Rethinking ADHD

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One of my kids has pretty severe ADHD. When he was younger, it showed up a lot in the form of hyperactivity and impulse control. The challenges have evolved as he’s gotten older. Today, I’m talking about my experience of parenting a kid with ADHD and sharing what I’ve learned along the way, including strategies you can use to help your kid and work with their unique brain.

I’m not an expert on ADHD. I’m a parent who’s been there, and I’ve helped lots of other parents navigate life with a neurodivergent kid, too.

Rethinking ADHD

My goal is to help you understand ADHD more, because the more you understand, the more you can help your child understand. The more you understand what's going on for them, the more compassion you'll have and then the less critical you will be. 

When someone is neurotypical, it simply means that their brain is developing in a typical way, they’re hitting common milestones, etc. With a neurodivergent brain, a child will hit milestones at a different pace, and different challenges will come up. Their development is diverging from the typical path.

It's important that you don't compare your child's development with their peers who are neurotypical. Instead, you want to compare your child's development to themselves - their past self to their present self and their future self. 

The sooner you're able to recognize that they're on their own timetable, the less frustrated you'll be when you see some of the traits and behaviors that come up with ADHD.

The ADHD Experience

The main three features of ADHD are attention deficit, impulse control issues and hyperactivity. 

Imagine being in a really crowded room, and everyone around you is talking all at once. No one's talking to you, but you're hearing everybody talking. Then, somebody suddenly asks you what the person next to you just said. You would have no idea, because you weren't listening to that one person. You were listening to the entire room speak. 

When there’s a lot of stimulation, noise or activity, an ADHD brain can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be paying attention to. This is the “attention deficit” piece. Overstimulation is very overwhelming for someone with ADHD. 

Attention deficit can also look like someone putting their attention on the “wrong” thing. And it’s difficult for an ADHD brain to change direction once it gets going. It’s like a train stuck rolling down a track, but it’s not the track that we want it to be on. We want them to slow down or change direction, but the braking system is very difficult to activate. 

Impulse control is also common with ADHD. These kids might have more trouble with delaying gratification, procrastinating, understanding how time works or creating a plan or sequence of events.

Hyperactivity can also be thought of as hyper-arousal. 

In daily life, you might notice behaviors like:

• Missing details or making careless mistakes
• Not staying on task
• Seeming to not hear when spoken to
• Trouble organizing tasks or creating order
• Losing things easily
• Being easily distracted or forgetful in daily activities
• Restlessness, getting out of their seat, always on the go
• Talking excessively, interrupting or blurting out answers in school
• Trouble waiting to take turns
• Avoiding tasks that take a lot of mental effort

All of these behaviors are common, to some degree, in young kids. When we see traits that are atypical for their age (i.e. most other kids their age have outgrown them), that’s when we think something else might be going on.

Encouraging Positive Self-Concept

A lot of kids who grow up with ADHD end up with a negative self concept. They might be labeled as lazy, stupid, a troublemaker or problem child. They’re told that they aren’t reaching their full potential or that they’re too much. The child then often feels isolated, misunderstood, broken or like they just plain suck. They go into adulthood with a collection of negative thoughts about themselves. 

I don’t want your kid to spend their 20s and 30s healing from that (and I know you don’t either). Instead, we want to give them the awareness, positive mindset, tools and coping skills they need to grow into emotionally healthy adults.

The way Brené Brown explains the difference between shame and guilt is a helpful example here. Guilt is recognizing that you did something wrong. It’s external. Shame is when you internalize that and make it about who you are. It is internal.

It’s the difference between, “I did something wrong,” and “I am wrong.”

The same concept can be applied to the ADHD brain. We want to help our kids understand that their brain is driving their behavior, but ADHD is not who they are. We separate identity from behavior.

In my opinion, ADHD brains are actually pretty cool if we can accept the way they are, the way they think and what they need. Because they aren’t focused on time, they have a lot more spontaneity, creativity and flow available to them. Of course, this freedom can become a challenge in a society that often demands order.

