Stepping Into Your Parental Authority

Welcome back to the ADHD Parenting Podcast. We're re-releasing this episode because the message is too important to get buried. If you're parenting a child with ADHD, there's a lot of noise out there right now, especially on social media, telling you to soften, step back, and avoid conflict. But the research tells us a very different story. In this episode, we break down what it really means to step into your parental authority. And why doing that with warmth and structure can actually reduce anxiety, improve behavior, and strengthen your relationship with your child. If things feel chaotic at home or like your child's running the show, this conversation will give you a clear, evidence-based path forward. 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. I have to tell you that this episode is very timely for me because it just so happens that yesterday I did office hours for the membership site and I found myself two or three times during that 45 minutes or an hour, however long it was, saying to parents what I'm hearing is that you're not being authoritative enough and that you need to step into your parental authority more. And in some cases that looked like speaking in a firmer voice sometimes. Sometimes it meant having more structure scaffolding and boundaries at home. And we're going to get into all this, but I just wanted to mention to you that yeah, this is just really timely for me because I just went through this three times yesterday. So I think my good place to start would be why don't you start talking a little bit about what the research tells us on parenting styles because I think a lot of people still don't know this and there's decades of research to support this. So why don't we start there? Yeah, this is exactly why I'm so excited to talk about this on this episode because this whole concept of parental authority, when parents first hear about it, they tend to get scared and it's very black and white thinking that parents think they need to be a drill sergeant yelling, angry, all of those things. When actually parental authority is the exact opposite and there's so much research to back that up. So we can talk a little bit about the research on the various parenting styles specifically with ADHD kids. So we have a systematic review across 24 studies found parents of children with ADHD use more permissive and more authoritarian styles compared to parents of neurotypical children. So Mike, I wanted to comment on that real quick because you mentioned that a lot of times parents think that they think they have to be authoritarian and my experience and I don't know if you guys find this a grown out, but I find more it's the opposite. Parents are scared of being authoritative because for one thing they get authoritative and authoritarian confused. And then the other part is they are scared of being authoritative because as we know, Mike, permissive parenting has been rebranded on social media as being compassionate and with a bunch of different names. I'm not going to mention here. There's some of the most popular parenting influencers in the neurodiverse parenting space will call it. Encourage permissive parenting again under the guise of being compassionate and nervous system regulating whatever that is supposed to mean. I'm not even sure. So what we're talking about is the parents here who tend to go on one extreme or the other, that is much more common in families of kids with ADHD. And I think Mike, if we even take it a step further and I'm only going to speak for myself here and I want to hear your experience, but I often find Mike that sometimes a lot of times what I hear is fathers try to be more authoritarian, which we know is not helpful. And then often not that they try, but necessarily mothers tend to be more permissive or sometimes they feel that they have to be more permissive to counteract the father being more authoritarian. Sorry. I don't know if that's what you guys find as well. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So in terms of the intake calls and parents reaching out to learn more about our services through Grown Out 99% of the time it's the mom. It's very rare for one of the dads to reach out to learn about the services and be proactive in their parenting. So basically when you have an ADHD child, you learn rather quickly that there's really no playbook if you will on how to parent this child. It's incredibly stressful, leads to burnout and is really, really hard on the parents. Because they have ADHD, a different brain than their neurotypical counterpart, parents tend to go to social media for information on how to best parent. And they get absolutely inundated with parenting information because now more than ever basically every parent's algorithm is just constant messages on how to be a perfect parent. And what what type of social media information does best? Short form feel good videos that are very fast, very quick and leave you feeling good. And the best way to do that is to share permissive, low demand things that are all very feel good in terms of like connection seeking and lowering demands and all that kind of stuff. Things that make you feel good that make you feel like parenting is easier. But we know in the long run are not helpful. And we know this based on research, not based on social media algorithms. So here from this