Hi everyone. I don’t have ADHD, but someone who joined my family some time ago does (we’ll call him T), and is currently going through some trouble which I find quite perplexing.
Some background: T has two daughters (8yo and 6yo) under shared custody with his ex-wife (they spend roughly the same time with each of them during the week). T has had some serious difficulties through his life, some of which are structural and will likely stay with him forever, such as difficulty to hold onto a job or keeping his house tidy (even less so when his kids are home), and others of which are temporary by nature, such as the recent death of his mother.
His daughters had been having some issues for quite some time, including school performance and very frequent misbehaving. I don’t particularly dislike kids, but holy shit, the very moment they got used to me, they became imps, almost constant screaming, fighting each other, not attending to reason, and so on. And I’ve barely seen them a handful of times. Anyhow, T decided to seek the root of these issues, discussed with his ex-wife the possibility of getting them evaluated for ADHD, and the ex-wife refused. T went forwards anyway, and the girls are now diagnosed with ADHD, and assigned to a psychologist who should theoretically have a session with them each month, but in practice, they’re given less than 5 appointments a year. In general, T’s complaints that he wanted more guidance on what to do with them have fallen on deaf ears.
A few weeks ago, social services knock into T’s home, and naturally, they find that the house is a mess, because it always is. They take note of it all, and recently summoned him for a meeting.
T’s current partner recently told me how the meeting went: social services claimed that the kids are sometimes late to class and they sometimes don’t go at all, attributed all the responsibility to him, and he refuted that, while he’s sometimes late when it’s his turn to take them to school, they only completely miss class when they’re staying with their mother. Social services disregarded this (shouldn’t they have the means to corroborate it?), and proceeded to explain that, as a person with ADHD who cannot keep his life in order, he doesn’t seem to have the competencies to raise the kids, so they want to impose a change in custody where they would stay with him less than 33% of the time.
What I’m getting from this is that the only thing the administration will take into account when determining whether you should be raising your kids or not is your medical conditions and how disorganized is your house. The kids have some issues, sure (I’m not arguing that they being late to class or missing at all is ok), but if there are two separated parents, and one has an ADHD diagnosis and the other doesn’t, is it ok to attribute all issues on the diagnosed parent rather than checking where the problems are coming from? Shouldn’t the fact that the kids have ADHD a reason to want to make sure and the parent who does also have it to be more involved in their upbringing, since the one who doesn’t will have less experience with it and its difficulties?
T would benefit from reaching out for mental/behavioral health assistance above and beyond just seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist. He needs additional supportive services that may be called something like “skills training”.
With that in place, and a demonstrated record of showing signs of improvement, and a lawyer, he ought to be able to get custody back.
Might be worth seeing if the administration can come to an agreement that he gets further supportive services before they reduce custody.
He has been seeking that help, but it was only after being annoying for years that he got a doctor to agree to prescribing Adderall. Mental health services here are criminally underfunded, and private therapy is also not an option due to his financial situation.
He hasn’t lost anything yet. At some point they’ll hand him a contract to accept or reject a new custody regime, and if he refuses to sign it, it might predictably be taken to the courts.
Par for the course in the USA.
Also, par for the course in the USA. Recently, Adderral has been undergoing a DEA mandated supply shortage and since the 00s doctors really have been averse to prescribing it, in particular. There are now non-stimulant alternatives with less side effects.
What I am saying though, is that he needs a social worker to be spending an hour every week with him. If he is on Medicaid, due to his financial and medical situation, then he should be readily approved for the “skills training” side of mental/behavioral health care, which often comes from a social worker.
None of us is from the US.
Ah, well, then none of my advice likely applies, unfortunately. It would help to know what country you need the advice for. Some western countries might follow a similar style of treatment, where you need to get the help of a “social worker” for “skills of daily living”
Spain
Well, I spent a little bit of time digging, because I was curious, but the language barrier is making it a little slower.
My best advice for you would be for you to reach out to the Minesterio de Sanidad. Tell them that you are reaching out in concern for a friend, explain the basics of his situation, with an emphasis on his struggles with keeping a clean house, etc., and that you want to find out what services the Sistema Nacional de Salud offers on an outpatient basis for assistance with daily living skills or rehabilitation.
They ought to be prepared to handle a request like that without too much routing around. The goal is to find out what they can do to help your friend satisfy the courts requirements for a child rearing environment.
edit: oh, also, check out https://sid-inico.usal.es - in Spain, what you need is one of the publicos “Centros de Dia” services, or maybe privados con plazas concertadas, but T sounds like he would belong to the Asistidos category of needs
edit 2: https://sid-inico.usal.es/otros-centros/
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but virtually everyone here knows their local healthcare center (centros de día o centros de salud) from which we interact with these institutions. Given that I already mentioned that T isn’t in a good financial situation, someone from here would correctly assume that all medical interventions related to his ADHD have been handled through the public system. Just so that you understand, this is the equivalent of telling someone from the US with problems to pay taxes to get in contact with the IRS.
Well, in that case, advise him to the pressure on the centros de dia o centros de salud to get him the help with cleaning house like he did with the doctor and Adderall.
As an aside, indeed, in the US, if you have a problem with paying your taxes, you have to talk to the IRS. Same with healthcare, you have to engage with the social services system to get the right services.
But again, don’t lose sight of my main point - leverage social services assistance for custody purposes in the long run.
Peace and out, before I further annoy you.