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Why is Parenting an ADHD child so hard? The Parenting Pivot Nobody Tells You About (And Why ADHD Kids Need It Most) · Raising ADHD: Real Talk For Parents & Educators

• 0:00
  Apryl: We are diving into the invisible parent pivot.
• 0:03
  Apryl: This pivot is one that people raising neurotypical kids usually don't notice, but those of us with ADHD kiddos get slammed when this happens.
• 0:14
  Apryl: Welcome to Raising ADHD, the podcast for parents and teachers raising ADHD kids.
• 0:20
  Apryl: If you've ever felt frustrated, overwhelmed, or just unsure what to do next, you're not alone.
• 0:26
  Apryl: I'm April Bradford, a former teacher and ADHD mom, and alongside my husband, Dr.
• 0:32
  Apryl: Brian Bradford, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, we're here to give you the clarity, strategies, and support you've been looking for.
• 0:39
  Apryl: Every week we break down the misconceptions, answer your biggest questions, and share real tools you can use right away at home and in the classroom.
• 0:48
  Apryl: So if you're ready to feel more confident and less overwhelmed, you're in the right place.
• 0:53
  Apryl: Let's dive in.
• 0:55
  Apryl: What the heck is this invisible parent pivot?
• 0:58
  Apryl: Let's think back to when your kiddo was a, you know, about one year old, 18 months, when they were learning how to walk.
• 1:09
  Apryl: What did you do when they were learning how to walk?
• 1:12
  Apryl: I'm guessing you probably did all the things and were so excited for them.
• 1:17
  Apryl: You probably were walking with them before they were even ready to walk.
• 1:22
  Apryl: You were holding on to their hands, right?
• 1:24
  Apryl: And walking behind them.
• 1:25
  Apryl: What were you doing?
• 1:27
  Apryl: What was happening when you were doing those things?
• 1:30
  Apryl: You were slowly over time building things like core strength, leg strength, balance.
• 1:36
  Apryl: And then what else happened as they're learning to walk?
• 1:40
  Apryl: There's things around the room that were helping them, right?
• 1:45
  Apryl: They would crawl over to the couch and pull themselves up and then hold onto the couch and walk along the couch, right?
• 1:51
  Apryl: And then you would again, you're holding their hands, trying to get them to walk, and then you'd just hold one hand to see if they'd walk.
• 1:59
  Apryl: And then as soon as they took their first step, what did you do?
• 2:05
  Apryl: Broke out in cheers, right?
• 2:07
  Apryl: Like, yay! Your kiddie's even broke down into tears because you scared them from your tears being so loud, but you had that positive reinforcement.
• 2:17
  Apryl: Like, you did it, you kept doing it, like, way to go, right?
• 2:20
  Apryl: It was so exciting.
• 2:22
  Apryl: That's what's happening in our the early years of childhood.
• 2:27
  Apryl: There's so many things like that that there's like these timelines and these breakthroughs that happen and these milestones that are so exciting.
• 2:36
  Apryl: They get their first tooth, all these things, right?
• 2:40
  Apryl: And here is where there's this invisible pivot.
• 2:45
  Apryl: All of these things that are happening in from baby through toddlerhood up to elementary age, these are all very visible to us as parents.
• 2:55
  Apryl: We can see the reward, we can see the skills that we're they're learning, we can see all of it, right?
• 3:02
  Apryl: We don't necessarily see the skills underneath that it took to learn to walk.
• 3:09
  Apryl: We don't see their core muscles building, right?
• 3:12
  Apryl: We don't see the balance building.
• 3:14
  Apryl: We see the effects of it, we can see them wobble, right?
• 3:17
  Apryl: Then we see once they get it, they are standing straight up, but we don't have to teach balance.
• 3:22
  Apryl: We're not like, hey, here's how you balance, kid, right?
• 3:26
  Apryl: Their body's naturally doing it.
