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?
Apart from the ADHD, it sounds like it’s time for T to get a lawyer who specializes in child custody issues, and preferably a lawyer who is not afraid to go to court. My wife’s first lawyer presented himself as someone who wanted to work hard to avoid court and resolve things through negotiations that reached a mutually acceptable solution. That’s all well and good if everyone’s trying to work towards a good solution, but her ex-husband was ready to burn it all down because she dared to leave him and that first lawyer was almost a liability in the courtroom even with things that should’ve clearly gone her way. Her new lawyer is a fighter and is able to shut down any crap the ex-husband tries to pull now, and he hasn’t tried anything in a couple years.
Unfortunately, a lawyer like that doesn’t come cheap. You can help lower costs some by trying to do as much as you can gathering and organizing evidence so when you meet with the attorney they don’t have to spend as much time doing that. Most of the evidence gathering falls on the client anyway. The attorney should be able to give guidance on what that evidence should be and how to organize it. You’ll probably want at least 3 copies of everything and have it in binders when going to court or some other meeting that needs evidence. And evidence is key with all of this; he can’t just say the kids were with their mom when they missed school, he’ll need to have papers showing the custody schedule and papers showing their attendance.
All of this sounds like it will be a challenge for T, both financially and organizationally. He will have to find a way for the sake of his girls, and will probably need as much help as you and your family can give him. If the ex-wife is trying to prevent the girls from getting treated for their ADHD that could have bad effects for the girls both short- and long-term. Courts and social services generally take a negative view on obstructing treatment, but T will have to prove that’s happening. And it sounds like the mom has tried to weaponize social services against him. He can succeed in fighting against it but will need to do a lot of work.
This might become the most important fight of his life.
Just a note, I wouldn’t immediately assume that it’s been the mother of the girls who has been stoking the fire, at least neither T nor his partner have told me anything of the sort. It wouldn’t be impossible for a worker of the school to contact social services upon noticing that the girls were routinely having issues, and someone from there deciding he was the easiest target to take the fall.