Answering Listener Questions

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the ADHD Parenting Podcast, answering listeners' questions. So today, just like the title says, we're going to answer a bunch of questions from listeners. 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. So Mike, we have a lot of questions here. We're definitely not going to get to all of them today. So if we don't answer your question and you submitted one, please know we will get to it in a future episode. Alright, so Mike, I'm just going to jump in here if that's all right. Let's do it. I have this is from a parent of an eight year old. I have an eight year old son with combined type primarily in a 10 of at school. Talks about the meds he takes. He has extracurriculars therapies. Current activities are swim lessons one time a week karate one to two times a week and four H one time a month. For therapies, he does OT every other week targeting pencil grip core strength and emotional regulation. And he just started vision therapy one time a week, hopefully upping to two times a week during the summer. So here's a question. What are the ways to help motivate kids to do home exercises for therapies? My son just started vision therapy on our daily home exercises often include tears. Honestly, it wouldn't take long to do them. More time energy is spent complaining, stalling than doing them. And then he does them halfheartedly, which isn't great for making progress. He seems to understand why we are doing vision therapy, but doesn't seem to make that connection when it comes to how complimenting the home exercises will help him get there, which I assume is related to executive function and delayed gratification. Is there a way to help him understand and get better buy-in? Or do I just need to continue with rewards bribery and exerting parental authority of this is what we're doing now and I promise it will be worth it. This is a pretty common trap that we see ADHD parents fall into. This constant system of just rewards and consequences and empty threats and I need you to do this. I need you to do that. So really the number one concern here is how do I get buy-in from him to do home exercises for vision therapy? I assume that's related to executive functions. Well, number one, he's eight. I don't think many eight year olds are going to want to do vision therapy exercises in their free time. So yes, I understand it's ADHD and it's a disorder of future thinking skills and cause and effect and connecting the dots. With or without ADHD, I don't think too many eight year olds are going to want to do tears at home in their free time. But you know the number one thing is do not fall into this trap of consequences and rewards and getting him to do these things. It's about creating the structure in the home where he does non-preferreds before preferreds. So he doesn't have access to the preferred activities until he completes his responsibilities. So one thing I want to add onto what Mike said is that an eight year old cannot conceptualize how anything is going to help them over the long term. That's a very abstract concept for any eight year old. Forget about ADHD. So he doesn't understand why it could be helpful to him. Okay. And he's not going to understand that. So I think the first thing is to let go of that expectation that you're hoping he'll understand the value in it because he won't. And Mike, this is one of the things where, you know, we hear parents say a lot, you know, like, well, how do I convince, you know, my daughter that this will be helpful to her? And the answer is you don't convince her of anything. You tell her what she's doing or what he's doing, whatever. Okay. Because it's an abstract concept about something way in the future. Not only is it out of their time horizon, but it's just abstract. They can't conceptualize it. Okay. The other thing just to add onto what Mike said is, you know, in terms of being able to, you know, earn incentives for things, what we can say is there's a daily expectation in place that during, you know, your exercises, you know, you're going to cooperate. And then when that's done, then you can have, you know, your switch time or whatever it is. All right. So to Mike's point, you know, we can be very specific in terms of saying, this is what is expected when we're doing this. So it's not just a matter of going through the motions, but actually being cooperative. So one of the things I teach a lot for families is that you particularly for kids who are inflexible or who make a lot of noise, my term for arguing or complaining when they're faced with nonprepared tasks, is it's not just expecting them to do something, but helping them understand what their behavior should look like during that time in terms of cooperation. So yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So you can create a visual of when this is completed, then you get the switch time, you can get, you can get a picture of him completing his tears work, you can get a picture of him playing on a switch and just have that visual and that visual ends all discussion, ends all negotiating, ends all arguing, because it's on the visual, the wall does the talking for you. Anytime you can replace verbal with a