• 3:29
  Apryl: And so it's very, very visible for us, even with their learning at this young age.
• 3:36
  Apryl: They can it's say, you know, you're like, look, it's blue, look, it's blue, look, it's blue.
• 3:42
  Apryl: And finally one day they're point at the sky and say, blue, and you're like, oh my gosh, yes, it's blue.
• 3:47
  Apryl: We do all of that positive reinforcement, right?
• 3:50
  Apryl: But what happens once our kiddos hit all of these milestones, which it's so great when you're having a kid, all those books, like what to expect when you're expecting, what to expect the first year, right?
• 4:02
  Apryl: There's all these books that we prepare and we're ready, and we know, okay, at this many months they're gonna be doing this.
• 4:09
  Apryl: Oh, sleep regression happens in six months, right?
• 4:13
  Apryl: We we know these timelines because they're very predictable and they've been studied, and we know that these happen for typical development.
• 4:24
  Apryl: This is the timeline that it happens on.
• 4:26
  Apryl: And there's this very structured timeline and this checklist that we can, as a parents, be like, yep, we did that one, got that one, got that one.
• 4:33
  Apryl: Our kids looking good, right?
• 4:36
  Apryl: It's so nice and easy and visible.
• 4:39
  Apryl: I wouldn't say it's easy.
• 4:40
  Apryl: Parenting is never easy, but being able to recognize what's going on is easy.
• 4:44
  Apryl: We can see that they're developing, doing, learning those skills, right?
• 4:49
  Apryl: And then we have this pivot into our elementary school years clear through early adulthood.
• 4:58
  Apryl: But I really want to focus on these elementary middle school years because this is where you as a parent have the absolute most impression on your kiddo.
• 5:10
  Apryl: We know that once they hit teenagers, all of a sudden your IQ drops in their eyes, right?
• 5:16
  Apryl: You become the one who doesn't have that much influence on them, and all of a sudden their friend is the smartest person on earth and knows everything, right?
• 5:24
  Apryl: So these are the crucial years for us as parents and for developing our kiddos' skills, these invisible skills.
• 5:33
  Apryl: What the heck am I talking about?
• 5:35
  Apryl: When we pivot to these older years, right?
• 5:38
  Apryl: These elementary years, we know that, okay, now we've got them walking, talking, they know their colors, they know their numbers, right?
• 5:48
  Apryl: Now we have different skills that we start working on.
• 5:51
  Apryl: Things like we want them to be, we want them to grow up to be responsible adults, right?
• 5:57
  Apryl: So what do we do?
• 5:58
  Apryl: We assign chores.
• 6:00
  Apryl: They're supposed to be cleaning their room, they need to brush their teeth on their own.
• 6:05
  Apryl: All of these tasks, correct?
• 6:08
  Apryl: And when we assign these tasks, it's just like our kiddo learning to walk.
• 6:16
  Apryl: There are visible skills and there are invisible skills.
• 6:21
  Apryl: And we are so used to being in what we did with our kiddos when they were babies and toddlers.
• 6:29
  Apryl: We're so used to seeing those visible skills and helping them build those visible skills.
• 6:36
  Apryl: They're physical, right?
• 6:38
  Apryl: Uh large motor skills and small motor skills, and that's what we're really, really working on.
• 6:43
  Apryl: We didn't have to do the invisible stuff.
• 6:47
  Apryl: We didn't have to help them build their balance, we didn't have to help them build their core muscles, right?
• 6:54
  Apryl: When we were parenting, when we were just doing those things, like holding their hands, their body was taking care of the rest.
• 7:03
  Apryl: But when we get to this stage where we want our kids to start doing things like chores and tasks on their own, those visible skills, and what we're missing and what we're not focusing on, this we're not focusing on this invisible part.
• 7:23
  Apryl: And this is actually very crucial for this age.
• 7:26
  Apryl: And this is why it hits those of us with ADHD kiddos like smack in the face.
