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Parenting with ADHD

DifferentBrains.org is excited to present our latest virtual panel “Parenting with ADHD”. Join us as our panel of experts – all of whom are self-advocates, parents, and clinicians – highlight challenges and offer tips for parenting a child while navigating your own ADHD. This is the second of a two part webinar series on ADHD & Motherhood. Part one can be seen here.

 

–OUR PANELISTS–

TRANSCRIPTION

 

MIKE NICKAS (MN):  

Mike, hello and welcome to our Different Brains Speaker Series webinar on parenting with ADHD. My name is Mike Nickas, and I’m a team member at differentbrains org, and I want to thank everyone for attending differentbrains orgs to encourage understanding and acceptance of individuals who have variations in brain function and social behaviors known as neurodiversity. We promote awareness through the production of a variety of neurodiverse media content, including our multiple web series, blogs, podcasts, movies and documentaries, all available for free at differentbrains.org. All of our content is worked on by those in the mentorship program through which we aid individuals in taking the first steps toward achieving their goals and finding their voice to find more information or to make a tax deductible donation, please visit our website at differentbrains.org. Before we start, I want to invite everyone to send questions using the Q and A feature in zoom, or by putting questions in the chat box. This webinar will have live closed captioning generated by otter.ai these can be controlled using the captions button on your zoom dashboard. Now I’m going to hand it over to our moderator for this evening, Brooke Whitfield-Fattovich.

BROOKE WHITFIELD-FATTOVICH (BWF):   

Thank you, Mike. I am Brooke. I’m the moderator for tonight’s webinar ADHD and parenting. So begin to begin. I would like to do a brief introduction with everybody, and please include how many children you have and their ages. I know we did do this with the last one, but just for the people who didn’t get to watch that one, we’ll just go through it again, and I can begin with this one. So I am a mom, I’m a wife, I am a licensed mental health counselor. I just started my practice this year, and I focus on women’s infertility, pregnancy, postpartum. I’m also a PhD student, and I have two children, Shayden, who’s 18, and I have Lily, who is about to be 16 months. So with the big age gap, I get to really reflect on how different parenting has been with these two kids, and I will pass it off to Lindsay.

LINDSAY TURNER (LT): 

Okay, so my name is Lindsay. I am a mom. Actually, I’m a single mom, and I have a 15 month old daughter, and I am also a licensed mental health therapist. I am currently on leave from attending for completing my PhD. I am I just recently started my private practice, and I specialize in couples, families and also struggling, those struggling with ADHD and perfectionism. And that’s it.

BWF:  

Thanks, Lindsay, let’s go over to Brooke.

BROOKE SCHNITTMAN (BS):   

Hi. My name is Brooke Schnittman, the founder of Coaching with Brooke and I have a family of five, and my husband myself, my two stepsons are one big ADHD family, and then I have a two and a half year old toddler who might run in here in the middle of our session, who displays hyperactive ADHD symptoms. So we’ll see about that. So yes, it’s bundle of fun.

BWF:  

Thanks, Brooke. Bea?

BEA MOISE (BM):   

Hi. I am Bea Moise. I am a cognitive specialist as well as an ADHD and neurodivergent coach. I do and parenting coach. I do anything and everything pertaining to the neurodivergent ways of living. I have ADHD myself. I have ADHD hyperactive, which I am very proud of, because I love it. It’s what makes me me. I also have 11 year old daughter who has ADHD inattentive, and I have a 12 year old son who has autism. So we have a really beautifully combined ADHD neurodivergent home I have. I’m also an author. I forgot to say that last time, because I have ADHD and I forget stuff. So I wrote two books. I have one called our neurodivergent journey, which is basically my journey with parenting a child on the spectrum and all the wonderful things and tools I’ve learned in lessons. And I have another book coming out in a few weeks next month, called the neurodivergent home, which is basically about the things that you need to do to live in a home with neurodivergent people, basically from decor to structure an organization. And I have another book coming out next year called neurodiversity and technology, which is basically about how we love tech, but sometimes tech doesn’t necessarily love us because we have a highly addicted brain. So, you know, I cover everything. Neurodivergent so I’m an author, I’m a mom, but most importantly, I am just neurodivergently me.

BWF:  

Nice. I think I need some of your books Bea. And Stephanie?

STEPHANIE CONFALONE (SC): 

Hi, I’m Stephanie. I am a primary therapist at a substance abuse treatment center for all women in in Delray, I’ve worked in the substance abuse field for 10 years. I too am diagnosed with ADHD. I had a son, Camden. He’s about to turn four months in a few days. So I am a new parent. So looking forward myself to this, this webinar to hear what the women have to say, as I’m new lead on this journey of parenthood myself.

BWF:  

Nice. Thanks, Stephanie. So we’ll move on to the next question, which is basically, if you could just share some of your ADHD story with us, and we can start with Bea on that one.

