Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello. Welcome back to the Securely Attached podcast. This is Beyond the Sessions segment where we answer your listener questions, and we have Dr. Emily Upshur here to share her wisdom. Hi.

Dr. Emily (00:54):

Hi. So good to be here.

Dr. Sarah (00:56):

I’m glad you’re here. Are you ready for our question of the week?

Dr. Emily (00:59):

I’m ready. Let’s do it.

Dr. Sarah (01:00):

Okay. So this parent wrote in, hello. I am a huge fan of the podcast and especially love the episode you did about helping Neurodiverse kids be more comfortable with school accommodations. We’ll link that in the show notes since she goes on and says, as a parent of a 10-year-old with a DHD, when I have a DHD myself, I struggle with helping my son transition from one activity to another, especially when it comes to things like homework after school. Do you have any tips for how I can get him to get things done that need to get done without bouncing him off the walls? It’s been dissolving into fights, and I feel like such an nag. Please tell me there is a better way. I mean, I could have written this.

Dr. Emily (01:42):

I mean, I should have written this. I feel like I live this every day.

Dr. Sarah (01:45):

Yeah, but you don’t have ADHD. Your executive functioning skills are like bonkers.

Dr. Emily (01:49):

That’s true.

Dr. Sarah (01:50):

That’s why we work so well together.

Dr. Emily (01:52):

That’s a protective factor for me and you and my children.

Dr. Sarah (01:56):

Yes, a protective factor for me too. But truly, this mom has ADHD and has a 10-year-old with ADHD. It sounds like they’re both struggling with transitions and some other executive functioning skills like planning and switching set and all the things. So I just feel like, how do I answer this question to one person without being like, it depends on your kid.

Dr. Emily (02:26):

Well, maybe we should start with, should we talk about how we can help the mom first or the parent first, and then we can also talk about, I mean, there’ll be some overlap, but then we can also talk about some strategies directly for the kid. What do you think?

Dr. Sarah (02:38):

I love that. Okay. But before we do that, I almost feel like we need to just explain a little bit about why transitions are hard for the ADHD brain. This makes so much sense.

(02:49):

And now I’m assuming this mom who knows her diagnosis and knows her son’s diagnosis may have some information about this, but a lot of parents think they have ADHD, they’re not sure. They might also be, they might believe or know they have a diagnosis, but might not actually know that much about ADHD in adults because it’s a little different with kids in grownups. I mean, it’s all the same equipment, but it looks a little different. So first, let’s talk a little about why are executive functioning skills tricky when you have ADHD, and then what are those skills to look out for that we might need to? Doesn’t mean you don’t have the skills, it just means you have to scaffold a bit more.

Dr. Emily (03:32):

Yeah, I mean, I think the executive functioning skills that you just mentioned are probably planning ahead

(03:41):

Is a really big one. So if you know that your kid comes out of school and you are overwhelmed by that, your kid is overwhelmed by that, maybe they need a snack, maybe you’re undernourished in that moment. It’s been a long day. Planning ahead for that is a really important thing. I talk to a lot of parents who come with this kind of question about really simple practical tips. Can you put a bar in your bag to go to school, pick up or ask your babysitter to put a bar and hand it to your kid before they even talk? Don’t talk just in a bar, that type of thing, because that overlaps with self-regulation, right? So if you’re at a physiologically disadvantaged because you don’t eat and you have ADHD, you’re more likely to become dysregulated in those moments. And you have to know that sometimes.

Dr. Sarah (04:29):

Hungry and thirsty, make sure they have water and make sure you have water.

Dr. Emily (04:34):

I never think of that. I appreciate you saying that because always so focused on the food as a part of the regulatory capacity, but you’re totally right. Also water. But you have to kind of have that awareness that that is a variable for you and for your kid. And then make a note, put an alarm, put an alert to remind yourself. Oh, right. Every day you might feel like, oh, I forgot the bar, right?

Dr. Sarah (05:03):

It’s like EF skills often are, they’re separate, but they’re overlapping. So planning is one, working memory is another, and time management is another. And all of those things kind of go into planning for the pickup, making sure I remember to put all the things in my bag that my kid might need or making sure that I notice that it’s 10 minutes to go. Like for me personally, I have complete time blindness and time blindness is a very real symptom of ADHD that has to do, I’m pretty sure with the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum not being super strong because the cerebellum is one of the brain, the parts of the brain that is helping us orient ourself in terms of where we are in space and time. So the clock, the internal clock in someone who has ADHD might not sync up with the actual clock that most people can feel in their bodies. So for example, when I look at the clock, let’s say right now I look at the clock, it’s 1 59 in my mind and body, it will be 1 59 until I look at the clock again. And so I don’t have a feeling of time passing, and the only way that I know that time is passing is if I continually remind myself to check the clock.

