“I Am No Longer Resolving to Fix My Child”

Every January, the world sharpens its pencils and declares:

Be more consistent.
Follow through.
Set firmer boundaries.
Stick to the plan.

But if you are raising a child with ADHD, as I am, you hear these phrases all year long. They come from friends, family members, teachers, neighbors, and strangers who see our children on their hardest days and decide they understand the whole story.

If you were more consistent, your child would behave.
If you enforced consequences, they would learn.
If you just did something different, your child would be fine.

Unsolicited comments about our parenting land like resolutions we never made and quietly turn into failures we carry.

💡 Read: An Unusual New Year’s Guidebook for People Who Think Different

 

ADHD Parenting Resolutions I Never Chose

I have tried the charts and the routines. I have tried the calm voice and the firm voice. I have tried sticker systems, time outs, time ins, early bedtimes, later bedtimes, warnings, countdowns, and consequences that were supposed to fix everything. I have done these things consistently. I have done them desperately. I have done them while questioning myself every step of the way.

None of them changed the reality of what it is like to raise a child with ADHD.

ADHD is not defiance for the sake of defiance. It is not poor discipline or lack of effort. ADHD is emotional dysregulation so intense it hijacks the body. It is rage that comes without warning. It is despair that feels bottomless. It is not choosing chaos but drowning in it. It is a nervous system flooded to the point that logic cannot reach it.

Still, the advice keeps coming.

If you just followed through…
If you just stopped negotiating…
If you just stayed calm…

Most parenting advice assumes a child who can consistently pause, reflect, and comply. ADHD breaks that assumption. Tough moments and inconsistency will always be part of ADHD, and they cannot be stamped out with discipline like a resolution. That is why well-meaning advice hurts and turns into intrusive thoughts: What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? Why is this still so hard?

 Read: 10 Things People Say to You When You’re Raising an Extreme Child

 

A Different Kind of New Year’s Resolution

I am not trying to raise a child who looks well-behaved to strangers. I am trying to raise a child who feels safe in his own body. I am trying to teach him that his emotions do not make him bad. I am trying to help him come back from places many adults never see, let alone understand.

The problem is not that ADHD families need better resolutions. The problem is that the world needs a better understanding of what ADHD actually is.

Until that changes, parents like me will keep standing in the wreckage of well-intentioned advice, trying to explain why it does not work, and wondering why we feel like failures while doing some of the hardest parenting there is.

I am done resolving to fix my child.

Instead, I will work to shift how we collectively see ADHD. It is not a discipline problem. It is not a parenting failure. It is a neurological reality that requires compassion, patience, and support. That is the resolution ADHD families truly need.

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