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Ours were cheerful happy babies until they turned into moody, constantly-bonkers late-toddlers/preschoolers/lower-grade-elementary-kids on whom zero disciplinar

by bamfly 3y ago

Ours were cheerful happy babies until they turned into moody, constantly-bonkers late-toddlers/preschoolers/lower-grade-elementary-kids on whom zero disciplinary or behavior-correction approaches worked, whatsoever. None. Even a bit. Both were eventually diagnosed with ADHD. Both got on meds. Now we're not constantly stressed every waking second with a chaotic house full of screaming and shit flying everywhere. We'd have thought we were just the world's worst parents, if we hadn't had a third on whom every approach worked, exactly the way the experts say they should. That's when we were like, "oh, maybe it's not entirely our fault, maybe we should take these kids to a shrink". We'd read these books on various parenting approaches, try each very earnestly and consistently for months at a time, and not once would any of it look like it did in the book. Nothing worked. Third kid, no ADHD? It all went exactly the way the made-up examples in the books said it should. It was a revelation. "Oh, this is what this stuff's like for most people! Holy shit, this is so easy!"

travisjungroth 3y ago
So your anecdote actually does go against the bidirectional relationship in the study. I’m not saying it disproves it or anything, just that this is things going the other way. The model is that there’s a loop of bad behavior -> worse treatment -> worse symptoms -> worse behavior. Taking the kids to a therapist interrupts that cycle. Bad behavior -> more appropriate treatment -> better symptoms -> better behavior.
- bamfly 3y ago
  We noticed a correlation between worse treatment and worse behavior, and course-corrected. The trouble was that even going wildly the opposite direction made things better... but just a somewhat-nicer circle of hell, and achieved only at immense time-cost (consistent long stretches of positive 1-on-1 attention, regardless of behavior, amounting to hours a day per kid, were necessary to have any notable effect) that wasn't going to be tenable long-term while keeping all the other plates of life (and we've got a pretty damn easy one, otherwise) spinning—plus, you can't really do that when they're in school, and neither can the teachers. And that still wasn't enough to get us out of hell, it was still really bad. Meds (& therapy—but if this miss that for a couple weeks, nothing bad immediately happens, while if they miss the meds even one day...) did the trick. Amazing. We can just tell them stuff, and they mostly listen. We can talk to them about something they just, moments ago, did that was wrong, and they know what we're talking about rather than being genuinely confused, and will not just commit to do better, but will actually try and maybe not immediately repeat the behavior, even entire minutes (LOL) later, and almost never start to just absentmindedly do it again while we're still talking to them about it. Punishments or harsh reprimands are (and were, after we caught on to those being not just ineffective, but counter-productive, even in very mild forms) reserved for immediate safety problems that can't wait for a touchy-feely approach, or many-times-repeated bad behavior, and don't usually result in hours of backlash-behavior later, as they used to, and do usually have an overall-positive effect. They notice straightforward natural-consequence-type correction and respond to it, rather than its having zero effect whatsoever. But, yes, we can add 2 to N for worsening treatment being the opposite of helpful for (at least our) unmedicated very-ADHD kids, for sure. That was definitely something we saw.

by bamfly 3y ago

travisjungroth 3y ago

So your anecdote actually does go against the bidirectional relationship in the study. I’m not saying it disproves it or anything, just that this is things going the other way. The model is that there’s a loop of bad behavior -> worse treatment -> worse symptoms -> worse behavior. Taking the kids to a therapist interrupts that cycle. Bad behavior -> more appropriate treatment -> better symptoms -> better behavior.

bamfly 3y ago
We noticed a correlation between worse treatment and worse behavior, and course-corrected. The trouble was that even going wildly the opposite direction made things better... but just a somewhat-nicer circle of hell, and achieved only at immense time-cost (consistent long stretches of positive 1-on-1 attention, regardless of behavior, amounting to hours a day per kid, were necessary to have any notable effect) that wasn't going to be tenable long-term while keeping all the other plates of life (and we've got a pretty damn easy one, otherwise) spinning—plus, you can't really do that when they're in school, and neither can the teachers. And that still wasn't enough to get us out of hell, it was still really bad. Meds (& therapy—but if this miss that for a couple weeks, nothing bad immediately happens, while if they miss the meds even one day...) did the trick. Amazing. We can just tell them stuff, and they mostly listen. We can talk to them about something they just, moments ago, did that was wrong, and they know what we're talking about rather than being genuinely confused, and will not just commit to do better, but will actually try and maybe not immediately repeat the behavior, even entire minutes (LOL) later, and almost never start to just absentmindedly do it again while we're still talking to them about it. Punishments or harsh reprimands are (and were, after we caught on to those being not just ineffective, but counter-productive, even in very mild forms) reserved for immediate safety problems that can't wait for a touchy-feely approach, or many-times-repeated bad behavior, and don't usually result in hours of backlash-behavior later, as they used to, and do usually have an overall-positive effect. They notice straightforward natural-consequence-type correction and respond to it, rather than its having zero effect whatsoever. But, yes, we can add 2 to N for worsening treatment being the opposite of helpful for (at least our) unmedicated very-ADHD kids, for sure. That was definitely something we saw.