visual, you're doing very well there. You can use some when then language and just keep it very short and sweet when you finish your tears, then you get your switch, things like that. But yeah, just to piggyback off of what Ryan was saying before, this whole concept of convincing your kids or buy in ADHD is a disorder of self motivation towards nonpreferred tasks. And when I say nonpreferred tasks, it's pretty much anything that's not screen based or conflict based. So the list of nonpreferred tasks is gigantic for ADHD kids. So every ADHD parent gets so obsessed with buying and convincing and how do I get them to do those things? The most important thing for you to do as an ADHD parent is to push your kids into things they don't want to do. Because over time, they start to learn, Hey, I didn't want to do it, but then I did it and I loved it. And they're only going to have those experiences. If you make them do things after they say no. Right. All right. Moving on. Next question. This is from the parent of a 10 year old. Hi, man. My name is Susanna. My son was diagnosed with ADHD a year ago. He's been placed on medication. It has done wonders for him in school. He's 10 in fourth grade. I would love to hear an episode on how to manage emotions such as frustration, anger, resilience, confidence, and disappointment in sports. How can coaches help a child with ADHD? My son plays soccer and by the time he gets home, his medication has faded for the day. There are moments in practice where he becomes frustrated with himself, other teammates and the coach regulating these emotions has been hard for him. And at times he has thrown and kicked his gear around. His coach has been amazing and will call me to the field to help him regulate game days are better controlled because I can time his medication based on game time. He is hard on himself and he misses a goal. And he will at times talk negatively about himself. He is an amazing player with a lot of technical skills. He has been offered to play on more competitive teams, but I feel like his emotional status is not ready. His pediatrician has started him on dexamethylphenidate, 2.5 milligrams to help him get through practices. We just started. So I will see how it goes. I have done a reward system for positive behaviors in soccer and it has worked. He will also start therapy soon. Thank you for your time and consideration. Keep doing what you both are doing. It's an encouragement for all parents with children who have ADHD. All right, Susanna, thank you for your question. There's lots of things here and I have a feeling Mike is going to steal from me the one that I want to address the most. But I'm going to be a gentleman and let you address it if it's the same one I'm thinking of. So go ahead. So call me to the field and help him regulate. Damn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was uh, how old is this kid again? He's 10. 10 years old. And so you started that by saying the coach has been great by calling me to the field to help him regulate. That is the last thing. That is reinforcing the behaviors and causing him to want to do it more because he's getting lots of attention and he's having his mom come to the field. So my recommendation is during these practices, during these games, stay incredibly far away. Do drop off, do pick up, do not be there, stay away, unplug that power source, unplug that, that source of him having that where he knows if he does this, mom gets to come and comfort him and he gets extra special attention. You know, if anything, when the behaviors come, he should be asked to sit out, you know, take a lap around the field, walk around the field, you know, just sit out and just come back when he's ready. The coach should use the language, I see you're not ready right now. I see you're not ready. Take a break and come join us again when you are ready. We need to build up the self-awareness of this young athlete recognizing what not ready looks like and what ready looks like. And when he's not ready, he has to sit out and get himself ready. Uh, all, it sounds like the approaches being taken so far are unintentionally reinforcing these behaviors. Mike, the other thing I want to just give people some context here, that something that I've seen and I have a feeling you've seen as well. And I don't know why this seems particularly with boys or maybe only with boys, but seeing quite a few boys in elementary school, even sometimes in middle school, who have a propensity to act babyish, particularly when their mothers are around in social situations, not realizing how that is socially stigmatizing to them. Um, and it can make them a target for teasing. Okay. So the one thing, you know, to Mike's point here is that when you are called out onto the field every time, what that message it's sending your son, and I know you don't mean to do this, but the message it sends to him is you cannot handle your emotions. You need me to serve as your executive functioning. That's not a good message to be sending him because it says to him, I have no confidence in your ability to overcome temporary upset. Okay. That's remote. Number two, at 10 years old, to have your mother come out onto the field every time you get upset, it's socially inappropriate. Okay. So I understand, you know, the coach has spread then he has to worry about all these kids, but it's not socially appropriate for your mother to be coming out onto the field when, when you're 10. All right. So again, you know, your son might not mind it, but other kids are having thoughts about that. His teammates are having thoughts about that because it's not something that should be happening at his age. Okay. