The Hidden Heartbreak of Teen ADHD: A Real Story

Mike and I have a unique episode for you today. We are going to talk about a parent's concern about their son in high school, and we're going to read their email and address their concerns. So really what this episode is going to be about is a profile of a boy with ADHD in high school and our suggestions for this parent about addressing some of their concerns. Welcome to the ADHD Parenting Podcast with Mike McLeod of Grow Now ADHD and Ryan Wetzelblatt 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. So Mike, to get started, how about if we read this parent's email? Does that work? Let's do it. All right. Your podcast has been an incredible resource, and I'm hoping you might consider creating an episode focused specifically on the high school ADHD experience. We are really struggling right now, and I know we're not alone. Our son is a bright, funny, and complex teen with ADHD who is truly floundering emotionally and socially. He struggles to manage his emotions, particularly when corrected or held accountable. Earlier this year, he was removed from the wrestling team after ongoing conflicts with teammates and coaches, largely because he couldn't handle being teased or called out for not following through. This was a devastating consequence, but also very telling of the deeper issues at play. School, especially the second semester, was an uphill battle. Despite support, he essentially shut down academically and motivation was not existed. He gets easily overwhelmed and avoids tasks completely. Now, in summer, things are even harder. The lack of structure has intensified his dysregulation. While we have limits on phone use, no access to social media, and boundaries around gaming, some days still turn into marathon video game sessions that leave him more emotionally dysregulated than before. He has no real friends in our small town. He's tried texting a few local kids to golf or hang out, but they always decline. The rejection is painful for him, and it feeds his isolation. Romantic relationships are another huge area of concern. He's had interest in a few girls, but he becomes overly intense, texting constantly, showering them with excessive compliments, telling them he loves them right away, and even suggesting inappropriate arrangements like a friend with benefits situation. Unsurprisingly, they cut off contact quickly, which he doesn't understand. Despite repeated conversations from both his father and me about how his behavior is coming across, he refuses to take perspective or see how others might interpret his actions. It's incredibly worrying. I'm terrified that without intervention, he could eventually face serious consequences, possibly even legal ones, for behavior he doesn't fully understand. I would be grateful if you could consider a podcast episode focused on older teams with ADHD, particularly on perspective taking, navigating emotional intensity, and building real social skills in today's world. So many resources are geared towards younger kids, but these older teenagers present a whole new level of challenges. Thank you for all the work you do, and I deeply appreciate any insights or guidance you might offer how to better support kids like mine. Yeah, this is really a fantastic email because this is really ADHD in reality, ADHD in a nutshell. This is not the quirky, silly, fun ADHD you see on social media. This is the real aspect of a lack of executive functioning, perspective taking, self-regulation skills, video game addictions. All of these issues are real, and the constant rejection, getting kicked off of the wrestling team, peer rejection, looking, dating rejection. This is the heartbreaking aspect of ADHD that is real that so many students are struggling with. And all those battles over morning routine, homework, evening routine, grades, this is exactly why executive functioning skills are the greatest predictor of success for human beings. Because these are the skills you need to make friends, keep friends, get a job, keep a job, and be able to live in a society and live in a community and have real relationships. And I think this email sums up those struggles beautifully. And Mike, I just want to give everyone a little context. So in full disclosure, I know this family. I've known this young man since he was, I think, 11 or so. He came to my camp. I think he's 15 or 16 now, maybe 16. So I just wanted to mention that, that I do have a background with them. And this is a wonderful family to incredibly supportive, wonderful parents. And I just want to bring that up to say that even parents who are very proactive and on top of things like this family is, their kids still struggle. And I just want to emphasize to everyone that this is in no way a reflection of parenting. This is a reflection of ADHD and what it looks like as kids get older or what it can look like as kids get older. So I just wanted to mention that. So Mike, I think what would probably be easiest for the viewers and listeners is if we kind of go through this line by line, you know, and kind of, you know, address these these different things. So the first one is, you know, he struggles to manage his emotions, particularly when corrected or held accountable. So why don't we talk a little bit about, you know, the idea of, you know, what's called rejection sensitive dysphoria and what it is and isn't because, you know, like everything else in the ADHD world, there's so much misunderstanding around that. Exactly. And this is all centered around self-regulation, which is what ADHD truly is. It's not an attention disorder, not hyperactivity, inattentiveness. It's self-regulation deficit disorder in inability to internally self-regulate due to the lack of internal checks and balances of visualization, self-directed talk, and having a stop and think process, most simply put. So what we are describing here, it's quite obvious that this is the