I was debating whether I should blog about this at all, but I ultimately decided to. This is not for the purposes of seeking sympathy or advice, but rather because sharing the bad with the good of parenting paints a more realistic picture for others, and perhaps others who’ve gone through something similar will find comfort in a shared experience.
Anyway, this Spring Break week with my son has sucked so far.
We’ve been fighting every day and it’s been intense. Last night it became so bad that my wife, normally reserved, lost her cool and yelled at the top of her lungs at both me and our son. I became so incensed at a remark my son made that I had to leave the house for a walk to cool off.
There are parents I know who deal with much more intense situations than I do, and with far more grace and patience, which in turn makes me compare myself to them and feel like an inadequate husband and father. After all, when your eleven-year-old cries out “See?! This proves that my dad hates me!” and you drive your non-yelling wife to scream in frustration… yeah, I had to take a walk.
We think it’s stemming from a change in his ADHD medication. He’s always struggled with having overblown reactions to small inconveniences, but this week they’ve gone supernova. Despite strong evidence to these fights being a change in his chemistry, it’s done little to change my reaction to being yelled at by a whining, crying eleven-year-old.
I’ve been on-edge this week, too. I’ve been breaking my back to get my work done so I can take him to parks and museums during his week off from school, and when my only thanks for working myself to exhaustion is getting screamed at, I don’t react with the patience and grace I wish I had. I’ve lost track of the times I’ve flipped him off behind his back since Monday.
So yeah. I’m having a real shit week. I’m exhausted, my patience is paper thin, my son is struggling with his brain chemistry and lashing out at the slightest provocation, and he’s convinced that I hate him.
This is for any fellow parent out there who’s gone through similarly bad stretches and thinks you’re all alone. You’re not. Now you know at least one other dad who feels like he’s dropping the ball, and at the end of his rope.