systematic review that we're breaking down here, we found that authoritative parenting is consistently linked with lower ADHD symptoms severity, the inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and lower anxiety in kids. So this is a full on systematic review of 24 different studies showing a lower symptom severity and lower anxiety. That should be absolute music to parents ears hearing that all of these issues, especially impulsivity and anxiety are decreased when their parent is comfortable enough to consistently be in their parental authority. So Mike, I think for a minute we should break down for people who don't know what authoritative means. So authoritative parenting means warmth combined with structure scaffolding limits boundaries. So the way I frame it, I say authoritative parenting is high empathy with high expectations. And what research tells us, and this goes back to the 1960s, that it is the most effective parenting style to raise kids with good mental health outcomes for all kids. Forget about ADHD for a minute. So what Mike just said about the fact that it's been shown to lower ADHD symptoms like in attention, impulsivity and lower anxiety, I think that says that when kids feel contained, when they feel emotionally safe because they know parents or caregivers are leading them, that helps lower anxiety. And that helps with some of these ADHD symptoms. Okay. When kids don't feel contained, when they feel like they don't know who is in charge or the parent is trying to partner with them, that's when they tend to have higher anxiety and tend to show more of these typical ADHD symptoms. So just keep that in mind. So just wanted to mention to everybody, if you would like to see the research from this, the head clinicians, the head researchers last name is QIU. So if you look up QIU systematic review, ADHD, you should be able to find it online if you'd like to see the study. Exactly. And in terms of these different parenting styles, just to break it down so parents understand. So there's permissive parenting. And the number of the best sentence to understand permissive parenting is basically when you overindulge the child to avoid conflict. There's no better sentence to sum up permissive parenting than that. Giving the kid what they want to keep them calm, to keep them quiet. Giving them whatever it is in the moment that they're screaming about, crying about, being disrespectful about, you're doing whatever you can to avoid conflict because you as a parent are not comfortable in conflict. You're worried about the relationship breaking down. You're worried about increasing the child's anxiety or you're not comfortable seeing your child be temporarily discomforted. There's a lot of various things there that may cause you to overindulge the child to avoid conflict. When it comes to authoritative parenting, what we're talking about today, it's all about what I refer to as reciprocal parenting. I call authoritative parenting reciprocal parenting because it sounds far too much like authoritarian. Authoritative parenting is when you solve problems together with the child. You're not stepping in and saving them from discomfort. You're walking together and you're asking questions to help them figure it out. So you're not keeping them away from failure, saving them from getting in trouble at school the next day or stepping in and solving problems for them. You're working with them to solve them, but you're asking questions for them to do it themselves, which builds executive functions and independent skills. So when the parent sets clear rules and expectations, open communication and natural consequences, that's authoritative, not yelling, not screaming, none of that authoritarian stuff that's parent-driven and strict. Authoritative is true 50-50. Okay. So last thing we wanted to mention, we also found out that permissive parenting is associated with higher risk of ADHD symptoms and weaker self-regulation. And that was found in the study. The lead researcher for that was, the last name I think is pronounced, Set Yineza, and that's a 2022 study. So that, I think, Mike, is no surprise that the permissive parenting style is shown to well, kids exhibit stronger, I'm sorry, weaker self-regulation. And Mike, I have to say, when I read this, it brings me back to when I was working at a school as a school social worker for students with behavior challenges. And one of the things I can tell you is that we typically found was that the students diagnosed with ADHD when they came to the school, they were there because their school district felt that they couldn't provide for them. So the school district was paying for them to be there. And I have to say, and I'm not saying this is a judgment, but what we typically found was that those kids with ADHD who had much weaker self-regulation to the extent it was so disruptive in school that they couldn't stay in their home school, what we often found connected to this was very permissive parenting with those students. So just wanted to put that out there. Exactly. And that's incredibly important for parents to hear. And there's a lot of studies that talk about nature versus nurture. And Dr. Russell Barkley describes it as, parents are not engineers. They don't engineer the child and build them up like clay or like Legos. They're shepherds. They shepherd the kids in to various experiences in