Children With ADHD: Struggle, Stress, and Frustration Don’t Just Happen
January 29, 2009 
1 Comment
I know it can feel like it, but we don’t just wake up one day and find ourselves suddenly surrounded by struggle – stress – and frustration in any part of our lives. Quite to the contrary, getting to these point starts with a chain of events that quite carefully lead up to the point where the straw finally breaks the camels back.
When parenting children with ADHD, many of my clients describe all the bad that happens…all the struggle, stress, and frustration that marks the day.
Part of what I do is to step away from that and look at:
What is it that your child does really well?
What does your child do that makes you happy?
If all we see is the negative, then we will never be able to get back to focusing on the positive, or effectively working on change towards the positive.
No Overnight Success
Because so many of us don’t seek help until we have reached a boiling point, it’s easy to forget that we cannot fix things overnight. There is no magic button, even with medication, that quickly erases all the stress, frustration, overwhelm, and everything else that comes with parenting children with ADHD.
Even my clients whose children are on medication still report many of the same struggles with behavior. They still see a lot of unwanted (and often times unappreciated) behaviors often associated with ADHD.
Here’s what I tell them every single time.
It took an awful lot to get to where things are today. Habits have been developed. Behaviors and expectations have been reinforced.
It’s going to take time to undue these things.
Yes, it can be done, but it won’t happen overnight. We need to start small, and work backwards. Think about the end result – the good that you have – and what it will take to get there.
Have a different perspective? We love to hear from our readers. Let us know what you think about this post by leaving a comment below.
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My son was recently diagnosed with sever ADHD coupled with behavioral issues. We have had a great deal of difficulty finding a therapist and pediatrician that will work with us. He was given a prescription that offered us a glimpse at what our son has the potential to be when he has help in focusing. In my 5 year olds words “I am more calm on medicine and my head isnt flying all over the place.” School just started and he loves his new school and is making friends. He is easily frustrated and breaks routine consistently, which is actually a routine in itself. My greatest concern is how his father & I handle his behavior, we are easily frustrated and I feel that we are negatively impacting him. His siblings are resentful towards the constant focus on him and the fact that he exhausts us all while he goes non-stop. I have an extremely intelligent and loving child that cannot express love and affection…he is learning..due to several years of neglect by his biological mother. So we are working on so much with him, it is truly overwhelming and at times, too much. I don’t want a zombie, I want my son to be happy and actually be able to sit for a meal without tearing up or acting aggresively.