Host Julie Legg speaks with ADHD and anxiety coach Dana Baker-Williams about the complexities of parenting neurodivergent children. Dana, who has ADHD herself, shares her personal journey and emphasizes that while traits may manifest differently in each child, there are common struggles with ADHD & parenting.
Parents, she explains, play a crucial role in helping their children navigate these challenges, but they must also prioritize their own well-being. Self-care, even in small doses, is essential to maintaining balance in a household where emotions can run high. Ultimately, Dana’s message is one of empowerment: when parents understand and embrace their child’s unique wiring, they can approach challenges with patience, adaptability, and grace.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Self-care for parents: Parents with ADHD (or those managing ADHD in their children) must prioritize their own well-being. Parents set the tone for their household; if they are overwhelmed, their children will likely struggle too.
- Routines reduce anxiety: Establishing structured routines benefits both parents and children with ADHD. Predictability lowers anxiety by eliminating uncertainty.
- Externalizing systems: ADHD brains struggle with working memory and time perception. Keeping information visible prevents the “out of sight, out of mind” problem.
- Validation and emotional regulation: Parents should focus on validating their child’s emotions rather than immediately trying to “fix” problems. If a child is having a meltdown, they cannot process logic at that moment—calm presence is more effective. Emotional dysregulation is common in ADHD, and learning to name emotions (“name it to tame it”) can help children process their feelings.
- ADHD and anxiety: Many children with ADHD also experience anxiety, often due to repeated failures or difficulty meeting expectations. Addressing ADHD symptoms (like forgetfulness or difficulty following through) can reduce anxiety. Routine, sleep, exercise, and breathing techniques can help manage both ADHD and anxiety.
- Handling defiance and frustration: What appears as defiance in ADHD children is often frustration due to difficulty with emotional regulation. Arguing with an ADHD child in a power struggle provides a dopamine rush, reinforcing the behaviour. Instead of engaging in arguments, parents should set firm boundaries and disengage calmly.
- Every child needs different support: “Fair” does not mean treating all children the same; it means giving each child what they need. ADHD children often struggle with social cues, maintaining friendships, and understanding expectations. Parents should consider what works best for their child rather than imposing neurotypical expectations.
LINKS
- Website: https://www.parentinginreallife.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parentinreallife/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@parentinginreallife
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parentinginreallife/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parentinginreallife/
- Julie Legg – The Missing Piece: A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD
- Contact ADHDifference
TRANSCRIPT
JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52. Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode I chat with Dana Baker-Williams. She’s an ADHD and Anxiety Coach and she helps parents navigate the chaos, big emotions, and other challenges surrounding raising a neurodivergent family. Through her own lived experience and neuroscience-based strategies, she equips parents with practical steps and help so they can meet their uniquely wired children where they are, with confidence and grace. Welcome Dana to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
DANA: Thanks for having me. I can’t wait to talk to you about it.
JULIE: You’re an ADHD and Anxiety coach particularly around parenting, which is great because we haven’t really covered that on the show to date. Let’s start from the very beginning. Can you explain your relationship to ADHD within this setting?
DANA: Yeah, so I have ADHD and my husband has ADHD. And he didn’t find that out until we had our daughter who has ADHD, and anxiety, and working memory challenges. And then we have my son who’s completely neurotypical. Has nothing. Not even an allergy. So it’s kind of interesting. I knew something wasn’t ‘right’ quote unquote with my daughter for a long time but struggled mightily to get any teacher to acknowledge it or to see it. She was just a quiet girl. She was well behaved. She went under the radar. She did really well in school but they weren’t seeing the five hours of homework in like first grade, and the tears and the meltdowns, and the, you know, the big big big big emotions. And so it took a long time actually until finally I kept asking everybody, all the teachers. She even had a special ed teacher, who was no longer a special ed teacher, but I thought well surely she’ll be able to see this. I tried private school. Took her out of that because she got bullied and finally I just said I’m just going to get her assessed. And the rest of my family, some family members I will say, felt I coddled her and that was more the issue, not that it was a neurodevelopmental issue. But anyway, we got her assessed and yes, she’s got all the things. And that was sort of the beginning, right. So then it was how do I, where do I go from here? And that’s a big… it’s a big and scary question for parents when you get that diagnosis, I think.
JULIE: Having ADHD ourselves we can look back into our childhood and look at our own personal struggles. Now ADHD I guess is more in the forefront of conversation around the world, what common challenges are you finding that ADHD kids experience? What’s coming up nearer the top of the list?