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing to Mike's point is that you can use language with the coach about, you know, having him take a brain break. I like saying brain break rather than break because I want kids to understand that you have control over your thoughts and your emotions. Okay. So I'm not saying you need a break, but you, your brain needs a break to calm down. So then you can come back when you're ready. So that's why I use the terminology brain break. That's just, you know, a personal thing. Mike, what, what is your advice overall, just in terms of, you know, front loading with him and, you know, what, when he gets, you know, stuck during practices, what advice would you give to the parent? Going through overall expectations is super, super important. So obviously, you know, playing sports, they are structured, but also very unstructured. There's a total lack of control, especially in team sports with a ball. You know, we've talked about this in previous podcast episodes, what sports are best for ADHD kids. And we talk a lot about, you know, things like wrestling or swimming and things that don't involve so much teamwork in a ball. But, you know, it sounds like this young man is quite athletic, which is great. He enjoys the sports. But, and, you know, one of the big things with ADHD brains in sports is there are times where there could be a lack of stimulation. Somebody else has the ball, something else is happening. And then that leads to some attention seeking behaviors for stimulation. So maybe the pace of play is slow. Maybe something happened. So, oh, some negative self-talk. So someone can reassure me that I am great or have some behaviors so mom can come out. So I think it's very, very important to start to build a routine where, you know, on the way to practice, you discuss, you know, you know, make a mental movie of what practice should look like, describe sort of overall what your goals are, you know, what you, what you plan to happen, you know, if you miss a goal, what you should do, if you want to say something bad about yourself, what you should do, and then do a review on the way home, you know, review it overall. But as the parent, do your best not to play into the negativity of the negative self-talk. I saw a statistic recently where like, I think it's like 80 something percent of kids quit their sport on the ride home when they're alone with their parents. So you have to be very, very important that they continue the season all the way through. There's no quitting halfway through a season because the ADHD brain would love to do that. But do not play into the negativity. Focus on the positives and all of the negatives have to have a positive system to overcome them. And last thing I want to mention about this, she mentioned that reward system for positive behaviors in soccer has worked. That says that he is more capable of regulating himself on the field than maybe you give him credit for, or not saying that you don't give him credit for it, but that shows that you know what, you probably really don't need to be going out into the field every time, you know, like the coach asked you to, you know, back to our point. I mean, that, the point right there about that it's worked supports what we said there. Last thing I want to mention, you said he will also start therapy soon. Just wanted to be clear that therapy, talk therapy, play therapy, whatever, not a recommended treatment for kids with ADHD, there's no evidence that it's helpful. Okay. And people have a very hard time hearing this and they don't want to accept it. So what I like to do is just give people the websites for the research data. So you can go see it yourself. You can find the ADHD treatment recommendations on the American Academy of Pediatrics website. You can also see them on the Society of Child and Adolescent Psychology website. If you type ADHD in the search bar, and you will see the evidence based treatment for children with ADHD, medication management in conjunction with parent training. And there is also evidence that executive skills coaching or executive function treatment is also a recommended treatment because that works, but there is nothing in the recommendations about therapy whatsoever. So anyway. Yeah, it really is fascinating how ingrained that is in people's minds. So your child having a hard time, let me go have him talk to a counselor. And you got to just look at the big picture here. How was him zooming with a counselor or going to a therapist's office or a psychotherapist? How is that going to translate onto the soccer field? Especially when he's on the soccer field, he's getting stimulated by the attention. The therapist can't get rid of the attention seeking behaviors, especially when they're working. When he uses negative self-talk, somebody