Today we have what we call a mailbag episode where we are answering listener questions. Welcome to the ADHD Parenting Podcast with Mike McLeod of Grow Now ADHD and Ryan Wexelblatt of ADHD Dude. Learn about parenting kids with ADHD from a licensed clinical social worker and speech language pathologist who specializes in ADHD. No fluffy parenting advice, only practical information that will equip you to help your child with ADHD effectively. If you have a question you would like us to answer in a future episode, what you can do is submit a question to us, including your child's age and medication regimen or if they're not medicated, you can email it to the ADHDparentingpodcast at gmail.com. What we ask in exchange for you know, answering your question is if you please leave us a positive review on either Spotify or Apple podcast and send us a screenshot of it so we can see it along with your question. Okay. All right. So that being said, we're going to get started. Mike, do you want to read number one? My six-year-old daughter who is unmedicated is very prompt dependent on everyday tasks. For example, she will turn the water on to brush her teeth and then walk away without turning it off. She goes through our baby gate, then does not close it behind her. She goes to the bathroom, but then never flushes. She opens the fridge looking for food, then doesn't close it. It's like she cannot follow through on any two or more step tasks and I want her to become more independent with them, especially as I've noticed my three and a half year old being able to do these things no problem. Right now, what I'm doing is just keep reminding her, prompting her to go back and complete the task. All right. You want to start with this one? Yeah. So all of this is incredibly common. You're describing a prompt dependent child here, but really what this is is the time blindness of ADHD and really the foundation here of that working memory problem. So what you're describing here is it's really beyond prompt dependence. It's a lack of cause and effect thinking. So they're basically going up to something, interacting with it, and then not realizing that there's something else they have to do afterwards because it's going to affect them later. So if they leave the water running, there's a cause and effect negative impact. If they move the baby gate, there's a negative impact. If they leave the fridge open, there's a negative impact. So you're missing that if I do this, then this happens if then cause and effect thinking. And what you're doing is basically just talking, feeding more language, which is not helping, and then having them go back and complete the task. What you're going to want to do is to create some visuals. You might want to get a picture of her closing the refrigerator and put it on the refrigerator door. So she sees a picture of what she's supposed to look like and help her to understand instead of just telling her what to do, use if then cause and effect thinking to her. Model it to her. Say to her when she's around, if I do this, then this happens. So model how your brain works using if then cause and effect thinking, and then get her, explain to her what if then means, where if she doesn't do something, then this happens instead of your basic verbal prompting. So one of the things I want to mention is in regards to this question, some of the strategies Mike is talking about, like having visual images of what the end result should look like. Those are strategies I teach in my executive function crash course. And I don't know if this parent is a member of my membership site. If she is, what I would tell her is go there and you can see some examples of what this looks like in action. Mike, the other thing I want to say here about this is, because this parent actually submitted a few different questions. I just want to go over real quick so everybody knows what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended treatment for children who are six are for children with ADHD who are six. So the AP recommendation is parent training first, followed by the use of methylphenidate if necessary. So parent training can look like, you know, working with somebody from grown out, who can help you with these things like Mike is talking about parent training can look like doing one of my courses. Parent training can look like, you know, reading a book. But what I really want this to hear, I want this parent to understand is that based on this question and some of your other questions, which we're not going to read here today, is you might only see minimal improvement if your daughter has what we would call a more moderate to severe, you know, ADHD profile. And one of the things Mike, I often find in my membership site when I do office hours is parents of younger children are understandably very hesitant to start on medication, yet often the things that they're dealing with are things where medication would help a great deal. So what I just want to mention to this parent is, you know, please seek out factual information about ADHD medication and make a medication decision based on data and facts, not fears or opinions. I just released a new video on my YouTube channel about two or three weeks ago, where I cover the evidence about medication and give citations for evidence as well. So just, you know, I want to be realistic that, you know, these things can definitely improve with the strategies Mike mentioned, you know, and at some point medication might need to be really considered here because you might not see much improvement without it. Exactly. I totally agree. One of the last places you want to get information about medication is from Facebook parent groups. Yes. You need to speak to licensed professionals with actual credentials. So Ryan has great information about medication. Dr. Russell Barkley is very pro medication because he, no