Latest / Raising ADHD: Real Talk For Parents & Educators / You've Tried Everything With Your ADHD Child and Nothing Works. Here's Why

Transcript

You've Tried Everything With Your ADHD Child and Nothing Works. Here's Why · Raising ADHD: Real Talk For Parents & Educators

• 0:00
  Apryl: If you've tried the checklist through a reward chart, taking away the iPad, giving more screen time, tried timers, tried visuals, tried making things a game, tried being calm, tried consequences, tried natural consequences, tried preparing everything the night before.
• 0:15
  Apryl: You've probably saved 47 Instagram posts telling you 47 different things you're supposed to do with your ADHD child.
• 0:22
  Apryl: And somehow you're still standing by the door at 7.42 in the morning saying, Where are your shoes?
• 0:28
  Apryl: Or you're checking the school portal and seeing another missing assignment that you know your child completed, where you're having the same fight about getting off the iPad or brushing teeth or taking a shower or cleaning the bedroom or starting homework or going to bed, whatever your battle is, you keep thinking, why is nothing working?
• 0:49
  Apryl: Because you have tried everything.
• 0:52
  Apryl: And I want to challenge that today.
• 0:55
  Apryl: Welcome to Raising ADHD, the podcast for parents and teachers raising ADHD kids.
• 1:00
  Apryl: If you've ever felt frustrated, overwhelmed, or just unsure what to do next, you're not alone.
• 1:06
  Apryl: I'm April Bradford, a former teacher and ADHD mom.
• 1:10
  Apryl: And alongside my husband, Dr.
• 1:12
  Apryl: Brian Bradford, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, we're here to give you the clarity, strategies, and support you've been looking for.
• 1:20
  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.
• 1:29
  Apryl: So if you're ready to feel more confident and less overwhelmed, you're in the right place.
• 1:34
  Apryl: Hey there, welcome back to the Raising ADHD podcast.
• 1:38
  Apryl: I am April Bradford, former teacher, mom and wife to ADHDers, and here at Raising ADHD, we take what the research says and we turn it into practical solutions you can actually use at home.
• 1:53
  Apryl: Today we are talking about if you have tried everything and nothing is working, this episode is for you.
• 2:03
  Apryl: That's what we're diving into.
• 2:04
  Apryl: We're gonna talk about why nothing is actually working.
• 2:08
  Apryl: So if you are that parent that has tried the checklists, have tried the consequences, have tried the rewards, have tried all of the things, I want to challenge that today.
• 2:20
  Apryl: And I want to challenge it not because I think you haven't tried enough.
• 2:25
  Apryl: Actually, I think you may have tried too much.
• 2:29
  Apryl: And that's where the problem stems from.
• 2:31
  Apryl: We're drowning in ADHD strategies.
• 2:35
  Apryl: There is no shortage of ADHD parenting advice.
• 2:39
  Apryl: Seriously, go on Instagram, search ADHD parenting, go on TikTok, go on Pinterest, go on Google, Ask ChatGPT.
• 2:46
  Apryl: You can find 100 things to try before lunch.
• 2:51
  Apryl: Use a vigilal timer, make a checklist, create a launch pad by the door, use body doubling, give them two choices, gamify it, use the reward, use natural consequences.
• 3:00
  Apryl: You get the idea, right?
• 3:02
  Apryl: None of these are bad strategies.
• 3:04
  Apryl: This is exactly what the research shows works for these kids.
• 3:09
  Apryl: And I recommend a lot of them and I use a lot of them in my own house.
• 3:14
  Apryl: The problem isn't necessarily the strategy.
• 3:17
  Apryl: The problem is that we're starting with the strategy.
• 3:22
  Apryl: We're jumping straight from here's the behavior I want to stop to what strategy will make it stop.
• 3:29
  Apryl: And I think that's where a lot of us are getting stuck.
• 3:32
  Apryl: I've started thinking about this as the strategy loop.
• 3:35
  Apryl: Something isn't working.
• 3:36
  Apryl: Maybe your child can't get out the door in the morning, so you Google it.
• 3:40
  Apryl: ADHD morning routine routine.
• 3:43
  Apryl: You find a cute checklist on Etsy.
• 3:46
  Apryl: You print it out, you you laminate it.
• 3:50
  Apryl: It looks so cute.
• 3:51
  Apryl: It's hanging on the fridge.
• 3:53
  Apryl: Great.
• 3:54
  Apryl: Monday goes pretty well.
