The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've been thinking lately about boyhood and masculinity and emotion. There's this anti-trope in US society - by which I mean it's a trope that was formed to combat another trope. The trope is, "boys shouldn't cry", or sometimes "real men don't cry." I'm going to keep talking about boys because I'm specifically thinking of my teenage kid. But this trope is like the number one example in any article about toxic masculinity. This trope is seen as making boys repress their emotions and not allowing a healthy emotional life. The anti-trope is, allow boys to express their emotions. Encourage them to be sensitive and talk about their feelings and develop emotional intelligence.
But...what about anger? As a parent, I worry all the time about my kid. He's got some neurodivergent issues, we're seeking treatment for it. But one thing that's really started to bother me lately is his interactions with his school. I get a call at the snap of a finger, the minute he loses his temper or has an emotional meltdown or refuses to work on an assignment. "Ms. Prydain, please talk to your son." Every incident requires an incident report and a committee meeting and a notation in his permanent file.
Oh, he wasn't totally cooperative today? He had an understandable reaction to being disappointed or anxious about something? Oh no, have I failed as a parent? /s
And I mean, I get it, I do. They have a school to run and can't be spending all their time on the neediest kid. But I do worry at the message that he's getting. "It's not okay to be anxious." "It's not okay to get angry" - or at least not in a way that anyone can tell. Keep those feelings bottled up, young man, and only express them in socially acceptable ways. Otherwise, grit your teeth and get with the program.
What is a socially acceptable way to express anger? Is there such a thing when you're a child in school? For all the talk about how all emotions are healthy, I think it can't be denied that some things are okay to express, and some things will get the psychiatrist called in.
And yes, it's good to have emotional intelligence and it's good to learn some emotional regulation, I just think it's kind of weird that amid all the talk about how toxic masculinity discourages boys from expressing emotion, I'm not sure that doing it this way is much better. Is he actually learning healthy strategies to regulate his emotions, or is he just learning to mask and not express how he feels or that something bothers him?
This is already all over the place but I thought of this quote from a character on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel:
So as the mom of a sensitive, creative, intelligent, and conscientious teen boy, what am I missing here and how could I be doing better?
Two things I might offer.
a question. You mention he is "neurodivergent." That could mean many things, and you do not have to tell me any of them. But do you suspect this is what's the root of the issue, and that his anger is an artifact of this? That he is acting out anger in inappropriate ways due to an overreaction to stimuli that a less neurodivergent person would react to differently ? If so, that's a tougher issue.
Dad is a model of manhood, for better or worse. Many men I know consciously try to be UNlike their fathers (in my mind they fail mostly). But I for example try to be a lot like my dad in terms of temperament. I can remember what would set him off and when. He never really lost his temper--where I have regularly lost mine. I have shown anger in front of my sons in ways he never did, but I have his model to sort of steer me back to how I would like to be. But if 1) is the issue my 2) might again be less relevant. If your son is overreacting to benign stimuli that's going to take more work. I will say that you as the mother are not the model, so there's that. You're more the model of how he will view women.
Heavy exercise is great, sports are great ways to exhaust the body and vent. I agree with whoever already said that. I have two teenage boys.
Finally, I can't comment on your school system in any way but the most vague generalizations, but school has been in some ways always stifling of boys, to varying degrees. Your write-up isn't specific enough for me to know if that's what's going on. I'm pulled back to the word neurodivergent however and wonder if there's more going on.
AuDHD. Interesting you mention the father thing because he's exactly like his dad, which is what scares me sometimes. We're divorced because he couldn't reign in his emotions. They both get extremely frustrated when there's a task they're having trouble with.
Society doesn't seem to have the right model for it. "Oh, he's an abusive husband because he yells and throws things, he's using his emotions to control you." I don't think it was that calculated (and for the record, he never laid a hand on me). I would describe his outbursts as panic attacks - just really accelerated breathing and heart rate and this kind of spiral of escalation that he seemed unable to break out of.
Anyway with the teen, we're trying to figure out the right mix of medication and talk therapy approaches. His school has a 504 with him and we're working on an IEP. Overall they've really tried to work with us. I just have some discomfort around the idea that we're pathologizing what to him is a normal emotional reaction, and making him feel somehow broken. But it does need to be addressed because living with his dad was volatile and unstable. I hope Junior can find a better way to manage it all.
Thank you for responding. You bring up a good point--when I mentioned that dad is the model, I did not mention or consider (though it is relevant) the idea of genetics. In some ways I see my wife in both our sons--my oldest seems to have no concept of how to be on time, for example, which is a trait my wife (though she is Japanese, thus against stereotype) has, while I am nearly always very early for everything.
So in your case Junior is a chip off the old angry block?