DANA: Well and it’s interesting because even with the same diagnosis, and even the same type inattentive or hyperactive or combo, the clients I see and my daughter and my friends whatever, they’re all very different. It really manifests so differently. And but yes, there are common things like time blindness where they really… it’s this magical I don’t know whether it’s been five minutes or five hours that have passed, right? So if you’re trying to get your kid to meet you in the car to leave for school you know, they’re not going to know when five minutes has passed for instance. Focus. Focus is a big challenge of course. You tell them to brush their teeth and 10 minutes later they’re, you know, in their PJ still doing Legos or whatever when they’re young, because they’ve already forgotten it. And then you’ve got that the emotional regulation or dysregulation, the having big big big feelings, and they can come on really suddenly. And a small disappointment to somebody else is going to be huge to somebody with ADHD, especially if they have rejection sensitivity. So it’s sort of a tsunami effect and it can come out of nowhere, right. They’re you know, they’re very calm and quiet and lovely and then you could step on a, you know, a mine and you don’t even know what it was or where that it’s coming. So I think all of those are common. And I think this belief that they really want to do well, right. They’re really, they’re trying really hard and sometimes you can’t see that because what we see is that they’re not doing this. They’re not sitting down. They’re not doing their homework. They’ve forgotten what they were supposed to say or do. And I think that’s really important to keep in mind because it’s not like kids wake up saying “How can I make my parents life harder and miserable today?” They’re thinking I’m going to do better. And you know, they get a lot of negativity when we don’t really need to be giving that negativity.
JULIE: I remember as a child myself and I’ll pitch it at around 10. I used to find it quite confusing. I’d have so much to say and would be quiet. I had so much to share but felt that it wasn’t the right time or I wasn’t being listened to. Or it was I couldn’t quite pick the moments if it was appropriate to talk about that now. Or I’d get too enthusiastic and feel that everyone would look at me, you know, as if I’d lost the plot. And so it was quite confusing navigating friendships and…
DANA: I was just going to say, socially is another whole issue. I mean the executive function people know about. Sort of like they’re not turning in their homework. They’re not doing their homework. They’re struggling. But executive function is also about self-monitoring, whether you can look at yourself, you know what you’re feeling. It can be knowing where you are in a process and you don’t, because you can’t really look at where you are, or where you’re sitting, or who you’re talking with. Friendships are really really hard and it’s heartbreaking to see because again, I think parents don’t know that that’s going to be an issue, right. We’re much more common to talk about the academics. And I think the big emotions and that inability to read a room sometimes, not really seeing the social expectations of you. You know I remember talking to my daughter after a vacation let’s say, oh did you know her friend have a good vacation? I don’t know. Didn’t you ask her? No. And nothing wrong with that except socially you sort of think oh okay, this is how you have a conversation. So something that came really naturally to me does not necessarily to kids, kids with ADHD who struggle with that. And then there’s you know, tied to that socially is friendships are hard because you have to maintain them, right. So which means you have to remember birthdays. You have to remember to reach out. You have to be the first person sometimes. And if you have ADHD or you have anxiety, or both, that’s really hard. And it’s interesting because I think parents really want their kids to have a lot of friends. And I know I did. And it’s interesting as I’m working with the kids or the teens, they don’t necessarily want a lot of friends. That’s stressful for them. And they’re perfectly content with their best friend or maybe a couple best friends. And so it’s interesting working with the parents to try, because I goofed on that and I was like you know Miss ‘well you should have lots of friends’, thinking that’s what she wanted, never asking. And one day you know, she was like “Mom, I’m fine.” Like oh. So now I tell parents that as we start talking about it because I’m like, before you get so upset about it because it is heartbreaking to watch that they’re dropped by their friend group or they’re mistreated or they’re left out. It’s also important for us to take a look at what do they want and what works for them, and not just assume they want something that we would want for them.
JULIE: That’s really interesting I think about parents projecting their own wishes on their children. And you hear that when it comes to careers for example, you know going to university “I never had the chance.” Off you do… you know, that’s very interesting. Yes we can do that unintentionally. Talking about some wee mistakes that we can make, where can we do better when we have a child that’s been diagnosed with ADHD, whether we have ADHD or not ourselves, how can we avoid some of those common mistakes that make matters worse in the home, in this beautiful safety home environment.