• 3:56
  Apryl: Tuesday's okay.
• 3:58
  Apryl: By Wednesday, you're the one saying, get your hair done, brush your teeth, where's your shoes?
• 4:03
  Apryl: It's time to go.
• 4:05
  Apryl: And you're standing there thinking, what in the world happened with the checklist?
• 4:11
  Apryl: Why can nobody in this house follow a checklist?
• 4:15
  Apryl: So then you decide, okay, the checklist didn't work.
• 4:19
  Apryl: Maybe we need a reward.
• 4:21
  Apryl: So you create this beautiful reward system.
• 4:25
  Apryl: And it works for a few days.
• 4:27
  Apryl: And then just like the checklist, it doesn't.
• 4:30
  Apryl: Okay, so maybe she needs a timer.
• 4:33
  Apryl: Maybe she needs an earlier bedtime.
• 4:35
  Apryl: Maybe we need to get the clothes laid out the night before.
• 4:38
  Apryl: Maybe I need to stop reminding her.
• 4:40
  Apryl: Maybe I'm reminding her too much.
• 4:42
  Apryl: Maybe she needs natural consequences.
• 4:44
  Apryl: And suddenly you've tried 14 things to fix one problem.
• 4:50
  Apryl: But here's the question I don't think we ask enough.
• 4:54
  Apryl: And that is, what exactly is the problem we're trying to solve?
• 5:00
  Apryl: And this is totally different than the question that I think most of us are asking.
• 5:05
  Apryl: Most of us are saying, what behavior is annoying me?
• 5:09
  Apryl: Or what do I need my child to stop doing?
• 5:12
  Apryl: What I really mean by this question is what is actually breaking down?
• 5:18
  Apryl: Because can't get out the door in the morning isn't really a problem.
• 5:22
  Apryl: It's an outcome.
• 5:24
  Apryl: There could be 10 completely different things underneath it.
• 5:30
  Apryl: Let's say every morning is a disaster.
• 5:33
  Apryl: I know mornings can be a huge battle for ADHD families.
• 5:38
  Apryl: And especially, I feel like this time of year, because we've gotten into the swing of the school year and now we're at this like friction point of blowing up.
• 5:46
  Apryl: The school year is no longer in the honeymoon phase.
• 5:50
  Apryl: We're not excited to go to school if we ever were.
• 5:53
  Apryl: And now we're tired and we are dragging our feet in the morning.
• 5:59
  Apryl: So we're gonna go with the morning battle zone for this.
• 6:02
  Apryl: But if you have a bedtime battle zone or the after-school battle zone, same thing here.
• 6:07
  Apryl: So in the morning, your child is never on time.
• 6:10
  Apryl: Okay.
• 6:11
  Apryl: Why?
• 6:12
  Apryl: Maybe they can't estimate how long things take.
• 6:16
  Apryl: Maybe they're getting distracted between steps.
• 6:20
  Apryl: Maybe they don't remember what comes next.
• 6:24
  Apryl: Maybe starting the routine is the problem.
• 6:27
  Apryl: Maybe getting dressed is creating sensory issues.
• 6:30
  Apryl: Maybe medication hasn't kicked in.
• 6:33
  Apryl: Maybe they know every single thing they're supposed to do, but they can't hold all of those steps in working memory while they're doing them.
• 6:41
  Apryl: Those are all completely different problems.
• 6:46
  Apryl: So think about this.
• 6:47
  Apryl: If the problem is I don't remember what I'm supposed to do next, a visual checklist might be incredibly helpful.
• 6:54
  Apryl: But if the problem is I know exactly what I'm supposed to do, but I keep getting distracted halfway through, that same checklist will probably do absolutely nothing for your kiddo.
• 7:05
  Apryl: Like I said, you can make the most beautiful checklist on Canva or buy one on Etsy, you can laminate it, you can put little velcro marks on it, you could color code it.
• 7:16
  Apryl: The child still has to remember to look at the checklist.
• 7:21
  Apryl: So if that's the part that's breaking down, you're going to end up thinking, well, checklist didn't work for my kid.
• 7:29
  Apryl: Maybe checklists aren't the problem.
• 7:32
  Apryl: Maybe we were trying to solve the wrong problem.
• 7:37
  Apryl: This is where I think parents get really frustrated because I hear this all the time.
• 7:42
  Apryl: And I know I've thought it myself, but she knows how to do this.