reassures him and gives him attention. When he has a breakdown, mom comes to the field. No amount of talking. You could work with the greatest therapist ever in the world, you know, seven hours a week, seven days a week. It's not going to change what's happening on the soccer field. Yeah, exactly. All right. Moving on. This is a question from a mom in the UK with a 15 year old son. Hi, I'm really enjoying your podcast. I'm based in the UK and have a 15 year old son. He was diagnosed at age 13, talks about his meds. He's six foot one, talks about meds a little more. There was a shortage of this medication, so we had to change. Negative behaviors have now become problematic again. And she's referring to the medication shortage and, you know, why they had to change meds. We are struggling with school. He is regularly refusing to go to school. If we try to enforce consequences such as removing technology from him, it becomes a physical battle. Or if we turn wifi off or take things out, when, or take things out when he goes out, he damages things in the house, punched holes in wall, smashed bedroom door. Any suggestions how to deal with this behavior as we feel we are parenting through a place of fear? You want to start with this or you want me to? Sure. So that you are 100% correct. You are parenting from a place of fear. And all of your, one thing that you love to see on social media these days is all behavior is communication. His communication is saying to you, I am addicted. I am addicted. I have a problem. I can't handle all of these screens. So right now you are parenting from a place of fear of allowing him to continue to have these screens so that these behaviors decrease. So all this is doing is just persisting these problems. You have a child that whose brain is not ready for screens is heavily addicted to screens and can't control himself around this addictive device. So you are 100% going to have to speak to your doctor, find a way to enlist supporters, get a community around you, utilize your tribe as we say. Do whatever you can to eliminate these screens and decrease the behaviors. ADHD behaviors greatly decrease when there is no audience and when there end what no audience of the parents, but also when there's someone else there who is not a parent. So if you're able to bring in a neighbor, an aunt, an uncle, a coach, whoever it is, it will greatly decrease those behaviors. But this is quite extreme. You might need to bring in some medical assistance. You might need to, you know, bring in the doctor, you know, sadly there have been many families that have had to call 911 because of behaviors when screens are removed. It's an addictive thing. You're removing alcohol from the alcoholic. You're removing the casino from the gambling addict. This is exactly what you're doing. But you can't just keep going through the motions every day, walking around eggshells and parenting from a place of fear. You have to remove these screens and you can't do it alone. You have to find support. So I'm going to come out at a different angle than Mike and I'm not disagreeing with anything he's saying, but the reason I'm coming at a different angle is because I have training in school, avoidant school refusal. So what I teach in my, my scaffolding better behavior program is based on this. So what is happening here is that there is accommodation happening around his school avoidance. And I am not saying that from a place of blame at all, but rather to Mike's point, when people parent from a place of fear, they begin accommodating. So accommodating parental accommodation is when parents change their behavior to, you know, alleviate or avoid their child's distress. In this case, it would be, you know, aggression or property destruction. So here's what I teach with this. Number one, what has to happen is that you have to make the decision that you're going to make a change here. So we're not expecting him to change, rather you decide that you're going to change how you respond to him. So the first thing is you take a firm stance. So if he says, you know, I'm not going to school, say, I don't accept that. Okay. Because just letting him know that you don't approve of his choice is important and that's powerful. Number two, as Mike mentioned, we have to enlist supporters. Supporters are people who the child respects who they would not want knowing about their behaviors. So for kids with ADHD, particularly these behaviors like property destruction, you know, or physically intimidating parents, kids with ADHD want those behaviors to be kept a family secret. They tend to not want other people to know about them. So enlisting supporters is when we bring in people to child respects that can be a neighbor, family friend, older cousin, grandparent, and they are somebody who reaches out to the child or in this case, a teenager when they are struggling and say, Hey, Ryan, I heard you're having a hard time going to school, you know, or, Hey, Ryan, I heard you're being destructive at home and, you know, I care about your parents and I care about you. What can I do to help you? So we don't use them as a threat. We use them as somebody to say, I know what's going on in your house. I want to support you. What can I do to