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This is the latest in the Tough Problems series. In each installment, I present two composite questions that my clients face and my response to each.
Dear Dr. Marty: I have two kids; one is compliant; the other is ever testing the limits. For example, coming home at 6:15 when I say 6:00—just short of when I can be furious, refusing to clean his room or come to the dinner table until I have to yell. I know what's causing it—He loves the adrenaline rush that comes from testing the limits. I work all day and come home to his endlessly testing the limits. It's very frustrating. What can I do?!
Marty Nemko: Might the following one-two punch help?
Realize that even though it seems you’re punishing him with your nagging and yelling, you’re actually rewarding his limit-testing by his getting a rise out of you. Also, you're giving him attention. You say you work all day outside the home. So perhaps he feels even negative attention is welcome after a day of no parental attention. So you might try just giving him a schoolmarmy look and saying something like, “I’m disappointed. I know you can do better.” In addition to that sparing you some fighting, it could build his intrinsic motivation to do better.
The second strategy is to try to maintain perspective. None of his behaviors are so horrible. Families do okay and kids turn out okay even if a child is often late for dinner and doesn’t clean the room when promised. In fact, limit-testers may be more likely to make positive changes in the world. So, if the aforementioned invocation of guilt doesn’t work, rather than escalate into yelling or punishing, might you want to just give one more schoolmarm look and ignore it? That yields the side benefit of his coming to realize that if he wants your attention, he needs to come up with a positive approach to getting it.
Dear Dr. Marty: My child’s teacher wants him evaluated for hyperactivity. I agree that even at home, he’s a bundle of energy, his room is a tornado, and he sometimes has trouble focusing, for example, in doing his homework but not when playing video games. I feel like part of the reason he’s so active in school is that he’s bored. The teacher focuses on the slow kids and he’s stultified. Of course, I’m not brave enough to tell the teacher, “You want him drugged for your convenience, not his benefit.” To be honest, I too have always been distractible, especially at school, and my notebook was disorganized, yet I turned out okay. What should I do?
Marty Nemko: First of all, some active, distractible kids have benefited significantly from medication. Have you completed an ADHD screening quiz you can administer yourself, such as this? If that suggests he might have ADHD, could it hurt to have a consultation with a specialist who doesn’t necessarily push ADHD medication but is individualized in how to address active kids?
Candidly, if ADHD were diagnosed as often as it is today, I would have been put on Ritalin intravenously (joke.) And on reflection, I’m agnostic as to whether it would have been a good idea. Not being on it did force me to develop coping mechanisms, but even though I did well academically, my hyperactivity caused my teachers to be frustrated with me and most kids to shun me or even beat me up. I wonder whether my childhood would have been happier had I at least tried Ritalin.
That said, your hypothesis may be correct: the teacher's desire for him to be on ADHD medication might be because she's unable or unwilling to meet your bright child's academic needs. Your options include:
- Tactfully asking the teacher if there's any more s/he can do. Offer to do your part, for example, helping your child with supplementation s/he suggests.
- See if there's another teacher at the school that might be better with bright, active boys.
- Change schools, perhaps an intra-district transfer to a public school that's more committed to helping all students, including bright ones, get an appropriate education.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
