Hello. I have a 13 year old daughter who has been a challenge scince she was two. She has always been defient , never follows rules, talks back, has trouble with friends. She was on Ritlin when she was 5 but it made her a Zombie. I took her off it right away. I think I have always been in denial. Now this last year has gotten so much worse. I really feel she has ODD/ADHD. I just don't know. I feel so alone and I cry alot. I just started her on Concerta, and we are in family counseling. Now today i just found out she stole a bunch of make-up from her friends mom when she spent the night there. Im devestated. I just drove her over there and had her return it and apologize. I just don't even know what consequence to give. I took her make-up away for three days and I told her no weekend activites this weekend. Am I doing the right thing. PLease help
Sharri

It is great that you are in counseling. Has she been evaluated/tested recently? Who prescribed Concerta?

I could be way off base her with my next piece of advice. Feel free to yell at me. When my daughter misbehaves, often my wife takes it personally with a comment like. "How can she do that to me." She takes it personally whenever our kids misbehave. I try and tell her that they are kids, and they are going to misbehave. They do not misbehave to be mean to my wife. They are just kids, and they discipline, don't take it personal. She then proceeds to tell me that I don't understand. Oh well.

Hi and welcome to the forums!:) I think you'll find your not alone here in your frustrations -- raising an ADHD child is very challenging and tiring at times.

It sounds like you're taking the right steps with medication and counseling. I'd encourage you to learn all you can about your child's ADD -- it helps remove a lot of the guilt and helps in letting go of the anger.

Russell Barkley has an excellent book out called Taking Control of ADHD. He explains not only the etiology of ADD but the ways it shows up in children and how and why they do what they do. ADHD according to Barkley is really a problem not so much of attention but of behavioral inhibition -- difficulty putting on the brakes. The thought and action show up side by side without the "lets think about it step". He says that the consequences must be immediate, salient, and predictable to be effective.

I hope this is the start of better things for your family. Take care!

Scattered

You are not alone. Hang in there, I have gone down that road. There is light at the end of tunnel although it's pretty dark where you are. As said above, don't take it personally and with time, if you keep her on track...things often turn out okay.

I've never good at being diplomatic, and talking with another parent about child-rearing takes a great deal of diplomacy. But I'll give it a shot here, and then run for cover :p

My children are ADHD too, and I've always been a "softy" mom. Their dad is too strict, so I naturally leaned too far the other way to try to balance it out.
But there are some things I've learned about AD/HD kids, and maybe all kids for all I know, and that is that they need and want structure, and to know that you are ultimately in charge of them. My boys will push the limits as far as they can, and a strange phenomenon I've seen is that when I reign them in they seem relieved.
One thing that doesn't work with my boys is me yelling at them. There are only two things I've found that work - taking things away temporarily and ignoring them when they behave badly. Actually the latter falls under the same thing as the first, as I'm taking away my attention when they're acting up. I'm talking about when they're throwing fits, not when they're doing something like stealing or hitting their brother.
Forcing the kid to take a time out helps A LOT when one of my boys gets himself all worked up. They always calm down with time and end up apologizing for their outbursts.
I'm getting off track though.
Setting limits. Making a chart of punishments for actions (that way you're not "the bad guy"...the chart said it, not you! Lol! And they can't argue with a chart. Go over it with them after you make it and make sure they understand the consequences for breaking the rules.
That has worked with my boys from toddlerhood to 18.

Chameleon's advice is really good. Charts of consequences and a few very simple but consistently enforce rules can go a long way. Rewards are also big motivators for ADD kids, but they have to keep coming -- you can't really taper off and stop the rewards and expect the behavior not to regress like you can with a non ADD kid.Scattered