(06:28):

Or I do things like I have an apple watch that I’ll set like a alarm. I set these little buzzers on my watch to go off every five minutes sometimes when I know I need to get out the door because if I get distracted by something, I will not know that five minutes has passed unless my watch buzzes. So that is actually a very concrete strategy for people who have time management or time blindness challenges because I guarantee you, if you can’t keep track of time, it’s going to be harder for you to orient your child to tasks that have some type of schedule to them and also to plan and remember the things that you have to do to get your kid successfully transitioned.

Dr. Emily (07:12):

Totally. And the other thing I was going to just tack onto there is who doesn’t feel dysregulated and hurried if you’re running late? So then it sort of helps you show up in a more emotionally regulated state if you have the ability to get there two minutes before the bell rings or so, to your point of where the time management or the time blindness, the planning ahead and the emotion regulations sort of all come together as an executive function. It can be anyone who’s been late knows that it feels icky in your body and that feeling is really transferred to your child, and they might struggle with that as well themselves. So I think that that’s a really important place to start is within the parent trying to track, I always recommend track a day and see how it feels to you like, oh, I was late for this.

(08:02):

Let’s write it down. Let’s really see what’s happening during the day so that we can take a little bit of a step back and put in some guardrails, right? So exactly what you’re saying. Some alerts and alarms. Well, every day I have to pick my kid up at three, so I should put an alert in mighty phone Monday through Friday for 15 minutes, 20 minutes before pick up how long does it usually take me to get to pick? Those are the types of things you can do to look at the schedule of your day, see where there’s some blips, and try to pull back and do a little bit of a problem solving. Increasing executive functioning skills like the things that you just mentioned, Sarah, during those times can help both help you, but then in turn, it definitely helps your child as well.

Dr. Sarah (08:47):

And also for the remembering, it can be hard to remember all the stuff like a routine and sameness can be really helpful. So if you know you want to grab a water bottle and a snack bar that you have a place, you put those things every single day that they go in this bag or they already go in your purse. There is a system where I’m gathering the things that I need in advance, and they always go in the same spot.

Dr. Emily (09:21):

Totally.

Dr. Sarah (09:21):

And you have to create some systems for these things. And I’ll say this too, these are strategies that are helpful for any parent. It doesn’t matter if you have ADHD or not. These are helpful strategies. But I also think for the parents who do have ADHD, you kind of have a unique superpower in these kinds of situations because you actually can look inward to imagine the same kinds of challenges your kids are going to have. Because if you’re having them, they’re probably going to be having them in their form. They might not need to remember to go to pickup, but they have to remember to grab their backpack and put the things in the backpack in the same way every time and always remember to get ready.

(10:06):

The tasks might be different, but systems might, the structure and the systems might actually be replicable, and it gives you this kind of capacity for, I think building self-compassion and compassion for your kid. That’s kind of special when you have ADHD, you know how hard this is, and I think a lot of parents who don’t have ADHD work very, very hard to have empathy for their kids, but it is a little bit of a, I know you can’t help this, but I just don’t get why it’s so hard for you or, I get that it’s hard for you, but I don’t know what it feels like for it to be this hard for you.

Dr. Emily (10:41):

Totally.

Dr. Sarah (10:42):

That felt sense of like, oh, I know exactly how this feels. I know why this is frustrating or confusing or not. Second nature to you being able to not just know that consciously and have that impact how you can self-regulate and have compassion for your kids and patience for your kids. But to name that out loud, this is hard for me too actually. These are some of the strategies that I use. It’s this really unique opportunity to model for our kids. One, the strategies and any parent can model out loud the strategies for how you time manage or remember things or create planning strategies. But if you have the ADHD piece and you know that it’s hard for you too, and you could say that piece, and this is really hard for me too, that’s part of my ADHD brain makes this hard for me too, that joining with your kid and having them feel like they are not alone in this is very, very helpful. And it’s kind of a perk to having the parent child, A DHD duo. You get to share that with them, and it’s actually a strength and a superpower that you get to do that.