life. And one of the most important things that kids learn from parents is reciprocity of relationships, if you are kind to someone, you're respectful to someone, you think about them, you take their perspective, you do things for them. We can't allow a child to grow up learning that relationships work where you can treat someone very poorly and still get what you want from them. You can't constantly be overindulged to avoid conflict. This is why limits and boundaries and rules and not overindulging the child to avoid conflict is so healthy for the brain, especially the time blind, impulsive ADHD brain that struggles with self-regulation skills. Yes, it's harder because your child's going to complain more, cry more, scream more. There may be more property damage. There may be other issues. These limits and boundaries set them up for long-term success because that's the goal of parenting is for your child to live a better life than you did before them. And the best way to do that, research-based, is authoritative parenting. So to summarize all this, what we want you to take away is that kids with ADHD, while they often tend to get less structure at home or more permissiveness, or the opposite end, a more authoritarian home where there's more harshness, both worse in outcomes for kids with ADHD. And what we know is that authoritative parenting, so that warmth, clear limits, scaffolding is correlated with better behavior and emotional adjustment. And you know what? You might see things online saying, well, that's not neurodiverse affirming, or that doesn't work with my child's nervous system. This is research data. So this is one of the times that we're going to ask you to please listen to the research data here and make parenting decisions based on research data, not just your emotions. Obviously, parenting is a very emotional experience for anybody, but when we're thinking about the bigger picture here and what we want for our kids long-term, make decisions based on research data like this. So all right, so Mike, let's move on and talk about why we know that authoritative parenting works best. Why don't we talk a little bit about what some of the studies here found? Sure. We have another study here by QQIU, which talks about why authoritative works best. It's really that warmth and consistency reduces ADHD symptoms and anxiety. So to me, the number one word that sticks out there is the consistency. That is one of the best things is, you know, Ryan, in his parenting course, talks a lot about affective calmness and remaining calm in the face of stress. That is one of the best ways for an ADHD child to learn self-regulation. They're never going to learn it through your words, through your lectures, through your monologues. You telling them to calm down, you telling them to stop and think and process or take deep breaths or any of this co-regulation stuff you hear about. They're going to learn by watching you, which is real co-regulation, which is modeling. You modeling how to stay calm in the face of stress. So if your child is screaming at you, cursing at you, demanding things, and you stay cool, calm, and collected, and you don't use excess words, and you hold your boundary, and you are consistent, that is what models self-regulation skills, and that's how they transfer onto the child. Mike, I want to tell you a quick story about that. I haven't thought about it in years, but you just talking about that just brought this up. When I first started doing my middle school guys group, I have always had a teacher fill out a form so I can get them to understand what the kids look like with their peers in school. I remember this one kid who was coming for the first time, the teacher put, he tends to be emotionally reactive with his peers in school and so on, and tends to not blow up, but make a big deal out of things that aren't a big deal, and so on. It was interesting because the first time he came to the group, his father dropped him off and his father couldn't find the building, and he finally finds it, and he's not screaming, but cursing under his breath, and you could just see how incredibly irritated he was. You know what, I saw that and I was like, no wonder why this kid is like this in school, because this is what's modeled for him at home. So yeah, it made sense why he acted this way because affective calmness was not modeled at home. So that's why what Mike said is so important, that we have to teach by doing, not just from having talks or all these lovely ideas about co-regulation, which is all fine, but at the end of the day, it's what you model at home that is the most important. Okay, so moving on, the other thing that was found in a study by a researcher, his last name is Stevens in 2019, is that the authoritative parenting style predicts fewer internalizing symptoms. Internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression means that you feel more anxious or depressed inside basically. So what we know is that an authoritative parenting approach reduces those while a permissive or authoritarian predicts more. So that basically just reiterates what we said before, that using an authoritative parenting style helps with better mental health outcomes, and that's been known for generations now, to my knowledge. So yeah. Yeah. So earlier, this should really be music to parents ears, because one of the most difficult things that