first thing listed line by line, the issues with self-regulation of emotions, language, body, behavior, when corrected. And I'm sure that's at its peak when corrected by parents, which is what tends to happen. But as alluded in this email, it's also in things like wrestling and sports and school as well. And one of the things I want to mention, you know, this young man has struggled with this since I've known him. And I want to introduce everyone to this term that we call justice sensitivity. So rejection-sensitive dysphoria is when people with ADHD have a propensity to feel rejection or perceive rejection even when there's not any. So that could be from constructive criticism, you know, from parents or coaches, people who are really in, you know, fully invested in the individual. And what happens is people with ADHD tend to get defensive, you know, or get offended easily, even when the feedback they're receiving is for their own benefit. Okay. And what I think is really important for people to hear is that if your child reacts, has a reaction to you giving them constructive feedback, that does not mean you stopped doing it. You know, that does not mean that you apologize, you know, or you don't use empathetic honesty with them because then you're really doing them a disservice. They need that feedback even if they don't like it. All right. Because if you don't do that, who are they going to learn it from? And they need to hear, you know, a lot of times in life, they're going to get feedback from people who are not emotionally invested in them and they might not respond well to that. So they need to be able to take constructive feedback from people, whether they love them unconditionally, like parents or whether it's somebody who's not really invested in them. So my point is what this is to say, you cannot protect your child from the discomfort of hearing things that they don't want to hear. That's doing them a tremendous disservice. Okay. And which this family does not do. The other part, just the sensitivity is people with ADHD can have a propensity to want things to be fair or they feel like they have to get revenge or, you know, they feel like slighted by something because in their mind, they are so right and there's no way that can be wrong. That is an executive function delay with cognitive flexibility or what we call flexible thinking. I think with this young man, it's more of the rejection sensitivity piece, you know, meaning that he takes, you know, he gets offended easily when he gets feedback because again, I've known him and I've seen this, you know, with him before in terms of, you know, being teased or called out for not following through. Yeah. Other, you know, when you're on a sports team, other guys your age are going to give you some pressure and going to give you a hard time about that. And the answer is not, you know, oh, how do we get them to be nicer to him? No, because this is the way that boys interact. I'm not saying they're being mean, right, but they're going to call you on something, particularly when you're in a team environment type of thing. So, so for me, the work here is, you know, I think part of it is, is maturity, but I think the ongoing message needs to be that, you know, if people are giving you feedback, they're not doing that to hurt your feelings or to hurt you. They're doing that because there's a reason for it and what your job is to listen to that and whether you like it or not and not respond in a way that's going to repel them when they're trying to be helpful to you. Exactly. And we know that ADHD is a lack of mental flexibility, very rigid black and white thinking. And in so many ways, it's also a true maturation developmental delay. The brain is three to five years behind. And we all know young, younger elementary school kids that everything's a competition. I'm the fastest. I'm the strongest. I'm the best drawer. I'm best at this. In so many ways, the ADHD brain kind of gets stuck in that very rigid mindset where they go into so many social experiences with a competitive mindset. And by the time they get into high school, roasting, making fun of each other back and forth, playful engagement, especially amongst boys is completely normal. It is not bullying. It is not teasing. And if you are extra sensitive, the sad thing is that it makes you a bigger target. And if you become a bigger target, you get more bullying, you get more of the teasing and the roasting and things like that. And it becomes a bigger problem, especially when you react to it. So this constant rigid mindset of going into these environments without being a listener and being able to listen in instead of constantly having to have the second word and impress others and, you know, focus so much on popularity and being the best and all these various things. Like, I know, Ryan, you had a whole thing about like how ADHD kids tend to go for like cool kids, right? There's like the whole thing about like focusing on popularity, like really focusing on it. The social status and all that kind of stuff. You know, these, you know, developing that perspective, taking situational awareness, mental flexibility. We think of those things as basic executive functions for academics, but they really come out to light in the social. That's why I refer to them as social executive function skills, because that's exactly what they are. Yep. So my point with that part is I do believe that the parents are doing all the right things here. And this is just going to be a matter of when this young man kind of, you know, it clicks for him that, you know, right, when you're getting feedback, even if it's constructive feedback or maybe not delivered in a way, you know, you can however you feel is fine, but that does not mean you can retaliate, right? By snapping at people, you know, when they're trying to be helpful or they're giving you feedback, even that you don't like. And, you