• 7:33
  Apryl: And what it looks like is meltdowns, defiance, tantrums, uh, avoidance, uh, not listening.
• 7:44
  Apryl: It looks like all of that bad behavior.
• 7:49
  Apryl: But what it really is, it's those invisible skills that we haven't built.
• 7:55
  Apryl: Because like I said, we're so used to being in this stage where we don't build the invisible skills, we build those physical skills, and so we're still using that old mindset, that old parenting mindset that works really great for that age of kids, but we're missing it here in these older kids.
• 8:16
  Apryl: And for our neurotypical kiddos, doing things like telling them, hey, you need to clean your room, pick up your toys, make your bed, clean up your laundry.
• 8:27
  Apryl: That's what a clean room is.
• 8:28
  Apryl: You may even go in and you organize the toys, you put, you know, labels on the toy boxes, all those things, and your kiddo can do it.
• 8:36
  Apryl: But with our ADHD kids, those skills, those invisible skills are 30% behind their peers.
• 8:47
  Apryl: And this is why we get slapped in the face with it.
• 8:49
  Apryl: And it looks like that avoidance and not listening because we are focused so much on them doing that visible task, that thing that we can see, rather than building the skill that helps them to actually be able to do that visible task.
• 9:04
  Apryl: These are the executive function skills.
• 9:06
  Apryl: I'm sure you're like, I think that's what she's talking about, is executive function skills.
• 9:10
  Apryl: Yes, that's exactly right.
• 9:12
  Apryl: But this is where we need to pivot as parents, but as a society, no one teaches us this.
• 9:17
  Apryl: We don't know that there's we know that we need to teach our kids to do chores and raise them into an adult, right?
• 9:25
  Apryl: They need to do homework because we want them to do well in school, we want them to get good jobs, right?
• 9:30
  Apryl: All of those things.
• 9:31
  Apryl: We want them to be a good friend.
• 9:32
  Apryl: So we focus on, again, the visible.
• 9:35
  Apryl: It's so easy to see the visible.
• 9:37
  Apryl: It's so hard to see the invisible.
• 9:39
  Apryl: And that's why this is so tricky.
• 9:41
  Apryl: And that's why those of us with ADHD kids, it's so hard because society is still focused on the visible.
• 9:49
  Apryl: That's what they can see.
• 9:50
  Apryl: They don't see the invisible, and that's where we have to shift as parents of ADHDers, is we have to shift our focus now from the in the visible to the invisible.
• 10:04
  Apryl: So instead of clean your room, I want you to, and focusing on cleaning your room, what we have to focus on is the invisible, the invisible that will eventually turn into the visible.
• 10:18
  Apryl: So when we ask our kids to clean our room, what executive function skills are underlying?
• 10:25
  Apryl: Just like our our babies, right?
• 10:28
  Apryl: When they were walking, those underlying skills balance, poor muscle strength, um, leg strength, being able to figure out how to move their feet correctly, there's all these skills, but their body was doing that for them naturally.
• 10:45
  Apryl: For our ADHDers, there's all these underlying executive function skills.
• 10:50
  Apryl: And even for our neurotypical kids, their brain is developing, right?
• 10:55
  Apryl: But we still have to explicitly teach these.
• 10:58
  Apryl: The Harvard study, and I'll link it in the show notes.
• 11:01
  Apryl: The Harvard study says executive function skills must be taught.
• 11:06
  Apryl: So with our neurotypical kids, like I was saying, it's very easy for them to be able to pick up on these.
• 11:13
  Apryl: And not all kids.
• 11:14
  Apryl: Some kids will still struggle whether they have ADHD or not.
• 11:17
  Apryl: But our ADHD or this is very hard.
• 11:20
  Apryl: So we need to start focusing on those skills.
• 11:24
  Apryl: The number one thing that you need to start today is start to pay attention to what invisible skills is the visible task asking of your child.
