Jane McFadden

how I survive the three to 6 00 PM shit show when my kids are coming down off meds

Hello and welcome to next week’s mini-reset, and this is how I survived the 3 to 6 p.m. shit show when my kids are coming off meds. If it’s 3 to 6 p.m. in your house, or 3 to 9 p.m. in my house, and it feels like a slow-burning apocalypse, one child’s crying, one’s climbing furniture, you’re standing in the pantry eating chocolate just to cope, and you’re wondering where it all went wrong. Is it just you? What should I be doing differently? No, a lot of us experience this, and this is the ADHD medication rebound window, and it’s neurochemical whiplash, and it’s brutal for everybody.

Now, if you have children who take stimulant medication, you will understand this. If you have children who are internalizers, for example, or externalizers, or really any child, after they get home from school, it can be a car crash without stimulant medication involved for everybody around you. They can have absolutely no yeses left.

You ask them, put your lunchbox on the bench, and they pick it up and throw it at the wall. If you’ve experienced that, lots of crying, lots of fighting, lots of screaming, nobody will do anything that you’ve asked, this is the 3 to 9 p.m. in my house shit show. It can be the moment the meds wear off.

It can be everything they’ve suppressed all day, sensory needs, emotional buildup, hunger, movement, rage, and you, you may have had a really busy day at work. You may be feeling awful. You may have PMS.

You may be fighting with your partner. You may be single, doing it all yourself alone. You could have family drama, a sick parent.

Who knows what’s going on? But you know who doesn’t care what’s going on for you? Your children, because they’re kicking off regardless. Maybe you start the day patient, present, organized, but by 3.15 p.m., you’re Googling boarding schools, you’re hiding in the laundry, and you’re wondering, why did I have these children and who are they? Maybe you work till 5.30, you pick them up, and they’ve just been at afterschool care, and they’re kicking off. Maybe you’ve got teenagers, and they’re basically refusing to speak to you and hating you, and you have no idea what’s going on in their brains, and you are desperate to make sure they are okay.

Whatever is going on for you, it happens in the afternoon. So let’s talk about medication first, and the rebound effect. Now, a lot of parents will ask, I don’t think the stimulant medication is working because, or what can my child take at three o’clock because this is what happens.

Now, psychiatrist Dr. Anne Childs and ADHD researcher Dr. Russell Barkley really talk about the rebound effect and the abrupt return, and often intensifying ADHD symptoms that happen when the meds wear off. Now, I experienced this because when I walk around my house, I can’t remember where I am, what I’m doing, and I have a complete inability to unpack lunch boxes, do anything simple, because my ADHD medication is wearing off, and I’m like super inattentive, and really hyperactive, and so confused. At this same point, I have my children, and they are having the same experience.

Now, a lot of people talk about this, particularly if they’re neurotypical, or maybe if their ADHD is, and they’ve self-diagnosed, they haven’t taken medication themselves, and it can be difficult to understand and empathize with how this feels, and so then it gets labeled bad behavior. My child needs more discipline, this is what they’re doing, and we name the behavior, and talk about how badly behaved they are, and try to punish them to make it better. However, let’s call it for what it is, particularly if you’ve got stimulant medication on board, it is a dopamine dysregulation completely.

As the meds drop out of your child’s system, dopamine plummets, and this can lead to emotional dysregulation, very low frustration tolerance, sensory seeking, shutdown, rage. Your child isn’t necessarily being dramatic, but they may be experiencing withdrawal, and it can be happening every day, and they can be completely unreasonable, that’s how it looks. Now, if your child’s neurodivergent, regardless if they’ve on meds or not, they’re probably dysregulated before you even pick them up.

School is overwhelming, masking is exhausting, and once they’re safe with you, they’re in the car, you’ve picked them up, even at half past three, at three o’clock, at six o’clock after school care, the guard can drop, the body can shift, and suddenly their body says, I’ve made it through today, and now I’m gonna fall apart. So I used to have my children at a school that was a seven minute drive away. Now, when I used to pick them up, I don’t know why, but every afternoon I was hopeful, like, oh, it’ll be nice to see them, and I’d be keen to finish work.

However, sometimes they wouldn’t even be fully in the car when they would physically start screaming and fighting each other, like they couldn’t even get the seatbelt on without it being a complete shitstorm. This is a physical fight across the backseat within a minute of getting in the car. Like I would be trying to go around a specific roundabout right near the school, and they would be across the backseat, tearing hair out, physically from each other’s head.

