Listening to specialists explain that my child had ADHD, was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I went through this process on two occasions first for my son and a few years later for my daughter.
”No matter how sure I was that my child needed a diagnosis, hearing it from a specialist made it feel so permanent that it evoked tears.”
Annie
The first time, I waited by myself to hear the doctor’s diagnosis. I was so tense I felt like a wind-up toy, wound to the breaking point!
The room was white and rather steril. Despite 4 comfortable chairs and a coffee table, it didn’t feel very welcoming.
As I sat and waited anxious thoughts fluttered through my mind.
- How would my son do in school?
- Would it ever be easier for him to make friends and understand social cues?
- How would I break the news to him, that he had a diagnosis?
The door opened and three specialists, who worked with my son, came in. We said hi and exchanged obligatory plesentries.
‘We can start by explaining how the tests work and what the results were.’ One doctor suggested while Flipping through papers on a clipboard.
When they finally got to the point, that my son had ADHD, I burst into tears.
When I finished dabbing at my eyes, one of the specialists got up and drew a circle on the whiteboard. He divided it into pieces like a pie.
‘There are several different areas you can have problems with when you have ADHD.’‘ He explained. ”If you have trouble in all the areas, it’s harder for you to be a functioning adult.”
‘Your son has all his problems in one area which could be a good thing. If he finds strategies for how to deal with the hard bits, he can be a functioning adult.
ADHD is quite different for every person and there are no guarantees for how a person will develop, but he has a good chance.’ The doctor summarized.
I left the specialist’s office and walked to a nearby restaurant. I was on the verge of crying over my sushi.
I kept trying to think about positive things to keep my mind off my depressing train of thought, but as hard as I tried to be positive, my negative thoughts and fears seemed to be pulling me down, down, down into a pool of tears.
I even cried a bit in the car as I told my husband what the doctors said.
A part of us morns when we hear our child will struggle for the rest of his/her life.
All I wanted was to take his struggles away. I felt so powerless when my best efforts were not helping.
My son had just turned eight when he got his diagnosis. We were dealing with extreme mood swings and self-destructive behaviors at the time.
His ups and downs were radically affecting my moods.
After dealing with outbursts that lasted for up to three hours my husband and I would be completely drained and exhausted.
It was during this time when everyday things like getting in the car, could take half an hour of whining and arguing. Sometimes he wouldn’t get in the car at all!
All the extra effort that went into our daily routine left little energy over for keeping the house clean and doing household chores.
I felt exhausted all the time and the mess in the house frustrated me even more than my child’s diagnosis.
I knew the mess was something I could do something about, if I could only scrape together enough energy to take care of it.
One morning I stood in the kitchen staring at the counter. It was covered with dirty dishes. Most of the dishes were cups and mugs.
It seemed that no matter how many times I asked the kids to pick one cup and use it all day, they never did.
I decided to fill the dishwasher with just cups to see how many were used.
I filled the entire upper rack of my normal-sized dishwasher and started filling the lower half! The dishwasher was two-thirds full of almost clean cups!
I usually used one water glass and one coffee mug all day. I started counting. My three kids had used at least 5 cups apiece!
That is if I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that my husband used four cups!
That did it! I had had enough! I was tired of filling the dishwasher with the same mugs every evening! As soon as the dishwasher finished its cycle with a peep. I got rid of three-fourths of our mugs and cups.
I kept one water cup and one mug for each member of the family and four extras for guests.
I put eight or nine mugs in the very back of the cupboard for when company came. These were hard to get out so the kids would not try to use them.
In my enthusiasm, I removed many unused things from our small kitchen.
Next, I moved on to the bathroom. I removed the extra towels. Keeping one towel for each of us and 3 extras.
My kids would often use three or four towels every time they showered! Even though I asked them not to, the number of towels I found on the floor never seem to diminish.
I did a load of towels almost every day which meant I had less time to get all the clothes washed and dried. Our laundry basket often overflowed.
Eventually, I bought towels with everyone’s names on them so they would not take more than one.
Over the next few months, I slowly went through the rest of the house removing things.
I am still not done, but already the results are amazing.
I feel much better about the dishes in the kitchen because there are way fewer of them. It cuts the time I spend cleaning the kitchen in half.
I no longer do loads of towels every day. Picking up the living room or kids’ play area is much easier and faster without all the excess junk that was causing me stress.
In other words, I found I could compensate for some of the time I was losing while dealing with behavioral issues, by just having less stuff to clean and put away.
I felt less stressed about the house and my childrens diagnoses after I decluttered.
This was another great benefit to getting rid of our excess things. Knowing it was easy to pick up the house helped me not to panik when it got messy.
Once I decluttered I knew it wouldn’t take long to pick up even if the house was in utter chaos!
There were not many things to put away.
Minimizing our possessions made me feel better about my ability to keep the house clean.
I even feel better about myself!
I no longer needed to feel guilty about the house when I was out doing fun things.
When I didn’t need to clean all the time, getting out and taking walks in the woods became a natural part of my day.
This helped me clear my head and recharge.
Somehow taking control of our home environment created a cascade of positive effects.
I started to feel more positive about the situation with my children’s diagnosis, and tears were not quite so near the surface.
We are not islands. There are more factors that play into our psychological well-being than we are even aware of.
Sometimes we just need to get one positive thing rolling and like a snowball, it picks up more positiveness as it goes.
It was my son who inspired me to get rid of excess stuff.
He regularly gets rid of extra things in his room. When I ask him to pick up his room he can pick up and vacuum in 15 minutes!
He felt the need to have a calm minimalist environment. That way he was less distracted. I hope that when I finish going through our entire home, he will feel calmer in our whole house not only in his room.
I can not change the fact that I have children with diagnoses.
I can not change the fact that some things at our house take more time, or that some ‘Normal’ practices in other homes do not work at my house.
What I can change is the number of things I bring into my house.
Annie Eklöv
I try to make sure that new things add value to our lives not stress! If we bring home several new items we try to make a practice of getting rid of old items. This keeps the balence of things in check.
Once you find the right balance of stuff in your home you’ll know because it feels great for you and your family!
Let me know if you have a comment. Send an email to annie@theadhdminimalist.com.
If you liked this post check out my post on minimizing toys and organizing kids rooms.
Help ADHD (ADD) kids clean their rooms and stay organized
Decluttering kids toys and other monsters in their rooms.
My posts for parents click below.
How to let go of things, and deal with fears
12 Issues Parents of ADHD kids need to fix in themselves!
Minimalism and ADHD with Kids
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