Dr. Emily (11:54):

I like the way you said too when you were saying that, I kept thinking, when you learn something and teach it yourself, you’re a much better teacher. And so as a parent of a child who’s neurodiverse, I don’t have that. I’m like, what is going on in your brain? I don’t understand. But as a professional who’s trained in executive functioning, I can break down a task for him, model it. My strategy for younger children, so we can talk about difference in age. This is a 10-year-old spot on with around the age of my child. I will just give an example. I will take a task preparing for soccer, and I was like, all right, for this to be easier, I’m going to make a designated, just like you said, a designated soccer bag where soccer supplies always live and I’m going to teach my child that this is the system.

(12:52):

The soccer supplies live here. When you take off the sweatshirt, you put it back in the soccer bag. This is where everything lives. This is the parking station for soccer. Your ball should always be in there. Your extra cleats should always be in there. And as a parent, I have to do that with my child every day. And then I start to pull back a little as they start to get to the routine, and by the way, this looks really unsexy in my house. This looks like used soccer socks are thrown on the bag, but it’s getting closer. It’s not sitting in his room on the third floor. So I think when you’re able to sort of as a parent teach yourself, and I get the soccer bag ready, I put the water bottle on the side, the ball always lives there. When I found a cleat somewhere random, it goes back to the bag. You’re also teaching that to your child by modeling explicit teaching and then hopefully them internalizing this over time, that routine that you’re talking about, it’s super important.

Dr. Sarah (13:56):

And I would just highlight two extremes that I’d be mindful of falling into a trap. One is I the parent know this is where the soccer stuff goes, and I see the cleat in the living room and I pick up the cleat and I put it in the soccer bag because it’s just life is easier if I just do that. Don’t do that. If you do all of this for your kid without involving them in that they’re not going to do the learning, then you’re just replacing learning moments for them on the other extreme, getting very angry at them. When you find the soccer cleat in the living room, even though it might be truly frustrating because it’s the hundredth time you’ve found said soccer cleat in the living room trying to recognize this is part of, it’s the repetition, repetition, repetition ad nauseam.

Dr. Emily (14:41):

And doing it together. And co-learning, right?

Dr. Sarah (14:46):

But you can’t co-learn if you or your child are, if they are feeling flooded with shame or rage at you for being raged at them, it’s hard. I’m not saying I have not yelled at my children for not doing the thing. I’ve asked for the 5000th time, but if you want to work, this is the sweet spot, is that middle space of like, oh, we didn’t quite make the mark. Let’s practice this together. And it might be that I’m going to just name out loud, oh, we left the cleat in the living room. Again, I’m going to put it in the soccer bag. Or a level up might be, Hey bud, can you come over here? Or in the living room, the soccer cleats here, where should it go? And encouraging them to put it in the soccer bag. This is the scaffolding and slowly pulling away the scaffolding that you were so well articulating and made me think, actually, Emily, of a story you told me last week that I feel like you could share here. Another really good example of the Quizlet stuff and how that was another really good example of slow scaffold removal over time that I think could also be applicable here, especially when you’re working with kids who have ADHD around academic stuff, which is also, to be fair, clean up an organization is rote, mundane, boring. And those are things that do not light up the A DHD brain, sorry. It’s just the reality. We really do struggle with caring about stuff that’s rote, mundane, boring.

(16:35):

My husband can attest to my lack of interest in doing the boring rote stuff, but schoolwork is also kind of could fall if a kid really likes a subject, a different part of the brain lights up. But if a kid finds the rote, repetitive, mundane tasks of studying uninteresting and therefore not really struggles with literally their brain does not activate the norepinephrine, which is the neurotransmitter that initiates extended focus and activation of behavior, the brain just is like, nah. I always describe this as the Goldilocks and the three bears. So our brains, ADHD brains, all brains need norepinephrine to sustain focus and attention. But if the ADHD brain determines that a task is either too hard outside of my zone of I’m going to fail at this, I don’t believe I could do this or it’s going to take way too much effort to do, that’s the papa bear.

(17:38):

And my brain does not produce norepinephrine. If a task is too boring, too unchallenging, too easy, not novel, that’s like the mama bear to my brain’s not going to produce norepinephrine in the way we need it to. If something is just the right amount of challenging and stimulating and novel enough and interesting enough to me, then that’s the sweet spot. And my brain will not only produce norepinephrine, but I might hyperfocus in that space. And so we have to remember that the problem tasks probably are going to be tasks that fall in the papa bear space. My kid thinks they’re way too hard or the mama bear space, this is too easy or it’s too boring or it’s too mundane and not stimulating enough. So that’s just an aside. I think when we talk about academics, as long as we really live in that mama bear space and actually sometimes in the papa bear space. But Emily had a really, I dunno, I’ll go back to my question to you of you were telling me what you were doing with your son, and I thought it was a really good example of this.