• 11:37
  Apryl: Because it's those invisible skills that are causing the meltdowns, the avoidance, what looks like defiance, right?
• 11:48
  Apryl: The not listening.
• 11:49
  Apryl: These invisible skills are causing the behaviors that you're seeing.
• 11:54
  Apryl: So instead of doing the visible task, you're seeing visible behavior because they don't have the skills to do that task.
• 12:00
  Apryl: Now, yes, do they know what it means to pick up their toy?
• 12:04
  Apryl: Yes, they do.
• 12:05
  Apryl: Our kids are smart.
• 12:06
  Apryl: They know what it means to pick up a toy, they know that the toy goes in the bucket or wherever you have them put their toys.
• 12:13
  Apryl: What they're lacking is the task initiation, the organization.
• 12:18
  Apryl: Where do I start?
• 12:20
  Apryl: That big, big project of cleaning a room is so overwhelming to them that their brain then goes into fight or flight mode, and that's where you start to see the behavior.
• 12:35
  Apryl: So when we start to pay attention to the invisible skills, and we start teaching the invisible skills, and we scaffold the invisible skills, just like we did with walking, we held their hand, we were there by them.
• 12:49
  Apryl: Would you have put your one-year-old in a room by themselves and said walk?
• 12:56
  Apryl: Not a chance would you do that, right?
• 12:59
  Apryl: Because they wouldn't have been able to do it.
• 13:02
  Apryl: You scaffolded them, the support.
• 13:05
  Apryl: You had, you know, there was furniture there.
• 13:07
  Apryl: And yes, they would have figured that out because that was that's like in our genetics to be able to walk, talk, survive, right?
• 13:16
  Apryl: These are survival skills that they were learning in their baby and toddlerhood.
• 13:22
  Apryl: Whereas now, these executive function skills aren't those like primitive skills, right?
• 13:30
  Apryl: They're our higher functioning skills.
• 13:34
  Apryl: And so our bot we have to scaffold these just like we did with these other skills.
• 13:43
  Apryl: So instead of you know, putting your kid in the room and saying, clean it, we still have to be the parent who's right there.
• 13:51
  Apryl: And one thing I will say, raising an ADHD kid takes more time, more patience, and more empathy for our kids than raising a neurotypical kid.
• 14:04
  Apryl: We have to shift our vision of this should be the same because it's never going to be the same.
• 14:12
  Apryl: It's not the same.
• 14:13
  Apryl: Their brains are different.
• 14:14
  Apryl: Again, it's that invisible, it's different.
• 14:18
  Apryl: So it is going to take you longer.
• 14:20
  Apryl: It is going to take you giving up your personal time to do things like body doubling in the bedroom with them, or doing things like planning, going into the bedroom if we're asking them to clean, right?
• 14:35
  Apryl: And we know our kiddo is struggles with planning and organization.
• 14:41
  Apryl: We're going to help them.
• 14:42
  Apryl: We're going to go in their room and we're going to say, okay, where are you going to start first?
• 14:46
  Apryl: Or you can do something like, I learned this from Peg Dawson, where you can be one of you is the brain and one of you is the brawn.
• 14:55
  Apryl: That's what she called it.
• 14:56
  Apryl: So when we're cleaning the room, one of you is the brain saying, okay, you do this, and then the other person is the one doing it.
• 15:04
  Apryl: And what's that?
• 15:05
  Apryl: What is that doing right there?
• 15:07
  Apryl: That's exactly like when we were holding our little baby's hands and helping them walk.
• 15:13
  Apryl: We're still holding our little baby's hands.
• 15:15
  Apryl: They're just a little bit older, and the skills that they're learning are invisible instead of those visible skills.
• 15:22
  Apryl: So when we do something like the brain and the brawn for cleaning the room, so if your child is, they're probably going to start with them being the brain, um, because they don't want to do the work, right?
• 15:39
  Apryl: Or that's what it feels like.