DANA: Yeah. Right, which unfortunately oftentimes is not, right. So that’s a book I’m writing about actually is the family dynamic because it’s not talked about. Again the big emotions the… it’s not talked about as much. And so I think for us, first I want to say is we’re doing the best we can as well, just like our kids are, right. So give ourselves some grace because yes we’re going to make mistakes, and we’re going to be frustrated, and exasperated, and exhausted. That just… that comes with the territory of parenting. But especially parenting with somebody with extra needs, right. Probably the most important to me, or the biggest in how you parent in general, is it’s really important to know not to expect this same thing from a neurodivergent person that you expect from a neurotypical person. And while that may seem obvious, what’s not obvious is that these kids are often 3 to five years behind developmentally. So if I have a frustrated parent saying my six-year-old won’t get up, get dressed, put his backpack together and get out of the house on time. Hey, six is young to expect that but forgetting that, a three-year-old? No. No you’re not going to expect that. Everything starts with us. If we can start with our own expectations and understand that our kids are developmentally behind so we need to set our expectations at the right level because otherwise we’re setting them up to fail. But we’re also setting ourselves up to fail. And that just makes for a really unhappy world and unhappy home. And a home with a lot of conflict, and a lot of exhaustion, exasperation, nagging, anger from the kids, right Like it can just blow up behind you and you don’t really know why. So I think that’s probably the first and biggest thing. Another one is lecturing or using it as a teaching moment when they’ve done either a mistake or they’re in a meltdown. No, they cannot hear you if they’re having a meltdown. They… whether it’s a temper tantrum, a meltdown, just they’re overly frustrated and so they explode, they’re in fight, flight, or freeze. They cannot hear you. They cannot. I mean you’re basically the Charlie Brown ‘Wah wah wah wah wah,” at that time, right. So don’t do that. Don’t. Just be their calm. Just keep your own calm and let it ride out because there’s nothing really you can do other than… they can, their emotional regulation will come from mirroring yours. So if it’s a child and they’ll let you hold them, their heartbeat will literally match yours. So that’s how you can calm them down, or just letting them know you’re there, or validating. But yeah, we need to respect sort of where they are and understand their brain. I mean there’s a lot of… I mean you can hire someone, but also being curious and learning these things is really important because it does also affect your own. Like if you can look at something and say oh yeah okay, that was my bad. You know, I’m talking to her and she’s not listening. Or I’m expecting too much. That changes how you react. So for me if I can look at what I’m doing or they’re doing, and stop myself in the middle of my frustration to say oh. Would I expect that if they were three years younger and the answer is no. It’s hard to get mad at someone for not being able to do something. It’s very different from thinking they can do it and they’re not, and they’re choosing not to and it’s defiance, to shifting your thinking and thinking they’re doing their best. Something is missing here. There’s a lagging skill and that’s not on them. I think that makes a big difference.
JULIE: I’ve been jotting down some notes. There’s a few things. One is, as a parent when we see someone that we love whether it’s a child or parent or partner, who is upset and in emotional pain, we want to try and find a solution. Yes. And you know, sometimes that’s highly inappropriate when really they just want to be heard and understood. So almost taming our solutions, magic wand, perhaps that’s something too that might help.
DANA: Yes. So validating, listening to them. I mean like anybody else right, if I’m mad and someone says “Go calm down,” that’s not going to help me. I’m certainly not going to calm down. So if you can instead look at where they are, and meet them where they are, listen to them, try to understand their point of view, validate what they’re saying and feeling. Validating doesn’t mean you agree with them. It means you see and understand what they’re thinking and feeling. It’s like so… and that’s different. And that difference is so important because sometimes I’ll be talking to parents about that and say you need to validate them and like well “They’re wrong.” Like, doesn’t matter. That’s what they’re feeling right at that moment. So doesn’t matter if that’s right or wrong. It’s a feeling. So yeah, that’s a really good point that that is a main thing to be able to listen, understand try to take things from their point of view. And also to get curious about if they’re having a meltdown, or if something’s wrong, or they’re not getting their work done, or whatever it is. Why? Like sometimes just asking them, why is that hard for you? And it may be… I mean I remember one client finally asked that question and it was an academic, it was turning in homework or something, and it was hand-writing. And the person instead of saying “I hate school,” or whatever, she’s like “I really don’t know how to hold a pen. It’s uncomfortable for me.” So it’s a sensory issue. But if you don’t ask a question and you don’t have a sensory issue, you would never think of that. And so that one was much simpler to fix than you know, something that you might be thinking it is and blowing it all out of proportion. So sometimes it’s asking that question. It’s “What’s hard for you? Where’s that lagging skill? How can I teach you?”