BM:  

So I didn’t know I had ADHD until grad school, and I discovered in grad school, but then I questioned it, because it I didn’t realize the way that I process the world, in the way that I took information was unique and specific to my brain type. I thought everyone functioned this way, and I believed if you didn’t function this way, you must be like superhuman or something, because there is no way for you not to, you know, be affected by all the senses, or to be impacted by all the different things, and, you know, to not have the distractibility. It’s also been a source of my strength. I hear, you know, ADHD, or neurodivergent, is your superpower. It kind of is for me, because it is the source of my energy. It’s the thing that fuels me to do 50 billion projects. It’s also the thing that keeps me from completing 50 billion projects. So it’s understanding the balance of the two. So my journey with ADHD has been, you know, discovering that I had it in grad school, understanding what it means. And, you know, having a child on the spectrum where initially we thought was Einstein syndrome, but eventually we’re like, oh, this is autism. And it’s like, okay, this is just a different way of learning and discovering things, and how can I help him, while also understanding the challenges that I face myself with task completion and initiation and all the different things that keeps me from doing and I am a perfectionist by brain type, because I have yet to meet someone with ADHD who didn’t have some kind of perfectionist, you know, like, if it’s not perfect, it can’t be done. So why start it if it’s not going to be perfect? Um, so you know, factoring that into my myself, my parenting, learning, my about my daughter who has ADHD and attentive, which is different from hyperactive. I like to say, you know, for me, and attentive is wanting to do all the things internally. Hyperactive is wanting to do all the things externally. So it’s like one person’s trying to touch all the things, the other person is trying to avoid all the things and learning how to kind of meet in the middle. So that’s like, you know, another side of my ADHD journey.

BWF:  

Thanks, Bea. I love watching Lindsay’s reactions when Bea is speaking, because you can see she feels seen. She’s like you’re saying all the things that I’m feeling Lindsay, you can go next. 

LT:  

I feel like you just said everything that like everything exactly. Yeah, totally. So, um, my story is that I’ve known I had ADHD since I I don’t know I feel like second, third grade something around there. My, my mom is a retired psychologist, so I have had the DSM Diagnostic Statistical Manual, like, on my lap, like, literally, since I could read, or since I before I could read, before I could talk or walk. But so I in school. I’ve always was, like, speeding through everything. I was called Speedy Gonzalez always. And like, I could learn the skill, if I got it, then I would do it like, but I needed to, like, just do it my way, and do it really, really fast. And then if I like something that was hard for me, it was like, no, no. That’s just can’t do that. So doesn’t really matter. I won’t even try. Just like, the whole perfectionism thing. So I didn’t try and so with this went on for forever, but I was diagnosed, I guess, in third, fourth grade. But I didn’t do anything about it. It was just a diagnosis, and I. I don’t think until I was around like, 1617, applying for schools, or, like, getting ready to apply to schools with like, pre SATs, where I then decided that maybe I wanted to go talk to a psychiatrist and possibly get on medication. I didn’t really, I didn’t actually, I didn’t want to actually be on vacation. So like, I ended up just asking for extra time on certain things, but it didn’t actually work in my school. So all of all of my trials and arrows really just didn’t end up working through it until I, honestly, I’d say, almost forever, because I my masters also did not want to ask for extra time, didn’t want to ask for any kind of didn’t want the stigma. So, yeah, I basically have all of the all of the things that be said. I’m very hyperactivity. I’m very hyperactive, but I’m also inattentive. I’m kind of like all of them in one because I definitely sit there and I’m like, daydreaming, and I’m like, where am I and what’s going on right now? But then I’m also obviously more towards the hyperactive as well. Yeah, so I that’s, that’s my story.

BWF:  

Thanks, Lindsay. Let’s go to Stephanie.

SC:  

My background with ADHD is, it’s, it started as a child, a young child, grade school, a lot of behavioral issues that was all over the place and that continued to you know, it was hard to focus. It was hard to sit down and concentrate on things that continued throughout adolescence and into college. It wasn’t until I was going to be going to grad school to work in a doctorate program that I realized, you know, if I’m I’m going, I want to see, you know, what I can do to help with all of this. So I saw a neuropsychologist. I was diagnosed with ADHD, and that’s when I was put on medication for the first time in around 2007 I was put on Adderall, and I didn’t disclose my diagnosis when I entered grad school initially, and I found that I was really struggling. I was struggling to complete work where my peers, my cohort, was completing work. It would take them two to three hours. For me, it was taking eight to nine and, you know, just difficulty sitting down, getting things done. And it wasn’t until a year after my program that I disclosed my diagnosis, and with my disabilities Resource Center, I was able to get special accommodations. And with that, I was really able to see that by making some modifications, by able to get, you know, time and a half in testing, or, you know, being able to sit by myself in a room that, like, kind of, what the was saying was I learned that I operated differently. And it wasn’t necessarily that I couldn’t perform as well, but I definitely needed and required some some special, like I said, modifications to do so. So since then, I was on medication, and I didn’t get off of at all. And so I was recently starting my fertility journey before I got pregnant. So now I’m learning to live with ADHD using other coping skills like it was before, but without the supplementation of medication. 

BWF:  

Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. Let’s go to Brooke.

BS:  