• 15:40
  Apryl: But what are they, and you might feel like here's here's where it gets tricky is you're like, you're just here making me clean your room.
• 15:49
  Apryl: No, what's happening in their brain right there?
• 15:51
  Apryl: Again, it's those invisible skills.
• 15:54
  Apryl: They're now looking and learning to plan and organize.
• 15:58
  Apryl: I look at my room.
• 16:00
  Apryl: Oh, mom, pick up that doll right there.
• 16:03
  Apryl: Okay, where does it go?
• 16:04
  Apryl: It goes right there.
• 16:05
  Apryl: Okay, great, I'll do that.
• 16:07
  Apryl: Oh, now the shoes.
• 16:09
  Apryl: Okay, I'll put your shoes away.
• 16:10
  Apryl: Where do they go?
• 16:11
  Apryl: Okay, I'm gonna put them away.
• 16:13
  Apryl: And then halfway through, guess what you're gonna do?
• 16:15
  Apryl: You're gonna say, swap, I'm now the brain, you're the brawn.
• 16:19
  Apryl: Okay, see how those are scaffolding, we're scaffolding those skills, and we're doing exactly what we did with our little babies, but it just looks different.
• 16:30
  Apryl: And this is that invisible pivot, that one that we don't even realize is there.
• 16:35
  Apryl: That's why it's invisible.
• 16:37
  Apryl: And our parents of neurotypical kids, they don't even realize they're doing it because it's just it comes natural, just like what came natural with our how we helped our baby learn to walk.
• 16:51
  Apryl: It comes natural to say, go clean your room, pick up your toys, make your bed, put the laundry away.
• 16:56
  Apryl: And it comes natural to label the the bins, right?
• 17:02
  Apryl: Or there's there's Pinterest boards for that that will teach us how to teach our kid to clean their room.
• 17:09
  Apryl: Then you're like, but it's not working.
• 17:11
  Apryl: Yeah, because they're missing the skills.
• 17:14
  Apryl: So, and that's the reason, too, why reward charts don't work or they burn out, or you know, work for a day, they motivate for a day, is they are not building the skill.
• 17:26
  Apryl: We have to do it hand in hand.
• 17:29
  Apryl: We have to have the reward and we have to have the skill building.
• 17:33
  Apryl: Just like, again, I'm going to go back to teaching your baby to walk.
• 17:37
  Apryl: What did you do when they pulled themselves up on the couch?
• 17:40
  Apryl: You cheered.
• 17:41
  Apryl: You were so excited for them.
• 17:43
  Apryl: So, what did they do again?
• 17:44
  Apryl: They pulled themselves up on the couch again, and then they would fall on their bum, right?
• 17:48
  Apryl: And then they would they would stand up and then you would cheer and they would laugh, laugh, laugh because they were so happy because they made you happy, and then they would fall on their bum and then they'd climb back up and you'd cheer and they'd laugh, right?
• 17:59
  Apryl: You see the cycle that's happening here, the positive reinforcement, the skill that's being learned, the and the invisible skills that we didn't have to focus on because it was natural in the body.
• 18:10
  Apryl: Where now we have to focus on the invisible skill, where are you gonna start?
• 18:16
  Apryl: Great, oh my gosh, you started, way to go, right?
• 18:20
  Apryl: Or yes, that's exactly where I would start.
• 18:22
  Apryl: That's great, go do it, you know, those kind of things.
• 18:26
  Apryl: That's what we have to do.
• 18:27
  Apryl: And body doubling is another huge one for our ADHDers that can be very helpful.
• 18:33
  Apryl: But as we body double, just like the brain and the brawn in the bedroom, what can we be doing to help them build these skills?
• 18:43
  Apryl: That's where we are going to see a huge, huge change in the defiance, the listening or not listening, I should say, the meltdowns is when we can give our kiddos strategies.
• 18:59
  Apryl: I will also say starting them where they will have success.
