Hi, I’m back fellow ADHDers and watch out because I have a lot to say. Firstly, I’m pleased to report that the personal family situation that I’ve been dealing with is now looking extremely positive, which means regular service should resume from here on out.
In today’s blog article I want to talk about kids! Whether you have them or you don’t there is really no way of avoiding them; they are everywhere! What’s funny is when I tell people I’ve never had the desire to have biological kids, they look at me like I’m crazy. Why do they do that? Well it’s because I chose to be a foster parent and have two beautiful foster children. The reason I never wanted biological children is I 1. I don’t have a partner to consider having them with and I’m a bit of traditionalist in that sense 2. I thought it would be too much for me having ADHD; especially if I were to pass on my ADHD to my children. That’s not to say I will never have biological children; it’s just not on my radar at the moment.
“Parenting whilst having ADHD sometimes feels like rocket science.”
ADHD gIRL
Parenting itself is an incredibly hard thing to do, anyone who tells you otherwise must have a nanny or extremely busy grandparents who do most of the work for them. My background is education and childcare, I worked in nurseries and education settings from the age of seventeen until I went to University at the age of twenty-three to do a degree in, yes you’ve guessed it, childhood studies. Yet despite looking after children in a professional setting, nothing can prepare you for the emotional turmoil of parenting 24/7. It’s guilt inducing, emotional draining, unfathomable chaos, and that’s putting it nicely. Is it the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done? 100%! Is it the hardest thing I’ve ever done? 100%.
So parenting in general is hard, but parenting with ADHD is adding a whole other level of crazy into the mix! We ADHDers are known for overthinking things and that combined with parenting is enough to make the sanest of people question their sanity. You are not only responsible in putting up you’re your own ADHD quirks, you then are responsible for helping others to succeed in life. It’s not necessarily something you always feel qualified for, but it’s definitely something you want to try and get more right than wrong.
Obviously parenting carries a lot of guilt with it, but for those of you who have a child with ADHD whilst also having ADHD, well I take my hat off to you. That right there is guilt on a whole other level; you think you should be able to do more. Have more empathy, more understanding, more compassion, more support all because you’ve been there and done that. The amount of grace you need to give to both yourself and your child to surpass this is huge and emotional draining a lot of the time.
“Parenting is the most guilt inducing thing I’ve ever done. It’s like somebody holds up a mirror and says ‘this is who you are’ but it’s not who you want to be.”
ADHD Girl
The only way I can survive parenting is by having organisation as my coping strategy. I’ve mentioned before that organisation is not something that comes naturally to me by any means, but it’s something I crave and need desperately to give my mind some peace. That may not make sense since I’m the one doing the organising, but once it becomes part of routine it becomes a whole lot easier. Obviously sometimes it doesn’t always work out when life throws a few curve balls and you are thrown off track, but the trick is if you do ok 80% of the time then you are better equipped to deal with that 20% that goes horribly wrong.
Anyway, this blog is getting longer than expected and the last thing I want to do is bore you to death, so I’ll just leave it with this simple thought; whether you have children or don’t have children, if you have ADHD and you’re still managing to survive the ugliness of everyday life that’s thrown at you, then you are already an amazing human being! Till next time everyone!