Hi. So my story is I got diagnosed with a auditory processing disorder at a young age, so I received speech services, and then was diagnosed with anxiety my whole life, in and out of therapist had no idea what was going on in my brain. Got bullied from age eight to 35 that’s an interesting story, but I went to undergrad for elementary education, and I was bored, so it’s like, I need to spice it up. So I immediately got my Master’s from NYU and students with disabilities connected more immediately, became a special education teacher, thrived in the co teaching classroom with ADHD and learning disabled students, became an assistant director of special education, and was in the school system for 15 years, Working with parents, families and students teachers as well with ADHD, seen 1000s of IEPs and still did not know I had ADHD at the time. I got coached by the recommendation of a friend. Once I moved from New York to Florida in 2017 and six months into it, I said, I want to be an ADHD coach because my friend recommended it like, okay. And six months into that, after starting I too realized I had ADHD passed the test with flying colors, but I never knew that I had it growing up, because I didn’t identify as the children in the classroom. I identified. As the adults who had difficulty switching from coaching to writing my notes and then coaching, and then writing my notes and coaching, and then it all started to click. I got the diagnosis. I got medicated, and a lot of the tools I was already doing I was using as well. So the medication was for me, that missing piece. But then fast forward, I meet my husband, who was undiagnosed at the time, and his two kids who are undiagnosed at the time, and like I said, one big diagnosed family now, and as you join a family. ADHD, symptoms change right? Change as a parent, change as a wife, change as an adult. So I’m constantly adjusting the structure of my family and my business and we I’m a certified parent coach. I work with professionals as well, and my coaches and I also work with students. So that’s my story. 20 years later, here I am with an ADHD diagnosis.

BWF:  

Thanks, Brooke. So mine is kind of similar to some of you guys, as far as I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in my 30s. In grad school, I was raised in a family that didn’t believe in it. They think that you’re just lazy, you’re just not focused, you’re undisciplined. So when I started noticing having issues, I just heard my parents voice saying, you’re just you’re just lazy. And masters my master’s program comes along. I’m struggling with my work and realizing that in your master’s program, it doesn’t slow down whatever you’re not getting done, it just keeps piling on, which the anxiety then takes over. And finally went and saw a therapist diagnosed with inattentive type, and then tried the medication. It really wasn’t for me, so then I just started digging really deep and finding the skills and the tools and what I could use. And so I found what works for me. And like Bea mentioned, I like to look at it as almost a superpower. There’s things about our personalities that are so unique, and if you’ve learned how to channel them and utilize them. They can be, you know, you can stand out for doing things a certain way that someone without ADHD, they they just don’t operate in that same way. So thank you for sharing your stories. Let’s move on to the next question is, what concerns did you have regarding your ADHD and having children? And we’ll let Brooke start with that one.

BS:  

I was to say which Brooke, but then I knew you weren’t talking in a third person, right? Or first person, okay, so my concern about having children was so I had two stepsons that I was a mom of, but having my daughter, I had never raised my stepsons from birth, so I said, okay, like I’m okay that she’s inside of me. I don’t know when she comes out. What the heck I’m going to do. You know, I’m running a business. I have a family. How do I operate? What do I do? How do I take care of a child? So that was the biggest thing. How do I take care of this human being? What? Where do I even start? What does she need? And then, how am I going to manage the households and my relationship with myself as well.

BWF:  

Thank you for that. Stephanie?

SC:  

For me, you know, I got pregnant older I was. I was almost 40, when I was 39 when I had my my baby, my beautiful baby. And so age was a factor as well, you know, a little bit tired than, more tired than I was when I was 25 and it’s not just I had my own life to manage, but now I have another human’s life to manage. You know that the responsibility no falls on me and his parents, and that could be overwhelming. So, you know, you know, kind of just feeling overwhelmed, of like, how am I going to be able to be able to do anything? I’m still, I still work full time, you know, I have my career, so being able to, like, forecast, you know, it was the anticipation as well. When I was pregnant, I had some of those same concerns, but just as in my pregnancy, you know, I adjusted my concerns or worries before I got pregnant, and then it happened, I adjusted. I had to make some modifications in my schedule routine, which I know we’re going to talk about in a little bit, but now it’s okay. I’m a mom, my baby’s here, so getting into flow, you know, again, managing two of our lives now, responsible and and I. It’s up to me now to, you know, I’m his provider, so that was one of my concerns, how I’m going to be able to do it.

BWF:  

Thanks. Stephanie. Bea?

BM:  

For me, it’s it came in two different waves, because my son, um, who’s older, you know, he also, he has autism, but also ADHD, hyperactive. A lot of his hyperactivity symptoms were so similar to me, it was easy, right? Because I’m like, Oh, I get this. You just need to move. You just need to do this. You just need to do that. So a lot of his symptoms were not perplexing to me. I think that he, well, he’s the reason I wrote my first book. It’s because it was like, Oh, we’re on this journey of sameness, right? Like, it looks similar, but a little bit different. There’s, like, a little bit of a twist here. So let me full let me dive into this in true ADHD fashion, like, let me dive into this with my daughter. However, she’s the one that’s taught me the most, because inattentive is also a different brain processing information, right? And I’m a fast processor. Everything for me is like, go, go, go, go, go. And basically I listen to everything quickly. I walk quickly. I do everything on a rush, like the world is ending, right? That’s me, but my daughter’s a slow processor, and my son’s a fast processor as well. So we’re all like in a rush to nothing, and she’s taking her time. So the challenges was really more with her than it was with him in terms of parenting, because now I have someone who I don’t get right it would be like, Hey, why are you still eating that one Cheerio? Like I’m so confused right now. Like, why are you still chewing one Cheerio? Like she just appreciates life in a way that we’re just kind of quickly trying to get through, but she’s just taking her time to absorb it because she’s a slow processor.