• 19:03
  Apryl: Think about, I'm just gonna keep using the baby strategy because it's so easy for all of us to understand because we've all been there.
• 19:10
  Apryl: You wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you weren't around a child.
• 19:15
  Apryl: So when our kiddo is a baby, we wouldn't stand them on their feet before they can even stand or walk and say, run, right?
• 19:25
  Apryl: Why aren't you running?
• 19:27
  Apryl: Why aren't you listening to me?
• 19:28
  Apryl: You're being defiant.
• 19:30
  Apryl: I told you to run and you're just flopped on your bum and you're not doing anything.
• 19:34
  Apryl: What's wrong with you?
• 19:36
  Apryl: You would never, ever, ever do that with with your baby, right?
• 19:42
  Apryl: But yet when we when our kiddos get older, that's what we're doing with them.
• 19:47
  Apryl: I'm re I'm right now working with my daughter, it's the end of the school year, and she is not wanting to get her reading done.
• 19:55
  Apryl: So I look at it and I go, okay, can she sit and read for 20 minutes straight?
• 20:01
  Apryl: She's in third grade, that's the requirement, and that is what all the textbooks say is developmentally appropriate for third grade.
• 20:11
  Apryl: What's the visible task here?
• 20:13
  Apryl: The visible task is sitting and reading a book, attending to the book, paying attention, working memory, impulse control, there's so much.
• 20:23
  Apryl: All of those things that I was just listening are the invisible skills.
• 20:28
  Apryl: And when, so when I was looking at my daughter, going, okay, we're really struggling getting our reading done.
• 20:34
  Apryl: And it was working for us to read at eight o'clock at night and then lights out at 8.20, usually asleep by 8.30.
• 20:43
  Apryl: That was working for us.
• 20:45
  Apryl: Recently, that is not working for us.
• 20:48
  Apryl: So I had to step back and go, okay, what is happening and how can I make her successful in this so that we're not fighting every night?
• 20:58
  Apryl: So, or we're just like not getting our reading done, right?
• 21:02
  Apryl: So I made a system and I very explicitly said what behavior I wanted to see.
• 21:12
  Apryl: I need your 20 minutes of reading done by 7:30 p.m.
• 21:18
  Apryl: That is the behavior that I want to see.
• 21:20
  Apryl: Then what I've done is I've broken it up.
• 21:23
  Apryl: She can choose.
• 21:24
  Apryl: So I've given her autonomy here.
• 21:27
  Apryl: She can choose how she wants to get that done.
• 21:30
  Apryl: And this is where it also mitigates meltdowns.
• 21:35
  Apryl: Is I'm not forcing her to read 20 minutes at a time because I will be honest.
• 21:40
  Apryl: She goes to school and she is on medication before school and after school, medication is wore off.
• 21:47
  Apryl: So the struggle to get her to read can be very difficult because she truly, again, the invisible skills, she's lacking in the attending to reading, the attending.
• 22:00
  Apryl: Attention span, right?
• 22:01
  Apryl: The working memory without all those jumbles of thoughts, those kind of things.
• 22:06
  Apryl: So, how can we get her success?
• 22:08
  Apryl: Well, it really depends on her and what she's feeling that day.
• 22:13
  Apryl: Sometimes it is five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, five minutes.
• 22:18
  Apryl: It's five minute chunks, and she can get success.
• 22:20
  Apryl: And we have a whole behavior system behind this as well that supports her, just like cheering on the baby.
• 22:27
  Apryl: Same thing here.
• 22:28
  Apryl: She gets success from this.
• 22:30
  Apryl: Yesterday, what did she do?
• 22:32
  Apryl: She had a friend over.
• 22:34
  Apryl: They were making pom-poms.
• 22:35
  Apryl: If you're on my email list, you heard about the pom-poms.
• 22:38
  Apryl: They have been a huge hit in our house.
