We're taking the home course right now on week 4. Haven't done all the homework and reading but just listening to the audio and talking is already helping a ton. My DH is the one with ADHD. We have 2 kids. I want to ask all the ADHDers out there, does the positive praise and encouragement actually help you all to do better? Sometimes it's hard for me to see changes in DH when I've noticed a good change or something we've been working on and he follows through. Just like remembering to give positive praise and reinforcement for children, sometimes it's hard not to focus on the negative and focus more on the good things. I just want to know that my encouragement and praise are actually helpful and will pay off. My DH wasn't diagnosed until he was 27 so I feel like his childhood was probably focused a lot on the things he wasn't doing right and he's always telling me about how he was threatened with sparkings almost every day. He tells me that he was chased around the house with a wooden spoon for misbehavior. We don't spank in our house and even though he doesn't understand why I'm so against it, he respects it. Sometimes I wonder if his reactions to our children are a result if how he was patented and less about the ADHD. He is pretty bad about noticing good behavior and being encouraging to our children. I feel like I'm constantly being a good example so He will notice and follow suit as well. Not only am I constantly being positive and encouraging to our kids, I am doing the same with him so he'll strive to do better too. It just feels like so much responsibility sometimes. I know when he notices things I'm doing well, or respecting him if he notices and thanks me it definitely helps me to do better in the future too. I just want to know that all this encouragement is actually working and will pay off. He's on Adderall and is finally taking it daily, even on the weekends which he used to not do, and is taking Omega Brite omega 3s, and we just started using the Cozi app which I am sort of in charge of keeping appointments organized and setting up calendar alerts to help keep things in the now for him. Overall things are much better than they were a year ago and I am out of my depressed funk, and the kids are more respectful to both of us. So definitely good changes happening, but I feel like the work will never be done!! :) anyone else? Also, we had a particular incident tonight that I want to get an opinion about. My husband and my mom and sister butt heads a lot. They have different political views, different religious views, and all three of them love to debate. He is good at getting a rise out of them. I don't think he really tries, he just has a hard time censoring himself. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with him or my sister and mom but I'm really good at agreeing to disagree and don't like debate, so when we're all together, you can imagine how stressful it is to hear my husband and sister and mom get into it. he usually says something that just goes a little too far, and then my mom and sister gasp in horror and say things like, "omg, if he was my husband we wouldn't be married very long.." Or (fake name=susan, derek's) lucky to have you. You put up with a lot of shit." Things like that. A lot of the things he says that get a rise out of them, I just brush off. I'm pretty easy going and whatever so he's he is lucky to have me, but at the same time, it bothers me that my family gets so irritated with him. My mom is very opinionated, and so is my sister and sometimes even they butt heads with each other. Tonight, DH said to our daughter that she could have dessert after only eating bread for dinner. I was like, no she has to have some more veggies and meat first. He was like, "daddy will give you dessert!" My response was "oh funny ha ha," because I knew he was joking. He knows that ultimately I would make the decision on when they got dessert based on how much dinner they had but just blurted it out to be funny, and I know this so it didn't bother me. My mom and sister gasped in horror and that's when my sister was like, "seriously!? If(her DH) ever said that to our kids, we wouldn't be married long!!" My inner thoughts were, "hmm really? That situation is all it would take for you to want a divorce?" Wow. Anyway, all I said was, "she will eat more food before she gets dessert." I didn't react too much and just moved on. And of course later DH got her to eat more chicken but she never ate her green beans and I told her no dessert. Of course DH did not try and give her dessert, just as I thought because I know he knows I'm right and respects me. They were just so offended by his remark where as I was just able to brush it off. Should I have said something to him or is this not as big of a deal as my mom and sister were making it out to be. I do value their opinions and thoughts but I try not to let their very opinionated selves interfere with my marriage and parent relationship. Thoughts? Their husbands( my dad and BIL) are very much like me, we have a very similar laid back, go with the flow, live and let live personalities. This is why it's so humorous though because I think the reason they all butt heads is because they are a lot alike in that they are all opinionated!! Kinda makes me laugh now. DH has told me before that he doesn't really enjoy spending time with my mom and sister because he feels like he constantly has to censor himself so he doesn't say something stupid and upset me, he knows that it makes me uncomfortable when he gets into it with them , so he'd rather just not be around them. What should I do about that? I don't love being around certain people in his family but I do it because its much easier for me to just live and let live and accept people for who they are, whether we agree on things or not. We basically see each others families for special occasions but I hang out with my family a lot more than that. We spend time with his family for special occasions and that's it too unless I'm getting the kids together with the grandparents. So we both have our issues with each others families and have our own limits and I'm okay with that. I had mentioned the other day about inviting my sister and her husband with us for a wine tasting for my birthday and he told me he would prefer we not go with my sister because they butt heads and he wouldn't be able to relax be sue he would be afraid of saying something stupid the whole time and he wouldn't be able to enjoy himself but he said that if I really want to go with them then that's fine, he just wanted to be honest with me about how he felt about it. Of course I want us both to have fun so I'm thinking about some of our other friends who enjoy wine to come with us now. And I'm okay with that. I know not every spouse would but I am. Thoughts??