Again, the vagueness of your description makes the advice here very reddit-y (i.e. useless) because no one here knows what's going on. Reading the tea leaves and pattern-matching to our own experience can only go so far. It's true, as others have said, boys need outlets, boys need male role models (see my earlier post alluding to my What Would Dad Do? tendencies) and if your son doesn't have any that's something you should consider--though much of modern mainstream society tells us lesbian couples and villages of women are perfectly capable of raising non-toxic males who will wash the dishes, never raise their voices, and help mom replace the carburetor and caulk the bathroom tiles when needed (I'm showing my age referencing carburetors), I would bet large amounts of money that this is a myth. A boy needs some sort of male figure in his life and on a regular basis, preferably way more than one. (This could be uncles, or even trustworthy neighbors, coaches, youth pastors, older brothers, etc.) Usually life takes care of this on its own due to family juxtaposition, or--at least when I was in school--the way boys are filtered into groups of boys doing sports and girls into girls doing sports. I have no idea what happens now. (Do girls play in shirts and skins games?)
I am not suggesting to throw him back in with a man you consider volatile and unstable (again, I'm relying on your adjectives, no one here can truly read your situation. You could be either an over-reactive shrew or a knowing Cassandra, you've a small comment count so it's hard to know.) But it's something @Iconochasm has already suggested: male role models.
Is this going to be an insta-fix? Probably not. Good start, though. I'd agree that even the very best-case scenario with medication and a lot of caring female souls around him would be that you create a docile male who stays home a lot, has para-social relationships with Youtubers he never meets, and will double check with you if he's wearing the right shirt, at age twenty. Which, hey, I think a lot of women want that. I'd argue that that's not an ideal outcome.
Is he interested in any sports? I'm not saying throw him in football if he's 130 pounds, but even someone at 130 lbs can run track or play tennis or pickleball or join the swim team. You'll see a difference if he's regularly exerting himself physically. Again, though, mom needling him "Get up and do sports!" is a recipe for a backdraft explosion. Ideally he would have dudes who are friends joining sports teams. Parenting can be hard.
I had to look up AuDHD. From what I am reading, this is not actually considered a clinical diagnosis? It was referred to on one website as an "unofficial but popular" term. This bears consideration, as unofficial but popular smells of making-shit-up. (Though I am not a medical doctor or psychiatrist.)
Made up shit likely because of poor understanding of the underlying substrate and map/territory issues.
Something like about 75% of patients with autism meet the criteria for at least one other mental illness and of the pot of mental illnesses something like about 75% meet the criteria for ADHD.
So it's not everyone but pretty close enough.
That said, I state "meet the criteria for" instead of "has the disease" which usually isn't very important but is instructive in this case since it is very possible that the underlying cause of the symptoms is not the "problem with the brain's hardware and software that causes the majority of ADHD symptoms in individuals with no other mental illness" and is instead a sequence of behavioral deficits better explained as caused by the same underlying issues as the autism which does a lot for explaining the prognosis* and high degree of comorbidity and at the same time just means that the person is going to get the same treatment as everyone else.
Psychiatric formulation is mostly a kludge used to jam something that resembles the medical model in place for purposes of billing and ease of communication.
Needless to say from my rant you aren't likely to catch much clinical conversation using AuDHD unless its more word bad less word good type situations.
However most of the wild type implementations of AuDHD are likely to pattern match to people identifying with their mental illness and trash tier social media engagement about health.
Sorry recently triggered by a soccer mom.
*I'd have to do a lit review to be sure but I'd hazard that spontaneous remission rates in pure ADHD patients are higher than in the ADHD with comorbid AUD population however this would be likely be hard to research.
More options
Context Copy link
Hey, appreciate it. Mostly I was just feeling low and felt like venting about how sucky life can be sometimes. I agree with all the advice (sports, role models) but it's so hard to put into practice. I can't magic male role models out of nowhere. He does see his dad a couple times a week, for what that's worth. The sports thing has sort of been a perennial struggle because the boy really digs in and gets resistant as soon as I suggest something "organized". When he was younger he would run and play on the playground and climb everything in sight, but he freaked out when I wanted him to do an actual parkour class. Wrestling or boxing or track might be something if I can find something age appropriate.
I was being flippant about the AuDHD - he has been formally diagnosed with ASD and ADHD. The ASD is more recent so I'm still navigating what it means and how it should change my parenting approach.
Is there some variety of tutor/coach you could hire that suits any (special?) interests of his? This is about as close as it gets to magic, if it's an option financially. College students work pretty cheap. Math, piano, programming, personal trainer?
More options
Context Copy link
I resisted anything suggested by my parents. It had to be organic, something I arrived at on my own. Perhaps a bit of mentalizing him without being direct. And it wasn't just because of parental pushing, or that it was organized. (In fact I liked organization.) It was a paralyzing fear of being around a bunch of people I didn't know. Again, who knows if that's key. But there are again ways of easing him into social interaction.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
AuDHD is a combination of Autism and ADHD.
That's what my brief look-up said, and it also said what I mentioned, e.g. that this is not a clinical term.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link