• 7:47
  Apryl: Yes, she probably does.
• 7:50
  Apryl: Knowing how to do something and being able to do it consistently and doing it independently are not the same thing.
• 7:58
  Apryl: That distinction is huge with ADHD.
• 8:01
  Apryl: And we've talked about that before on the podcast.
• 8:05
  Apryl: Knowing what to do and being able to do it in the moment are two totally different things.
• 8:09
  Apryl: So think about homework.
• 8:11
  Apryl: Your child did the homework, it's sitting in their backpack, then you get the notification.
• 8:17
  Apryl: Missing assignment.
• 8:18
  Apryl: And you were thinking, you've got to be kidding me.
• 8:21
  Apryl: This literally happened to me just this past week.
• 8:25
  Apryl: Actually, it's been weeks.
• 8:27
  Apryl: At my daughter's school, they get a Wednesday folder.
• 8:30
  Apryl: In this Wednesday folder, if there's work that's missing or needs to be completed, the work comes home in that Wednesday folder and then they have till Friday to finish it.
• 8:40
  Apryl: And we finished it.
• 8:42
  Apryl: Okay.
• 8:43
  Apryl: We finished the homework three weeks ago.
• 8:47
  Apryl: Three weeks ago.
• 8:48
  Apryl: I send the folder back, the homework, the completed homework back in the folder.
• 8:52
  Apryl: I actually even emailed the teacher because I was like, hey, I'm concerned.
• 8:56
  Apryl: Like this assignment is completely like it hadn't even been started.
• 9:00
  Apryl: So I emailed the teacher, asked, you know, what's going on.
• 9:03
  Apryl: She's like, oh, it's probably in her whatever folder in her desk.
• 9:09
  Apryl: So email number one.
• 9:11
  Apryl: Okay.
• 9:11
  Apryl: Week number one, email number one.
• 9:13
  Apryl: So because I really wanted to see if if she's having struggles like completing work in class.
• 9:19
  Apryl: That's what email number one was about.
• 9:20
  Apryl: Nope.
• 9:21
  Apryl: Doesn't have problems.
• 9:23
  Apryl: Just missing this assignment.
• 9:24
  Apryl: Okay, great.
• 9:25
  Apryl: Well, I emailed the teacher.
• 9:26
  Apryl: We'll just finish it.
• 9:27
  Apryl: We got it finished.
• 9:28
  Apryl: It's in her folder.
• 9:29
  Apryl: I tell the teacher it's in her red folder.
• 9:31
  Apryl: Okay.
• 9:31
  Apryl: Week number two comes.
• 9:33
  Apryl: I get the folder.
• 9:36
  Apryl: The assignment is in the folder with another copy of the same assignment.
• 9:41
  Apryl: And I'm like, okay, that's interesting.
• 9:45
  Apryl: So what do I do?
• 9:47
  Apryl: I email the teacher again.
• 9:49
  Apryl: And I'm like, hey.
• 9:51
  Apryl: So Audilie's had this assignment in her folder for a few weeks now.
• 9:55
  Apryl: It's done.
• 9:56
  Apryl: It's completed.
• 9:57
  Apryl: She doesn't know where where to put it.
• 9:59
  Apryl: Where does it go?
• 10:01
  Apryl: So the teacher emails and she's like, oh, and she loops in the other teacher because um they split language arts and math.
• 10:09
  Apryl: So she loops in the language arts teacher, and so they're like, We'll show her where it goes.
• 10:15
  Apryl: Okay.
• 10:16
  Apryl: So then the following week comes.
• 10:19
  Apryl: The assignment is still in the folder.
• 10:23
  Apryl: And granted, I will say, I have talked to my daughter about it.
• 10:26
  Apryl: I'm not just like saying that this is all the teacher's fault or anything like that.
• 10:31
  Apryl: No.
• 10:32
  Apryl: But I'm like, why is this still in the folder?
• 10:36
  Apryl: Right.
• 10:36
  Apryl: And so I asked her, I'm like, like, hun, what's going on?
• 10:41
  Apryl: Why has it have you not turned in this fold, like this paper, you know?
• 10:45
  Apryl: And she's like, well, it I don't know where it goes.
• 10:48
  Apryl: And I was like, well, there's an there's a basket in your teacher's classroom.
• 10:52
  Apryl: And she goes to her homeroom class, which is her language arts class, first for the first half of the day, and then math, which this was a math assignment, the second half of the day.
