I can't make basic parenting decisions anymore

What to do right now

Dinner, consequences, bedtime order, which child gets attention first, whether to enforce the rule or let it go. Each micro-decision costs executive function. By evening, the decision-making system is empty. Use defaults. Default dinner on Mondays. Default consequence for screens. Default bedtime order. Pre-decide the recurring choices so your depleted brain does not have to decide them fresh every night.

What your brain just did

Your body

The decision-making system is empty. Every choice feels equally weighted. Dinner feels as consequential as a boundary. The paralysis is depletion, not indecision.

Your brain

Decision fatigue is a documented cognitive phenomenon that is amplified by ADHD. Each decision uses prefrontal cortex resources. By evening, after hundreds of parenting micro-decisions, the system has nothing left to evaluate options.

What this did

Pre-decide the recurring choices. Monday is pasta. The screen consequence is always the same. Bedtime order does not change. Each default removes one decision from the depleted system. Defaults are not rigidity. They are infrastructure.