Today we're going to talk about our top six tips for parenting a child with ADHD when you have ADHD yourself. 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. This is the topic that Mike and I get a lot of questions about both on our social media and through email and everything. So we thought it would be easiest to break it down into what we consider to be the most, the six most important tips that maybe you haven't heard before. So we really wanted to make this unique and not just kind of say the things that you've probably heard on a lot of other parenting social media or ADHD parenting social media. So Mike without further ado, why don't you take it away with number one? Sure, absolutely. So the number one tip is to challenge yourself when you have a fixed mindset. So just like Ryan said, this is something we constantly hear about. So Ryan and I always make it our mission to promote really practical advice for families on our social media accounts. It's to always share practical information that parents can listen to and start to use. And something we always see in the comments is, hey, this is great advice, but I have ADHD. So I don't think I can follow this. Do you have any tips for parents with ADHD? And what parents need to understand is that is a fixed mindset. Yes, you are a parent with ADHD. Most kids with ADHD have a parent with ADHD because it is a hereditary disorder. So the vast majority of kids with ADHD have one or two parents with ADHD. And it's the exact same recommendations and strategies that we give our neurotypical parents. Having ADHD yourself, yeah, it's probably going to be a little bit tougher. It's going to take some more time. It's going to take some more practice and self-care. But it's the exact same advice we give to the other parents that is the same for you. And yes, you have ADHD, but you can do it. We have to eliminate that fixed mindset as quickly as possible. So when Mike talks about the fixed mindset, I think some of my comments, I get it a little bit stronger. So I'll get comments sometimes saying things like, I can't do this. I have ADHD. And when somebody says that what I'm hearing basically is that I'm not even going to try to do this, right, because I have ADHD. And when we talk about a fixed mindset, what we're talking about is the idea that something cannot change or you don't have the capacity to change something. And that is never helpful. And it's certainly not helpful to your child. So one of the things I always suggest to people is if you find yourself getting stuck in a fixed mindset a lot, there's things you can do to help yourself. And for many of you, one of the things that might be helpful is actually having therapy for yourself, not for your child, but for you. Because if you tend to get stuck in this fixed mindset or you give up easily, well, therapy can help you reframe your thoughts around that. So what I wanted to mention is the type of therapy that I recommend if you find this is an issue for you. My first recommendation is what's called team CBT. So TEAM-CBT. It's a form of cognitive behavior therapy that I find to be the most practical and the most useful. It's not meant to be long-term therapy, which is part of the reason why I like it. And what I would tell you is go to the TEAM-CBT website, which is what is it, feelinggoodinstitute.com. Unfortunately, there's not a ton of people trained in this. But that is what I would recommend. My second recommendation would be to work with somebody who is trained in cognitive behavior therapy, because CBT is about reframing your thoughts. So when I say work with somebody trained in CBT, I'm not talking about somebody who just lists CBT on their Psychology Today profile. I mean, somebody who has training in it, and this is all they do. Because anybody can list anything on their website or their Psychology Today profile, that's a little different than somebody who does this day in, day out, full time. And again, doesn't need to be a long-term thing. The other thing you can do is get a book yourself. There's some really excellent books on what's it called, on Amazon. About working with a fixed mindset. So just go into a search and see what resonates with you. Some of them will fall under CBT. Some of them might fall under what's called ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. And both could be helpful. So check that out as well, if this is something you feel like you need help with. So to go along with this fixed mindset, one thing I always talk to parents about is, aside from becoming ADHD specialists, Ryan and I are also fathers. So I'm a father to a four-year-old girl. And one thing I like to always remind parents is, hey, if you can get through those first one, two, three, four years of life when they're infants, newborns, never sleeping, changing diapers, constantly supervising them, you can get through those first couple of years of having a newborn and an infant. You can get through anything. So this I can't mindset, this fixed mindset of I have ADHD, I can't do what you're telling me to do. That is step one in ensuring that you can be the best parent you can possibly be for your child. All right, moving on to number two. Number two is be aware of all or nothing thinking and how it doesn't serve your child. So an example of all or nothing thinking, we could really use the last example of saying something like, well, I can't do that. I have ADHD myself. That's a fixed mindset. And it's also an example of all or nothing thinking. Or another example would be, my child screams at me when I tell them to get off video games. So I'm just going to give them kind of unlimited time because it's not worth the fight. That's another