Um, so for us, it was the journey being different versus, oh, it’s not just ADHD, right? There are different types. There’s inattentive, which I knew just my work, my background, my education, but living it and experiencing it brought awareness that I’ve never had before. Just the understanding of, oh, hyperactive, inattentive is different. Combination is different. So parenting a child with ADHD inattentive, when you have, you know hyperactivity is a bit challenging. And I can, I can also see how it would be challenging reverse, if you know it was inattentive and it, you know, hyperactivity. So I can say, for the parenting piece, my son, he the challenges he brought, or brings were more of, you know, autistic specific challenges, not the ADHD, because I understood the ADHD, I could get that what would my daughter, the ADHD and attentive was is a challenge, because we’re I’m still learning. I’m still learning from her. She’s still teaching me. She is just and she lets me know she’s teaching me. So that’s wonderful. That’s just wonderful. So there’s just a lot that’s coming my way where I I didn’t plan or process or understood or knew that this is where this parenting journey would take me, but she’s I’m enjoying it. But those are the challenges. It’s more the brain differences in the same ADHD umbrella.

BWF:  

That’s so interesting. How you have the two very different ADHD kids, yeah. Lindsay?

LT:  

So what I was most and what I fear the most, I guess, is kind of going on right now, the emotional ups and downs. My daughter is screaming tough for lunch because she does not want to go to sleep, and so she’s a little off schedule because I was in Colorado over the weekend, so time difference and the plane everything. So that’s where I was most nervous about because when I get very dysregulated very easily. So I sometimes almost want to, like, scream back, you know, like, and I have to control and, you know, like, do my deep breathing and deep breathing with her. So before having her that, I guess in general, I really strongly, I wasn’t worried really about the parenting yet, because I just didn’t really think that. I thought it was going to be easy. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I just thought like, Oh, I’ve always wanted to be a mom. It’ll just come, come naturally. But, yeah, I mean, I guess some things do, but a lot of things don’t. And yeah, it’s, it’s a stress. She’s. Calm down a little bit. So I feel like my energy is calming down a little bit as we’re speaking up, she’s starting again. So anyway, that’s my answer.

BWF:  

Well, with a toddler, there’s going to be lots more deep breathing. Yeah. Um, so I guess for my biggest concern was so with my son, I didn’t have a concern because I didn’t know I had it. And I thought that my quirks were just me, just like loving all the new hobbies and digging into them and then not wanting, you know, not being interested in them anymore. Thought that was just me. Um, so I worried about with my daughter modeling bad habits, what I considered to be bad habits, and so my son kind of got to see me in my raw, messy version of myself, and he actually has ADHD, and I do wonder how my modeling of behaviors maybe contributed to to some of the things that he does and how he manages it. Now, with my baby, I am very mindful of, you know, when we’re reading a story, we make sure that we finish the story and we clap that it ended. And I talked her through transitions, she doesn’t really understand much. But, you know, we’re getting dressed to go to school. We’re getting ready for breakfast, where just things like that, that I feel like is creating some kind of a gentle routine with her, and she’s getting used to the communication and knowing what’s coming next. Another concern that I had, not so much with my son, with my baby, which I’ll get more into. But the phones, I was concerned about, the phones with my baby, and just being really mindful of, you know, not being like this, and talking to her, and her seeing me constantly on the phone, so that was something that I was really trying to be aware of with her. And like I said, I’ll get a little bit more into that, but we can move on to the next one, which is, what was your biggest challenge for you once you had your children. And we’ll let Stephanie start with that one. 

SC:  

I think maybe one of the biggest challenges is once you get through one challenge, or you figure out how to manage and mitigate that challenge, the next one’s right right after right. So it’s, it’s a never ending kind of thing that’s going to keep happening for me, I guess right now, just because I am a new mom, it was going back to work and that I had a lot of anxiety, and I was super emotional about, and I guess I, you know, I could begin is, how am I going to get to work and get up early and do everything you have to do with the baby, go to work, come home, and then still have the energy, the mental bandwidth, the attention, the focus, to be able to wash the bottles. And, you know, if I have to do the laundry, you know, being the tasks, the never you know, the the tasks, and how to be able to keep on top of them. So that was one of the things that you know. And I think they keep coming with, with which each new step it’s going to be more tasks as she’s getting older, so as he’s getting older. So I think that it just being able to manage the things that are coming my way.

BWF:  

Brooke, you can take it next.

BS:  

Sure. So mine was similar to Stephanie, managing the bottles I was pumping instead of she didn’t take. So that was a lot of work, a lot of cleaning, but my biggest challenge was a lack of sleep, so trying to get on to some sort of schedule with my partner, who wakes up to get our daughter. Luckily, that phase was only two months. That’s really it. I mean, everything else I’ve learned as I have gone and joined a community of other mothers who I can share stories with and get insights from. So I feel blessed at this point. But like you said, Stephanie, it’s a journey. Every day you learn something new.

BWF:  

Thanks, Brooke. Bea?

BM:  

Well, I’ll say this. I’ll speak on the late elementary, middle school years, because you know, you guys have littles for me, the challenges have been it’s a lot to navigate right, like you’re referencing, there’s a lot of navigating social, emotional there’s a lot of ups and downs. There are, you know, so many things like the social Complex. Of my daughter’s friend group I find irritating and annoying and nonsensical, but understanding that that is of great value to her, so being emotionally invested in something that I really don’t care about. So it’s these are the struggles that I currently face as a parent is, you know, if I don’t like something, I just withdraw. Like, if I don’t like something, I’m done with this, I don’t, I don’t care about this. Why am I here where she’s more invested, and there’s a lot of investment, and there’s a lot of I may hurt that person’s feeling, and I can’t say this, and I’m like, But why do we care? Like, what, what’s happening right now? So understanding the personality changes that’s come with it. Like, when they were little, they were I mean, honestly, it was perfection, because I had all the control, right? Like, I just they did what I said. We only did things I wanted to do, so it was really easy.