JULIE: In a situation where you may have several children, and one may be diagnosed with ADHD and the other one not, or is neurotypical, whatever it may be, when it comes to a parent dealing with everyday life with children you know, often my mother would say to me “Well I treated you all the same.” Because you know, “I treated you all the same. I didn’t pick one out over the other and everyone was treated equally.” Retrospectively I out of three siblings have been diagnosed with ADHD. Maybe I needed to be treated differently? Or is it good to treat all of your children the same?
DANA: Yeah, that’s a great question because I actually I hear this from kids really, especially kids with ADHD. They have a very heightened sense of justice. So it’s really really really important to them to always be equal. And it’s really interesting to see that and how that plays out in different relationships. But yes. One of the things I try to say is, ‘equal’ is not the same as ‘the same.’ Like the same and equal does not necessarily mean the same. It means I’m going to give you what you need. It means I’m going to expect the best perhaps out of each of you, but that best is different. So I’m not going to treat you exactly the same because no two kids, whether they’re ADHD or not ADHD are the same. And even their relationship within the family isn’t the same. So when you think you’ve grown up with a sibling and you’ve had the same life, you really kind of haven’t. Because I think you view it differently and yeah, I think as parents we absolutely have to give our kids different things and hopefully do it in a fair way. But fair doesn’t mean equal. It doesn’t mean the same. So that’s how I try to explain it to parents or to the kids who you know, the teens are like “It’s just not fair.” I’m like hmmm. It is in that they’re giving you what you need but they’re also giving each of your siblings what they need, and you don’t always need the same thing. Like if one of you is brilliant in math, and one of you is brilliant in English, just to take academics, you’re going to handle that differently. The person who’s brilliant in English probably isn’t in math, so that’s going to be harder. Maybe they have a math tutor. Maybe they work longer with you on math, you know. It’s just… it isn’t the same and I don’t think… I don’t think it needs to be the same. I don’t think it should be the same.
JULIE: Can you talk to me please about, you mentioned the word defiance. You know, it’s a difference between a ADHD child struggling and having challenges ‘doing’ maybe through a developmental you know, challenges. But what about the defiant ADHDer? And I guess you might see that coming into the young teens age. How does one deal with a feisty ADHD teen?
DANA: Well I think you deal with it the same way you probably deal with a non-ADHD, which is first of all, don’t take it personally. And that’s really key for parents to hear. Don’t take it personally. Don’t show up to every argument. I mean if it’s a teenager and they’re giving you a side eye and attitude, is that an area that you need to fall on? Do you need to fall on that hill? Could you just ignore it and let it pass? I also think defiance with somebody who is ADHD is often not defiance and more often it is that they’re frustrated. So they have a very low tolerance for frustration, people with ADHD. And I think what comes out as defiance is their own frustration. And so I think it’s a better idea to try and see what is going on underneath that defiance than to think that they’re just doing it because they’re angry because sometimes they’re not angry at all. Sometimes they’re just frustrated and they don’t know what to be doing differently. Sometimes it is that they don’t know, they aren’t capable, or they haven’t been taught how to handle frustration or how to do whatever it is that they’re in the middle of doing. And the other piece of it is, even if they are angry, if they have ADHD they have a real struggle with impulse control. So their emotions are going to explode whether they want them to or not. And if they don’t have a way of calming themselves down then that’s just going to explode. They’re going to be mad. They’re going to be angry. They’re going to be defiant. And I’m not saying ADHD is a pass for bad behavior at all. There can be consequences if they’re doing something that is against your family value or rule and also does this need to be something that you argue with them about and make it a bigger deal? And the other thing that’s important is arguing. So you know, some teenagers, especially kids with ADHD, they negotiate a lot. And they will poke and poke and poke at the same thing and ask 30 times instead of twice whether they can do something. Can I just get back on the computer? And when you are feeding that it’s almost like oxygen to a fire because when you are arguing and getting into that tug of war and that power struggle, two things. One is it is giving their brain dopamine. So they are going to continue to do that. It’s just going to go back and forth. Second of all, it is a power struggle and if it’s a power struggle you can’t really win. You can really only control yourself, even as a parent. So you might as well drop the rope and you can stick to your guns and say “No and I’m done with this conversation.” Or “You need to go to your calming place.” Like there are things you can do but honestly, getting stuck in this tug-of war with them, this does nobody any good.
JULIE: We’re talking about strategies really for parents. If they’re dealing with their own ADHD challenges or perhaps this emotional regulation of their own that they struggle with, same with impulsivity and sense of justice and all of these things that parent and child could both own, what are some sort of key strategies that could help parents when they find themselves… they should be parenting but they’re going through a patch where they need to look after themselves first before…?