know, this is one of the things, Mike, where, you know, like during when I do office hours in the membership site, people say, you know, how do I convince, you know, my son to take feedback? And I say, you don't convince him. This is something that has to click. So you stay on message, keep doing what you're doing, you know, and eventually with cognitive maturity, with brain maturity, it will click eventually. Maybe not when we want, maybe not even when he's a kid still, but it will eventually. But unfortunately, this is something that a lot of people with ADHD go through is that they, you know, are they have a propensity to think that everyone is out to get them because of the way they misconstru constructive feedback. Yeah. And what you just said is a parenting mindset. I find so many parents of kids with ADHD get stuck in is how do I convince my kid? How do I convince my kid to sign up for an after school sport? How do I convince my kid to be on his phone less? How do I convince my kid to go to summer camp? You don't. You're the adult. If you know it's best for them, you do it. You're not forcing them into hard labor or something that's going to be traumatizing. It's just a non-preferred task out of their comfort zone you're pushing them into. So as a parent to a kid with ADHD, you don't convince them of anything. You push them out of their comfort zone because you're the adult. I just got one of those messages this week of how do I convince my son to go to camp? You don't. You tell him he's going. You don't. Yes. You sign you sign them up and you make an expectation and not a choice end of story. That's it. There's no discussion. There's no negotiation. If they need to go to camp, they go to camp and guess what? They're going to go to camp. They're going to come home and have a great time. They're going to complain about it. They still might have had a great time, right? But that doesn't get the same reaction from you as them complaining about and being negative. Correct. Because if they come home and pull your heartstrings, it's a lot easier to get what they want. All right. So let's move on to the next one. So school, especially the second semester was an uphill battle despite support. He essentially shut down academically and motivation was not existent. He gets easily overwhelmed and avoid tasks completely. So just two quick things I want to say here. Mike and I do not focus on speaking about academic accommodations. Okay. Because our area of expertise is not 504. I mean, I'm sorry, IEP accommodation. So we're not going to get into that. Sometimes people will ask questions like what are the best accommodations for kids with ADHD? There is no thing is best. The question that should be asked are what are the supports in place that can help your child continue to become an independent learner and not be dependent on adults for prompting. But the part that I just wanted to say here real quick is I do think that maybe some of what this parent is describing about his second semester might have been due to the fact that he was feeling socially isolated. And as I brought up to this parent before, I think there's an element of depression here with boys. Depression can often look like irritability. And when you're feeling socially disconnected or feeling socially isolated, it's going to be hard to be motivated if you have some depression as a result of that. So I just wanted to mention that. But Mike, go ahead with this. Yeah. And, you know, I would just add, you know, more information is needed. What's happening in the natural environment in real time? Is he sitting in class doing what he wants on his school Chromebook? Is he just surfing the web and not even listening to lectures? And he's in high school. Most high school kids have most high school kids have study halls. What's happening during his study hall? Is he being supervised at all? Or does he just have, you know, those copy and pasted accommodations of preferential seating, extended time can turn things in late, which end up backfiring anyway and further delaying the development of executive functioning skills when there's no real deadlines or accountability. Really the best, you know, what Ryan was alluding to before, the best 504 accommodations are not ones that accommodate the child. They actually increase the accountability. As Dr. Russell Barkley said, if you want to see an ADHD child fail, remove all consequences. And that's what a lot of 504s and IEPs do, unfortunately, because they're, because they're copy and pasted. But we need more information. What's happening in class? Is he listening to things? Is he, you know, what's happening at study hall? What's happening with homework? You know, it's, I think we're going to allude to that later when we get to the piece of this email about his phone, video games and things like that. But I think we have to dive a little bit deeper about what's actually happening. Is he actually engaged in the class? But yes, the social issues that Ryan alluded to are definitely creating a negative mindset of, you know, why even try? I've been rejected so much in my life. Why try? This is a great example of an ADHD team developing a very rigid black and white depressed, fixed mindset of why even bother? Because when I do try, it exposes my thought. You know, the other thing is I'm not sure if he was on the wrestling team in school as well as outside of school. However, if you are on a team and you get kicked off a team, you can pretty much say goodbye to any academic motivation, you know, because that is one of the things being on a team for kids who are, you know, athletic. That is one of the things that motivates them, you know, to stay on top of things with school. And without that, I think it would be very hard to motivate him. Yes. Kicking them off, kicking them off the wrestling team. You know, all we do is have the information that he was kicked off the team. There obviously