I Love Happy Accidents!

Sometimes I have an idea that isn’t really thought out, I just do it not really expecting anything to come from it. Not long ago, I had what I like to call a “Happy Accident”. I did something just because I was having a crazy evening and my brain was having a hard time staying on track.

About two weeks ago, I had a crazy night. I picked up all the children and came home. Tyler and Bailey have their routines. They are awesome at coming home and doing what they need to do. But, I still spend some time with them going over their grades and listening to the happenings of their lives, making sure I am keeping up with their activities as well. At the same time, Shane still had to finish some homework and has a really hard time on the nights that Tyler and Bailey are there because he has to share my attention. They can also be very distracting because he likes to know what everyone is doing all the time. He hates to share my attention with anyone so he does everything he can to get my attention on these nights. When it is just him and I, he knows he can get my attention at any point so he doesn’t act up nearly as much. It is like I’m running a three-ring circus around the house when the day is over, especially during the days when there are extracurricular activities.

One evening in particular, he had homework to finish, dinner to eat, we were baking a cake for Troy for his birthday, nightly chores, and he had to get ready for bed. For Tyler and Bailey, these tasks are robotic for them. They just know this is our routine, every night. For Shane, he doesn't function as easily as the other two with his routine. Children with ADHD struggle with sequencing. If something distracts them, they get off task very easily. They also cannot go from A-B-C without being constantly reminded of the routine. I still have a great deal of things that I am trying to do for the family and for me. That night, I had so sit with Shane through everything he had to get done. I had to sit with him while he read his book and his sight words, sit with him and keep him focused on eating dinner, walk him through taking out the trash and cleaning up his room. All the while trying to give Tyler and Bailey the attention they need, getting dinner prepared, and trying to get a quick run or workout done for me.

Needless to say, Shane and I were both having a very hard time staying on track with what needed to be done. So, on a whim, I wrote down everything that I needed Shane to focus on and all the things I needed to get done for the evening. I do make lists on occasion when I am overwhelmed because it helps me stay focused. At the end of our list was “watch TV”. That was the light at the end of our tunnel. The rest of the night, when he got lost or off task, I would refer him back to his “to-do” list to get him back on track. If I got confused or forgot what was next for him to do, I could refer back to the list. It was amazing how much easier that was for both of us. I tried it the next evening and the next morning. Again, things ran a bit more smoothly for us. So, I decided to get him a dry erase board for his room where we could right down his to-do list every morning to get ready for school and every afternoon when we got home. At the end of each list is “Watch TV”. And because he is very structured, his brain does not skip around the board. He has to follow the list exactly as it is written. He absolutely will not go out of order. So, until everything else is done, he will not watch TV. It is very interesting to watch how he functions sometimes. In many cases, I can use his tendencies to my advantage. It’s learning what they are that is pretty tricky. Of course, we have checks and balances to make sure he is actually completing the task on his list because I am well aware that he could just cross something off a list without actually doing it. In the mornings, my goal is to make sure he is sitting in front of the TV, backpack ready, and jacket on, so when it’s time to go there is not scrambling to make sure everything has been done. So far, things have been working with this new idea, my “Happy Accident”. We still have our struggles, he still has challenges with staying focused on task. This is definitely not a magic cure, but it has helped so much.

As I have been reading books on ADHD, they actually recommended creating a list like this or a chart that helps them stay on task. I felt pretty smart for coming up with this one on my own. :) And it is good to see Shane getting through his list in a positive way rather than having me nag him and get after him, which is more negative for him. He actually feels a sense of accomplishment every time he marks something off his list. We both feel much more confident and I am not nearly as anxious about what our afternoons are going to look like now. I’m sure the same goes for him as well.