Looking for advice from other parents with ADHD and/or autism

Loz said:

Regarding the checklists, how do you create them? Do you order them from somewhere? 

I would create them in something like Microsoft Word or whatever word processor software you use.

Make the font size big enough to make it easy to read but still have all the check boxes you need.

Create one per task - save it so you can update it if needed and print it out.

If you want to be fancy you can laminate it and use a non-permanent marker, but sometimes it is hard to beat being able to tear up the sheet when it is complete and drop it into the recycling. So satisfying.

With time you will get to know how many you get through per month and can print enough to have on standby.

In terms of the individual tasks it will very much depend on the task - think about it when you next do it and scribble a few notes of what are reasonable chunks of the task. Refine this over a few more repititions and create a list of these tasks in the word processor. To the side of hte task have an empty box for you to tick when complete, or you can simply score it out once done - it depends on what is most satisfying for you.

For school prep I would think of:

1 - check if you need PE kit. If so, go fetch it and put it in your school bag. Refer to your timetable if you are not sure.

2 - check if you have any homework to take. pack it.

3 - check what books you need for todays lessons. pack them. Refer to your timetable if you are not sure.

4 - Have you packed your lunch / lunch money / voucher

5 - Have you packed your pencil case / glasses / tissues / mobile phone etc

You get the idea.

For you, if you are preparing the food for lunch then this probably needs to be done the night before with perhaps just something like assembling sandwitches to be done in the morning and bulding a shopping list so you have the ingredients for the next days sandwitches as a final step.

Thank you all so much, I am going to reply here as all of your insights have been helpful. I will try and break your recommendations down so they are manageable for my brain lol!

 Iain Regarding the checklists, how do you create them? Do you order them from somewhere? 

 Martin  About the stability part, I strongly suspect my partner is ND too and sometimes we clash, particularly when my emotions are intense! I should be receiving support through university, so hopefully that will be useful. 

 profdanger Child LOVED books when they were younger, they still do but manga

 Alien0n3arth I'm sorry to hear that, I hope you receive support and I am sure you show up for your child but in different ways 

I am autistic, my wife NT, we have an adult ADHD child and an adult autistic child. When the children were growing up we had no idea that anyone in the family was neurodivergent. We did recognise that our children were a bit different to the average child - especially difficulty regulating emotional state with the ADHDer and high anxiety in the autist. We just muddled through. I think that stability is of especial importance for ND children. Remarkably, my wife and I never argue, beyond the occasional snarky comment and riposte. We always presented a united front to the kids, always backed each other up on decisions either of us made about them. A solidly stable home life helps enormously with minimising anxiety and fluctuations of mood in children.

Good morning, Loz.

AuDHDer here with an AuDHD child (C, age 7) and a (suspected) NT child (R, age 4)

Routines. Routines. Routines. That’s the golden ticket. And movement breaks! They have implemented that at my daughter’s school for C during very desk-heavy times of the day and that has really helped her. C has also become addicted to books lately, so that has reduced a lot of her meltdowns since the other option is her playing with her sister who doesn’t play by her rules. Timers are perfect for transitions.

The one main tip I have, however, is to keep in mind that every meltdown is temporary; It’s not going to last forever. If your child throws a tantrum, it will pass. Reminding myself of that helps me to get through even the loudest meltdowns.

My child is most probably NT like her daddy, but I'm suspected autistic (from my therapist) and it's very hard. A lot of a burden goes to my husbands shoulders,  he has to play with the little one, role-playing is too much for me and impossible,  I simply have no ideas what to play how to play, what to do or say etc. So my interaction with the child is much limited. I'm good at doing together some creative activities. I've heard from my daughter's nursery staff and her psychologist,  that my flat affect affects her emotional development and she needs support as well as me. I asked them to help my daughter so she grows up happy, but for me it's too late and nobody can help me in my thirties, especially I have a long history of being taken not seriously by mental health professionals and mistreated, but they promised they would help. It's all in process and we will see if they really can help me anyhow.  I'm late realised. I don't think I have ADHD, maybe some single traits but I have no issues completing long and monotonous tasks, in fact I enjoy them and with concentration and organising things also no major issues. With concentration only this I tend to be swallowed by some thing or topic or stimuli and don't notice anything other. For this reason I don't do driving licence.  I don't wanna hit anyone while staring into plates of a car in front of me.

Loz said:

How do you manage day-to-day life when both you and your child are neurodivergent?

Alarms, schedules and checklists seem to be the best way. Have the schedules and checklists laminated so you can tick them off as you go and the alarms will remind you where you should be so you can drop any side tasks you went off on and get back to the core of things.

Allowing some wiggle room in the schedules also helps as it will never go exactly as planned.

You will have an extra stress from having to track your own lists and that of the children so it helps to allow some time to mellow after the little monsters are out the door and off to school.

The same for the evenings unfortunately and there will be the tasks like homework and preparing for the next school day for them, the evening meal and whatever your responsibilities are for you too.

I would try to give them some chores as part of their responsibility each day to get them into a routine if you can. The schedule and checklists come into play here too but need to be more flexible as these tasks are more variable.

Then finally creating some quiet space for you will be important.

If you don't know how to meditate then this is a powerful tool to use for a rapid decompress - the downside it can be hard to focus for some ADHD people but it is worth a try. I have many ADHD traits but am not diagnosed and I'm able to use this technique luckily.

For emotions it is harder - I would suggest getting a therapist to work on this as well as getting better advice on everything else here than I can offer. They can be worth their weight in gold.

Good luck.