help you? Okay, so the next thing is that we have what's called an announcement where we let the child or teenager know what we're going to be changing in response to their behavior. So in this case, we would say, you know, we love you. Here's all the great things about you, you know, and we've been tolerating you being destructive in our home and we're not going to allow that anymore. So here's what we're going to change when you don't go to school, you know, A, B and C is going to happen. Number one, internet is cut off. Number two, supporters are going to reach out to you. And number three, there is not going to be TV or anything. You're just going to sit here bored all day. And that's a really important thing with when their school avoidance is we don't want to reinforce the avoidance by allowing kids to do work from home, okay, or letting them watch TV and certainly not have their phone or video games. So the idea is they have to be as bored as possible and not even with us talking to them like, I mean, really as bored as possible. All right. So then from there, we enact the plan, meaning that the next time this happens, because it will, we put these things in place. Also, as part of that announcement, what I think this young man needs to hear, given he's six foot one, is that if you continue to be destructive, you know, we're reaching out to supporters. If it continues to happen, we are going to call the police. And I will tell you, Mike, I have seen cases where first time the police shows up in the house, this behavior is done, okay, because then the kid realizes that the parents mean business, you know, that's kind of a last resort. But in some cases that needs to happen for the kid to realize this is serious. So this is a whole protocol based on what's called nonviolent resistance. It's an evidence based intervention to help reduce family accommodation around things like school avoidance, physical aggression, destructive behavior. And that's what I base this on. So that's my approach to it. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Overall, you know, what's happening at home has to stop. You know, the whole school avoidance is at the end of the day, a threat to maintain some sense of control over the parents. Like you want to take away screens, you want to remove Wi-Fi, you want to try to you want to try to be authoritative over me, I just won't go to school. You know, one of the biggest things is Ryan's completely right, you have to make home as completely boring as possible. And number two, this child clearly can't handle the screens to begin with. So you need to make home as boring as possible all the time. And this child needs to obviously detox from the dysregulation and high stimulation of screens. And we need to start building up, you know, really a tolerance to discomfort and challenge. And it's really quite fascinating, the hundreds and hundreds of families we've worked with that have been able to step into their parental authority, eliminate screens, get rid of those Wi-Fi, and really create this sense of structure and, you know, just accountability towards the child. You give it about two, three weeks when they realize, hey, none of my behaviors are going to work. I can break things, scream, cry, do whatever I want. Those screens aren't coming back. The Wi-Fi is not coming back. My phone's not coming back. I'm literally just going to sit in the house bored. And if you be consistent with that, you'll be amazed at the progress you see. And I have no problem with with the digital detox like that. I think in many cases, yeah, that that is important. I think especially in this case, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. All right, moving on. So the next one is from the parent of a seven year old. Hi, I have a seven year old son who overall is doing great. Social does well in school. He has subtle signs of ADHD, including hesitancy to try new things, especially sports. We live in a competitive area. So many of his friends do travel sports already. We don't want to push him into this competitive environment, but would like him to try rec sports for the exercise and team aspect. What language would you use to get him on board with trying new sports, which seems scary? He does do skiing, which he was resistant at first. But we said this is a skill we really want him to have. He loves it now and crushes black diamonds and asked to go skiing on the weekends at seven years old. Any other sport he says no, it's the instruction he really doesn't like. We do all the recommendations. We only allow TV for about 30 minutes on weekdays and 60 minutes on weekends, no iPad or video games. He's outside with neighbor kids to play with, but they are starting to have activity so harder to find kids to play with outside. What a surprise that this comes up again. This ongoing ADHD parenting conundrum of how do I convince my kids or get them agree to do things they don't want to do. But it's so funny within that question, you kind of answered it yourself. How is your son all of a sudden doing black diamonds at seven years old? That is amazing. That's a testament to your parenting and you being authoritative and you making him do something he can't do. I ski, I can't do black