But as they’ve gotten older and I no longer have control, it’s become challenging. You guys like, it’s, it’s the challenges are real when you no longer have control. But the parenting aspect is, you know, worrying about safety technology. You know, worried about all the different things that they’re exposed to communities that you know is different from your own. Just my challenges with what I feel should not be an issue, but is an issue. So just a lot of personality conflict in terms of what that parenting looks like. Because again, when they’re little, there’s all these different things that you can do, and at the end of every day, there’s like a big hug that we love you. Oh my gosh, I abused you, but I love you anyway. But during the late tween and early teen years, there is I don’t like you, and I’m going to go to sleep not liking you, and there’s no changing that, so just recognizing that it changes throughout the developmental stage. So for me, where I’m at, I love spending time with my kids. They’re fun. They’re my besties, like they’re literally the best humans, but personality understanding they’re their own people, and they’re not, you know, microcopies of myself, therefore, and they also have some of their dads, which is a problem, but, you know, we’re not here for that.

So there’s just all these different things that has made parenting complicated, but it really has been the personality switch of understanding they’re their own people, their own human their own quirks, their own developmental stage, their own likes and dislike, and I’m controlling because I have anxiety and I have ADHD, and if it doesn’t go my way, it’s the wrong way. So understanding how to channel that energy in a different way to be the best version of their mom that I can be, because I’m catering to the relationship post 18, not while they need me, I’m working on the relationship of when they do not need me, and are they still going to come around and be around me. So those have been the challenges.

BWF:  

That’s a really interesting angle to look at it. I like that. Thanks Bea. Lindsay?

LT:  

Wow. Um, there’s so much I want to, like, reflect on that you just shared. But, yeah, that was very interesting. I think it’s so something I left out, I guess before, is like the modeling bad behaviors, I fear, a lot of and something interesting that you said be, is that like they did what you wanted as baby? Well, my daughter is already, like, actually, a spitting image of what I imagined I was like as a little baby and not doing what I wanted to, already, when we’re in like, any kind of class situation, like she’s not like, it’s not like, she’s disobeying totally but she’s definitely full on toddler to her, but she’s 100% already she has been since, I think, 12 months, and in any class where she’s supposed to sit down and all the other babies are kind of in storytime or whatever they’re supposed to be doing, she’s off dancing and like, Hi here. Everyone look at me. Everyone look at me. I’m over here doing some kind of, I don’t know, whatever trick or whatever nonsense she’s doing, but she will, she will, like, obey if, but she says to be on her time. Yeah.

So I do fear a little bit that she has possibilities of ADHD, but it’s and it’s really early, but it’s hard to not to see so much of myself in her, although she looks nothing like me, which is also the interesting part, too, but to see so much of her in me and be like, Okay, now, what do I do like? How do I fix? How do I like, make sure with the transitions I need to get better at that time, time is like my worst enemy and my best friend, right? So I. Am always late my whole life. And like, there’s just always something that, like, comes up. It’s like, even though I need, like, three hours to do, like, the littlest thing if, and then if I’m hardly wonderful. But if I don’t have that, maybe three hours to do the littlest task of it, then all of a sudden I’m rushing like crazy, and then it takes me three hours anyway, whereas, like, if I just, like, I have to get extra, extra likes. Now it’s just not me. It’s baby, so it’s Reagan, so it’s and that’s unpredictable. So that’s been a huge, huge, huge challenge of figuring out how to get my self care in and how to and showering at the beginning was, you know, like, it happens here and there. But yeah, now I’m really trying to work on doing some but she’s teething again, so now her sleep schedule is off again, and so it’s just been, yeah, a little bit challenging.

BM:  

Can I say this Lindsay: something that I do with my moms, because, you know, inattentive is predominantly the female type. It’s not exclusively, but it is predominantly the female type. Hyperactive is predominantly the male kind, again. So I actually teach women how to behave hyperactive, as opposed to inattentive, because the inattentive response does make everything feel overwhelming and hard and difficult, and then there is a shame and embarrassment where your description of what your toddler is doing is what my son used to do, only he was also licking the floors. Now, your daughter’s ahead, like there’s just, there’s more happening with her. She’s advanced, so like, my son was literally licking the floors. And I was like, I guess that’s what he wants to do today. He’s just licking floors where it was this dismissal of the behavior of like, I can’t take this on, like I’m not going to take on you licking floors because I didn’t lick any floors, and that’s just your thing, but releasing that, like just releasing it, and understanding that that’s just where you’re at right now, but she’ll have something new in two months. Don’t worry, something new is coming.

LT:  

Yeah, but it’s also managing all my friends babies too, and feeling like, like, Okay, well, so now they’re teaching her other habits that I’m like, oh, plus, I had the role of mom and dad sort of So, so, and I’ve hyperactivity and an incentive, so I’ve got the male and the feminine. And I’m like, yeah, so thank you. That was really helpful.

BWF:  

Lindsay, you mentioned something that remind me of a meme that I saw that said, I have a doctor’s appointment today, so it looks like I won’t be doing anything other than that.

LT:  

That is literally it. I have a document, then there’s nothing else that can happen. I mean, if I had a test, I didn’t go to school that day, because I have one test, I need to make sure that I had the whole day, the whole morning, prep for it or or or if I took the test, I’d go right home afterwards anyway.