should have been some steps in place there instead of just blatantly kicking them out. Something else probably should have happened there to work. That seems like a great opportunity to really work on these skills and be like, hey, you know, you are not putting good thoughts into your teammates heads. You're creating conflict. You're not, you're bringing down the vibes of the room and the tent and you're adding tension to the room. That sounds like a great learning opportunity for him to work towards being able to stay on the team instead of just, you know, we don't know the background here with that. I mean, that might have happened, but yeah. Correct. But I have seen this plenty happen plenty of times. So yeah. Yes. Mike, what about what's your advice for the part about he gets easily overwhelmed and avoids tasks completely? So once again, we need more information there. He gets, is this happening at home during homework? Is he avoiding doing homework so that he can go and have those, you know, marathon things on his, on video games or is he, or is he getting stimulated by the conflict of avoiding homework? Is he getting overwhelmed and avoiding tasks at school and instead just getting, you know, distracted on his school Chromebook? You know, what is happening overall in terms of what does that overwhelm look like? So we have to remember the ADHD brain is, is, is the path of least resistance brain. And what is the path of least resistance? How can I avoid doing boring math, science, social studies and instead go to what stimulates my brain the most screens and conflict? We already know he has issues with emotional self-regulation and behaviors. So he's probably very conflict seeking both at school and especially at home. We always know it's worse at home or is he getting distracted by the various screens? We don't know, you know, what we have to dig a little bit deeper into what are the triggers here? That are allowing him to consistently take the path of least resistance. When he explained, when he expressed his overwhelm, is it some learned helplessness where I say I'm overwhelmed? So people do things for me or am I able to just have behaviors? And that keeps me from doing really boring work. So the next part about things in the summer being even harder, you know, this parent said the lack of structure has intensified his dysregulation. They have limits on phone, no access to social media boundaries around gaming. And some days still turn into marathon video game sessions. I'll leave him more emotionally dysregulated than before. He has no real friends in our small town. He's tried texting a few local kids to go for hang out, but they always decline. The rejection is painful for him and it feeds his isolation. I'm almost going to make the argument here that, you know, that I don't know so much if it's the lack of structure, which I believe is, you know, certainly a part of this. But, you know, when you don't have much to do and are feeling socially isolated, I have to question how much that has intensified his dysregulation because, you know, at least in school, he's around some kids, but at home, if he's not doing anything, he's not around anybody. So I have to wonder yet, how much is that the main factor, you know, in this? Yeah. So I would probably say pretty safely listeners of this podcast know my stance on screens by now, because I actually listen to the research and don't ignore it. And I think my quote unquote extreme views on screens seem pretty typical now with all the research and data coming out about what screens do to the brain. But I think this sentence right here speaks volumes for ADHD parenting. So this is what she wrote. While we have limits on phone use, so it goes to here, we also have boundaries around gaming, but days still turn into marathon video game sessions that leave him more emotionally dysregulated than before. So she started by saying we have boundaries around gaming, but we still have multiple marathon video game sessions. So there you go. That's not a boundary. Boundaries stick. Boundaries are concrete. Boundaries are there. That's not a boundary anymore. If he's having marathon video game sessions, then no, that boundary has completely been broken and it needs to be reset. And she's at full on admitting that these marathon video game sessions leave him even more emotionally dysregulated. So my advice to this mom would be to take that Xbox, take that PlayStation, whatever it is that he's having these marathon games on and desperate times call for desperate measures. He's getting rejected left and right, you know, romantically, socially, all of these various things. We don't have any more time to waste anymore with him having marathon video game sessions and getting more emotionally dysregulated and acting five, six, seven years younger than his actual age. So I would strongly recommend fully removing whatever the video might for the sake of the audience. Let me push back a little bit with this. Okay. Okay. So yeah, a little in a small town. If he's 15, which I think he is, you know, or 16, whatever, probably very few summer jobs for teenagers, you know, because it is a small town. So what would your suggestion be when he doesn't have things to do, you know, he doesn't have friends and he can't work in the summer yet? So I would say get him a gym membership. Try to find a local YMCA or a gym. I would say I would say get him a personal trainer, get him feeling really good about himself. You know, nothing really builds confidence and self worth than getting physically fit and getting some muscles as a teenage boy kind of thing. So I would say get him, you know, get into the gym. If you happen to have a local YMCA, you know, when I was a kid, the YMCA was like a hub for us. This is before cell phones and things like that. But, you know, that was a place to get dropped off after school, spend a couple hours there and then go home. And