you can deal with as a parent is when your child is internalizing. They become very anxious, they withdraw, they're in their room all the time, they're not answering your questions, they're not sitting down with the family at dinner, maybe they're school refusal, and it's a really just negative toxic relationship. And what you tend to see with these ADHD permissive parents is they describe it as they're constantly walking on eggshells around their child. And that's a very nice way or trendy way of saying, my child runs the home. My child creates the emotional tone of the home, and everything we do is walking on eggshells to make sure there's not a bigger blow up. So this authoritative parenting style really decreases that internalizing, gets rid of those eggshells, and creates so much more of a positive environment where your child feels comfortable to come to you with their negative thoughts, with their bad day at school. You know when you pick your kid up from school, oh, what'd you do today? Nothing. Who'd you talk to? Nothing. What was the best part of your day? Leave me alone. You know, all of that stuff, that's so much less likely to happen with authoritative parenting, because you are this authoritative, loving, strong figure in their lives, and they know they can come to you for help because you are the strong leader, not the person who bends over backwards, to keep them from constantly freaking out. So one thing I wanted to mention about what Mike said was, you know, on a weekly basis, pretty much I get an email from a parent saying, you know, basically what Mike said, that, you know, our child's behavior controls our, you know, whole house, we tiptoe around them. And I just want to say, you know, when that happens, you know, it is, we're not blaming parents for that, okay? Because what we know is that most parents, I have a saying that I'm going to share, most parents of kids with ADHD are unintentionally misled as soon as their child is diagnosed. They are never told the evidence-based treatment recommendations. They are never pointed in the direction of effective help. What most parents are told, you know, is here's medicine if you want it, and go find a therapist for your kid. And research data, extremely clear. Therapy is not going to help with self-regulation. Therapy is not going to help your child be more cooperative. It's not going to help with oppositional behavior. It's not going to help with them provoking their siblings. There's not going to be any of those things, okay? But still, and this is, people have a really hard time believing this, but most clinicians, pediatricians, school counselors, psychologists, they don't know the ADHD treatment recommendations, which is why with the best of intentions, they constantly refer families to play therapy or some kind of talk therapy, even though the research data, again, is very clear that it's not helpful. All right? So, so when parents reach out to us and they say things like, you know, we tiptoe around, it's not because they're doing this intentionally. It's because they haven't received effective help, and that's not their fault. You know, I always believe that parents are doing the best they can at any given moment with the information and resources available to them. So, you know, just keep that in mind. So, before we, you know, finish up with some actionable steps, I think it's important, Mike, that we do address because, you know, every day, Mike, I feel like this is more pervasive on social media about how the permissive parenting style has been rebranded. And I just want to share this with you real quick, and then you can get into this. I saw a post yesterday, Mike, on social media, I'm not going to say who was from it was from, you know, parenting person. And it said your child's oppositional behaviors are really a deep-seated, you know, connection seeking, you know, thing, right? So, the idea that your child's being oppositional because they want connection with you. And let me be very honest, I have a term for that. I call it mom-pandering. And the reason I call it mom-pandering is to say, because that is emotionally, it's an emotionally compelling narrative used to sell a product to a mother, all right? Because who are most of the people who, you know, look at parenting content? Moms, you know, of course. And when, you know, something like that is put out saying, you know, yeah, your kid's oppositional behaviors are because they want deeper connection with you. The intention with that is to make, you know, a parent feel needed, and it's to get to them emotionally because as we know in marketing, emotions sell things, not logic. Okay? But the thing is with that, there is no validity to that whatsoever. There is no evidence that your, that oppositional behavior has anything to do with connection seeking. What does oppositional behavior have to do with? It could be with anxiety. It could be with flexibility, which is one of the core executive function skills. It could be a need for control, which is common with kids who have had some kind of early childhood trauma, you know, adverse childhood experiences. And that could be novelty seeking behavior because they like that, you know, seeing an emotional reaction from being oppositional. So those are the reasons for oppositional behavior or accommodation of those. It's not because there's some deep seated need