• 22:40
  Apryl: She's taught, I don't know how many kids in the neighborhood how to make pom poms, but the friend is making pom poms and she knew she had to get her reading done by 7:30.
• 22:49
  Apryl: So she said, Mom, can I read to her friend while she's making her pom pom?
• 22:55
  Apryl: Can I read out loud to her?
• 22:56
  Apryl: Because she likes Harry Potter too.
• 22:58
  Apryl: And I was like, Well, is she okay with that?
• 23:00
  Apryl: And they were fine with it.
• 23:02
  Apryl: And so guess what?
• 23:03
  Apryl: Having that friend there and her, the friend was like the body devil, and she was reading out loud to her, she got her 20 minutes done.
• 23:12
  Apryl: She got her full 20 minutes done in one chunk.
• 23:15
  Apryl: And again, it gave her autonomy.
• 23:18
  Apryl: She is able to attend for 20 minutes and read, but depending on how her, you know, just some days they're a little bit more wild than other days.
• 23:27
  Apryl: Some days we do five, five, five, five.
• 23:30
  Apryl: But that those are the things that I'm doing to support and scaffold, you know, holding the hand, right?
• 23:36
  Apryl: This is what we're putting into place.
• 23:38
  Apryl: This is what we do at Raising ADHD.
• 23:41
  Apryl: We look at the behavior, we figure out what works for our kid, we get them success.
• 23:46
  Apryl: That's what we want.
• 23:47
  Apryl: We want our kiddos to have success and we build the invisible skills.
• 23:51
  Apryl: We have to build the invisible skills if we want to see the visible skills for the visible tasks happen.
• 23:58
  Apryl: So that's the parenting pivot.
• 24:00
  Apryl: We go from coaching and scaffolding and cheering on all the visible skills that they are learning when they're little.
• 24:11
  Apryl: And we don't have to do anything with the invisible.
• 24:14
  Apryl: That the body just does that naturally.
• 24:17
  Apryl: With our ADHD kiddos, we have this pivot now.
• 24:21
  Apryl: And with our ADHD kiddos, when we pivot to this elementary school age, elementary, middle, even up into high school.
• 24:29
  Apryl: High school, the uh prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until the mid-20s.
• 24:35
  Apryl: And same thing with the executive function skills.
• 24:39
  Apryl: So this all has to be scaffolded, but it looks different at different age levels, right?
• 24:44
  Apryl: And the more we can do right now, as our kiddos are impressionable by us, their parents, the more we can do right now, the more, the easier it's going to be when they hit those teenage years, and the more success they're going to be have on their own, because you've built in the structure and support and they've seen how you've been able to, how you've scaffolded them throughout their childhood.
• 25:11
  Apryl: And now they're teenagers and they they can learn those skills, right?
• 25:15
  Apryl: And we can still help scaffold them.
• 25:17
  Apryl: We can still help.
• 25:18
  Apryl: And there's another pivot.
• 25:20
  Apryl: Once they hit middle school, we all of a sudden we're asking a lot more of the time management, the planning, the organizing.
• 25:29
  Apryl: And if we're not scaffolding our kids in those ages, they're gonna struggle in school.
• 25:34
  Apryl: They're going to have a difficult time keeping everything all organized because all of a sudden they have six or eight classes, right?
• 25:41
  Apryl: So can you see how we are pivoting from the visible, physical tasks to now we have to pivot to the invisible skills?
• 25:54
  Apryl: We're gonna develop the invisible skills to start seeing the visible tasks that we want to see.
• 26:01
  Apryl: And doing this will help mitigate the behavior, it's gonna help mitigate the meltdowns, the defiance, and it's also gonna help you as a parent, if you keep this in mind, to realize this isn't behavior.
• 26:13
  Apryl: When we see behavior, when they're avoiding a task or they're melting down when we ask them something, then we stop and we ask ourselves, what is causing this behavior?