DANA: Yeah so it really does start with us and that means many things. One of which is if you can’t be calm and you can’t be in control then that family behind you is not going to be either. Parenting a kid with ADHD, anxiety, any of these things, is hard. It’s fabulous but it’s also hard. And if you have it as well it’s very hard to be consistent as a parent if you are not a consistent person. So if you have ADHD and are inconsistent, setting up routines seems very very difficult but that’s what you need to do, both for yourself and for your child, is have routines because that takes away the anxiety. They know what to do. It becomes a rote. It’s a habit. You know, that’s really important. I tell my parent clients to take at least 10 minutes a day and that sounds like so little but it can feel like so much in the moment. To take 10 minutes a day to themselves. I mean it can be having lunch with a friend. It can be a walk. It can be music. But do something for you because otherwise when that stress does come, and you’re trying to get things done when it’s hard for you too, then you have a little more leeway to stay calm because you’re fueled a little bit. The other thing is externalize the systems. So whenever you can use calendars. Use timers. Use checklists. Because even if you think you’ve got this, you probably don’t. Because it doesn’t come naturally to you and because if you have ADHD, you do forget your thoughts. Like people interrupt if they have ADHD, not because they’re being rude but because they either want to relate or because they’re afraid they’re going to lose what they’re going to say, because we do. So I think externalizing is really important and I also think a lot of kids with ADHD have working memory challenges. What that means is they can’t keep things in their head for very long. So they might have a great memory for when they were three and that horrible thing you did to them, but if you say “What did I tell you 3 minutes ago?” Not so much. So out of sight is out of mind. So if your kid has to go into the computer to figure out what their homework is, you’re like three steps behind already. Get a whiteboard. Get a sticky note. Put it somewhere where they can see or, if it’s you, where you can see because that’s just the way it is. Sort of like a time-blindness. It’s not that I can’t tell time. It’s that they don’t know what that time feels like. So that’s something I can teach kids or as a parent you can teach kids, is what does five minutes feel like? But you have to learn that as well if you have ADHD. So simplifying routines. Make it as simple as possible. Put lists up. Tell you where you’re going. Make sure everybody knows before the day goes, what they’re supposed to be doing, when. Have it written down and embrace good enough for parenting. Like sometimes dinner is going to be chicken nuggets and baby carrots, and that’s okay. So get yourself to understand that because you’re neurodivergent as well, your family is not going to look like the Instagram family of somebody with a neurotypical family. It’s just not. You will have some chaos. You will have some confusion. You will have a little craziness but you’ll also get… you can look at that as creativity as well, right. And that can be really wonderful as long as you’re not putting yourself up as this perfect parent who is all put together, has everything organized and ready, because that’s really not what you’re going to be probably.
JULIE: No, it’s not realistic is it. It’s really not. Dana you’re an ADHD and an Anxiety coach, could you explain the difference between that bundle and what therapy is. Is there a difference between the two?
DANA: Yeah there is. So if I were to say therapy is about sort of healing the past. How did I get here? What can I do to ease what has brought me here and heal what’s inside. Coaching is really about building the future. I help families figure out where are you now? Where do you want to be and how do we get there? And then it’s sort of a boots on the ground, practical strategy-based support. We don’t just talk about the fact that you have executive function skills that are lagging. We build the systems for it. And we try different systems because again, not everybody works the same way, right. Handing somebody a planner as they say, is not going to help a kid with ADHD if they can’t remember to bring their planner with them or to write something down. So what… what works for the child. or if I’m working with the parent, what works for the parent? And doing that is troubleshooting, what is happening now and how do we fix that, but also how do we make homework happen without World War II breaking out in the kitchen? How do we manage to get some accountability built into our kids and for us, some understanding of what works. So I’ll meet with my clients and we’ll talk about what’s going on now and that does include, that includes emotions and everything else because honestly, I’m sort of wraparound care because ADHD touches every part of your life. Like this idea that it just touches one piece, it’s just no. It touches everything. So you’re talking self-confidence, anxiety, inner critic, you know all of the things. But also what do we do about that? And I give them something to practice for the week and they try something new, a different way of talking to their kid, a different question to ask them. Or, if it’s the young adult or college kid I give them a tool to try. And then I’m on text sort of for the week checking out how is it going. And then when we meet the next week it’s like okay, how did that go? What worked well? What didn’t work well? Why didn’t it work well, so that we don’t do that again. And let’s come up with something else. It’s a windy path because you have to deal with what happens that week too, right. It’s not just like oh here’s my path and I’m going to hit all my elements. That’s no. It’s not really that but it is about choosing where you want to be. What is the family life that you want and how are you going to get there? Or for the student it’s what college are you wanting to get into? What, where it’s your… where are your strengths? How do we play to your strengths and work with your brain and not against the brain. And I think that’s the big key is all of us, if we have a differently wired brain and we’re constantly trying to use the normal tools or strategies to get through life, that’s like square peg round hole. Like that doesn’t work. And it’s also hard because you’re always bashing your head against the wall basically trying to be something that you’re not. So instead let’s look at what you are good at. What you do like and let’s work with that and not push against it as if you’re someone you’re not, because you’re not. And there’s nothing wrong with who you are. Like we’re not here to fix you. You know I get emails “Oh can you fix my child?” No. No. Your child is just fine the way they are. We just need to figure out what can we do for them to make their life easier, and make it more sustainable, and that they’re going to get to where they want to go and have life that they want.