it's a shame that it's not that way anymore, but it really should be, you know, drop him off at the local YMCA, sign him up for karate. There's, there has to be something out there for him to be able to do, you know, make it mandatory for him to go on, you know, an hour long. You know, what all this, what all the science tells us is 18 and below needs 60 minutes of outdoor play every single day. And if he's having marathon video game sessions, he's not getting that. So if you don't want to eliminate that video game system, I'm sure you don't want to. And judging by the rest of this email with this emotional dysregulation, hearing me say get rid of that video game system is probably horribly terrifying. And that's what it is when you approach parents about a video game addiction is absolutely terrifying. But, you know, a couple of weeks after it's gone, you should see vast improvements in emotional dysregulation. This is probably a teen who is constantly yelling, constantly screaming, negotiating, cursing, disrespect, constant. And he's feeling a lot of rejection. And you admit it in that email, he's more dysregulated after these marathon sessions. So it's clearly making him very dysregulated when he's on the system and when he's not even on the system. So it's something that has to go. And it's not about, it's not your responsibility as the parent to find the replacement. It's setting boundaries, sticking to it, find out what's in your area, talk to the school, go to the school and say, hey, you kicked my son off the wrestling team. Give me a list of resources in the community for him to do outside of the home. Utilize the resource. I don't think the schools are going to respond very well to that, but. Well, hey, hey, they should, they should, you know, that's your taxpayer dollars at work. They have some responsibility. But, you know, I just want to say, you know, and I know this from, well, not the why, but the Jewish Community Center in Tucson, same thing as a why. Kids still go there after school and it's still, you know, and, you know, when I would be in the gym there, there's, you know, high school guys, you know, just hanging out and taking their selfies and doing whatever. But my point is it was a social hub still for some kids. So that does still exist. I just want people to know that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And over the past year, I've had, in the past couple of years, I've had the privilege of training various Jewish private schools and Jewish organizations and you learn so much about, you know, this, you can fill me in on this, how they have no screens until sunrise at certain times and things like that. It's our sunset. It's really a true community. And, you know, obviously it's a lot easier to, oh, you're Jewish. I'm Jewish. We have the same religion, same background, those things. But it's really a beautiful thing how they've maintained this sense of community and sense of society and brotherhood and familyhood amongst, you know, this community outside of just going to temple or going to church or going wherever it is. It's a really beautiful thing. And yes, that's, that happens to be the Jewish Youth Center where they all go and hang out. But yeah, I know, you know, back home in Long Island where I grew up, the YMCA Bayshore, right down the street from where I grew up in the hours after school. It's filled with high school kids working out and feeling good about this. And just to clarify for everyone, as a former JCC employee, I want to explain, you know, just like the YMCA, it doesn't matter. You don't have to be Christian. At the Jewish Community Centers, you don't have to be Jewish to belong there. Anybody can belong. I mean, they're pretty diverse. So just wanted to mention that was one in your area. Oh, yeah. I did not, I did not know that. I thought you had to be doing- I've been in the YMCA just to that name. Yeah. Well, that is, that is very cool. And those, to those community centers like that are becoming so much more important in today's world. With the decline of play. So, you know, it's a shame that like malls, like back in the day when Ryan and I were kids, malls was the place to go to after school. Malls are becoming pretty extinct, which has its pros and cons. Malls are pretty wild places. But, but, but just in general, YMCA's just there, there, there has to be places for kids to go. Kids need a third place. If you're a parent, look up the research on the third place, having something outside of the home, outside of the school, and having another location where you feel safe and you feel a, you feel a part of a community is very, very good for a child's psyche. All right. So, Mike, one other thing I want to address in here was the part where this parent said he's tried texting a few local kids that golf or hanging out, but they always decline. So, one thing I want to explain to people is even if he's, you know, this boy is nice to other kids, treats them well. Other kids don't want to be around kids who they perceive as being argumentative or oppositional with adults or authority figures. Okay. So maybe, you know, these kids, he's texted to golf or hang out, you know, maybe he's been nice to them, but they've seen how he interacts with some of their peers or with the coaches and other kids don't want to be around that because it makes them uncomfortable. And one of the things Mike, I think we should help people understand is, you know, boys tend to not articulate things like this. You know, they might not say, you know, I don't want to be around Ryan because, you know, his, you know, arguing with the coaches makes me uncomfortable. Or, you know, I don't want to be around Ryan because he fights with, you know, our teammates and I don't like, you know, that makes me uncomfortable. Boys don't speak like that, but that's how they feel, you know. And that's what I want people to understand is that, you know, in terms