• 26:26
  Apryl: What skill are they lacking?
• 26:27
  Apryl: Why is this over so overwhelming?
• 26:29
  Apryl: And for some of our kiddos, it's gonna be harder.
• 26:32
  Apryl: Because for some of our kiddos, they are very dysregulated and they have such a dysregulated nervous system and it's been dysregulated for so long.
• 26:39
  Apryl: I feel like it's kind of like a tangled ball of yarn that it's gonna take a little longer to untangle, but it will get there.
• 26:47
  Apryl: When you do this, it will get there.
• 26:49
  Apryl: I promise you, it will get there.
• 26:52
  Apryl: It may just take more time.
• 26:53
  Apryl: Just like our neurotypical kids, they're doing these same things.
• 26:57
  Apryl: Their parents are doing these same things, just doesn't take as much time and it doesn't take as much scaffolding and support.
• 27:03
  Apryl: So our kiddos with ADHD, they do range between, you know, some kids are hyper, some kids are very hyper, some kiddos are more dysregulated than others.
• 27:13
  Apryl: And as we start to untangle that and make it a little bit more smoother, you're going to see a huge difference.
• 27:22
  Apryl: So, your big takeaway from today is to start noticing the invisible skills that you need to start teaching, coaching, scaffolding, and praising with your kiddo.
• 27:34
  Apryl: And I have a quiz.
• 27:36
  Apryl: If you have not taken this quiz yet, it is a must.
• 27:40
  Apryl: Every parent of ADHD years needs this quiz.
• 27:43
  Apryl: It's the executive function quiz.
• 27:45
  Apryl: What it's going to do, it's going to ask you a few questions about you, actually, and a few questions about your kid.
• 27:51
  Apryl: And it's going to identify where they're strong and where they're weak, and where you're strong and where you're weak.
• 27:59
  Apryl: Why does this matter, this gap between who's strong, who's weak?
• 28:04
  Apryl: Because when you're strong in an area and your kid is weak in an area, that can cause a lot of contention.
• 28:11
  Apryl: So it's very, very eye-opening when you know these things and start to be able to see, oh, this is me.
• 28:19
  Apryl: I am very good at organizing and keeping things clean.
• 28:23
  Apryl: My daughter is not.
• 28:24
  Apryl: And it drove me crazy for the longest time until I realized that it was an executive skill gap between me and her.
• 28:32
  Apryl: She's weak, I'm strong.
• 28:34
  Apryl: How do we come together and compromise to make things work for both of us?
• 28:39
  Apryl: So you can take that quiz at raisingadh.org forward slash quiz.
• 28:45
  Apryl: I cannot wait to see you next week.
• 28:47
  Apryl: And I would love to hear about what invisible skill are you working on this week with your kiddo.
• 28:53
  Apryl: DM me at raisingadh.underscore org on Instagram.
• 28:59
  Apryl: Come follow us there.
• 29:00
  Apryl: I'm dropping tips on how to build these executive function skills, how to make the invisible visible, all of the things, and how to build a behavior support system to just back up all of this and make it so your kiddo will actually do what you ask them to do and listen when you ask them.
• 29:22
  Apryl: So I will see you next week.
• 29:24
  Apryl: So happy to have you here.
• 29:25
  Apryl: See you next week.
• 29:26
  Brian Bradford: Thanks so much for joining us for today's conversation on raising ADHD.
• 29:30
  Brian Bradford: Remember, raising ADHD kids doesn't have to feel overwhelming.
• 29:33
  Brian Bradford: Small shifts can make a big difference.
• 29:36
  Brian Bradford: If you found this episode helpful, it would mean the world if you would hit subscribe, if you would leave a review, or if you shared it with another parent or teacher who needs this support.
• 29:45
  Brian Bradford: And don't forget to join us next week for more real talk, practical tips, and encouragement.
• 29:50
  Brian Bradford: Until then, you've got this, and we've got your back.