BWF:  

Um, but I’ll reflect on this one with my son, something that we both struggle with, because I’m doing much better with my my daughter, the time blindness with my son. If I tell him, you know, can you do the dishes? I have to give him a time. There has to be, can you have them done by 5pm Can you have it? Because otherwise it’s pushed off and it’s pushed off. And then what I used to forget. So then he learned that if we don’t agree on a time I forgot, and now it’s 10pm the dishes aren’t done. I’m doing them. So this is something that I had to learn with him, that if it’s I need you to clean your room, we have to have a time that it’s done. And then, of course, he did it the minute before that time. So if it was, if I asked him to have it done by 6pm by 559 he’s starting to do his room. But it gave him an idea of when to get started and when I was coming to check, but that was a struggle with him, and he’s still doing that, and he’s 18, so yeah, it’s a struggle. But moving on to the next one is, did you have any tricks to help you manage your new role? And we can start with Lindsay on that one.

LT:  

Okay, so do I have any tricks? I mean, schedules, routines, trying to prep the night before? I don’t know. I guess what, we all probably do routines. I mean, I definitely realized very early on that I I’m actually very similar to your son, where, like, I need someone to tell me, okay, be here, be be whatever, do whatever, by this time. And then also know that, like, if you tell me now early before you actually want me to be ready, the best, probably one, it will really make sense for but, like, in terms of cleaning my room or something like that, as a kid, like I do it just a minute before I need to be done. But, um. Hmm, if I with, like, planning and schedules, I feel like the routines are just so important with a baby, I just haven’t grown up from that. I need to follow this routine. Like, if I follow, someone gives me an exact routine to follow. I’m really good at that. Like, really, really good. And I can excel it and make it even better than ever before, if I, like, know exactly what I need to do. That’s exactly that need to take place. So that’s where I feel like, if she’s off her routine, it’s totally makes sense that, like, of course, she’s not going to be in the right it’s not it’s going to throw me off, essentially. And so that’s where we’re both working together, because can’t always have routines perfect. So, yeah, routine, schedules, oh, and, um, I set like timers, like alarms, kind of myself. 

BWF:  

Yeah, thank you. Let’s go to Brooke.

BS:  

Really, just, uh, managing my expectations of myself, so letting go of the productivity that I had before giving birth, and allowing other people as well to volunteer their time with our daughter, and sharing responsibilities and not feeling like I have to do everything. So that has been huge, focusing my time on the things that are important and also with the boundaries of let’s say Brielle had her morning routine, giving that time up and planning it ahead of time, so I could exercise during that time, so I could at least try to get something in for myself in the morning or throughout the day. So managing expectations.

BWF:  

Thanks. Stephanie?

SC:  

So for me, what I’ve been doing is obviously there’s things we all have to get done every week things that we don’t really like doing chores. When I first returned to work, I was kind of leaving Sundays to do it, and that became really overwhelming, because it was laundry, my laundry, the baby’s laundry, putting everything away. It was overwhelming. And then I was getting to the end of the day, and I wasn’t able to spend as much quality time with my son that I really wanted, and that would leave me going into the work week then not feeling great, you know, because then I was sad and anxious the next day. So what I started doing was breaking up my tasks, spreading them out during the week and even just donating, you know, dedicating, you know, maybe a half an hour to 45 minutes each day to doing something. So maybe I’ve started to start at least do the laundry on Thursday so that I can put away, maybe mine on Friday and his on Saturday, you know. So it doesn’t seem so overwhelming, but yet I’m still able to enjoy my time that I do have off as well. Another thing is, when I am to the self accountability, accountability, honing the self accountability. So if I have there’s a number of things, you know, and then there’s task paralysis, well, I will say, okay, you know what? I’ll do three things that I really don’t want to do. And then once I do those three things, I can get a break, or, you know, I can then relax for the rest of the night, or whatever it is. So holding myself accountable to those three things make managing them more easily, and getting them done and even in my work day, you know, just sitting and writing notes could be daunting. So I again, Lindsay said about timers, you know, I could say, let me sit here and for this amount of time or finish this task, and then I call it my therapeutic loop, where I do a walk around the block, and that gives me time to reset. I come back, you know, my I’ve cleared my head a little bit. I’m ready to start going. So just finding these little moments of breaks to to reset your mental energy as well, helps a lot.

BWF:  

Thanks, Stephanie. And Bea?

BM:  