diamonds. I would break every bone in my body. But the fact that he's doing it at seven years old, that is absolutely amazing. And he's going to have that talent and that skill for the rest of his life, that passion. He's going to make other ski friends. He's going to go on ski trips. And that's going to add to his quality of life so much because of your incredible parenting, of pushing him out of his comfort zone and all of these talents and skills that lie dormant within the ADHD mind, body, soul that you never end up seeing because kids stay in their comfort zone and they resist non-preferred tasks. You push them into skiing, you can push them into anything. But and he sounds like someone that ends up enjoying these things. So once he gets comfortable with the coach, comfortable with the instructor beyond the point of just the initial instruction, builds a relationship with them and gets to know the other kids on the team, he is going to be so happy you signed him up. Right now it is you the parent, you have to get out of the mindset that you have to sell him on it. You are a parent, not a used car salesman. You are, you have the right to say, you are doing this. You, I am signing you up for this. You can say whatever you want. This is an expectation and not a choice. So Mike, I want to comment this from the angle of episodic memory. So often kids with ADHD struggle with what's called episodic memory. And the way I explain this and Mike, feel free to correct me if I'm explaining well is episodic memory is the way we remember emotions from past experiences. So always like the way I explain it to kids, I say, think about your life up to this point as being like a YouTube video. And you know, you can on YouTube, you can kind of scrub backwards. So you look at these different scenes from your life and you remember the emotions from those experiences. That's what episodic memory is. So kids with ADHD have difficulty with episodic memory and have a propensity to tend to only remember strong negative emotions. They tend to not remember smaller subtle things like things they've been successful with. So I'm wondering if one of the things going on with him is that he does not always remember when he goes into a new situation, how he was able to get through the instruction and he enjoyed himself. So what we often have to do with kids with ADHD is have them connect their past successes and how they felt about those past successes with things in the present or near future. So Mike, why don't you give like an example of language, how that would sound like, you know, in this case of let's say trying to get him to, let's say they want to introduce him to golf. So how would you, what kind of language you use to, you know, to help with episodic memory there? So in terms of the episodic memory, that all comes back down to the foundational skill of all executive functioning, which is nonverbal working memory and the ability to visualize. So, you know, one thing you can start with is a quick example of a time in your life when you didn't want to do something and you can describe what that looked like and what it felt like, how you did it, how you didn't like it at first, but then you learned to love it and now you're still doing it as an adult or you had an amazing time doing those things. So start with an example from your life and then in terms of triggering your child's episodic memory, what you're going to want to do is describe to him in the best way possible your mental movie of what he was like back when he didn't want to ski. I remember you were saying this, you were doing this, you were saying all of these different things and then you can talk about, you know, the first ride up to the mountain, the first ski instruction, whatever it is, and help him to remember just how much he didn't want to ski and then talk about the last time he went skiing and how much fun he had and do a compare and contrast to those two. You know, that's really the most important thing is helping them to connect the dots between the initial reaction and then what ends up happening and the cause and effect of things that you don't want to do at first, usually end up turning out great. And another really important thing for parents to understand is sometimes kids just say no to their parents because they get dopamine from it, they get stimulation from it, they feel a sense of control and power over the parents simply by saying no, even when they don't really even mean to say no. So, you know, they may be open to trying new things because they know their friends, you know, he's playing outside with all his peers and neighborhood friends and they're going off to sports somewhere in the back of his mind. He's thinking, hey, maybe I should do sports too, but it's a little too stimulating to say no to mom and dad, to shut them down and feel like you have control. That's why authoritative parenting is so incredibly important to getting kids out of their comfort zone and realizing their strengths. And last thing I just want to mention, you know, I cannot emphasize how important it is that with kids with ADHD, we help to remind them right of those emotions from past experiences, because again, they don't remember them and they often don't