Cultivating Understanding and Compassion

As the mom of a kid with ADHD, your role is to be the warmly supportive adult that your child needs in order to learn how to regulate their emotions, their attention and their energy. Work with the ADHD brain instead of judging, criticizing or fighting against it. 

Sometimes, your kid needs to “borrow” your nervous system in order to calm themselves and your prefrontal cortex to think things through, process their feelings and communicate their thoughts. 

This is true for all kids. But if you’re raising a kid with ADHD, they’re going to need to borrow those skills from you for a longer period of time. You are the one who creates order out of the chaos that they’re experiencing. 

There are a couple of phrases that have been really helpful for me to understand what’s happening with my ADHD kid.

Boredom is kryptonite. Unless there's high interest in the topic or activity, the ADHD brain has a lot of trouble creating motivation to pay attention. When they’re bored, their brain is so hungry for something more exciting to think about that it starts to wander and play on its own. They tune out from whatever you’re saying. It’s not intentional, but you can use this as a signal that they’re restless and bored.

They lack a template for order. Some brains (like mine) are wired for order. Some (like my son’s) are wired for disorder. When you understand that your kid is having trouble creating a sequence of steps or a process, you can come alongside them and help create order from the chaos in their brain. 

ADHD is like having a racecar for a brain with bicycle brakes. Their brain is moving at 200 miles an hour, and the brakes are not very strong. When you're trying to shift them from one activity to another or get their brain to focus on something else, you are probably going to need to work extra hard to really grab their attention. Creating a little game, challenge or short-term distraction can help motivate them.

ADHD brains only experience 2 times - NOW or NOT NOW. This is often called time blindness or time illiteracy. If you tell a kid with ADHD that you’re leaving in 2 minutes, it falls into the category of “not now”. In their mind, they have infinite time. When something is in the “now” category, it becomes urgent for them. They can hyperfocus and get a lot done at one time, as long as there is motivation and/or something that they’re interested in. 

This now/not now way of thinking also means that there’s no future, so it’s really hard for an ADHD brain to plan for the future and stay motivated toward a long-term goal. You can help by breaking down their long term goal into smaller steps and shorter term goals. 

Strategies for Parenting an ADHD Kid

Once you wrap your mind around what’s going on for your child, what do you DO?

Give a small constructive task to help your child shift between hyperfocus, inattention and active attention. This easy dopamine hit from completing a task helps toggle their prefrontal cortex. This might look like saying, “Lincoln, you can get in the car once you have your shoes on, and it’s time to put your shoes on now.” 

Work at creating sequences, routines, habits and patterns. Split the process into smaller steps, create urgency (put the task in the “now” category) and support them with the sequencing of events. You won’t have to walk them through these routines forever, but it will take some time for their brain to create that pathway.

Find a support system. If you're raising a kid with neurodivergence, you might be talking to another mom about your kid and realize that your experience is vastly different. What you're dealing with is very different from what they're dealing with because your child is delayed. 

The Calm Mama Club has plenty of moms who are raising kids with ADHD or other neurodivergences and can relate to what you’re going through. And as your coach, I’ve been through it myself. I've raised a kid with ADHD, and I'm happy to share my experience with you.

When you think about your ADHD kid, I want you to remember that their brain just works differently. They need your support, and they're going to need it longer than you think is necessary or typical. If you make that shift and rethink ADHD in that way, I promise you'll have an easier time in your relationship with your kid. 

They will feel closer to you, you will get more compliance and they will feel better about themselves long term.

You’ll Learn:

• Why ADHD is about way more than behaviors
• What it’s like to experience our modern world with an ADHD brain
• How societal expectations for order can clash with the spontaneous and creative nature of those with ADHD.
• What ADHD brains need and how to give it to your kid
• 4 phrases that have helped me understand what’s happening with my ADHD kid

Resources:

• ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction - from Childhood Through Adulthood by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey
• Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder by Gabor Maté
• ADHD Is Awesome: A Guide to (Mostly) Thriving with ADHD by Penn and Kim Holderness
• Episode 90: Understanding ADHD with Lainie Donnell