one has seen more research than he has. No one has been a part of more clinical trials than he has. So definitely look at the real factual data regarding medication. And Mike, just to your point, I do want to mention real quick, you know, not every pediatrician is has training in ADHD medication. So one of the things Mike and I, you know, here regularly is pediatricians say things to parents like, well, they're doing fine in school, so they don't need medication. And I always say ADHD medications were not designed to be academic performance enhancing drugs, they're to help make every facet of life more manageable for the individual. So just keep that in mind. Yeah, yeah, I would just add that's a great point. I think over the past couple of weeks and months, Ryan and I have heard some pretty strange stories of things that pediatricians have told parents. So you really want to find the right people, because at the end of the day, ADHD is so widely misunderstood. And executive functioning is so widely misunderstood. You got to find the people that follow the research, follow the data, because it's kind of scary to see how many pediatricians doctors out there are starting to focus more on social media trends than real research. Okay, question number two, I have recently started listening to your podcast and really enjoy it. My husband has ADHD. And I feel like it really helps me understand some things he has explained to me about his diagnosis and how it affected him as a child. And now we feel certain our seven year old daughter also has ADHD. We have talked to our pediatrician who agrees we are likely correct, but we haven't gone down the path of getting a true diagnosis yet as we think we are managing pretty well so far. It sounds from you guys that step one is parent training anyways, and we are both constantly working on bettering ourselves for our kids, hence listening to your podcast, amongst other things. I enjoy the episode about the dos and don'ts of school. My question is, what do you think or what do you know from research regarding homeschooling a child with ADHD? My daughter is not having any problems in school and is doing well overall, but I have some of my own concerns and have always had homeschooling in the back of my mind. You want to start with this? Yeah, so, you know, first of all, one of the things that you say here is that my child is not having any problems in school and is doing well overall. So, you know, back to the old saying of if it isn't broken, don't fix it kind of thing. You know, she's doing well at school. There's no concerns there. Don't create a problem. Don't go in there and completely change. You know, it's a total 180 from what she's doing now to what homeschooling will look like. And what people have to realize is homeschooling is such a vague term. There's, you know, there's no two homeschools that are the same. You know, does that mean you're the parent? Does that mean it's a that you're doing everything yourself that it's happening in your home? Or is it a pod with a teacher with other kids? You know, there's so many different ways to do it. You know, homeschooling in so many ways has gotten aligned with so many different other aspects of life and culture. If things are going well in school, I would say keep her in school. Now, the strongest argument that I see for people pulling themselves, pulling their kids out of school is all of the massive amounts of ed tech and laptops and technology that's in public schools. You don't want your taxpayer dollars to your kid playing Minecraft and Roblox while they're at school. And I totally get that because you have more control over technology when it's homeschooling, even though you can opt out of ed tech and different things like that. But overall, what you're saying here is that your daughter's doing well. If it isn't broken and don't fix it, you know, you can keep on top of things if you need to eventually get an IEP or a 504, you can look into those things. But overall, if she's doing well, keep her in school. And I agree with Mike. And I also want to be really transparent here. And I'm going to be honest, you know, about something with this is I genuinely have no problem with homeschooling if that's what works best for a family. And I want to say my issues with the I'll call it more the homeschooling community. One one of the things is and this is not talked about much, which is why I want to be really honest and bring this up is I have found and not obviously not everybody. Okay. But I have found in the homeschooling community, there is a little bit of a mentality of we can do anything, you know, that a teacher can do. And you know, like, I'll give an example. I had a parent, you know, reach out one time and say, well, you know, my son has dyslexia, and he's really struggling, you know, with with whatever, you know, what can I do about that? And, you know, and I wanted to say to this parent, this is why people go to graduate school to become reading specialists, right? Because dyslexia is a highly specialized field that people go into. And sometimes I feel that the homeschooling community tends to minimize the expertise of education professionals and has this attitude of we can do anything a teacher can do. And I would say you can do many things a teacher can do. But you can't do everything a teacher can do because again, this is why people go for specialized training and things. So that is my one issue with the homeschooling community. My other issue, I'll be honest, is that sometimes I see parents make decisions about homeschool based on their own emotional reactivity, not because it would serve the educational best interests of the child. You know, so so maybe, you know, they don't have the best teacher that year, or, you know, maybe they've been having some peer conflicts. Well, if your child is struggling with peer relationships