remember their own successes with things. So, that's why this is so important. So, yeah. All right, Mike, we have one last question here. This is from the parent of a 15-year-old. Hi, Michael and Ryan. Thanks so much for your podcast. I recommended it to colleagues and patients as excellent and evidence-based content. Thank you for that. After an incredibly trying year, lying, physical aggression, verbal abuse, emotional liability, failing grades, defiance, getting in trouble in school, skipping classes, we finally took his phone and don't see him getting it back because we are honestly traumatized by this year. My question is, my son is incredibly disrespectful towards me. I get called bitch almost every day lately. In the past, I would ask him, what did you just say to me and talk to him about his language? But I'm trying not to feed him with negative attention. So, I calmly say, please do not speak to me that way and then go silent. Still, it doesn't take a whole lot for him to lose it, and he blurts out some pretty mean things when he is upset, even at mine or things are inconveniences. How do I make this stop? I would hate for him to treat his future partner in this way. Well, I appreciate this question, and I think that's a valid concern. Mike, I'm really glad that we got this question, and I want to mention why. One of the things is, and you're not going to hear about this on social media, and particularly if you look at any content for adults with ADHD, the content on YouTube, social media for adults with ADHD is very empathetic, things they struggle with, but what you will not see any videos about on for adults with ADHD is how their treatment of others affects others or their behavior. There's really nothing online saying that sometimes this behavior in adults with ADHD is problematic. The reason I bring that up is to say, many adults with ADHD feel entitled to speak to people however they want. I'm not going to say all of them, but I am going to say many. Just this morning, Mike, there was a comment left on one of my videos, not even on my video, but on a comment somebody left, and it was verbally abusive, basically. This woman calling this guy an idiot for the comment he left and so on. I think that's a perfect example of what we're talking about here, that this is a behavior that needs to be addressed and they need to be called on because, yes, many people with ADHD will go on in life and feel that they are entitled to speak to people how they want based on how they're feeling at that moment. That being said, I'm going to reiterate what I said for the other parent here with the property destruction, that number one, you take a firm stance against it and say, I would not even say, please don't speak to me that way. I think you're being too kind. I would say, you don't speak to me that way. I don't speak to you that way. So here my tone and the words I'm using, I'm not asking him, I'm telling him, you're not going to speak to me that way. That's stepping into your parental authority. Number two is think about that, is this something that we want to enlist supporters with? I would say yes, because again, my guess is he will probably be embarrassed if people who he respects outside of the home know about this behavior. So if he's speaking to you that way and it's a problem, I would have a supporter reach out to him, say, hey, I heard you're having a hard time treating your mom with respect. What can I do to help you? And again, we announced beforehand to him what we're going to be changing in response to his behavior and let him know that supporters are going to be reaching out because we don't want to spring this on kids. We want to let them know what's happening. So here's the thing, you cannot control what comes out of his mouth. However, you can control how you respond to it. And that's why I'm saying take a more assertive stance, not asking him, please, telling him you don't speak to me this way and I don't speak to you that way. And then we have supporters reach out to him when he's struggling with this. So that's my take. Yeah. And this email is a great example of how the vast majority of ADHD behaviors are in the home after we went so long thinking ADHD was a school-based problem. This is the reality of ADHD. And Ryan made a great point about adult ADHD. And the reason why you don't see that stuff on social media is because it doesn't get likes and follows. The vast majority of and clicks and clickbait and all that kind of stuff, all the adult ADHD stuff you'll see online has to revolve around some sort of like, you know, victim mentality aspect of, you know, I have ADHD, I'm struggling, that kind of stuff. It's never the reality of I have ADHD, I can make other people uncomfortable. I can have a negative impact on other people. And this is really, you know, this mom is being proactive by seeing that he's acting this way now. I don't want him to treat his future girlfriend that way. You know, I always look at the big, picture here. You know, chances are right now he is very poorly treating his parents. And, you know, the, I speak all the time about the unconditional love relationship of ADHD child, teen to mom and dad. And moms nine times out of 10, 10 times out of 10, 99 times out