of the rejection, it might not be because he's doing anything to the kids. It's because they, his behavior towards adults or towards other kids makes them uncomfortable. So I just want to clarify that for everyone. Yeah. And, you know, and that's another part of this email that lists another really great interest golf. And one of the great things about, you know, outside of, you know, what can he do to start gaining relationships? One beautiful thing about golf, Ryan and I are big golfers, so we know about the golf community. We're not very good at it, but we play it. But overall, you know, one thing that I tend to do, since I am a transplant here in the Philadelphia region, I don't have the biggest social network here, is I sign up for a tee time and I go and I get matched up with a bunch of randoms. And I think that would be a great thing for him to do. You know, if he has some free time, what does he do socially? Go, go, you know, get him a tee time and have him go play and get matched up with people. And golf is a great sport to practice emotional regulation. So it's a very, yeah, exactly. It's a practice of regulation. So it's very frustrating. It's very hard to test your limits. So getting him out there, playing as much as possible, getting him some sun, some vitamin D and getting some movement, some walking, you know, have him go walk 18 holes. Don't, you know, no cards. Like have him get out there. I think that's really good. But yes, in general, if another teen knows, you know, this is someone trying to hang out with me and they are, they have a short fuse and they get very anger, angry very easily. Dr. Russell Barkley, type that into YouTube and he talks about what's the number one thing that ends relationships for kids with ADHD. It's not your lack of attention. It's not your hyperactivity. It is your anger. The fact that you rush to anger makes people not want to be around you. People get very turned off by anger and someone with a short fuse. So that emotional dysregulation piece, that flexibility, decreasing that constant competitiveness, that need for justice that Ryan was talking about is super, super important. And the foundation to these social. I would expand that a little bit. And I know exactly what quote you're talking about from Dr. Barkley. I would say it's the anger inflexibility, you know, and emotional reactivity because look, a lot of, a lot of adults with ADHD can come off as very abrasive. They don't mean to, but they're difficulty with perspective taking. They don't always hear how they're sounding. So, so yes, the anger, the emotional reactivity or abrasiveness, you know, and, and rigidity. Those are all things that are huge turnoffs to other people, you know, and they're all we can work on with kids and we need to work because that's really important. So yeah, Correct. Correct. And it all comes back to what you were saying earlier where you need to be brutally honest with your child and give them that honest feedback. And yeah, they're going to yell at you and they're going to have a big reaction to it. But you can just simply say you need to hear this because I want you to make friends and then get away from them. Don't get pulled into that back and forth. The arguing and, and responding to their emotional reactivity. It's better for them to hear cold, hard, honest feedback from the unconditional love relationship of parents. That's called empathetic honesty. And it is, uh, it's, you know, empathetic honesty is done out of love and to protect kids from empathetic honesty. Because you want to protect their feelings does them a tremendous disservice. So, All right. So Mike, the last one, the romantic relationships part. Um, so let me just read this again. You know, he's had, he's had interest in a few girls and he becomes overly intense texting constantly showering them with excessive compliments, telling them he loves them right away and even suggesting inappropriate really, really, um, arrangements like a friends with benefit situation. Unsurprisingly, they cut off contact quickly, which he doesn't understand. Um, and this is something that they've talked to him about. So, um, few things, you know, I want to mention here, um, a lot of, uh, I'll say boys with ADHD, they will, I've seen two things happen a lot. One, they, they want to skip the whole relationship building part with somebody. So if they have a romantic interest in someone, they think they can just go straight to, you know, boyfriend and girlfriend. Um, not understanding relationship has to, you know, a relationship has to develop first in terms of a friendship, getting to know each other. They just want to go straight to the, the, you know, the relationship part. Um, the other part of this is what this parent said is, is very common, which, you know, the excessive amount of attention. And the last thing Mike, I want to mention, I've seen this a lot with boys who are lacking friendships, um, because they're lacking friendships, you know, they're looking for a connection. And when it's with, you know, a girl in like, in this situation, um, they tend to, you know, put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. So it's kind of like, well, I don't have friends, so this will make up for it, you know, and obviously none of those things are healthy or a good thing. And one of the biggest problems I see Mike is when parents, you know, particularly for boys who lack friends for whatever reason, I found they, they often have no problem finding girlfriends, but the parents kind of let this relationship go and allow them to put everything into this romantic relationship and don't reel it in like they need to. So when the relationship ends, which obviously it always does, then, you know, the kid's devastated because he put everything into this one relationship and now he has nothing. So I think my message here, I mean, well, a few things. One, I think these parents are doing a