example of all or nothing thinking. It's giving in very easily or over accommodating your child, which over accommodating means that you do things to avoid their temporary distress, such as giving them unlimited screen time or do things to avoid tantrums. That's all or nothing thinking. So one of the things is, and I want to be really transparent with everyone here, and some people might have difficulty hearing this, a lot of parenting social media content, what it really serves to do is to sell products through pandering to parents emotions. Okay. And by pandering the parents emotions, what I mean by that is it teaches them to take the path of least resistance. Why? Because the path of least resistance means most peace at home temporarily, right? Not long term. Well, that is a form of all or nothing thinking, right? It's basically saying, don't do anything here. Just love and connect with your child, and everything will magically work out. No, I'm sorry. That just contradicts all the research data. So in order to shift that, you have to think about, what do I want for my child over the long term? What would be best for them? Is it to always accommodate them so they are never upset or never unhappy or they don't get mad at me? Or is the best thing for them to put structure and expectations and boundaries in place? Because that's going to teach them how to navigate through life successfully once they are out of the house. And for some of you, that is a very long time away, but there's no reason why we can't start teaching this now and why we shouldn't start teaching it now. Exactly. And another false mindset that parents are being spoon fed constantly is that every single day, every single interaction with your child is you basically molding them like clay every single time, every morning routine, evening routine, homework, every single interaction is so influenced by you. Your child's personality, their success, their IQ, their skills is all based on your parenting style. There is tons of research that show that the vast majority of what your child gains is from their constant experiences outside of the home away from parents. So parents get stuck in the mindset of, if I don't step in, if I don't do the right thing right now, if I don't make sure he gets to school on time, if I don't help with homework and be his homework secretary every single day, everything's going to fall apart. So parents really seem to connect very deeply with, I'm his executive functioning, I'm his frontal lobe, I'm the executive functioning support for the entire family. A lot of that is based on the mindset of, if I don't step in, everything falls apart. That's all or nothing thinking that leads to prompt dependence, over dependence, and doesn't allow the child to have the experiences needed to develop those skills. That's a great point. Yeah. So I think like that leads to our next one, which is strive to get it right 20% of the time and give yourself some grace when you don't get it right the other 80% of the time. One of the things that many parents with ADHD do themselves is, again, because if they're all or nothing thinking, these all kind of lead into each other's receipt, is they expect to get it right all the time. And when they don't get it right, well, then they just say, well, forget it, I can't do this. So what we're saying is that have realistic expectations of yourself and strive to get it right only 20% of the time. So whether that's how you deal with behavior, whether that's with morning routines, whether that's how you regulate your own emotions, if you can get it right 20% of the time, you're doing great. Because none of us are ever going to get it right at 100% of the time. We're all human. Okay. And that other 80% of the time, rather than beating yourself up, you know, or saying, you know, forget it, I just can't do this. Say, you know what, I messed up, but I'm just going to keep at this. Because eventually when you can have that growth mindset, and you can say, you know what, I'm going to keep at this, even though this is really hard, and I'm only getting it right two out of 10 times, what's going to happen eventually is then it's going to go from getting it right 20% to getting it right 25%. Let me just use a quick example with myself. You know, when my son was younger, he's a young adult now, you know, he was profoundly oppositional and argumentative. He's still argumentative. All right. But I used to be highly emotionally reactive to all his behavior, particularly him being, you know, oppositional. And when I started using what I call affective calmness, which means, you know, showing calm, even when you don't feel calm inside. And when I stopped getting pulled into the argument vortex with him, where he would direct an argument and I would just get strung along, you know, what happened was eventually that that getting it right for me, which was, you know, 5% of the time, went to, you know, 10% of the time, then 15%. And I want to be really clear, this took years and years for me to get better at. But the point is that it's the thing that I decided I'm going to practice and I'm not going to give up on, even if I'm not getting it right the vast majority of the time, and it did get better eventually. So I just wanted to share that example. Yeah. And parents need constant reminders that kids are supposed to test limits. They are kids. It's how they learn. You know, another thing with social media is this constant pushing of every day needs to be perfect. Every day needs harmony. There is such thing as a perfect parent. All of that could not be more false. And every single one of those parenting influencers you see on social media have chaos at home, every