• 11:01
  Apryl: And I was like, Well, there's a folder in your teacher's class that you put it in, or there's a basket, apparently.
• 11:07
  Apryl: And she's like, No, it doesn't go in that.
• 11:09
  Apryl: And so I'm like, okay, she clearly is not understanding where this goes.
• 11:13
  Apryl: So finally, after three weeks, I was like, okay, I literally had to, I was gonna carry the papers because we walk um into school.
• 11:24
  Apryl: I was going to carry the papers to the door of the school and then say, here, take these.
• 11:29
  Apryl: But that was embarrassing for her.
• 11:30
  Apryl: But so she put them in her backpack, and I kept reminding, like, okay, you gotta turn in those papers, you gotta turn in those papers.
• 11:36
  Apryl: And we had the conversation.
• 11:38
  Apryl: It's like you've gotta ask your teacher because the only basket she knows is language arts and social studies.
• 11:44
  Apryl: And so, anyway, I think we've got it figured out.
• 11:48
  Apryl: I think she said that she put it in a folder, so we shall see.
• 11:53
  Apryl: We shall see four weeks in when uh uh Wednesday comes this week.
• 11:57
  Apryl: But all of that to say is that we you get this notification of a missing assignment.
• 12:06
  Apryl: And here I was, I was thinking, are you kidding me?
• 12:09
  Apryl: She did it, it's in her backpack.
• 12:11
  Apryl: I had even emailed the teachers, all she had to do was turn it in, but there was so much going on here, right?
• 12:20
  Apryl: That she didn't know where it went, all of that.
• 12:22
  Apryl: There is so much going on with something like turning in homework.
• 12:26
  Apryl: For example, it could be this system.
• 12:29
  Apryl: They don't actually know where this goes.
• 12:31
  Apryl: This was very confusing.
• 12:32
  Apryl: The teacher had actually emailed out to all parents, hey, Wednesday folders, this is how this works.
• 12:38
  Apryl: Granted, I still don't think the kids got the message because my daughter had no idea what was going on.
• 12:43
  Apryl: Anyway, but there's that.
• 12:45
  Apryl: So it may be like the actual routine.
• 12:47
  Apryl: They don't understand when or where they're supposed to turn in homework.
• 12:50
  Apryl: Your child has to remember that the assignment in their backpack exists, right?
• 12:56
  Apryl: With ADHD.
• 12:57
  Apryl: It's out of sight, out of mind.
• 12:59
  Apryl: They have to remember it at that correct point in the school day.
• 13:03
  Apryl: So my daughter was thinking this assignment had to go to the math teacher, which was middle of the school day, which was part of the issue as well.
• 13:10
  Apryl: And then possibly have to transition from whatever they're doing, get the paper out, know where it needs to go, and actually put it there.
• 13:18
  Apryl: Potentially doing all that while talking to friends, listening to the teacher, packing up their stuff, moving between classes, or thinking about whatever is happening next.
• 13:26
  Apryl: So we look at the outcome and we think turn in the homework.
• 13:29
  Apryl: It sounds very simple, right?
• 13:31
  Apryl: But their brain may be managing six or seven different jobs underneath that one instruction.
• 13:37
  Apryl: So when it doesn't happen, we usually respond with the outcome.
• 13:44
  Apryl: You need to be more responsible.
• 13:45
  Apryl: You need to remember, you're losing your phone tonight.
• 13:49
  Apryl: How many times do we have to talk about this?
• 13:52
  Apryl: But none of those things tell us where the process actually broke.
• 13:57
  Apryl: Consequences are not instructions.
• 14:00
  Apryl: This doesn't mean consequences are evil.
• 14:03
  Apryl: It doesn't mean kids with ADHD should never have consequences.
• 14:06
  Apryl: That's not what I'm saying here.
• 14:08
  Apryl: But I want you to think about what a consequence can actually do.
• 14:12
  Apryl: A consequence can tell a child this is important.
• 14:15
  Apryl: And it can sometimes increase motivation.
• 14:19
  Apryl: It can connect a choice with an outcome.
• 14:21
  Apryl: What it cannot automatically do is give your child a skill that they don't have yet or cannot reliably access in that moment.
• 14:28
  Apryl: Okay.
• 14:29
  Apryl: So if we take that situation of my daughter's homework still in her phone homework folder or in that Red Wednesday folder for three weeks, if I just kept giving her consequences, okay, you're not having the iPad for, you know, until this gets turned in or whatever the consequence is, would this situation ever have been solved?
