If your ADHD child seems perfectly fine during school hours but has a total meltdown the minute they get home, there’s actually a really good reason for this.
Imagine you’ve got a can of Coke. Throughout the day, you shake it constantly. What’s going to happen when you finally open it? Yep, it’s going to explode everywhere.
One of the experts I spoke to for my book, ADHD Mum, ADHD Kid, described children with ADHD as ‘coke can kids’ for this very reason.
Many children with ADHD spend all day at school trying to manage their behaviour, emotions and attention. And when they finally reach the place where they feel comfortable enough to relax, all that pent-up frustration, exhaustion and overwhelm comes exploding out.
It’s sometimes called after-school restraint collapse, and it helps explain why your child can hold it together at school but completely fall apart the moment they’re home with you.
That’s why even the smallest demands can trigger a meltdown
Hometime is a big transition for an ADHD child, and by the time they walk through the front door, their capacity to regulate their emotions may be running very low.
If they’ve spent a whole day masking, following instructions and managing expectations, being asked to hang up their coat, unpack their school bag or start their homework can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Try this instead
It doesn’t mean your ADHD child gets away with doing nothing. It just means waiting until they’ve recovered a little capacity before asking anything more of them.
In our ADHD household, we treat the first part of the afternoon as recovery time.
So yes, the shoes are sometimes left higgledy-piggledy across the hall, the lunchboxes are still in the car and their coats are ‘hanging up’ on the floor.
But rather than immediately nagging everyone to tidy up, I give them a chance to unwind.
I might say, “First, let’s have a snack, and then we can sort out the shoes and coats together.”
Because while it’s annoying when things don’t get done straight away, I’ve learnt that they’re much more likely to get done without a battle once everyone’s had a chance to settle.
If after-school meltdowns are a regular feature in your house, I go into much more detail in ADHD Mum, ADHD Kid about how to handle that tricky transition from school to home, including practical ways to help your child decompress, regulate and recover before the rest of the evening begins.
