I see this question here almost every week, so I wanted to put it in one place. I taught special ed for years and now work privately with families.

Many parents describe some version of "the teacher says she's doing great, but homework is a nightly fight," or "on the weekends she just kind of crashes." It's easy to read that as your child behaving for everyone but you. Most of the time something else is going on.

School is full of structure your kid doesn't have to create herself: bells, a schedule on the board, a teacher saying "take out your notebook," and a room full of kids doing the same thing. That structure does much of the executive-function work for her. She still spends real effort all day keeping it together, and she brings that tiredness home.

At home, the structure disappears. Nobody rings a bell at 4:00. She has to decide when to start, what to do first, and how to keep going, at the end of the day when she has the least left. That's also why homework with a parent gets heated so fast. You're the one asking her to do the hardest part at the hardest time.

A few things that tend to help:

- Bring some of school's structure home: same start time, same spot, first task decided before she sits down.

- Give a real break after school, with an end time agreed on ahead of time.

- Make the first step tiny. "Open the math folder" is a fine start.

- If homework is wrecking your relationship, it's okay to hand that role to someone else for a while.

Curious what's worked for others. Is the after-school crash worse on certain days for your kids?

I have a 2.5yo and a 9 month old. Im really struggling. I love my kids more than anything but i suck at this so bad. Im not organised and i hate cleaning. Im a sahm and im just so overwhelmed all the time. I struggle with mutlitasking... i find it hard doing literally anything while im supervising the kids and trying to keep them alive and fed. so of course the house is a mess.. no chores are done. Theres a million things to plan ahead for... organise.. action throughout the day. i just cant keep up.

One of my issues is i dont know what the hell i do with my toddler? Like what do i do with him all day?

I wake up in the morning and i dont know what to do. Breakfast is easy but then like after breakfast? Im stuck. We cant go out anywhere because the baby cant sleep on the go. She needs quiet and a dark room. So by the time shes awake it's already 10am but now Toddler is hungry... and then BAM its already lunchtime. If we go out anywhere it leads to meltdowns by the end because toddler is still learning how to listen and follow instructions.

I dont know how to play with my toddler. We have many toys but its like hes bored of them (im kind of bored of them too)? Or he's out grown them all?. We did a sensory activity today with rice. He loved it but the clean up took longer than the activity. I forget what im meant to be doing. I dont know how to keep on top of tasks. And i dont know how to play with my toddler. He likes reading books and jumping on me. He hates colouring/drawing. He loves cars and trucks but he doesnt really DO anything with them except line them up on the window sill. Sometimes i look at the four walls of our house and feel... trapped in there. I hate staying home but then going out leaving the house involves a million steps (which my toddler fights each step)

I dont know what to do. Does anyone have any advice? Do i need a schedule for myself or something?

How are y’all dealing with middle school? My oldest started this year and has been struggling bad. She takes so long to complete tasks and always has to take work home. But by the time she gets home, she is exhausted. She is medicated. She doesn’t eat a lot when medicated, but struggles even more when she’s unmedicated. They wouldn’t consider her for an IEP in elementary because she doesn’t have behavioral issues.

She’s got to the point where she’s crying every day because she’s so exhausted and overwhelmed. She is starting to hate school. Homeschooling can’t happen for us and idk how to help.

My kiddo 3M will likely walk away with a formal ADHD dx today.

We are currently sitting in the office waiting for the dr to talk through his assessments.

Idk how to feel, or how I will feel after I hear it.

But also 3 is so young to be dx...if its rough now...what will it look like in a few years?

This was super helpful!

My 6yo just got expelled from her school today. We’re doing anything and everything to help her. Medication, behavioral therapy, practice when she’s calm but she can’t seem to handle the social things ar school. She’s very emotionally dysregulated.

It was a private school so they aren’t really equipped to handle neurodivergent kids. But more than anything my heart is broken for my little girl who was so excited to meet her assigned “buddy” on Friday. She doesn’t know yet.