I would actually threaten and say, I’m gonna jump out of the car if you continue. Like, I would just couldn’t stand it. Then when I’d get home, I would turn the car off and then just have to walk away and leave them.

And that was like a seven minute drive. I couldn’t cope with it. And then I would get anxious about the pickup because I know how horrible it would be.

And then I’d get all this guilt because I felt like I didn’t love them because I didn’t wanna be near them between three and 9 p.m., which is actually six hours, half the day. And it’d be the only time I’d see them. I couldn’t cope with them.

And so I get how this feels. I’m gonna do some reset strategies that may help you. It’s gonna be different for every child.

It’s gonna be different for every family. Everyone’s got a different setup. You can pick them up late.

You can pick them up early. Everyone has different situations. Meds, not meds, it can still be tough.

This is what I’ve learned. Number one, stop talking. I had an idea in my head that when I got in the car or when my kids got in the car, I would say, how was your day? And they would tell me how their day was.

That doesn’t happen in my car. Either they all start talking at once and then they all start screaming at each other and it doesn’t work at all. There has never been one time that I’ve said, how was your day? And everyone’s answered it calmly.

I don’t even ask that anymore. But for some reason, I thought that’s what you should ask. Don’t ask that in my car, it doesn’t work.

My husband has made the mistake of before of saying to him in the car, why are you so grumpy? That’s a quick way to kick someone off. Also, can you calm down? Also not good. What I do find that works is a predictable playlist and it’s not everybody picking.

I say, I’m the driver, I’m not the DJ. I have Spotify and there is a DJ on there. And I often just say, it’s DJ, I don’t know.

I can’t choose, DJ’s in charge. Or if I’m game and I’m usually not, they can pick one song each, but that’s still a whole recipe for disaster. So I usually just have DJ or have a school run playlist that you’ve already got set up that they know what it is.

There’s no negotiation. Take a snack. Now this can be easier said than done.

After work, there’s no way that I have the organisation to take a snack, but I have car snacks. So I have like a protein bar, like a chocolate bar, whatever it is that you think would work.

Obviously best case scenario would be like boiled eggs and like healthy fats and proteins. That’s not gonna work in my life. I just take in like packets of chips or like protein bars, whatever it is. And I have them in the car in packets.

I don’t pack them every day. There’s no way I’d be able to. I give them food straight up.

So I have food, I have music playing and I don’t ask any questions. Done. That has been a massive game changer, those two things.

If there’s two things to do and you only do that, music and food. I thought it’s only a seven minute drive or a five, whatever it is. You know what? I’m actually completely drained in that five minute drive.

And then I can’t be around them all afternoon because I’m so overwhelmed. So that five minute drive has to go well. Otherwise I just wanna run.

So some things that other mums have talked to me about that work for snacks, popcorn and cheese sticks, peanut butter toast and chicken nuggets. Well, I actually have a friend who takes cold chicken nuggets in her car. However, I’m somebody who can’t take it from the fridge to the car.

I don’t have the executive function. So I would just go potato chips and protein bars at that point. Number three, a lot of people don’t realise that for some reason, to be fair, there is a confusing part with school because they’re so exhausted, but they also wanna move.

So they talk about how tired they are, but yet they need to move because a lot of the tiredness is mental tiredness, but they haven’t necessarily moved enough. So sometimes a 10 minute reset on the trampoline is good. I pump music.

I don’t know what it is. There’s a sensory component to music where my kids calm down with his music. I don’t know what it is.

It’s less fighting every time I have music. We play handball with music. You may walk the dog.

You may play handball, if it’s not too triggering to have everybody do that. Try to find something that involves music that’s also calming. So for example, it might be playing music and having a dance party, or it might be doing separate things.

You do something with one child to stop the fighting. Another mistake I’ve made in the past, which I no longer do, is expect that it’s gonna be crap. I used to just have this hopeful view into the afternoon, and I don’t ever know why.

My hubby, I’ve had to really talk to him about this because I’ve said, if you come home, you’ve gotta be home. Don’t come home and then have important phone calls to make and have to work and expect not to be interrupted. Don’t expect to have an important phone call and everyone be quiet at that time.

