For me, it actually started working a couple of years ago. E. g. cleaning the apartment feels overwhelming, but when I ask myself "What CAN you do?" - "I can put ONE piece of garbage into the bin." it works.
But I understand that different things work for different people. For my child, this method does not work as well, for others not at all.
Strongly affected by all 9
Yes, weird with the teacher relationships. A kid from my class, strong on the hyperactive side, was really hated by some teachers. One threatened to beat him up in front of the whole class, another (of the super nice relaxed ones) just threw him out with a book to study on his own in the hallway. I suspect that he never did a single line of homework or studying at home, but his test grades were too good to let him fail.
I don't have hyperactivity. The best teacher I had really hated me, because he was all about punctuality, reliability, discipline - totally not my approach to math. His teaching was great, I didn't forget a single lecture to this day, and it allowed me to get all the math course certificates for a STEM field later, although I never finished the degree. A few STEM teaches though realised that my obsession with electronics and programming was really getting somewhere and tried to motivate me to put in the time in related fields, but I never put any work in, and only for computer science was that enough to still ace it.
My own son is even stronger in the extremes. He is barely old enough for his grade, but already has to take math in the grade above. Can't skip, because his reading & writing is just on par (although in two languages). But he is extremely disruptive. His teachers seem like they understand that he puts in the same mental effort to focus and sit still, just with worse results than the average. And they support my suspicion that he has ADHD and should get tested. Well, will probably take 4 - 6 months to get an appointment, and another 4 - 6 months until there is a diagnosis.
Amazing about the comments is that while a majority seems to "deliver" when the pressure is on, they split 50/50 on whether they feel great during it or suffer greatly, no middle ground.
I'm definitely in the 2nd group. I can get it done if the alternative has horrifying consequences, but it's not a good feeling.
Maybe two things are mixed up, though. One is like a thing where not doing it is horrible, such as vet appointment for the pet, crucial last deadline at work, kid's birthday party. The other is like working in a high stress environment, like a project where everything is on fire and under pressure, it's not about our condition, or an emergency situation like a sinking ship.
I, personally, suffer greatly in the former, but less than the average person in the latter.
I noticed that I can be a bad friend, at times. Need to unload for hours, too impatient to listen, and when I do it out of politeness, I won't pay attention.
With some friends, I suspect that they just have the pity to be like ChatGPT, like "That's so relatable!", "Wow, that IS an interesting day you had there!", "So funny! Glad I missed South Park to listen to your much funnier ramblings!"
At times, I had a like-minded friend, and we would just take turns talking for roughly the same duration, like an unspoken agreement.
When that happens, I do manage to finish the sentence by appending grammatically correct tokens, like an LLM, though
Exact same story down to every detail. Both parents teachers, but no clue. The weirdest conclusions and theories about me. Like: Far below average intelligence, but with a talent for languages and mathematics (is that even a thing?), which got me through school with effortless Cs. Most of the time I (and probably others) thought I was just a general shithead.
I realised what it was 4 years ago and told a psychiatrist, who did not disagree, but was like: woa, hold your horses. Got a referral to a full neurological & psychiatric check-up from my GP, who wrote on the referral that he suspects ADD without hyperactivity, 1 1/2 years ago. Couldn't use it, because they are overrun by more urgent cases.
Started paying out of pocked to a private clinic 6 months ago and got the official, written diagnosis 1 month ago (exactly what my GP already suspected). Since then, lots of delays to get treatment. No appointments, then appointment available, but latest bloodwork and ECG expired etc. Had one appointment last week cancelled 2 hours before start.
Honestly, with a medical system so overrun, a GP should just be authorised to do the diagnostic if supported by purely computer evaluated multiple choice test. The standardized tests appear to be the foundation anyway, and the many hours of additional psychiatric evaluation are just something that the medical system can't support.
And yes, now my child. He is a true math genius who could do 2 or 3 classes above his own, but he hates books (only since school, not before!) and his reading & writing is just a hateful, effortless B. In two languages equally well, though. I suspect something is up there, but don't want to project. I never had problems understanding math, but was certainly not ahead of the class. Loved books though, perfect spelling.
Let's hope things work out for us and our children!
It happens, even with popular kids. A friend from daycare invited many people for her 5th, but due to bad timing with vacation, nobody showed up. Nobody. Her 6th was fine, as about 8 out of 14 came.
My son invited 5 for his 5th, but due to some misfortune with sickness etc., only two siblings came. It turned out to be one of his best birthdays ever.
Best to ask for a commitment, a clear yes or no. But in your case, 5 is a good number for a party! 1 or 0 would have been kind of awkward.
The biggest issue was that when I was in a phase where I pursued something worthwhile, such as a science project, electronics, programming, they stopped me and said I obsessed too much over it, took it away, said I needed to focus more on something else. Which then did not stick, as it was forced, of course.
That's exactly the kind of obsession that leads to success, though, and it took me years to recover after moving out. Wish I had those skills I wanted to get in all those areas, but I had to focus on one thing at that point, as the end of my 20s was approaching.
Also when they forced me to do something like "clean your room, immediately, until it is done". With the tools at hand now, I know that I have to talk to myself like "in 20 minutes, set a 15 minute timer and get as much done as you can" or "pick one aspect (garbage, floor, desk) and do that immediately". Or with homework: I know now that one tool I needed was to set everything up at the desk ready to start to get over that first step. An order like "all homework needs to be done immediately to perfection" does not work.
With my own child, the problem is that I don't know who he really is down to the core. Is "10 minutes of cleaning on a stopwatch before dinner" just the right push, or too much sometimes, or too little?
I think a little push is right, to yourself and to your children, but it needs to be a "relative push", depending on the person, the day etc. Some days, just staying in bed and crying is already the best you can do. At our best, we might be capable of doing 10 hours focussed tasks and just need a little "come on, do it". Which of those is it? That's the question. I find that meditation helps best to get a feeling for that. Sometimes, I just need a nap and didn't realise, and that's why it felt like the world is ending.
I think it should be relative to the person's abilities. 8 hours of work, laundry, 50 minutes focussed studying, healthy dinner, remembering aunt's birthday and bedtime at 10 might seem reasonable to most. Some with ADHD might also pull it off. For others, their best is to do one of those things after work.
Different people, good and bad days. Absolute measure & judgement for everybody is the problem.
Yes, apparently they can do a lot with that information. I'm not sure what to say though. Coffee can make me really tired, or extremely stimulated like a cartoon squirrel.
The only thing that really works for me is when I make it a 25 minute hyper-focussed challenge: Set a timer and make the maximum progress that is theoretically possible in that time. No getting water, no toilet breaks, no looking at the phone. Beats 3 hours of getting a glass of water, toilet breaks, getting hungry, realising I should work out and shower first and finding more reasons to jump up any day - surprisingly. Got to always treat it as if it were a competition.
Surprisingly, every-single-time I believe that I will for the rest of my life do the thing on time, incrementally and with no effort. Especially after a long cleaning effort. Sure, of course I will now always do a little bit every day, and the way the place looks now will be how I will always live ...
With treatment, this is finally a reality. And just now I realise how ridiculous the idea was to do it like that before. My brain plans as if it were healthy, it's really weird.