Typing this through tears and I just want to hear some encouragement from parents that were in the trenches at this age and have come out on the other side 😭

My son with ADHD LOVES to listen to audiobooks. I am looking for some audiobook recommendations. I am open to any suggestions. It could be a book with a character he can relate to or could be a non fictional book that would help him with his self esteem, and teach him strategies to help him stay focused and complete tasks. Thank you everyone in advance!

Edit to add
My son is 7 years old

Just signed my daughter up to try out jiu jitsu. She’s 6 and highly emotionally dysregulated in large social settings (aka school).

She’s a dream one on one but everything we try at home never translates to school. So I’m wondering if this will feel pointless too.

(She’s currently a month in on Focalin XR 10 mg and about 5 days into Guanfacine 1mg. Also in behavioral therapy)

Has anyone seen improvement with martial arts that translates well to social settings for your child?

My child never wants to sleep. My child use to go to bed between 9-9:30 every night.but since may of this year my child doesn't go to bed until 11-11:30 and sometimes it's 1am. I don't know what to do. The doctor does give him sleep medication but I get so much anxiety giving it to him that im up checking on him 3-4 times a night. I don't give it to him. Anything i can do to get him to go to sleep around 9-9:30 again. I'm exhausted

My 9 year old daughter began experiencing severe anxiety about two months ago primarily around school and her competitive gymnastics program. Her anxiety began as stomach aches and escalated quickly into school avoidance and panic attacks leading up to these activities. We pulled her from her gymnastics program (her choice) but did not allow her to miss school, which lead her to experience severe distress and multiple weeks of mornings spent with the school counselor (sometimes up to 2 hours) just to get her to go to class. We quickly got her into therapy and paired her with a psychiatrist who prescribed a low dose of Prozac (fluoxetine) to help manage her anxiety. She started on 4mg and gradually titrated up to 8mg, which she has now been at for 3 weeks. Her anxiety and panic attacks have improved and she is no longer complaining of stomach aches and is able to go to school without any problems; however, over the past week she has become much more dysregulated and agitated, especially at night, and has had several major meltdowns before bedtime with extreme emotions and aggressive behaviors that she can’t seem to break out of and can last up to 45 mins.

She has always been an impulsive and hyperactive child, but she’s never had this much trouble regulating her behavior before. My question is, has anyone else who has/had their child on Prozac/Fluoxetine experienced this level of emotional dysregulation? She is newly diagnosed with ADHD and is not taking any other medication at this time as her doctor wants to treat the anxiety first before the ADHD. The Prozac had a lot of positive benefits in improving her anxiety, but I’m very concerned about how dysregulated she is, especially before bedtime. I’ve been in contact with her psychiatrist about this behavior, but I would appreciate hearing from others who have experienced this with their child.

Hi there - wondering if anyone might have any recommendations for parent therapists in the Los Angeles / South Bay area that have experience dealing with ADHD.

I would like to recommend a therapist for my partner that has a good understanding of the parent / ADHD child dynamic and the challenges that go along with that. This would be preferred to just a standard therapist.

Or if there’s a good place to find someone like this I would take gladly take a link.

Thank you!

My 16 year old son has ADHD and struggles with his sleep. He takes Quelbree daily.

He’s a Junior in HS and takes a number of AP and Honors classes so he has a big workload.

He is smart, good SAT scores and is on track to get into a good college. We know he will be successful in life as long as he doesn’t get in his own way.

Right now, sleep is the problem. He regularly stays up until 3am, and sometimes later, for no apparent reason. At times he claims he is studying but clearly he doesn’t have that much homework. Certainly not in a daily basis.

Both his phone and computer WiFi are on screen time so they aren’t available during these hours. He’s not playing video games as far as we can tell. He just stays up way too late and I don’t think he even knows why.

As a parent I struggle to understand what could be causing this or how to help him. We all need sleep, and teenagers especially.

I’m hoping that someone has some perspective they can share that may be able to help us help him.