JULIE: Dana, ADHD and anxiety, now often they will go hand in hand. How do the two basically interreact with each other because it’s such a common thing.
DANA: It is such a common thing and that’s kind of where I brought in the wraparound care is that… so ADHD might say “Oh my God, I forgot to do that thing,” and then anxiety is going to come up from behind and say “And so I’ve completely… everything’s ruined.” It’s like okay, not everything’s ruined because something didn’t go well. And I think that what’s interesting is ADHD and anxiety are often two different diagnoses but they’re also often not. And so girls for instance often get misdiagnosed and more often diagnosed with anxiety, depression, mood issues. And it’s much slower to get to the ADHD but here’s the thing, if you have ADHD and anxiety what they want to do is treat the ADHD first if you’re for instance going to use medication. And then sometimes that anxiety goes away because it’s the ADHD that’s causing the anxiety, right. It’s that feeling of I always mess up. I can’t do anything right. And forward that in all over your life, and your brain is just going bing bing bing bing bing. You know, like an alarm all the time. And if you can calm what’s going on in your brain so you can do things at the same level playing field, then that anxiety sometimes goes away. And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes they’re two different diagnoses but they always come to play together. Like ADHD rarely comes by itself. It usually has something, whether that’s anxiety, OCD, depression. Something’s coming in with it, many sometimes, many things. So again, the external supports are helpful for that anxiety, right. That’s where that takes the anxiety away. If you know what you’re supposed to be doing because as a kid who thinks you never remember anything, you’re anxious. Like what’s my next class? What am I supposed to be doing? What did mom ask me to do? And once you have routines in place you’re not thinking anymore. So I know that I’m supposed to go to the bathroom brush my teeth, brush my hair, before I go to breakfast, right. Like you know that’s the routine. So that’s why routines really help. And then exercise, movement, sleep are really important for both ADHD and anxiety. Because you do have this excess stuff going on and excess energy. And you need to get that off, get that out, and then that also lowers the anxiety. Or deep breathing. So having tools for the anxiety part, whether it’s part of the ADHD or just goes along with it, is really important. You kind of need tools for both because they do just come sort of together.
JULIE: We often see children with this emotional dysregulation. Maybe it might come across as tantrums in the supermarket or bursting into tears at a moment where everyone around them wonders where on earth did that come from. Big big emotions is a big challenge for young ADHD kids. Yeah. For parents, are there any little snippets of manageable sort of strategies that they could use to help?