single one of them, because that's part of parenting. Parenting is an imperfect science. Always has been, always will be. All siblings fight and they fight bad. It's how siblings interact. If you have multiple kids and they're not interacting negatively and fighting every now and then, or on a daily basis, then you've, then that's strange because siblings are supposed to argue and fight. And these things happen within the walls of the home. You know, these are unconditional relationships. You know, there's a reason why so many kids tend to do a little bit better at school than they do at home because home is unstructured with those unconditional relationships. And kids learn by testing limits, pushing boundaries, you know, saying things for shock value, you know, being non-compliant, sort of saying no. You know, that's what kids are supposed to do. If they're not doing that, that's a problem. Obviously, with ADHD, you multiply that non-compliance saying no and those behaviors times 10, times 100, but it does not mean that you're doing something wrong as a parent. You know, the most important thing is, is your child happy? Do they have varied experiences? Do they have friends they interact with in real life? Are they involved in their community? Are they doing sports and clubs and activities and going outside and playing? Do they have a role outside of the house, outside of school? You know, those are the most important things. Is your child developing talents and skills outside of the home? You know, that's really the most important thing we got to start to think about, especially in this world of AI and tech and everything. You know, real-world skills, people skills are becoming more and more important. All right. So, number four is, be skeptical of parenting social media that's designed to make you feel good at the expense of doing what would be most helpful to your child in the long term. So, I just mentioned this before, but Mike, I want to share this with you because I don't think I told you this. I subscribe to a very popular parenting influencer on social media. The reason I subscribe to their mailing list is because I think they are the most brilliant marketer there is. So, I like to kind of take tips from them because, you know, neither of us have a degree in business. So, you know, I like to learn from them. And one of the things I've noticed in the past month or two is in their newsletters, they are very, you know, deliberately trying to distance themselves from gentle parenting. And the reason why I believe is because they kind of became known, I don't know if this was intentional or not, but they kind of became known, I think it was intentional, as like the gentle parenting guru, right? Now, I think words gotten out there that maybe this whole gentle parenting thing has become way distorted from what the actual intention of the book was. And I think this influencer does not want to be associated with gentle parenting anymore. So, they're putting out content saying, you know, I am not gentle parenting. This is what I'm about, you know? But my point is, Mike, with that to say that this is somebody who was previously really pushing content designed to make parents feel good, you know? And that's what it was about. It's not about, you know, teaching kids reciprocity and relationships. It's not about teaching kids how, you know, to treat other people. It's about making parents feel good. And however, that affects the kid is really kind of secondary to that, because that's what sells, right? Exactly. When we talk about marketing and advertising, what sells is emotional validation, helping people feel seen, you know, and providing a solution to a problem. However, you know, a lot of what is out there is not really providing solutions. And that is supported by research, you know? This is not just an opinion, because what we see is that often the most popular parenting social media channels have no research to support them whatsoever. And in fact, many of them contradict research. So, what I'm asking you to do is, when you're watching any parenting social media, you know, feel free to watch whatever you want. But think about, you know, is this going to help my child over the long term? Will this benefit them? Is the information that I'm getting here? And if I apply this, you know, how is it helping them build resiliency? How is it, you know, helping them to think about the needs of others? How is it helping them to, you know, treat family members respectfully? How is it helping them to, you know, develop independence? And if you can't answer those questions, but it makes you feel really good and validated, you have to question, is that really the best content for you to be watching? Exactly. Yeah. Parenting is the best thing you will ever do in your entire life. And it's also the hardest. So, if you have, if the second you catch on to someone, you know, explaining, you know, these connections seeking behaviors and finding ways to make you feel better about these things, then you know, pretty quickly, that, you know, that's a little bit of a red flag, they're not following the science. You know, parenting is not supposed to be easy. All of the research tells us about boundaries and limits, and, you know, modeling these appropriate things to your child so they can develop these skills and be successful for the years after high school. We have to remember the big picture here. Remembering the big picture, we had a previous episode about long term planning for your child. And the whole goal of parenting is for your child to have a better life than you had before them, when you are no longer able to assist them, because now they're now living an