good job around teaching and perspective taking. So understanding how he's coming across, which is he's coming across creepy and overbearing. Um, and, and that's really important for him to hear because again, we know kids with ADHD. One of the core social executive function skills they struggle with this perspective taking. So understanding other's thoughts and feelings and understanding how you're coming across the others. So that's number one. Um, number two, you know, we have to teach him the cause and effect of how his behaviors are interpreted by these girls and why it's so off putting and, and why they, you know, cut off contact quickly when he comes on too strong. So, you know, that's the other thing. Again, that's around perspective taking. But the third thing is because eventually some, you know, a girl somewhere is going to, you know, go along with this is we have to kind of reel them in from them, you know, investing everything in these relationships because they're lacking other relationships in their life. Exactly. And one of the things that Ryan and I really pride ourselves on in our work is we always never take a one size fits all approach. You know, all ADHD kids are different, but this email is so important. And that's why we revolved an entire episode around it because so much of this is just so textbook and the generalities. And one of the big things we're seeing here is this word that is so synonymous with ADHD impulsiveness. He is very impulsive. He's impulsive to say, I love you. He's impulsive to be too direct with women and it turns them off. He's impulsive with his emotions and his anger. He's impulsive to just rush to video games. He's impulsive to get overwhelmed. So he's very quick in so many ways and it is negatively impacting him long term. So obviously this is textbook ADHD brain missing that stop think process. His brain runs on stimulus response, stimulus response. What is the path of least resistance? What do I do now? What feels best now? His brain is constantly plan a, plan a, plan a. There's no stop, visualize with your nonverbal working memory. Talk to your brain with your verbal working memory and then do and go with the healthy, more educated plan B, plan C, plan D. That feels good in the moment and also benefits you and the people you are interacting with long term. So this is true textbook. We have to develop that stop and think brain process because this impulsive stimulus response rush to emotions, rush to judgment. Rush to anger, rush to very poor decisions is really, really impacting it, impacting him and his quality. Let's talk about something because I know somebody is going to ask this question and I think you and I might have different answers for this, which is, well, how do I get him to stop and think before he acts? And my response always to that is there's two things that research shows helps with this. One is medication and two is brain maturity. Hey, you, you cannot, you, we can help work on developing internal dialogue or you know, what we call brain voice. Okay. But you can't convince somebody to stop and think because this has to do with executive functioning. It's not a thought problem. It's an executive functioning issue. I don't know if you have another answer than that, but. Yeah. So there are many ways for parents to model constantly model themselves, stopping and thinking. So parents externalizing their self-talk, describing to themselves, you know, parents get so stuck in the mindset of constantly coaching their child. Do this, do that. Can't you stop and think? Can't you stop and think? Which does nothing. So one of the best ways is to coach, you know, model to the child out loud how you use your brain coach, how you use your voice, how you visualize to yourself, how you do the, do those things. So instead of focusing on your child and what they're doing wrong, describe to your child what you do and how you do it right and how it benefits you. So constantly model that to them. And when kids hear, hey, my parents struggle in the same ways I do, they have a couple of failed social interactions. They get frustrated. They get angry. They make mistakes. How do they have resilience and grit to overcome those constant challenges? So parents can model their self-talk, model their visualizations, talk about what their brain is doing and kind of work through those sorts of things and helping the child become more aware that there is a voice in their head, that they can stop, you know, some mindfulness, different things like that. All of those things, you know, there's the research is, you know, quite back and forth on those things. It's not as very, you know, really strengthening working memory through working on it is not the most evidence-based thing. But it is something that needs to be done overall in terms of building this stop and think is helping the child to become more aware that this is something I can do. I can stop. I can close my eyes. I can take a deep breath before sending that text, before responding to that bully, before. Before yelling at mom. I can literally just take a quick lap and then come back. And that's done through practice repetition and realizing that it works. I think it should give people what, you know, it means to share your internal dialogue out loud and, you know, what you're explaining because, you know, I think people need examples for this. So let me give an example because this is something I teach in my courses that I used to do with my son. So if we were like at a restaurant, okay, and somebody was talking really loud on their phone, my son tends to be oblivious to things like that. So I would say out loud, this is what modeling my internal dialogue sounds like. Okay. That I'm feeling really irritated that this lady behind me is talking so loud on her phone, you know, because she can just go outside and talk. So what I was doing is I was sharing my internal dialogue around