DANA: Yeah, there are a lot of things. I would say the first thing and what I ask parents to do, usually one of the first things, is to track for a week or two the outbursts, the meltdowns, both to see what it is that’s driving it. It could be time of day. Could be they’re hungry. Could be they’re tired. It could be they get home from school and they vomit all of their emotion all over you because they’ve been masking and holding in it all day, which yes, that’s pretty much happens. So if you know the trigger it makes it easier to avoid the trigger. If it’s something you can avoid. Like, if you know because, if it’s because they’re hangry, pick them up from school with a snack, right. Really easy once you know that that’s the issue. The other thing is again routines routines, routines. Morning, after school evening. All three need routines. That just keeps the calm. Then also give them a calm down plan. So whether that’s or like a calming corner in your house or in their bedroom or somewhere, where there might be headphones and music that they like. There might be a coloring book. There might be soft plushy or a blanket. Things like that can be if they know where to go when they’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed, then once they begin to learn what they feel, which is the next thing, it can be really helpful if they have a place that they feel safe to go. And then you have to practice being calm all the time and it can’t be when they’re upset. Because, think about it, if you get mad and you… you know, or upset and you need to come up with something to calm you down, you’re in fight, flight or freeze. You’re not able to do that unless that is also sort of a habit. So unless you have been practicing when you are calm, some breathing, some yoga… blowing bubbles is really helpful if they’re little kids actually. Stuffed animal breathing. So if it’s a young kid they lie down with one of their stuffed animals on their tummy and when they breathe they’ll watch the stuffed animal go up and down, which is A. fun and cute and B. easy for them to do by themselves. So those are all things that I would do at of whatever age. And then the emotions as I said in the beginning, we don’t self-monitor that well. So you don’t really necessarily know what your emotions are and it’s uncomfortable to look at them. So you have a kid who you ask them, what made you so upset? I don’t know. So you got to start with naming it. Name it to tame it. They have to know what they’re feeling. So they need vocabulary and that’s more than mad, sad, happy right. You got to get into the adjectives, the little nuances, so that they can feel when their frustration is rising, you know. Maybe you have a green, yellow, red for you check in with your kid. Where are you right now? Oh I’m green. Life is great. Or wow, school sucked. I’m a red, get out of my way. So that they can start to understand sort of their temperature because that’s really important for them to ever figure out ahead of time before they blow. They need to know that it’s coming and they need to know that oh, if I have a headache or a stomach ache it doesn’t necessarily mean I should stay home from school because I’m sick. Maybe it means you’re anxious. Maybe it means you’re not sure what you’re doing today. That’s the other thing telling them, always letting them know ahead of time. That was one thing with transitions are really hard for anxiety or ADHD. So if your kid thinks they’re going to ballet after school and they’re not, we need to give them the heads up whenever we can. Walk through what you’re doing out loud. We’re going to the grocery store and I’m not going to be able to buy you a candy bar today but you know, we have something we can use when we get home. You just talk it through. Give them the heads up so they have time to process. Because that’s the other piece of this is the working memory is one thing, the processing speed is another. So for a lot of us, it takes a minute to get your head around to change, right. If they’re blindsided by something… I mean, think about if we’re blindsided by something it’s hard. And they’re little kids. So they don’t know what to do with that and they’ve got all this emotion from it. They don’t know why right, so they have to process. They have to know ahead of time whatever you can tell them.
JULIE: If we’re looking at parents and teachers together, do parents need to have discussion with their child’s teacher about where they’re at or what they think their needs are? How would you suggest going about that?
DANA: Yeah, so it depends on the age of the child but if we’re assuming a child for now, and assuming either they have accommodations or they don’t, doesn’t really matter, let’s say they don’t. You still want to collaborate always with the teacher and I think the best way to do that, or a good way to do that, is at the very beginning of school. Not only meeting them and talking to them but also send a letter in that says this works really well for my… here’s my child. This is what she’s like. She loves this. She doesn’t like this. This is what works for her. Tap her on the shoulder if you’re going to talk to her. So you know, things like that. Like what are the things that work and what are the things that definitely don’t work. And the hope would be that the teacher would try to adapt where they can. Or if they do have accommodations they still need that information because again accommodations may be less homework, longer for a test. But that’s not necessarily going to change the day-to-day activity of their… of your child’s life in the school. So that’s important. I think teaching self- advocacy early is important and advocating for your child is important. So having that collaboration, that checking in with the teachers, asking for feedback. How is she doing? Some parents I know have a little notebook that goes back and forth to school and if there’s any issues, or if she did something great, they write that down. Because that’s another area for parents. We are so quick to see the struggles and to see all the things they’re not doing, and the things that are hard and that get us frustrated, that we forget to catch them doing all the good things that they do as well. And I think that’s really important as a parent, when you were asking me what would be something, I think that’s important because we need to fill them up with the good stuff because they get all the negativity all the time from society, from classroom, from classmates, from teachers, from me. You know, if you’re… if you lose it right, and we all lose it sometimes. And then I think accommodations for sure, but it’s really communication is the foundation and I think it’s really important to have that open communication with the teachers and with the school so that also if something does come up and they do get a diagnosis or suddenly they’ve been going through school fine and it’s middle school and they suddenly need an accommodation, you want to have that relationship, that collaboration with the school and being open to it and them being open to you.
JULIE: Definitely makes sense. Do you have any advice for parents that might be in a situation where they’ve just got their child diagnosed. You know, it might be oh there’s no surprise there for some and for others it can be a little bit of a shock. Have you got any advice for them just navigating the early days of a child diagnosis?
