Why ADHD Kids Hate Feeling Like You're Talking Down To Them
Everyone hates feeling condescended to - but a strong sense of justice and rejection sensitivity can result in big reactions.
“I HATE it when people say things like [overly sweet, baby voice tone] ‘ok friends, we can’t do that, we have to make good choices’,” my daughter told me angrily on the way home from school yesterday. She’s in elementary school and says a lot of teachers and administrators talk to her and other kids this way. “They’re SO MEAN.”
Nobody - especially a little kid yearning to be older and more independent - wants to feel like they’re being treated like a baby. But I think in my daughter’s case there’s a little more to it than casual annoyance. It actually hurts her feelings. And this might sound unrelated, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that she’s not quite on the same wavelength as a lot of kids her age.
Being Out of Sync With Your Age
At 3 or 4, my daughter was going up to 8 or 9 year olds on the playground wanting to play, completely ignoring any other kids her own age and seeming to have no idea or interest in what they were doing. Her best friend to this day is 2 years older than her, and another one of her really good friends is 4 years older than her. But sometimes when surrounded with kids her own age, she seems to play much better with kids much younger than her. When I observe her around kids her own age, they just don’t seem to ‘get’ her and the kinds of things she wants do and talk about.
She is ‘twice exceptional’ and gifted as well as having ADHD.1 She has really high language skills and talks to you like an adult (which a lot of adults find either charming and funny, or just plain strange). While having good language skills is a good thing, being completely out of step with other kids your own age is hard. She struggles to communicate with them and play with kids in ways they understand. She reads books meant for much older kids, and because she understands so much and picks up on so much of the subtexts of those books, starts to identify more with the much older characters in the books she reads.
While she’s intellectually ahead of her peers, she’s emotionally far behind her peers. She feels things very intensely and struggles with self-regulation. She has huge outbursts and bristles at the slightest feeling that others are being rude to her. I also think adults around her tend to put high expectations on her (me included!) because she’s ‘so smart’. But, she’s still a little kid, and when she feels like she’s failing to be ‘good’ her tendency toward RSD really kicks in.
To put it simply: in some ways she’s too old for the kids her age, but in other ways she’s too young. She just doesn’t quite sync up with most people.
I have always felt that way; I still feel that way - and it’s not great!
Being Vague is Not Helpful
I think a lot of adults, with good intentions, try to avoid being direct with kids. Being direct can feel harsh. The well-meaning counselor at my daughter’s school who uses the baby voice and calls everyone “friends” is trying to be gentle. Sometimes her job is dealing with kids who are ‘in trouble’, but she doesn’t want to yell at them or make them shut down. She’s trying to build trust. And I’m sure some kids either don’t mind or even appreciate an extremely gentle style.
However, sometimes the vagueness that comes along with trying to be non-threatening can make it harder for neurodivergent kids to know what they are supposed to do. “Make good choices” is a fairly meaningless phrase. “Don’t climb on top of the lunch table” is direct. Even phrasing like “we don’t climb on top of tables” can be confusing. Maybe you (all?) don’t climb on tables, but I do! or even possibly, “so, because I’ve climbed on the table, I’m no longer accepted here - I’m not part of the ‘we’?”.
It’s long been noted that ADHD kids get told no and are criticized or punished more frequently than non-ADHD kids.2 And not all of that criticism even makes sense to kids - what does it even mean to be told to “pay attention” or “focus” - especially when you were paying attention you just didn’t look like you were? If you mean “look at me when I’m talking” then she wants you to…just say that.
Say what you mean.
My “You’re Being Inauthentic” Alarm is Ringing
I think another reason a condescending tone is so bothersome to my daughter is that she is very good at picking up when people are being disingenuous. Tone of voice is very important to her - if you speak very seriously to her, she will often ask “why are you yelling at me?” even if your voice is quiet. She’s very sensitive to how she’s being talked to much more than what you say (I suspect most kids are like this, not just ADHD-ers).
She plays sports and often goes to sports clinics hosted by high school players. She hates it when she feels like the high school players talk to them like they are much younger kids, but weirdly loves it when the high school players bark orders at them.
To me there’s two issues behind this:
She wants to be respected; and
She can easily tell that that older kids/ adults who use a more baby-ish tone are not being authentic with her
She feels like when the high school players barking orders at them are treating them like peers. They are respecting them as good players, not as little kids who need to be babied. She feels like she’s fitting in as just one of the other players on their team. They’re being real.
Adults who use the “ok friends, let’s make good choices!” language are putting on an act (however well-intentioned that act may be). Kids pick up on this. My daughter definitely has “justice sensitivity”3 that many ADHD folks have as well. While another kid might roll their eyes at baby language, my daughter will get angry or cry (possibly not at that moment, but usually later, at home). In her eyes, this kind of condescending, inauthentic treatment is a form of injustice and rejection. It’s saying “you don’t see me as your peer/equal or that I’m deserving of any respect.”
Being Direct vs. Reprimanding: The Fine Line
The tricky thing here is that reprimanding often meets with oppositional defiance. As many of us know all too well, punishment often backfires spectacularly with ADHD kids. The (often subconscious) reaction to endless punishment is basically “since I’m always in trouble anyway, I might as well do whatever I want.”
But clear rules and expectations, and positive reinforcement of those rules and expectations is essential.
This is obviously a really fine distinction and I definitely don’t always get it right. I recently read a definition of self-regulation that wasn’t necessarily that you are calm, but just that you are in control of your reactions. I’ve tried so hard my whole parenting life to be calm all of the time because I thought that was what it meant to be emotionally regulated, and I was trying to model that. But no. My daughter can tell when I’m barely hanging on by a thread and using my “calm voice” that I’m pretty upset, which ramps up her dysregulation.
The basic tactic I use with her now is some variation of the attitude embodied by the phrase “not cool, bro.” As in, “Don’t talk to me that way, not cool bro” when she’s using her rude/defiant tone. Or just really clearly - and concisely - explaining why something is against the rules.
I have feelings. When you talk to me that way it hurts my feelings. Not cool.
If you don’t clean up your messes, I have to clean up after you. I’m not your servant, and you can obviously see how tired I am and how hard I constantly have to work. Leaving this mess is not cool.
Chill, bro.
There’s obviously lots of other ways to phrase this that might be more regionally appropriate - I’m obviously a stereotype of a certain part of the US that uses these kinds of phrases regularly. But the point is to identify language you would use with a peer or friend your own age who might have done something that bothered you - they are still your friend, you wouldn’t belittle or humiliate them - but you just want to point out that something was… not cool, bro.
Nurturing a positive relationship with your ADHD kid over time so that they trust that you not only love them - you respect them enough to be real with them - is more effective than any form of punishment. It doesn’t happen overnight, but in all the millions of small interactions they have with you throughout their childhood. Hang in there bro!
“Gifted” sometimes sounds like it’s a compliment - or like I’m bragging that I have this really smart kid - when in fact it is also a form of neurodivergence that can make life more difficult. It’s just another way of being out of sync with other people your age. Being gifted is actually not always great!
https://www.additudemag.com/children-with-adhd-avoid-failure-punishment
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1087054712466914