for me, it’s I have two things. I have AI in rituals. I love my AIs, you know, I cannot live without them, because they are my assistants in all sorts of way, with timers, with, you know, reminding me, with pinging me on things, and just they’re constantly talking to me and engaging with us, because they are such a we are a very technology friendly home, but it can also be the thing that distracts us and pull us away. So I utilize it. So, you know, like, I do not allow anything to automatically play, you know, like, no Netflix automatically go to the next thing, because if it does, I’m binging definitely, like, there’s nothing else happening but that. So, like, I use it to understand, like, if I sit. Here, and it’s like, are you still watching? Of course, I’m still watching. It’s only been 12 hours. Like, what are we doing here? So, like, I use AI to keep me in terms of, like, being on task. Um, rituals is my other thing. I love rituals, which it’s the same thing as having a routine. I like, you know, every morning I have my making tea ritual. I have, you know, water my plant ritual. I have, you know, checking on, you know, if things were put away, ritual like, I have ritualistic behaviors that give me a sense of calmness and control. And these things happen to help me a lot with managing a lot of my symptoms. Because I maintain these rituals on vacation, traveling wherever we go. We recently, we were traveling abroad, and it was like 945 when the sun was going down, seven o’clock. I’m like bedtime. I am like shutting down the windows, like closing down drapes, making the room dark, because I’m so attached to my rituals. I’m like, we’re not sleeping at nine. Like, that’s not going to happen. Um, so I’m attached to my rituals, which really a tired brain, a fatigue brain, is the worst for ADHD. So I’m so focused on maintaining a happy, healthy brain, which is my thing, is neuroscience of you know, neurodiversity, like I’m really focused on, I need to know my brain is getting what it needs in order for it to be at its optimal gust. And because I have a neurodivergent home, your brain is going to be at its optimal, because I’m going to give it what it needs as well. So I do that through rituals and through AI, like, everything shuts down at like, 730 at my house. So television’s like, you can’t watch us today. It’s the end of the day because I will forget about it. I will start a task, like, I don’t know, gardening at 7pm that makes sense, right? And just forget what needs to happen. And now my kids are up till midnight because I’m outside gardening and I forgot what I needed to do. So I use things around me to help me execute tasks that you know, I’m not so great at. I’m just kind of failing at them a little bit, so I just use AI in my rituals to lift me up.

BWF:  

Yeah, whatever it takes. So for me, I know I mentioned the phone earlier, so something that I do with the phone is we have a no phone at the dinner table rule, because my husband is attached to the phone. My son is attached to the phone, so there’s no phones even within reach. And then I’m very mindful of with my with my babies around. You know, if she brings me a book, the phone goes down immediately. Or if we’re playing, the phone is not allowed to be out. I just don’t want her associating. You know, this is what we do. We have to hang on to this phone, and then there’s the eye contact and all of that. So that’s something that I’m extremely strict about. And then as far as something that’s really helped me is just speaking out loud to my husband and just saying, I need you to let me sleep this weekend. I have to get some sleep. I need to leave the house and go do some work at Starbucks for school, or it won’t get done. And he will actually hold me to that. He’ll say, you know, if the day’s kind of moving along, he’ll be like, are you going to go to Barnes and Noble or whatever? And I’ll be like, Yeah, I am gone. And sometimes I need that push to actually stick with my plan, but those are things that have really helped me as far as just with managing, you know, juggling the household and the kids. So we’ll move on to the last question, if a parent with ADHD could take away one helpful message from this webinar, what would it be? And we’ll start with Brooke on that one,

BS:  

Parent the child you have, your child’s not like your neighbor’s child and vice versa. So parent the child you have and meet them where they are.

BWF:  

I love that. So it’s like not comparing your child as your child. Yeah, that’s great. Thank you, Stephanie?

SC:  

Yeah, I guess kind of you know, to what, what Brooke said, acceptance. You know, every every child is unique and individual, meeting them where they’re at, what their needs are, you know, to avoid comparisons, and also to avoid the word perfect, and just embracing who they are as an individual and finding their needs and and like I said, meeting them where they’re at, being able to meet their needs and what they need to do to thrive and be successful.

BWF:  

Nice. Thank you. Lindsay?

LT:  

Yeah, so I would piggyback on all of that and say that also that allowing for mistakes, knowing that, of course, they’re going to happen, and being okay with that, and knowing that the process of parenthood is not like anything else ever it’s completely different and new, and every single day will be a different journey, adventure, and embrace it with curiosity as well as grace and kindness and acceptance.

BWF:  

I love approach with curiosity. I think that’s really nice. Yeah, thanks. 

LT:  

That’s how kids approach things, right? So,

BWF:  

It’s true, yeah. Bea?

BM:  

You’re not alone. You’re not alone like you are not alone on this journey. You’re not alone, um, with the struggles that you’re having or experiencing just because other parents or families are not or moms are not talking about it, it doesn’t mean that they’re not experiencing it. We all have different ways of coping with the exact same situation. So you’re not alone. Honestly, if you were alone, Brooke and I would not have a job like we wouldn’t. That’s just the reality. Like you’re not alone. So because I know that, it makes it a lot easier to understand and not feel so isolated, and it doesn’t feel like an island. It’s more like, Okay, I haven’t found you know you, you just haven’t found your tribe or your people or your person. Because sometimes it’s not necessarily a group of individuals. Sometimes it’s just one other person that you can connect with. So you are not alone. While statistically, it’s 20% of the population that is neurodivergent, I do not believe that is true at all. I think that is a lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. So you’re not alone. Find your people, find your person. But know that you’re not struggling alone. You’re not alone.

BS:  

Can I just share something to that stat? So there’s this new research from UPenn, and 72.3% of people in the workplace have an invisible disability, yes, yeah, yeah, and I know that the majority of it is neurodivergent, so the neurotypical, of course, is the minority, yeah, which is so fascinating. 

BWF:  

It should no longer be called typical, because it’s not

BS:  

Right, exactly.

BWF:  

Well, thank you. I think you guys said it all. I would kind of just say, don’t be afraid to ask for help and find your supports. Support is everything. So I guess now we’ll see what questions Mike has for us.

MN:  

All right, so our first question is, can you please talk more about strategies that you have tried and learned from in your experience? 

BWF:  

Okay, we give this one to Brooke.

