One of my son's latest (apparently limitless) talents appears to be acting. Just imagine the scene if you will: mother tearing around the house getting ready for work on Monday morning, child wakes up with stomach-ache and looking rather pale. (Note child was not woken up with stomach-ache, it miraculously appears with the alarm clock). Appendicitis? Acute Gastritis? Constipation? All ran through my ex-nurses mind. Then 'Mother' mode took over: having neglected to make time allowances for sympathetic attitude to said stomach-ache, and possessing a suspicious mind and previous experience of said "stomach-aches", Mother checks the homework schedule. All done.............hmmmmm, this is strange, time is ticking away and said child continues to roll around dramatically on bedroom floor clutching stomach and moaning "owwww, owwww, owwww" (whilst occasionally glancing up to assess my response) most convincingly. "Noah's not well is he Mum?" chips in Alice (who I should mention has a degree in stating the blooming obvious!)

"No darling he's not, now eat your honey-nut loops."
"Can I stay off school too Mum?"
"No darling, eat up please."
"But Noah said he was going to stay off school, so I want to."
"Noah said WHAT...............!!"
"Last night he said......"
"Never mind Alice, eat up."

Not being the most even-tempered of people first thing, and noticing my tight schedule remorselessly ticking away, I quickly reverted to Plan B.

I lost it.

Yes, even ADHD Coaches lose it sometimes you know, when we lose it boy do we do it in style!

I bounded up the stairs on a high of adrenaline and was on the verge of bursting into Noah's room when I was just able to stop myself from teetering over the threshold. The moaning had stopped and had been replaced by a high-pitched beep, beeping - the sound of 'snake' being played on his mobile!

Thinking rapidly of how to handle this rapidly deteriorating situation, I decided to play along with him for now - bundling Alice into the car and phoning work to say I would be late, I shouted a quick "goodbye - see you later" up the stairs to Noah and left. When I got to the schoolbus stop there was a pathetic ring on my mobile.

"Mu-um, where are you?"
"I'll be back in a few minutes darling, how are you?"
"Not good - my stomach hurts."

As I turned the key in the door I could have sworn I heard the frantic sound of a child scrambling back into bed. I had time to think carefully about how to approach this - if I got it wrong he could run rings around me more times than I cared to think about - if I got it right it would put a stop to his antics.

We sat on my bed and chatted about stomach aches; after going into some detail about what I knew about stomach aches, having had several myself when I was at school, I gave him two options: either he come clean about what he was up to (or indeed what the problem was) or I would phone the school and spill the beans about his shenanigans*! The thought of school knowing what he was up to appeared to do the trick - "Had you fooled though, didn't I Mum," he smirked in a way only the un-knowing can smirk...........

"No darling not for a minute. Oh, and by the way, it's bed at 8:30 plus loss of pocket money for a week - I charge for time spent sorting out shenanigans, and for shenanigans of this magnitude you will pay dearly."

Until next time,

Jan

*You may not find "Shenanigans" in the dictionary - my great grandmother used it to describe 'goings-on of a subversive nature' on a regular basis..... she was Irish!

Jan Assheton RGN RSCN is an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Coach and Learning Mentor and the mother of a child with ADHD. She will be sharing the benefits of her personal and professional experience every two weeks.