Dr. Emily (18:49):

Yeah, it’s funny. So my son is in sixth grade. So just to give you guys a sense of middle school, first year of middle school, lots of subjects actually nine periods in a day. So it’s a really busy day. But when it came to studying study skills, that’s really hard for executive functioning. It requires all the things we’ve been talking about. So one of the things that I at first did with my son was there’s a program called Quizlet, which is basically an online study guide program. I’m a low tech household, so just to be clear to exactly Sarah’s point making flashcards is like watching paint dry for my son. Nothing could be more torturous. It really is very painful. Making them even doing them is actually not very interesting, but making them is also not great. So Quizlet is a compromise in this. It’s an online platform, but it does do a digital flashcard for you or a digital study guide, which can be engaging for a brain with ADHD.

(19:45):

But the way I approach this with my son is I would make the Quizlets for him while he was in the room with me right now to this person. I love that they’re bouncing off the walls. So I actually was okay with my son walking around, going under the dining room table, standing on’s head for a little while, while I’m talking to him and I’m making these Quizlets, I’m physically at the computer doing it, but he’s there as a participant in this at the place he could be at. And that was the beginning of the year. Then we moved to my attempting to have him sit and create the Quizlets himself, but that might mean that he does one set, gets up, walks around, comes back, does another set, and generates the Quizlets himself. And then as a third step, he does it with me directing him to do it, I should say.

(20:46):

So I then say, okay, hey bud, you’ve learned I did them for you and then you were able to study on your own, but we kind of did that together. Now you made them on your own. You’ve taken over that task. You saw me do it, I taught you. Now I’m here. I’m still with him in the room. Buddying him while he’s doing that, to try to keep him on task, makes him by himself now. And my third step is to now say, this is where we are now. So I don’t know where we’re going to go, but my third step is to say, Hey bud, I need you to go make your Quizlets now. So he’s going to do that without the buddying on his own independently doing the task. Now I will say I have him a little tethered. I’ll be in a adjacent room or I will be somewhere in eyeshot of him maybe just to sort of see what’s happening. But at this point, he can now do that task relatively independently with one redirection from me or a cue. Please go do that. Whereas six months ago, I had to sit and do almost the entire task with him around. So the goal with that is that you’re teaching, you’re laying the foundation, this whole thing that we’re talking, you’re also co-regulating while you’re doing that, right? Because…

Dr. Sarah (22:04):

Oh, and they’ve had snacks before any of this happens.

Dr. Emily (22:07):

So I think that’s a really important point. One of the other pieces that this question really brought to mind for me is going straight from eight hours of school to homework is not a thing for my child with ADHD, nor is it for most humans, nor is it for most children. And it works well for most parents because then you’re done with your job or you’ve checked it off your list, like work hard, play hard, great, you’ve worked your hard, now go play for the rest of the night or the afternoon or whatever. Or busy schedules might warrant that. But I always say I give a big brain break before doing some of these tasks, and that might even mean right before dinner or after dinner. That could be many hours. It could be depending on our schedule. But I do give a brain break and a food and hydration break and maybe even a little bit more movement. That’s a really important key for a lot of kids with ADHD is if they can go run around for 30 minutes before we’re asking them to sit down and do a seated task, that can be a really helpful tool. So sometimes that can be as quick as go jump on the mini trampoline in the basement for 10 minutes or go shoot some basketballs or go do some stretching or

Dr. Sarah (23:22):

Have a dance party. Maybe if you’re little, I’m thinking, I mean obviously this parent has a 10-year-old, but I think transitions, especially transitions after school for even kindergartners first graders, they might not be transitioning to homework necessarily. Or maybe actually some of them might be, which I also think a five-year-old might not be going to shoot some basketballs, but you might be able to have, and they might need more fill connection time too. I think older kids can really just get it out with movement on their own, but younger kids might actually really need connection time. Maybe we sit down and we read a book on the couch together. It’s like brain break, movement time, physical connection time fill up time, and it’s really going to look different for different kids. You have to know what fills your kid’s cup and kind of at an age at how much you need to participate in that filling and how much you can sort of be like, all right, bud, go run around for a little while. And also seasonality. Is it winter? Cause this is so hard when it’s winter.