BS:  

Sure, something that I’m working on now is coming from a place of being emotionally regulated when I am engaging with my spouse and my kids, and if I’m recognizing someone mentioned somatic, if I’m recognizing my body getting into shutdown mode or triggered. I’m just saying I need to take five and then I come back, or I have a safe word, and it’s seriously it helps in days of days missed with being present with your kids and your spouse because of, you know, tension. So just making sure I come from a place of feeling calm and regulated, and also I did, wanted to share on that note, I do have a masterclass coming up for students who are going back to school. So if parents want to attend for free. I’ll put the link in the chat, but me and my team are running a webinar on preparing your child, organizing, making sure that they start the school year off with success. 

BWF:  

Nice. That’s incredible. Thanks, Brooke, all right.

MN:  

And then our next question, when there are multiple children with ADHD, what advice would you have for getting everyone to respect each other’s needs and differing ADHD traits?

BWF:  

I think we have to give that to Bea, it was written for you. 

BM:  

This one is written for me. So the number one thing. Is education, because they have to understand that they function differently and that they have different brain capacities. You know, I think when I was first writing my book, and it was all about Jake, and I’m like, Okay, I’m just going to write about Jake. And then Abby came along, and it was like, Oh, wait, I guess I have to include her too to a certain capacity, because they just had such different ways, the way I educated both of them, but mostly Abby, so she didn’t feel like she was in the shadow of Jake. It was okay. This family. We have MacBook, and then we have, you know, Microsoft. We have windows. Not one is better than the other. Not one is, you know, more elite or anything like that. They’re just different operating systems. And it actually works out well that analogy, because my husband’s a CPA, and he hates the MacBook. He hates it. He prefers windows. He likes using windows and everything about it. So it’s more of Daddy prefers windows. I prefer the MacBook. And the reason is they just do different things.

But in order for me to utilize a window, I need to know how Microsoft Works like I need to know how it works. Otherwise, I’m just going to be looking for Safari, and there is no Safari, right? I have to know that there’s Google there, and vice versa. If you’re trying to figure out how a MacBook work and you’re looking for Google, there is no Google Safari is your search engine. You have to utilize that so understanding that that’s the place I came from in terms of educating my kids, of like, listen, which one are you? And understanding that the other person is not the exact thing, and life is boring if it’s just one thing, and life is hard if it’s just one thing, we need diversity in the minds, like we need people to be different and offer different perspective on solving the exact same problem. So really, education is the key. Trying to force siblings to like the other one just based on love. That’s not going to cut it. Like that’s not going to happen. They need to understand and be educated on why that person is different. Even though they have the same genetic pool, it doesn’t matter they still have different operating systems. So whether you’re a MacBook or whether you’re a Windows, you know, they’re both fantastic. I use Windows when needed, and my husband use MacBook when he feels like it. So it’s a matter of understanding these differences are a gift, and teaching that to your children, as opposed to forcing them to so start with the education piece. And it takes years. If and my kids are not 11 and 12, they understand very well. You know, sometimes they’ll say, the MacBook is broken, the window is not working today, it’s basically they’re not listening to each other. That’s, that’s their key word. But it’s like, Well, time to reset. We gotta reboot, you know, we gotta start over again. And they understand what that means as well. So education is really the way to start to lead into respect, but that’s where you start, is the education piece. 

BWF:  

Thanks bea.

MN:  

Alright, we have time for one more question, and that question is, what is one common misconception about motherhood and ADHD?

BWF:  

Common misconception? Lindsay, would you like to…?

LT:  

No, I think, sorry, I’m trying to think out loud, like, misconception, like, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know.

BM:  

I do have one. I think, for me, is what moms come to me with, is, am I lazy?

LT:  

Oh yeah, yeah, yes. 

BM:  

That’s the one they come to me with is like, why can’t I do all the things? Am I lazy? Or why was I able to do it before and now I can’t do it? And it’s, am I lazy? And it’s, no, you’re not. You are not juggling 50 different things for 50 different people before motherhood, you just you weren’t doing that. You were just managing you, and now that you’re managing you, because it’s not just your dentist appointment, it’s your child dentist appointment, and how it re interact with the school scheduling, and how that interacts with your work scheduling, and how the availability exists for you, and who’s going to take them there, and how much of the time that you need to do in between, and then do you need a note to get back to the doctor from? It’s all of that where before it was I need to go. I will go. I will come back during my lunch. Then I’ll go back to work the end. So that’s what makes it complicated. It’s a. The different tasks that now exist within one task.

BWF:  

I’ve also seen some mothers who they think they’re struggling with depression and they’re actually totally overwhelmed and task paralysis is set in, and they just feel like they can’t manage. So that’s a big one too. 

SC:  

Oh, can I add one more thing to the late kind of touching on the laziness thing is being careful of looking at the superhero posts on social media or the YouTube shorts, you know, like the things of, you know, moms getting things done, and she’s like, wow, that’s never going to be me. I’m lucky I brush my teeth today and I shower two days. You know what I’m saying. So just being careful that there are so many women out there like us and women, you know, men, women, parents, and that it’s not just what’s depicted on in social media. Give yourself grace, give yourself understanding and give yourself acceptance.

BWF:  

And social media is not real. Yeah, on there is not real. 

LT:  

I’ve seen the social media post, or the Instagram post, where people are like, Okay, what a thought Mom would be, mom life would be like, and what it really is like. And also, or you’ll see like, when, what Instagram mom like is life, and what reality mom life is like, and it’s like, absolute chaos. 

BWF:  

Yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you everyone for being here tonight. It was nice seeing everybody again, and have a good evening.

 

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