independent life. That's what it's all about. So, life is not about low demands. Life's not about being gentle. I think we all know, every adult listening to this podcast knows right now how difficult life is, the obstacles, the challenge you have to overcome, the constant conflict, the stress, all of those things. Why would we deprive our kids of experiencing those things for 18 years when we know we can't shield them from it for the rest of their lives? Well, to answer that question, Mike, I think it's because people tend to not think about the long term. We're just trying to get through the day. But unfortunately, when we try to get through the day, we're not thinking about the long term, which is the problem. And unfortunately, both Mike and I have seen plenty of cases. And Mike, I don't know if the phone calls have started to grow now yet, but we both get those emails and calls come late May, June of, well, my child's going off to college, so it's time for them to develop some executive functioning. Or my friends and my child's never had friends through school, so it's time to get them some social skills. And what I always say, skill development doesn't happen on a timeframe that's convenient for you. I'm sorry. These things that we have to work on consistently and over a very long period of time. So. Exactly. And it's never easy. It's going to require your child to struggle. So one of the best examples is, oh, I have to follow him around all morning or he's going to be late. Yeah, that's going to keep happening all school year unless you allow him to experience the feeling of being late. You know, let him go to school, sign in late, have to sign in and explain to the front office why he was late, explain to the teacher why he was late, or have extra accountability at school. Or you can keep being the morning routine secretary every single morning for the rest of the school year and for the next 12 years. You know, you have to allow the child to struggle, take accountability, experience life, and have people they are accountable to outside of mom and dad because mom and dad are taking on too much and it's not sustainable. All right, Mike, you want to do number five? Yeah, let's do it. So this is probably my favorite one out of all the tips is that it's okay to say you need a break from to your child. It's okay to say that you need a life away from your kids. And this goes back to, you know, that fixed mindset in the beginning is, you know, this constant obsession with parenting, parenting. Everything I do molds my child like clay. Everything I do develops their personality, their skills, their interests. The best parents are the ones that have a life outside of their child. The ones that, you know, go to the gym every day and build a community there or join a yoga class or go play sports or, you know, join a music group and have friends and go out and socialize. And they don't constantly revolve their lives around their kids, their grades, their homework, and all those sorts of things. You know, you need to have a work life balance. You need to have a child life balance. It's okay to walk away, to not engage, to not get involved in negotiations and arguing. But it's also okay for you to take a night to yourself and go out with some of your friends or go out, you know, on your own and go do some things. You need to have a balance away from your child. And not only is that healthy for you, but it's healthy for your child as well to, you know, to interact with the other parent or to go out with their friends and go do things. It's okay for you to take your parent hat off for a bit and go back to just being yourself. You know, most people have two separate lives. Pre-kids, and then once those kids are born, the next chapter of their life begins. It's okay to take your parenting hat off and go have some fun on your own to ensure that you have a life outside of your kids. You know, Mike, when you were talking about that, something I haven't thought about for a long time because they're adults now, but I have a relative and their entire life was their kids. Yep. And they were highly over involved in every single aspect of their kids' lives to the, to the, you know, extent that it was smothering. And when their kids went away to college, they got really depressed. And they kind of fell apart because suddenly their identity of being, you know, parent 24 seven and not having anything else to their identity, but that, that was suddenly gone, you know, so they got depressed. And then the other thing was they couldn't believe when, you know, their 18 year old son away at college was not answering the phone whenever they wanted, you know, and, and I think the idea to them that like, yeah, my son is having a life and is independent away from me, it like it was almost emotionally unbearable for them, you know, and that's why what Mike is saying is so important because, you know, it is normal that our relationships with our kids change over time and based on age, your kids, you know, in a healthy developmental trajectory are going to seek independence from you at some point, and that's normal and that's developmentally appropriate, you know, but if you have nothing else except for, for this, that's going to be, you know, hard for you. The other thing I just want to mention real quick is I have a, you know, a video on my YouTube channel about, you know, what to say when you need a break for your, from your child. And that's a little different than what we're talking about here. I created that video, because one of the things I had to learn to do with my son who was incredibly draining, I was doing this as a single parent was I had to learn to say to him, I need a break