for connection, you know? So I just wanted to mention that because I saw it yesterday. But Mike, let's talk more about the risks with this, you know, permissive parenting because I think that's really important for people to hear. So I read recently that the vast majority of people out there now get their information from social media. So people are getting their information from Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, as compared to newspapers or the actual news. So the algorithm has a lot more power over your brain, your mindset, your thoughts, your beliefs than most people realize. And we all know that parenting advice, you know, this concept of the perfect parent and constant parenting advice being thrown at you via the algorithm is a reality for far too many parents. So social media reframing permissive parenting as gentle, compassionate or child led. The risk here is that permissive parenting leaves rules fuzzy, which can make ADHD kids more anxious because they thrive under structure. They crave predictable structure. So permissive parenting kind of gives the child the ability to be the parent themselves, which doesn't feel good as a kid acting like you, you know, in the moment, it may seem like they're constantly on the quest for control, but that lack of predictable structure really does not help and it causes, you know, a further rift in relationship between parent and child. And the research shows permissive parenting is linked to more anxiety and poor self-regulation, especially problematic for kids with ADHD who already struggle with emotional control because that's what it's all about. ADHD is not attention deficit, it's self-regulation deficit. So avoiding conflict may feel compassionate in the moment because that's, you know, what the algorithm is teaching you or that's what feels good. But avoiding conflict can increase chaos and emotional dysregulation over time. So let's say I want to mention about this, you know, one of the things I've learned from my years of being on social media is that people like labels because labels help them attach a story and a narrative to something and help them make sense of the world. And, you know, sometimes with our kids, things just don't make sense. But when people can have a label for something and attach a narrative to that label, it makes them feel better. And particularly what it does and makes them feel like, oh, this is not my fault, my child has, you know, insert this label here, that's not a diagnosis. Okay. But one of the things I want to mention is that while, you know, parents tend to like labels or they, I shouldn't say like labels, while parents tend to find comfort in labels and catch all terms, you know, that seem to explain their child, you know, feeling seen by an influencer or professional and being emotionally validated by them. That's not the same thing as giving you the tools to help your child thrive. And I just want you to keep that in mind because that's really important. All right. So Mike, to finish up, let's go through, because we always like to end with some actionable things parents can do. Let's give some practical examples of what it looks like to step into your parental story. Absolutely. So remember, authoritative is reciprocal. 50-50 being clear, calm and collected as that authoritative leadership parent, which make kids feel safe. So one of the easiest things to do is to always make sure that the rules are very clear because remember their brains crave structure and make the explanations very clear as well using as little language as possible. So saying something as simple as we do homework after snack so you can relax before dinner. And then remember, we also want to stay warm and consistent. So you can say something like, I get that you're frustrated about chores. We still need to finish them before screen time. And another thing I want to mention is that kids with ADHD tend to thrive when there's predictability. And sometimes what I see parents do with the best of intentions is they give their kids choices about everything. Because again, they feel like I want my child to feel heard. I want them to feel seen. I want them to feel like they have a say in everything. And that is done with love, obviously. But for a lot of kids with ADHD, that is not helpful because it's putting too much on them. It stresses them out. So one of the things we can do is have a level of predictability when they know things are going to happen. And of course, things change sometimes. But the more we can front load with them by telling them what to expect before going into a situation or what the day is going to look like, having a routine as much as possible, helping prepare them for transitions, those things are very helpful. And remember, part of that isn't about asking your child to do things. It's telling them what's going to happen. So it's not saying, do you want to go to this new activity? You're going to this new activity on Friday. And Mike, one other thing I want to mention about this is one of the kids who used to come to my school year programs and my camp, he would always get anxious before things. And I said to his mother one time, I said, I noticed that, no, I said to her, sorry, I said, does Ben ever give you a hard time when he has to come to the guys group or to camp? And she said, he doesn't. And here's why, because I never gave him an