell and throw things at other people who will not plan b and plan c her.

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It's hard and right now you're in the pit.
I was there last fall and it was hell on earth. Though mine was different then yours had been. Our pits are all different, but they all lie and distort reality and seem to suck out all the joy and peace the Lord pours into us.

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[knitlove]

I see that I am wrong. I will shut up.

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[SewingGreenMama]

Knitlove your not in the wrong. You don't need to be quiet.
You manage your add and the difficulties that come with it differently then I do.
I'm explaining how things are for me, because I identify with a lot that you wrote about Early bird. Hoping that me explain me might help you understand Early bird a little better.
It was in no way a criticism of you or how you handle your ADHD. And I'm sorry if I came across as critical of you and how you manage your ADHD.
You remind me of my best friend who also has ADHD and manages it much the same way you do. She is really inspiring to me and helps me a lot.
You are not wrong. Just different then me and that's okay.

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[knitlove]

I don't understand what you are suggesting that I actually do.

I understand that you are saying she might not every be able to just get anything done.

So do I remove more expectations?

Do I let her not do school and have her take two years or more to get 6th grade work finished?

We are honistly at way lower than I think is generally acceptable, for a 7 year old much less an 11 year old.

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[SewingGreenMama]

Originally Posted by knitlove

I don't understand what you are suggesting that I actually do.

I understand that you are saying she might not every be able to just get anything done.

So do I remove more expectations?

Do I let her not do school and have her take two years or more to get 6th grade work finished?

We are honistly at way lower than I think is generally acceptable, for a 7 year old much less an 11 year old.

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She does not need lowered expectations.

She needs help developing tools to manage her symptoms so she can live up to the expectations in place. These tools will serve her in the future as she leaves the nest and has to learn to pay bills on time, show up to work, communicate her needs to her boss and Co-workers.

But how that will look is going to be very tailored to her, as is shown just between the way we both have to manage our very different manifestations of ADHD. I don't know how you will need to tailor plan b to make it work for her, but I think that route might be the best.

I'm sorry if this isn't clear. I'll spend some time thinking and praying and see if I can be clearer. Hopefully someone else will step in and help as well.

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[sweetpeasmommy]

I think you are getting lost in all or nothing thinking. Improvements can be made, she can get there but this isn’t laundry where you can just suck it up and get it over with. I think suck it up is an ability that some may develop in childhood, but most really develop as an adult. Maybe that means lowering some expectations in some areas temporarily while you work on the top 1-2 things. Maybe not. But you are putting in a ton of effort right now just to survive. It’s ok to put your oxygen mask on and not address alllll the issues at once.

Here is a checklist you can use to identify the lagging skills and how that looks IRL. https://www.livesinthebalance.org/si...P%20060417.pdf Identify which 2 or so are the biggest issues. Once you know that you can make a plan to start working on an issue or two. You are already working very hard and seem discouraged. Hang in there, there is much hope.


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[knitlove]

I guess I aproch everything like I do laundry. Meals, calls, home work, parts of knitting projects, reading books, eating food I don't like - or even eating food I do like, even dealing with my children waning to climb all over me. So I don't quite see how to not aproch any task as a suck it up.


For me in my life everything eather doesn't ever happen or I sick it up and do it, i can make it worse by putting it off but if it is ever going to happen i have to suck it up and just do it.

Originally Posted by sweetpeasmommy

Here is a checklist you can use to identify the lagg cooping skills and how that looks IRL. https://www.livesinthebalance.org/si...P%20060417.pdf Identify which 2 or so are the biggest issues. Once you know that you can make a plan to start working on an issue or two. You are already working very hard and seem discouraged. Hang in there, there is much hope.


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Early bird has issues with all of thoes. She is behind wiggle worm with every single one of them. She has always been behind what is accepted in many of thoes, which is why we home schooled.

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[sweetpeasmommy]

Pretty sure C has issues with all of those too but he’s gotten so much better over time. Managing expectations is huge for us.

It’s awesome that you are able to suck it up through most things in life, but not ideal. How did you get to that point? Is it a skill you developed by her age? What kinds of things helped you get there and what kinds of things didn’t help?


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[knitlove]

Originally Posted by sweetpeasmommy

Pretty sure C has issues with all of those too but he’s gotten so much better over time. Managing expectations is huge for us.

It’s awesome that you are able to suck it up through most things in life, but not ideal. How did you get to that point? Is it a skill you developed by her age? What kinds of things helped you get there and what kinds of things didn’t help?


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I know I had it by her age. I think I had it fairly well by age 10 - not perfect but I don't rember staring at the walls to ovoiding things like I do when I was younger.

How did I get there I realized that it was stupid to spend time staring at the walls not getting the things done because not doing the thing ment I didn't get to play or do anything I wanted to do. I could do nothing fun that I wanted to do after school or or could do almost anything I wanted. I chose to do things I wanted. So I sucked it up and spent an hour or two ( and it really was at leat thet long most might in 5th grade ,home work always took forever evn when I was working on it) and got the work done so that I could play with my friend or watch TV or draw or just hang out in my room.

This is a skill that wiggle worm already has. She will even help me with things like picking up or what ever it is that needs to happen so we can play a game or bake or what ever. She doesn't like it ( I mean who really likes cleaning the kitchen, or picking up the million of tacky with glue bits of papper off of the table) but she realizes that it is better to help get it done so she can get to the fun thing faster.

Early bird will say something like 'I want to play this game', and I say 'ok we need to get the table cleared off so that we have space to play it'. She will stand there and stairing at me huffing that she isn't getting to play the game, complaint that i am not playing the game with her (while I am actively doing what needs to be done to play the game with her), or she will wander off and start reading and by the time I have gotten the table cleared, the game out and I go find her will be mad that I interrupted her reading and will yell at me.


You say it isn't ideal, I can not fathem how anything ever gets done if you dont suck it up and do it. How do you ever do anything?

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[WanderingJuniper]

First, please do not feel poorly about coming here and venting. Isn’t that part of what GCM is? Coming to vent hopefully safely so we can work out some challenging things as moms?

Second I am not addressing the “suck it up” mindset but just ask a few very practical questions and they are questions I fully balked at when my husband posed them to me years and years ago. I am not asking these to make you feel poorly because I don’t really get stuck not doing anything but rather hyper focusing on my own whims instead as a form of avoidance and it was not serving my kids well at the time. They were taken care of but we had behavior issues. Anyway, what supports do you have in place right now? Do you have a family routine daily? A weekly schedule? Is it somewhere your girls can see it? What kind of boundaries do you have in place for yourself if your girl goes off at you? What kind of say do the girls have in what and how they learn? Environment for n which they learn?

(Hugs) you are in a hard season climbing uphill and it stinks. It’s okay to say it stinks.

[ValiantJoy07]

I'm going to comeback and read the thread but I wanted to .



Also you're in the thick of it, your kids are by no means grown ...They're actually in the toughest ages of discipleship. The preschool years are hard but that has nothing on the tweens. The toddler and preschool years is where all the attachment work happened...Now it's just more teaching and modelling on a bigger and more interactive level. It doesn't look pretty. It's not neat and tidy, it's a lot of trying again.



Add a ton of stress and change and unknowns and some special considerations/needs? YIKES.

You're doing great Mama.