Don’t expect to have downtime. Expect to have the homework battle if you choose to be a homework family. Expect it to be tough, and I can’t expect my kids to unpack their lunchbox, put it in the bin and wash it out.

But they are nine, seven, and six. Yes, I thought they’d be doing that. However, I haven’t managed to get them to do that unless it’s like full, I stand over them, it’s a battle.

I know ADHD moms that put a podcast in or music in one ear. Manage your own emotions as best you can, and don’t do what I do, which is just go in there to the five-minute car drive and then completely annihilate all of your energy then. Number two, lower demands.

So for example, putting the lunchbox on the bench, emptying it out, washing it, whatever it is, that sounds like so good to me. My kids can’t do that. Low demand parenting saves me at this point.

It’s not because I’m lazy and I let them do whatever they want and I don’t have standards, but I know that expecting a kid that’s held it together all day, especially if their medication is coming down at the same time and the nervous system crashes, and then expecting them to do jobs and chores does not work for my house. It doesn’t build connection and it’s a recipe for everybody screaming at each other and me just like losing my mind. I’ve reduced the number of things that I expect to go right.

And if I’m gonna do hardcore parenting and getting them to do jobs and stuff, I don’t do it at that time. You may have kids that can watch TV for 30 minutes, an hour, relax for a period of time, and then they can get up and do their lunchbox. Or you may have kids that they can do that for the first half an hour and then they need to rest.

However it is that looks for you, if you do extracurriculars as well, and they go from school to afterschool care or extracurriculars and then you pick them up late, that’s gonna be pretty tough ask to then get them to do jobs and set tables. All of those things at that point, depending on the kids that you’ve got, depending on your standards as a family and your family beliefs, but I’m just saying if you have it in your head that it has to go in this way, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t. These are your rules for your family that you come up with.

If you’re having a battle every single day and it’s so difficult and you have rules in your mind around how you were parented, what you did as a child, and you’re trying to get your kids to comply, and it’s a losing battle, you may need to rethink your rules. So homework may not happen. In my family, it doesn’t always happen.

Dinner may not be what I’ve cooked, or I may not cook. It’s not the time to lecture, teach lessons, it’s time to survive, basically. Low demand doesn’t mean no boundaries, but it does mean realistic, flexible expectations that are really on your kids’ regulation and it may change from day to day.

You may ask yourself, what can my child cope with today? And it may be nothing. Or maybe it is that they can do their lunchbox that day. Maybe it is more one day and less the next.

Meet your child where they’re at individually rather than having preset rules. Now, if you are so busy, just really getting intense about all of the rules that they have to do in a rigid way with no flexibility. If you have chores they must do all day, every afternoon, no matter what, you may find that if you are so set on the rules you miss something that really is important.

For example, if your child is getting bullied, something massive has happened at school and you can’t get them to do what you’re wanting them to do, ask why. Did you have a hard day? What happened, mate? How are you feeling? You look tired. What happened today? They may say to you, we had a relief teacher.

They were horrible. I hated it. My friend did this to me.

Sit down and connect with them. But if your connection is this is next, this is next, this is next, you may struggle to get that connection. And it’s different for every family.

There are families that only have 15 minutes. They may pick their child up at 5.30 and they may have to cook dinner, do all of the jobs and get their kids in bed by 7, 7.30. This is gonna look different for everybody. And of course we can all do this if we had enough time, isn’t it? But we often don’t have enough time.

But if three to 6 p.m. or three to 9 p.m. makes you question everything, your parenting, your mental health, your marriage, I want you to know, your parenting, your mental health, you may feel completely insane. Just know if your kids are on medication, the window is chemically stacked against you. If they aren’t on medication, they are still possibly masking, holding it in all day, and then they’re letting it out when they get home.

However, you’re still there feeding them, holding the line, showing up, taking care of them. And that is a massive job in itself. And we’ve got to remember that we are in a system that doesn’t necessarily cater for your child.

And you’ve kind of got to cushion them on the fall every afternoon from school, if that’s your reality. And that is a big job, so well done. But look, this is your quick reset for the week.

You’ve already started just by listening. You don’t have to push harder, but you need to feel safer and take the pressure off. I’ll be right here next time when you need a quick reset.

Until next week, please follow the podcast, jump into the Facebook community, leave a review, or share this episode with a friend. Thank you so much for listening.