personally, like I think one of the worst things you can do is pull them out of school. Okay. The other thing I want to mention is kind of what I've seen, I'll call it for lack of a better term, the dark side of homeschooling. So I have seen families of kids with ADHD polled or kids out of school, and the kid is completely unwilling to do learning with the parent. And what happens is the parent child relationship becomes toxified around schoolwork. So whereas the child was rather compliant in school and doing what they needed to do, suddenly they're home with the parent all day, and the parent has tremendous difficulty getting them to do anything. The worst cases I've seen are where the child who does not have a history of being physically aggressive starts getting physically aggressive with a parent. And I will tell you, in two different times, I have said to a parent who had a son who was physically aggressive towards them who was homeschooling, I said, I believe that you should get your child back into school and this physical aggression will stop. And I have to say, I was right both times. They put the child back into school, the physical aggression towards the mother stopped. So again, I just want to give here a perspective that you're not going to hear from other places. And to Mike's point, if it's not broken, I would say don't try to fix anything. Okay. So for mailbag question number three, my five-year-old daughter has had a very hard time falling asleep at night. She frequently complains of tummy aches and bad dreams, even if she hasn't fallen asleep yet. What can I do to help her calm her mind and fall asleep independently? We have a consistent bedtime routine, and we spend the last 30 or so minutes reading and doing quiet, calming activities in her room. I'm thinking of trying a Tony box to keep her occupied until she falls asleep. Do you recommend these or any other sleep aids non-medical? So this one I really sympathize with having a four-year-old myself, and I know nighttime routine can be crazy. First of all, she's five years old. Give yourself some grace and understand that this is in many ways age-appropriate for younger kids to have some problems. But the complaining of the tummy aches and bad dreams, even if she hasn't fallen asleep yet, is proof that she's just looking for some type of attention. She's looking for attention. She's looking for you to focus on her, and she's having trouble calming her mind and not having that drug or that dopamine rush of having your parents' attention that so many kids are so drawn to. So you might want to just take an overall look at, number one, what is the screen time like? For a five-year-old, you want to have minimal to no screen time, because we know that the light from screens and the high stimulation of screens really affects sleep. And you also want to look at overall physical activity. Maybe you might want to add in a 15-20 minute walk after dinner and getting her up and moving and getting outdoors and getting some activity to her body, and that helps with calming. I think the Tony box is great. I've heard great things about Tony boxes. You hear varying reviews about things like melatonin and things like that. Ryan, you can add on to the non-medical sleep aid piece. But I think overall here, I think what's so important for this mom to understand is that a lot of this is pretty age-appropriate. I think most five-year-olds have trouble falling asleep. So give yourself some grace. Yeah. So I was going to just say I actually have a course about this called Better Bedtime Scaffolding, because many children with ADHD do have difficulty falling asleep. This is a very common characteristic of ADHD. So what I teach in my course is to create a gradual transition to bed. I think what this parent is doing is fine. I think the one thing I would say is that if she has trouble falling asleep sometimes, let her look at a book, like a picture book, or let her listen to an audio book at night in her room until she falls asleep. Sometimes I find parents, they want to kind of, they understandably, and I wanted this when my son was younger, they want their kids to go to bed at a very precise time. Their bodies always don't work like that. But when we give them something to occupy their brain, like an audio book, or let them look at a book, then that can help them quiet down. Because one of the things that happens for kids with ADHD is when they're laying in bed, they have all these thoughts running through their head, and it's hard for them to quiet their brain down. When we give them something like I mentioned, that helps focus their attention on something and can help quiet their brain down. So what I would say is don't go out and buy a, necessarily, whatever. Go to your library and see if they have those audio books that's like a little MP3 player that comes with headphones. You can get one of them, or a lot of libraries have digital downloads now. Try that, and also go to the library and just get some picture books letter, or pick out whatever she wants. What we want to do is establish that this is just the bedtime book. So it's not a book I'm going to read to you, it's a book that you're going to look at yourself when it's bedtime. Try both those things and see if they help. Yeah, so absolutely, perfectly said. And it sounds so cliche and such a simplistic response to such a complex question is utilizing that library. That's one thing that I've learned since having a child myself is just how freaking awesome libraries are and how much of an unbelievable resource they are. You can go there, make it part of that routine like I added earlier, going on daily walks after dinner, go on weekly library trips where your daughter picks out one, two, three different books, they return the old ones, pick out three new ones, and that's part of it. But what Ryan said so perfectly there