Dr. Emily (24:33):

It is much harder when it’s winter in the northeast. I do think that my other tactic that I said earlier with regards to the parents and looking at their schedule to self-regulate, I do think it’s helpful to look at patterns like, oh, every day my kid’s having a meltdown when we do. So that’s a really important cue to say, Ooh, let me look at what’s happening, the transitions, what’s happening for me, what’s happening for my kid, and how can I introduce one of these skills? How can I make a connection break or a food break, or how can I fill them their cup back up so that they’re able to do this other task?

Dr. Sarah (25:05):

I have two more things and then I think we should probably wrap because I want this to be a fun shorty episode, but we could literally talk about this for hours.

Dr. Emily (25:15):

I could talk about this forever.

Dr. Sarah (25:16):

I know, but one thing I’ll throw in that I think is important is that super quick and easy is visual cues. A lot of kids who have ADHD and parents need visual reminders, not just auditory reminders. So having a little schedule, even I think a whiteboard, a little tiny white marker board can be super helpful of they get home from school. We just sit down for a second and we pull out the whiteboard and say, Hey, we’re going to do 10 minutes of trampoline. We’re going to do, or 10 minutes of whatever we’re going to do snack time, maybe do snack time first, then the trampoline, and then we’re going to do 30 minutes of homework or 30 minutes of test prep or whatever the thing is. But just put it out. Either do pictures for little kids or words for big kids, but actually give them a 1, 2, 3 schedule that they can orient to because I do think that’s really helpful.

(26:12):

I also think visual timers can be really helpful, especially for younger kids, but even older kids, it’s just kind of a concrete thing. I get to turn the timer to 20 minutes and I could see the time disappearing, visual time. We’ll put a link to visual timer in the show notes because they’re really helpful devices, I think for kids who have ADHD. And then the other thing I think is a really important thing to acknowledge and to just really, really hold space for is that you might be listening to all of this right now and being like, oh my God, this is so much work. I don’t have the time, energy, bandwidth to be buddying and scaffolding to this level of intensity. And one, I really, really understand that especially if you have a DH, adhd, it’s really hard, but parents are busy. I know that we want to have a low touch option, and the reality is there aren’t low touch options that work so well.

(27:17):

These are higher touch need kids. And that’s just the reality. And knowing that grieving that moving and processing the frustration you might have about that makes so much sense. That would be frustrating and exhausting. And the truth really is if you front load this work, you do scaffold away from it. It doesn’t last forever. But they do need more support, I think. And I also think that you can supplement that too if you don’t overwhelmed it. Where to start with this? You don’t have to do this by yourself. You can find there’s a lot of people who specialize in executive functioning coaching for parents, for kids. Our practice has an executive functioning skills group. There’s ways to have a one off consultation and to be like, okay, here are my challenges. Can we create an individualized plan and scaffolding plan? Just so you know what you’ve got ahead of you, if you know what you have to do and you understand the plan, it’s less frustrating I think, when you have to implement it.

Dr. Emily (28:33):

Totally. I couldn’t agree more. I also think that when you know what the plan is and what to do, you can supplement to that. Your point. It is really overwhelming and it’s a lot of work, and you can build in a structure that can be helpful for that. You might sit with your child two days a week and you might have a high school kid sit with your child two days a week to help with some of this. It just gives you the power to build out the system that you need.

Dr. Sarah (28:56):

And it can take any shape in any form. It’s just got to work for you and your kid, not just your kid either. Emily, I think that point about bringing in help, please, this is a lot of work and it does have to kind of be figured out, but you don’t have to be the only person delivering this. And there’s a lot of self-compassion that has to happen for the true and understandable frustration that comes with it, whether you have ADHD yourself or not.

Dr. Emily (29:25):

True

Dr. Sarah (29:25):

That. So thank you, Emily. Thanks for sharing all these good insider, insider baseball strategies you use at home.

Dr. Emily (29:34):

I know. So to your point, I love it. So there’s that.

Dr. Sarah (29:41):

Dripping with sarcasm. Oh, you love the executive functioning stuff.

Dr. Emily (29:45):

Yeah, I thrive in those systems.

Dr. Sarah (29:49):

You like making the plans, but do you always having to be the one that executes them?

Dr. Emily (29:53):

No, that’s true. And frankly, and full disclosure, I don’t. Right. So I do some of it and then I am the mapper of the plan, and then I am partial delivery, but I also, I do get external delivery services as well.

Dr. Sarah (30:11):

Alright, well thank you guys for listening. Keep sending in your questions. We love them and we will see you very soon.

Dr. Emily (30:19):

Yeah. Bye.

Dr. Sarah (30:21):Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.