My stepdaughter has ADHD. She takes medicine for it every day. She does not listen at all, and her mother and I have talked and we don’t know what to do anymore. We have tried time out and taking her things away from other works. Any advice would help.
Here’s one for each of you to try with her.
- Ask the child what she thinks. Take her out to dinner, (people, except toddlers, act alot nicer in public) and tell her you need to have a very grown up talk with her. Ask her for her help. Talk to her like her opinion is the only one that matters. Don’t humor her, talk down to her, or talk in an accusatory or upset way. Ask her, in a very adult like way, how she would handle the misbehavior and disrespect, if yall switched places and she was the mom and you were her kid. Explain in a non angry way, what her actions are doing to the entire household and ask if she thinks there’s a better way for her to handle it. That your more than willing to try anything or do anything if it
Means she can be happy again. - picnic with both your favorite foods, just the two of you Ask her to pick the park and help plan the menu. Don’t raincheck the time and date y’all agree to. not for anything. And leave the phone in the car. When you get to your picnic spot, tell her you wanted to get you both away from your usual routines. That you needed a break from all of it except her. And work up to it. Ask her why she doesn’t listen. And how she would feel if you all did those same things to her. If she had a a brother/sister/child of her own, behaving like she has been, what she would do to fix whats hurting them inside so they would be happy again. Tell her its hurting the people who love her most, to know she’s hurting and angry and won’t say why, and just keeps not listening and acting out. Tell her you love her and won’t ever stop, no matter what. That nothing on earth would take your love away. Tell her a super huge secret of yours, something you’ve not shared with anyone, something about you as a kid or what you think of yourself that’s not nice. Be honest. Sincere. Tell her you’ve never told anyone that and you trust her with it. So she could know you can be trusted with whatevers eating at her, without you saying it to her. Get on her level. Maybe it’s just the “any attention is better than none” reasoning kids have at times or maybe she’s deeply insecure about someone or something or some off the wall idea that popped in her head took root and is eating her alive. Find out what’s going on. And if neither of you can get her to open up, then offer up therapy. Some kids will be an open book with a stranger and the exact opposite with loved ones.
Reacting to the actions clearly isn’t solving the problem. Dig in and root out the cause. Noones happy getting yelled at, or dictated to. That she’s continuing to be abrasive, makes it sound like it’s more than just pushing boundaries. The childs hurting. And if so, she will continue to act out because parents are just supposed to know and fix the pain, and y’all are doing the exact opposite. Which means she’s gonna be mean back, in ways she knows she can hurt you guys back. If that makes sense. It sucks to be on the receiving end of a childs rationale in situations like this, but bet it sucks a whole lot more, being the child feeling like hell inside and resorting to temper tantrums for having to try and deal with their demons alone (in their eyes and mind).
And it could be the meds if nothing else works, talk to the prescribing dr about her shift in mood and behavior.