of 100, get the worst of the behaviors. You know, teenage boys, boys, you know, go after their moms because moms are the definition of unconditional love and moms get the most of it. So, you know, overall, I would look at really, you know, what is this teens day to day like, you know, how can we build the structure where he really is out of the house as much as possible. And he's interacting with different people in more unstructured environments. Sometimes at school, you know, you're, you're quiet in class, you're on your Chromebook in your free time, you're listening to the teacher, you're rushing through the hallways, kids are on their phone at the lunch table, unfortunately. And there's not a lot of social interaction at school. So, how can we get him involved in after school activities, sports, clubs, you know, the local YMCA, at gyms, something. I think for the parents' sake and the child's sake, we need to find a way to get this teen out of the house, building relationships with as many different people as possible, developing a self-regulation, his resiliency, his grit, where he's building things and he's getting stimulation in other ways besides going after mom. So, the more talents and skills and interests and relationships he builds, the less he's going to instantly go towards, I'm bored, I need stimulation, how can I use shock value language as mom. And one last thing I forgot to mention here, there might need to be here a daily expectation in place for how we speak to family members. So, this is something I teach parents, I have a course called Creating Daily Expectations, and for younger kids, I teach it in my course for four to seven year olds. But what I teach is daily expectations to be split up between helping around the house, which could include cooperation and then also how we treat family members or helping around the house. And if that's not an issue, then the cooperation one or whatever you need it to be. So, we base daily expectations based on the age of the child for a 15 year old. I typically say six daily expectations for behavior, cooperation, helping around the house, whatever. And one of them can be how we speak to family members. Now, when I teach daily expectations, what I teach parents, and I want to give credit to the nurtured heart approach for this, because this is who I learned this from, we don't use fluffy language like use kind words, okay? We say there is no cursing at family members, or there's going to be one reminder that to change your language when you're speaking to me in a way that's not respectful, okay? And those daily expectations are tied into them earning the expensive privileges you provide for them, like, you know, phones, you know, computer, video games, whatever, even internet, alright, internet is not an entitlement. Yes, they might need it for school, but internet is internet access is a privilege, just like a phone is a privilege, they are not your rights. So, what I teach is tie these privileges you provide them into meeting these daily expectations, okay? And we vary it again based on age, you know, so younger kids need more, you know, immediate, you know, kind of incentives for things because they're time horizon is shorter, but in this case, I think that that might need to be one of the daily expectations if this is a regular behavior from him. So, exactly, yeah. And this mom really did the right thing by taking that phone away and doing that difficult thing, obviously. This is a child that clearly should not have a phone and obviously one paid for them. But Ryan makes a great point, internet is a privilege, it's not, or it's not a right. So, even if he comes home with a Chromebook and he has homework to do, you know, I'm sorry, I don't want you doing that stuff in the house, you know, we're not allowing you to use our Wi-Fi today. You have to do it, stay after school, do it there, go to the library, use their Wi-Fi, go to a friend's house, do it there, you know, you can't, you don't have access to these things. You know, look at the various ways, you know, look big picture on your life as well, in what ways are you accommodating him? Are you still making him lunch? Are you still cleaning his room? Are you still buying him things? He's at the age where he, where you can start thinking about summer jobs or part-time jobs. You know, what, what, in what ways are you still funding him? And what ways are you still doing for him in ways you shouldn't because you're the victim of this abusive relationship? Right. So, hope this episode was 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, or if they're not medicated, we can't answer questions without that information. And you can send it to the ADHD Parenting Podcast at gmail.com. Will we ask in exchange for answering your question in a future episode? If you could just leave us a nice brief review on Spotify or Apple Podcast and just send a screenshot of it along with your question and we'll be happy to answer in a future episode. So, thank you everyone for these excellent questions today. We really appreciate it. And those questions we didn't answer, we will absolutely get to in a future episode. So, thank you so much. Thank you. 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.