What it is and what to do about it........
As parents we have all been there.... needing our teen to get out of bed to go to school, to come with us to that thing or just be at whatever thing.... and they just won't for whatever reason. And no matter how much we yell and beg and plead and bribe and use every trick we might think we have in our arsenal it does NOT work.
Teenagers are a force to be reckoned with even before you throw ADHD in the mix and then you have got no sleep, meds, RSD, anger, violence and all sorts of other things to contend with and you still need to get them out the door with some sort of normality to get on with the day with some sort of sanity intact.
I know..... I'm right there, right now......
My 15yo boy and I have a really great relationship and he and I talk about things that are bothering him and how I can help him manage himself and his own emotions and his own day to day stuff. Essentially his own executive functioning. Well... getting there....
One thing that is starting to work well, he is now showering every day (probably because he has a girlfriend) and he has asked me that instead of coming in and nagging him to get up in the morning because my voice annoys him (lovely right), I should just come and say "morning" and turn the shower on for him.
So that's what I have been doing, ignoring the mess of the bathroom, ignoring the smell of his room and bathroom, getting his meds ready for him while I organise my coffee.
I think that co-regulation and accomodation with your teens don't have to mean that you are doing EVERYTHING for your teen, it might actually mean that they already know what they need to motivate themselves to do that thing but what we are doing is triggering them to do the opposite.
THAT has been a massive learning curve for me.
Now I've been using this little thing to ask him about other things that I can do to help his day to day things easier. It has made our communications about day to day life in the house so much easier.
We talk about obviously his favourite things and my favourite things really easily but when it comes to house stuff it's always a trigger for both of us, so finding a way to ask him for solutions to these problems for me, asking for forgiveness for my f**kup's, actually listening to his suggestions (he loves putting washing on, WHO KNEW), and not getting triggered by the 15yo boy ADHD brain way of looking at the world has worked wonders for us.