option in his whole life. So he doesn't know to ask, because if I would have given him the option, he would have said no to any single thing I ever suggested. So I took the choice out of the picture for him. And you know what? Today, as a young adult, he is much better off because of that. And he is thriving because he learned how to navigate the world. He learned how to deal with temporary discomfort. And because there is a predictability in knowing I'm not going to be able to avoid things that are going to be temporarily uncomfortable. So my point is his mom did a tremendous service for him by not giving him a choice in these things and having a predictability about what was expected of him. That is really such a great story because what I find is that the vast majority of parents who are currently permissive really fell into this permissive trap. They became permissive unintentionally. They never had the intentions to over-endose their child to avoid conflict or become a permissive parent. It happens unintentionally because it is such a difficult time to be a parent. And one thing you can do right now to determine your level of parenting and where you fall on the spectrum of permissive and authoritative is kind of figure out how emotionally affected are you by your child's complaining. That's one thing I find all the time is parents confuse complaining with some sort of lack of skill. Oh, he's complaining. I shouldn't push this on him. He's complaining. I shouldn't sign him up for a sport. He complains about having to transition from his preferred task to the coaching session. He's complaining about having to go out with friends on the weekend. You know, if you're not asking your child to do hard labor, you're asking them to just join a club, a sport, a this, a that, you know, that's part of setting expectations and setting boundaries. And that story that Ryan just gave of not giving choices. Sometimes you need to push our kids out of our comfort zone so they can try new things. And that's how they learn their talent and they build a life away from you. That's really what's one of the healthiest things for ADHD kids is when they have a social network away from the family. They have peers, other adults, other talents, other skills, other interests. So try to recognize when your kid complains, how much does that pull at your heartstrings and then cause you to change your boundaries or drop your boundaries or drop your limits simply because you are so emotionally affected by their complaining. Yeah, that's a great point. And my last one is something that I teach, which is called shifting from high giving low expectations parenting to high empathy, high expectations. And here's why I came up with that. One of the things I learned early on was that in so many families, I saw that the kids were being treated as fragile. They were being treated as they were going to break easily or they couldn't handle things. They were being enabled, meaning that the parents were doing things for them, that they were completely capable of doing themselves for the reason Mike said, because they would complain or they would act helpless or they would start making self-defeating comments. And what over time, what this led to was what I call this high giving low expectations parenting, where kids are just giving everything, phone, screen time, internet, whatever it is, and nothing was asked of them in return, except for maybe grades. OK. And one of the things that I saw consistently was these kids who acted really immature and entitled at home, but didn't act that way outside of the home. And what I came to realize was they were acting this way at home because there was no expectations of them and they weren't made to feel useful. They were treated as a much younger child and it was not helpful to them and it made them, you know, not feel like they had something to contribute to the family and they were owed everything. So when we shift from high giving low expectations to high at the high expectations, what that means is we put expectations in place that are achievable, but they have to work towards. So there's going to be some effort involved. OK. And we do that with empathy and understanding that when we when we place expectation on kids that it could be hard for them at first, you know, but we meet that with with empathy and with encouragement because the way kids develop self-confidence is to recognizing their abilities within themselves, not from somebody else telling them how wonderful they are. So high empathy with high expectations helps kids feel useful. It makes them a contributing member of the family. One of the most important things is it makes them think about other people besides themselves. And then like I said, you know, the last thing is it teaches them. It helps them develop the resiliency to get through non-preferred things, which is just part of life. So I actually created a whole course around this because I found that in so many families of kids who I saw were uncooperative and inflexible, you know, we're just out of control at home and the parents couldn't get them to do anything. It was because of this high giving low expectation. So created this course, you know, creating daily expectations just for this very specific reason. So just wanted to end with that. Exactly. And the truth is, is when your child turns 18, 19, they age out