This 26-year-old woman and her husband, who is 34, have two kids together – a 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. When it comes to her parenting style, she has always emphasized education and learning, as she knows they are both of utmost importance.
“My kids knew how to read well before kindergarten and have always reached benchmarks perfectly on time or early,” she said.
“I know my children are smart, capable, well-behaved children. My husband is very proud of this as well.”
Yet, out of the blue, her son has recently begun having some trouble in school. It all started earlier in the academic year when she found out he had issues with paying attention and speaking out of turn from his teacher.
She knew that her son was a big talker, but she always wrote off his behavior as simply being a “talkative kid.” In hindsight, though, she realizes that her daughter has always been really quiet, which is perhaps why she never noticed her son’s heightened tendency.
In addition to these problems, she learned that her son had been turning in either incomplete or inaccurate schoolwork quite often. Apparently, he kept writing down the wrong assignments.
“I always check his homework, so he does do that well, but when he isn’t closely monitored, he isn’t doing great,” she detailed.
So, her son’s teacher wound up kindly explaining how he was not falling behind or a bad kid. Instead, his teacher stated that he was simply showing signs of ADHD.
This led her to broach the conversation with her husband, and to her surprise, he didn’t want to hear anything about it. He’s supposedly extremely “old school” and does not “believe in things like that.”
JenkoAtaman – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
That’s why, when she wanted to get their son tested for ADHD, her husband actually claimed that she wasn’t allowed. At first, she listened to him, and she sent her son back to school as usual. However, the problem kept persisting as her son’s teacher continued sending home notes.
“He can’t sit without talking out of turn, he doesn’t complete his assignments, he can’t do group work, he is really falling behind. His teacher kept urging me to do something,” she recalled.
She eventually wound up taking her son to get tested behind her husband’s back, too, which made her a bit guilty. Still, she felt like he left her no choice.
Following the test, her son was diagnosed with a form of ADHD, and she told her son not to tell his dad about the diagnosis – which made her feel like a horrible mother.
“I felt like an even worse mom considering putting him on medications that we couldn’t tell his dad about,” she admitted.
Despite trying to keep it all a secret, her husband found out the truth anyway, and he was livid. In fact, he berated her in front of their daughter, started slamming stuff in their home, and said he would fix their son “his way.”
“My daughter was sitting on my lap, and he pushed her off of me just to yank me up and take me to another room to yell at me even worse. It’s the worst he’s made me feel in years,” she revealed.
She clarified that she wasn’t set on medicating their son to begin with. She only wanted to get a diagnosis and thought perhaps ADHD therapy alone could help. She also felt like she was fulfilling her duty of caring for her son as his parent. Nonetheless, her husband doesn’t understand where she’s coming from.
Now, she’s been left wondering if secretly getting her son tested was understandable or if she could’ve handled this situation in a better way.
Do you agree that she did what she was supposed to do as a parent? Or should she have pushed harder until her husband was on board with the test?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