DANA: Yeah I think knowing that it’s scary, it’s isolating, all those feelings are valid and there’s hope. You know, sometimes you read this 30 page diagnosis and you’re really you’re afraid your kid might be home for the rest of their lives, right. You just don’t know. And there’s not often a lot of help there so finding help I think is really important. It’s why I do what I do because I couldn’t find a me. They didn’t exist when my kid was little. Having hope is really important, realizing that it will get better. Also realizing that your relationship is the most important part of this forever because you’re going to have this relationship with your child forever, hopefully. And so when things go wrong, and things are angry, or upset, or dropped, putting that relationship first and keeping that in your head I think is really really important. And also understanding that you might… you might have to adjust your expectations. Like what you thought when you said you were having a kid might be, oh I’m going to have a kid that’s going to go to Yale and go into medicine and you know, here’s my life. And yeah they still might do that but they also might not and I think again all these expectations that you have both for your child… but also you can grieve that that’s not necessarily the same thing that you’re going to be getting, that what you expected may not be what you get. And I think leaving room for yourself to have that grace is really important because you do have those moments of either, oh my God this is too hard, I can’t do this. Or I don’t know what to do next. So then I think the main thing is get curious. Find out all you can find out about each part of that diagnosis. Find out what you can do. Find someone who can help you because you don’t need to do this alone and honestly you don’t need to recreate the wheel. There are people out here. I mean there are a million books but when you also want a person for support that’s so important because you don’t need to recreate the wheel and try to figure this all out on your own. Because there are best practices and there are things that will be quick to learn and implement that can make a huge difference on that family dynamic and on your relationship with your child and on just the child’s you know, life and your home life. Yeah, I’d say be curious. You didn’t cause this. This isn’t caused by bad parenting. It’s not that he can just try harder. It’s not. Like there’s so many myths and don’t, don’t buy into those myths. Right, you know, get real information. Read the books. Talk to the doctors. They’re wired differently, and that’s okay. We don’t need to fix them. We’re not here to normalize them. We’re here to make them thrive exactly as they’re supposed to and as being who they are.
JULIE: Gorgeous, absolutely. What is the most rewarding part of your job as an ADHD and Anxiety coach?
DANA: I think it’s seeing the parents understand. First, get them on the same page, right, because you don’t parent same way necessarily. So you need to get the parents on the same page. And then watching them change their entire life, their entire home life and go from surviving it or pushing through it to actually having a calm morning for the first time years and actually enjoying each other. Bringing that joy back in, that’s huge for me. I love seeing that. And if I’m working with the teens or the young adults, it’s seeing them have breakthroughs where they’re succeeding at whatever success means for them, at doing what they want to do. And they have self-confidence, and they’re able to self-advocate, and they have some life skills. And you know, that’s fabulous too because you’re like okay, you’re ready. Go, go do what you want to do and go be who you are and they’re going to be able to do that. And they may still need support sometimes, you know. People come back and it doesn’t go away. It’s not like I’m, you know, you’re not going to cure and you don’t want a cure. Like we’re not trying to get rid of it but I do think just seeing the changes in people in their own confidence, whether that’s the parents being confident and handling struggles with grace and having that family relationship be close and joyful and loving, and having the kids have self-confidence and be thriving, is really, really great. I love it all. I really love what I do.
JULIE: Dana, all of your details will be in the show notes that will accompany the episode. I would like to ask you one final thing and you were writing a book? [Yes, I am.] That’s exciting. Do you want to share anything about that?
DANA: Yeah, I actually have on my homepage in my website, at the very bottom, I moved it to the bottom, I have first two chapters three chapters of my book. It’s called How to Stop the Downward Spiral: Raising a Child with ADHD and Anxiety. Some of it’s my story, my daughter’s story. Some of it’s my client’s story. It’s really about how do you connect with your child who is very different than you are? How do you stay connected in all the chaos? How do you not lose yourself in all of that and how can you protect that family dynamic and really still feel like a family and not just like everybody’s out doing their own thing and struggling. And that’s kind of, I’m trying to work on that part of it so that people understand that… you know, I think we understand the executive functions issue, but I think people forget that executive function also includes the emotional aspect, and the self- monitoring, and confidence, and all of those things. Blaming others if you’re playing a game and you lose. Rejection sensitivity, all these things that come into it but a lot of people don’t know about it.
JULIE: That sounds like a wonderful read and thank you so, so much. All the very very best for the book. We look forward to seeing that out and about. [I have to finish it. Yeah. I don’t know how I’m going to find time but…] You will, you will. Where there’s a will, there is a way. So Dana, thank you so so much for joining us today.