of that IEP that five before they graduate. You know, from that point forward, there's nobody who's going to be permissive towards them. The expectations, whether it's college, career, work, peers, relationships, there's going to be expectations placed on them to follow, you know, follow the rules, be a part of a society, be a community and treat others with respect and be able to take others perspectives into account and understand that all relationships are 50 50 and they're going to have to do for others if they expect others to do for them. So, you know, all of the permissiveness really backfires over time because at the end of the day, this is a society and it is a community. We want your child to be successful. So, you know, ADHD, parenting, a lot of what you're seeing on your algorithms, social media, a lot of parenting instincts, you know, really gets thrown out the window when your child has this neurodiverse brain of ADHD with their negative attention seeking, time blindness and lack of self-regulation and ability to self-soothe. And that is why parent training is the number one recommendation. All of the counseling, talk therapy, CBT, all of those things are not there in terms of the research and the evidence to back it up to show real world progress in improvement in skills and an improvement of quality of life. And this is exactly what the ADHD dude and grow now program is based on is clear and direct parent training on what works best for ADHD kids to improve their quality of life. Behavioral parent training programs are evidence based and teach these authoritative parenting skills systematically. And what the research tells us, especially the research of PIVA, PAIVA from 2024, behavioral parent training, when teaches these skills systematically reduces both ADHD and oppositional behaviors. Because when you as the parent start following evidence based treatment recommendations and you gain comfort stepping into your parental authority and you feel comfortable doing hard things, your child will then feel comfortable doing hard things and doing things that don't give them instant gratification. And that's what life's all about is learning to delay gratification and persevere, improve that frustration, tolerance and improve quality of life. Last thing I want to say, I can imagine this episode might be a little difficult for some people to hear because, you know, I think a lot of parents feel like, well, I need to be more more authoritative or, you know, I just don't know how to or I'm scared to because I don't want to damage our relationship. What I want to end with is this. I promise you that 20 years from now, your child is not going to be sitting in a therapist's office saying, my mom was so mean, you know, she made me put my clothes away in, in, you know, my dresser or they're not going to be saying, you know, my parents never listened to me, you know, and they made me go to things that were a little uncomfortable at first. You're not going to damage them. You're not going to hurt your relationship by stepping into your parental authority. If anything, you're going to improve it. I promise you. In fact, it's actually quite the opposite. You know, here at Grown Now, we have a young adult independence program, a college success program. We work with a lot of young adults who are struggling to find a job, make friends, keep friends. And if anything, what I find is the permissive parents that now have this sort of failure to launch young adult, when the parents are permissive from birth to 18, birth to 19, the kids gain more resentment towards the parents of why didn't, why didn't you hold me accountable? Why didn't you set those limits? And you really tend to see a real negative experience there. The parents who do feel comfortable stepping into their parental authority and expect something from their child and build that true 50-50 relationship. And let's be honest, it's never going to be truly 50-50. You'll always do more for your kid than they'll do for you. But it makes them feel good to know they play a role in the family and they do things as well. So when you feel comfortable doing those things, every single time I've seen it, it vastly improves their relationship. All right, everyone. So that's it for today. If you have a question you would like us to answer in an upcoming episode, you can submit your question to the ADHD parenting podcast at gmail.com. Make sure to include your child's age. Make sure to include their medication regimen. If they're on meds or if they're not, we do need to know that. Please keep your question somewhat concise. Sometimes people like to send us 50 questions at once, which we can't answer. And the last thing we ask is that in exchange for answering your question, we ask if you could please just leave a nice short review on Apple podcast for us. We would really appreciate that. And just send a screenshot with that along with your question. We'll be happy to answer in a future episode. So thank you for listening. We really appreciate your time 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, grownowadhd.com. To learn about the services Ryan provides, please visit adhddude.com. You can find Mike on Instagram at grownowadhd 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 adhdparentingpodcast at gmail.com. The adhdparenting 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.