from your behavior. So I didn't say I need a break from you. I said, you know, I need a break from your behavior because I wanted him to learn you are not your behavior, right? Your behavior is a choice you make and there's a difference between needing a break from you and needing a break from your behavior choice. So just wanted to mention that. Yeah. And I would say overall what Ryan is describing here of, you know, that parent who just completely redefines their entire life as a parent and revolves everything around their kids and gets sad when they go to college. I think, you know, to a lot of our listeners, I think everyone listening to that, I think that's a lot more common than we realize. And we have to think about this. You know, we can't complain for 18 years, I do everything, I do everything, I'm the executive functioning, it's so exhausting to be a parent. And then on the flip side of things, not be able to step back, not be able to let them be independent. Those are contradictory mindsets, contradictory behaviors. We want our kids to be independent, we want them to be successful. But on the same time, we have to be able to quote unquote that I know the quote people don't like, but cut the cord as they say, sort of be able to let them spread their wings and fly and sort of experience life. So if it's truly your goal for your child to be independent, it's going to take some discomfort on your end to allow them. So we want our kids to be able to tolerate discomfort. How is your ability as the parent to tolerate discomfort? Because I'm sure those two things are very similar. That's a great point. Yeah. All right. Our final one, number six is teach accountability for not handling things the best way by modeling what that sounds like. And here's what I mean by that. I worded that a little oddly. Okay. But when you have, you know, you are short with your kids or you say something in a way that you regret, you know, take accountability for that and model what that sounds like. So let me give you an example, because I used to do this a lot. I would, you know, say to my son, look, you know, I'm, I'm tired. I'm irritable right now. I'm sorry. You know, I said what I said, okay, but I'm just really tired right now. And that doesn't make what I said, okay, you know, it still wasn't nice. But, but I want you to know that I take responsibility for it. And I should have handled that differently. Okay. That's, that's modeling accountability. And one of the things Mike that I think is really missing from a lot of parenting content is teaching kids about accountability, you know, and teaching kids what it looks like and sounds like to be accountable and to make amends with people. And that's one of my big things that I really try to teach. I teach this concept called cleanups, where, you know, a cleanup is doing a nice action for somebody to make amends for when we've said or done something hurtful. And we don't hear a lot about that. We hear a lot about, you know, when you're, you know, when your kids do something that's, you know, mean, well, that, you know, right, they need more connection or this or that. But I hear very little about teaching kids accountability and how to think about the needs of others or how their words and behavior impacted others. So the best way to teach that is by modeling it ourselves through that kind of language. Exactly. And I would just add onto that is when you do that, when you are modeling accountability, when you are, you know, showing them that you're taking accountability for your actions or apologizing, you know, doing basically showing them how you're doing a cleanup yourself. Don't worry about their response or their reaction. Just sit, stand there in front of them, take accountability for yourself, explain how you feel like you made a mistake and how you're going to clean up yourself. And then, you know, let them say what they want to say. You don't have to provide a response. There's a chance that they might say a little smart, alicky thing back or not have the response that you want. But it's really just all about them listening. Sometimes our kids don't say the best things in the moment. As long as they hear what we have to say, we walk away, we don't get into a huge back and forth, that's what it's all about is modeling calmness, modeling leadership, modeling that love as a parent and just showing them that you're human too. That's a great point. Yeah. All right. So that wraps up our top six tips for parenting and ADHD child when you have ADHD yourself. If you have a question you would like us to answer in a future episode, you can email us at the ADHD parenting podcast at gmail.com. Will we ask an exchange for answering one of your questions? You please leave a positive review for us on Spotify or Apple podcast. Just send us a screenshot of it. And then we'll, you know, along with your question and we'll be happy to answer it. Make sure to include your child's age and also if they're on medication in your question, because that might affect how we answer your question. So again, that's the ADHD parenting podcast at gmail.com. Leave a positive review on Spotify or Apple podcast. Take a screenshot, send it to us along with your question and we'll answer it in a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and we will talk to you soon. Thank you. Take care. Thanks for listening. To learn more about Mike's practice, grow now ADHD, please visit his website, grow now ADHD.com. To learn about the services Ryan provides, please visit ADHD dude.com. You can find Mike on Instagram at grow now 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 grow now 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.