perspective taking so he can hear my thoughts about somebody's behavior based on the context of the situation. So that's an example of sharing your internal dialogue out loud. Why don't you give another example, Mike, with something, you know, more around like impulsivity. Yeah. So, so kids are, you know, always listening. That's an important thing. So, you know, you could be in the same room as your kid. You could be talking on the phone to someone. You could be texting someone. You could be talking to someone at the supermarket and your kid is sitting right next to them. You know, after that conversation, don't just move on and, you know, whatever you can explain to your child. Hey, when I stopped and I talked to Karen, you know, she said such and such, it made me feel this way. I wanted to say this, but I stopped and instead I said this. So that's one of the best things that you can explain to the child was at first my brain told me to say this. At first my brain told me to say that, but then I thought, you know what? I'm going to do this instead. I went with my plan C. I went with my plan D. So I used my internal skills, my internal system to stop myself from my first thought and instead went with my second. So the more we can constantly remind them, we don't have to constantly go with plan A. We can do a plan B, plan C, plan D. They start to pick up on that instead of directly instructing them through a lecture. Use it as an example of your own life. I think that's a perfect example, Mike. I really like that one. So overall, you know, to finish up, I want to say, you know, because I know this family, I think they're, you know, doing the right things here. And obviously they're very concerned about their son. Some of the takeaways, I think that are important here are number one, more like we just talked about sharing internal dialogue, you know, out loud. Around perspective taking, around, you know, your thought process and decision making. That's huge. I really like Mike the idea of, you know, having him, you know, involved at, you know, the local YMCA or somewhere where other teenagers are, you know, playing sports or doing whatever. And granted, are things going to be perfect? No, is he going to get into arguments? Yes. But again, I think this is why they're seeing this dysregulation in the summer. Some of it is because he is bored and feeling isolated. And I think it's more so the isolation than the boredom. Maybe I could be wrong. Yeah. And I would just add that that's a constant thing I see with parents is they know their kid is going to struggle. So they don't even do it in the first place. Like I'm not going to send him to camp because I know he's going to struggle socially. I'm not going to sign him up for the YMCA because I know he's going to get into trouble there. You don't, don't avoid those things because you're expecting them to get in trouble. They need to have those experiences away from you. So important. Yeah, I'm glad you said that. And then the other thing, you know, Mike mentioned was that maybe his screen time needs to be reeled in a bed. If this, there seems to be a direct correlation. I just made a video yesterday talking about how with my son, you know, when he had that excessive gaming time in the summer, it would become more irritable, more selfish. So I think that's completely applicable here as well. Gee, geez, you're so, you're so harsh on screens, dude. Geez, calm down with the screens. Oh, I forgot screens are regulating. No, we don't really believe in that. Yeah, there you go. Just making a joke about that. Dude, I think it's ridiculous when we see things about, you know, screens being used to regulate kids. I mean, that's just, it's not set. So yeah, Mike, any, any. Correct. And Mike talks about screens too much. It's too much. It's a board. All right. Maybe sometimes. No, it's okay. Mike, any thoughts you want to share with this family? I would just say this was, this was fantastic. This was Ryan's idea. Well, Ryan got this and it said make a podcast episode about this and, you know, kudos to this mom to reach out and say, Hey, please do an episode about this because this is, I think this is a fantastic episode that's really going to speak to a lot of parents because it's true. It's hard hitting and it is the truth about ADHD. It's not, you know, homework and grades and all of these things. It is a true disorder that affects your quality of life. And we can't continue to say, Oh, you know, kids are just on Snapchat now. Kids don't play anymore. No, social relationships are crucial to life. Food, water, shelter relationships. You have to have relationships to be successful and to have a high quality of life and the quality of life your kid with ADHD deserves. So that I think this email really highlighted the lack of internal skills and how they impact you in all three areas of the executive. I think just one thing we want to emphasize is in-person relationships. We don't mean virtual relationships with gaming friends. We mean where they're spending time with similar HPers in person. Yes, because gaming friends are meeting us. All right. Thank you, everyone. We hope you found this helpful. If you have a question you would like us to answer in a future episode, you can send us your question. Make sure to include your child's age and medication regimen. We can't answer questions without that information. You can send it to the ADHD parenting podcast at gmail.com. What we ask in exchange for answering your question in an upcoming episode is if you can kindly leave us, you know, a nice short review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. Send us a screenshot of the review along with your question. We'll be happy to answer it in an upcoming episode. All right. Thank you so much, everyone, and we will talk to you soon. 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 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.