is it's, you know, get out of the mindset of she needs to be in bed, eyes closed, in the dark at 8, 9 p.m. Instead, make it, she needs to be in her room, just staying there, not seeking me out at a certain time. If she's in there coloring, if she's in there looking at books, if she's in there looking through a magazine, that's fine. She's doing what she needs to do to be on her own. She's not attention seeking. She's not showing any sort of separation anxiety. You just want them in their room doing their own thing until she's ready to go to sleep. You know, just like Ryan said, we wish we can, you know, swipe our finger and be able to say, oh, they're asleep at 9 p.m. But hey, they go to bed when they're ready to go to bed. You're doing everything right. You're a concerned mom focused on, you know, you have a great bedtime routine. All you have to do is focus on, is she in her room by herself at a certain time? And Mike, I'm going to disagree with you about one thing. I would say I would not suggest the coloring in the room only for this reason, because a lot of kids with ADHD, they start coloring one sheet and then like, oh, I have to color this one, right? Or like, I don't like the color of the dress here, right? So I have to go back. So I would say, leave the coloring. That's what I talk about, you know, like pre-bed activities. That's something that could be done, you know, downstairs or wherever. But leave the bedtime, you know, activities to something more passive, like listening to something or looking at a book, I would say. So that's the one thing where we disagree about that. Sure. And because we disagree with that, I'm going to have my daughter, male Ryan, another one of her colors. Please do. All right. Last question for today. Son 12, he's on concerta, daughter nine, nor typical. Can you guys please clarify what type of screen time should be limited? Example, phone versus computer versus TV. Also, I know certain types of content is better or worse for a child. So can you speak to YouTube videos versus movies and so on. So Mike, I think we'll probably have a little disagreement on this one. So I'm curious where you have to say maybe, maybe, but I want you to go first, because I'm curious to hear where you have to say to this parent. Okay. So here we have a son, ADHD, 12 years old. Can you guys please clarify what screen time should be limited? Phone, computer, TV. So all screens are different. Not all screens are created equal. Your son is 12 years old, too early for a phone period, not worth the fight. You give a 12 year old a phone, it's going to be a complete mess and it's going to take over their lives. Read the anxious generation, follow the safe screen campaign, you're going to have a 12 year old downloading Snapchat in his phone on his room, his entire life is going to revolve around that phone. Phones are way more of an addicting device than you think. So phones are number one, he's too young for a phone. The second you give him a phone, it becomes the center of his life. He's no longer going to want to engage in face-to-face play and engage with you during dinner times and other things. Everything's going to revolve around that phone. The computer is also very, very careful, because once he has a computer, then you're opening the door to Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft, which are three highly addictive games, especially to the ADHD brain. So if you are going to give him a computer, it needs to be a computer that is for the entire family that he has access to that is significantly limited. So he can have a computer for his own research and play purposes, but he can also still not be allowed to have Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft, because that's opening a whole other can of worms. And then TV, TV is the lesser of all evils. We did not have a huge youth mental health crisis when TVs were the only screen in the house. You know, TV you watch, you get bored, you do other things. You can't say the same for the phone and computer online games. So another great thing about TV is it gives parents a much needed break, and it's okay to sit down, lay down and watch some TV. But when it comes with TV, you need to make sure it does not have YouTube on a smart TV, because then they just watch videos of other kids playing video games, which is just as bad as playing a video game themselves. So TV is fine, but just make sure it's limited and make sure they're not accessing YouTube and other apps on a smart TV. You always want them watching cable TV or shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime and things like that. You know, TV is totally fine. It's a nice relaxing, calming thing usually for kids. There are some very high stimulating shows. Some kids can't handle TV, but if your kid can, fine. Just monitor it, those sorts of things. But 12 years old, too young for a phone, and the computer opens up a whole another can of worms. I would do your very best to delay, delay, delay, and just do your best to get your kid involved in other things, sports, clubs, activities, things outside of the home. You have a nine-year-old, neurotypical daughter, a 12-year-old son with ADHD, both very, very young. They both need to be outside playing as much as possible. So we agreed more than I thought we would. You know, Mike, the one thing I'll tell you is, my son's psychiatrist said to me when he was younger, and I think this is a good point. She said, you know, with TV shows, you know, particularly kid shows, there could be some good modeling there, right, of values or, you know, teaching about relationships. She said, you know, in video games, there's no modeling of anything good whatsoever. Correct. And I think that's an important point to your point. I would say, I agree with Mike on everything. The one thing I would say is when it comes to YouTube, you just have to be mindful of what they're watching. So, you know, most, you know, a lot of 12-year-old boys are watching people game. Okay. Well, are they trash talking and cursing at each other and saying, you know, hurtful things to be fun? Probably. Right. Are they watching, you know, Mr. Beast videos, which are to me pretty harmless, or are they watching, you know, other stuff or you have no idea what they're watching? So I would say, you know, to Mike's point again, absolutely no social media. Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation says no social media till 16. I think that's very reasonable. And if they're going to watch YouTube, just be aware of what they're watching. And I think, you know, TV, as long as the stage appropriate is fine. Exactly. And at the end of the day, it's all about varied experiences. The thing with the problem with ADHD is the hyper focus and the screen addiction, where they get so obsessed, they don't want to do anything else unless it's screen based. As if your child is in sports, in clubs, activities, is still out riding bikes, going swimming, playing with friends face to face, going to friends' houses, and, you know, doing well at school, has a busy summer, then you can start to think about introducing some screens. If they're obsessed with screens, and you notice all of a sudden, hey, all he wears are Minecraft shirts. He has a Minecraft backpack. He knows all these memes, all these ridiculous things. Okay, these are starting to take over his brain and take over his life. And his entire identity now revolves around screens and memes. That's a problem. Yeah. And Mike, I think lastly, I want to say about this. Both Mike and I, when we post anything pertaining to this topic about screens, most parents agree. And then we always get some comments from parents who say things like, you know, well, screens is all they have. Or, you know, they can't meet friends in real life. You know, their friends are on Minecraft or their friends are on Roblox. And neither of us accept that as an acceptable answer. The reality is that a lot of parents are scared of their children, and they're scared about putting limits on screens because they're terrified of their child being upset with them or becoming emotionally dysregulated. Or maybe, you know, they've just kind of justified that their child is somehow safe or sitting at home on screens and being out in the real world. And I don't think either of us accept that either. Exactly. I call that waving the white flag to big tech. And these are the parents that deep down know that they're already in a very deep hole. They know their kids are already screen addicted. And they see advice from you and I saying screen addiction is bad. Get your kids off screens, get them in varied experiences. But those parents know to do that, they're going to have to set boundaries, eliminate screens, be the bad guy, and deal with some temporary negative withdrawal behaviors. And instead of being willing to do that, they'd rather send us negative messages about how terrible we are. But, you know, but, you know, all we're doing is sending the truth. Because at this point now, with how terrible this youth mental health crisis has gotten, which is completely correlated with the rise of screens and the development of phones and screens and the decline and extinction of play in so many areas, at this point, there really are no more excuses. And that's why Ryan said we don't accept that to say, oh, it's the future. They need to be on screens. All of this. No. It builds executive functioning. Oh my, yeah. Oh yeah, he's building in Minecraft. It builds executive function or, oh, he's, yeah, or he's playing with his friends and they're talking the whole time. This is how they socialize now. They're playing Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft together. Nonsense. Screens do not make kids more social. They make them less social. So the second, I've never met a kid who got a phone, got Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, and made more friends. If anything, it makes them anti-social. All right. So I think we're going to finish up there. Hope this episode was helpful. If you have a question you would like us to answer in a future episode, just a reminder, you can email us at the ADHD parenting podcast at gmail.com. Send us your question along with your child's age and medication regimen if they're on medication. And what we ask is that you please leave a positive review for us on Apple podcast or Spotify. Just take a screenshot, send it along with your question so we can see you did it. And we'll be happy to answer your question on the upcoming episode. So thank you so much for tuning and you can find me on YouTube, just type in ADHD. And Mike, why don't you let everyone know where they can find you? Sure. So you can find me on Instagram at Grownow ADHD. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much. Take care. Thanks for listening. To learn more about Mike's practice, Grownow ADHD, please visit his website grownowadhd.com. To learn about the services Ryan provides, please visit adhddude.com. You can find Mike on Instagram at Grownow ADHD and Ryan on the ADHD Dude YouTube channel. We'd love to hear your feedback or questions. So feel free to contact us at the ADHD Parenting podcast at gmail.com. The ADHD Parenting podcast and content posted by Grownow ADHD or ADHD Dude are presented solely for general information and educational purposes. Our goal is to provide valuable insights and knowledge, not to replace professional services. Mike and Ryan cannot provide clinical consultation or free advice through social media or other forms of communication. The information on this podcast is not a substitute for professional advice. If you or your child have any medical or mental health concerns, please consult your healthcare professionals. Thank you.