• 14:51
  Apryl: No, because the problem wasn't that she, I mean, yes, the problem, the outcome of the homework missing, right?
• 14:58
  Apryl: That was the outcome.
• 14:59
  Apryl: And so if I was just trying to do consequences until that outcome was fixed, we never would have found the breakdown in the system, right?
• 15:08
  Apryl: This was the problem here.
• 15:10
  Apryl: There was a breakdown in her understanding of the system, and then also being able to remember.
• 15:16
  Apryl: So let's let's take another example here.
• 15:20
  Apryl: So say you forget your keys every single morning, your work keys, right?
• 15:25
  Apryl: Not your car keys, because obviously you're not gonna get out the door, but you have a secret, second set of work keys, okay?
• 15:32
  Apryl: And you forget them every single morning because your working memory is terrible.
• 15:38
  Apryl: You can take away my phone every time I forget my keys.
• 15:42
  Apryl: And now I'm like, oh, I've really got to remember my keys because I want to have my phone, right?
• 15:47
  Apryl: And I really hate having to go.
• 15:50
  Apryl: This was like thinking about working in the classroom.
• 15:52
  Apryl: I'd forget my keys every once in a while at my classroom key.
• 15:56
  Apryl: And so I hated having to go to the office and be like, hey, can I borrow the like master key because I forgot my keys today, right?
• 16:03
  Apryl: Hated that.
• 16:04
  Apryl: That was embarrassing.
• 16:05
  Apryl: I really wanted to remember my keys, but I still needed a system that helped me remember my keys.
• 16:10
  Apryl: Those are two different problems of really wanting to remember my keys, right?
• 16:16
  Apryl: And having a system to remember my keys.
• 16:20
  Apryl: That's why one of the questions I think we need to start asking when we see that our kid, we know our kid knows how to do something, but they're not doing it.
• 16:29
  Apryl: We need to ask, is my child unwilling to do this or are they struggling to do this?
• 16:35
  Apryl: Because those two things require two very different responses.
• 16:40
  Apryl: One of them, you're just like, it kind of is throw your hands up in the air, like, I guess I just have to do everything for them, right?
• 16:47
  Apryl: This is usually where parents, understandably, we push back, right?
• 16:53
  Apryl: Because if my child struggles to remember things, am I supposed to follow them around for the rest of their life?
• 16:58
  Apryl: Do I have to pack their backpack forever?
• 17:01
  Apryl: And then we start to worry, like, how are they ever gonna grow up into an adult, right?
• 17:05
  Apryl: Am I still gonna be brushing their teeth when they're 17 because they can't remember?
• 17:08
  Apryl: No.
• 17:09
  Apryl: The goal is always independence, absolutely.
• 17:12
  Apryl: But independence doesn't have to be the starting point.
• 17:15
  Apryl: And that's one of the problems, is we don't build independence by removing every single support and waiting for the child to magically figure this out.
• 17:24
  Apryl: We figure out where they're getting stuck, we give enough support that they can be successful, and then we practice that skill.
• 17:31
  Apryl: Then we gradually step back.
• 17:35
  Apryl: We support, practice, step back.
• 17:38
  Apryl: That is very different than doing everything for them.
• 17:42
  Apryl: We have to become detectives instead of firefighters.
• 17:47
  Apryl: I think this is one of the biggest shifts I've made in the way I look at ADHD and the battles in our house.
• 17:56
  Apryl: When something blows up, our instinct is to become that firefighter, right?
• 17:59
  Apryl: We got to stop the fire, get the shoes on, finish the homework, turn off the screen, get into the shower, go to bed.
• 18:05
  Apryl: And obviously, sometimes if it is 7:47 and you were supposed to be out the door at 745, this is not the moment for this like thoughtful analysis of executive functioning.
• 18:17
  Apryl: No, we're gonna like put the shoes on, right?
• 18:20
  Apryl: I get that totally.
• 18:22
  Apryl: But later, that's when we have to put on our scientist brain or our detective brain, whatever you want to call it.
• 18:30
  Apryl: Instead of how do I make this stop?
• 18:33
  Apryl: We start asking, what happened here?
• 18:35
  Apryl: Like, what keeps happening in the morning that I'm yelling at 747 and we should have been out the door two minutes ago?
• 18:41
  Apryl: Why does this keep happening?
• 18:43
  Apryl: Where do things start going sideways?
• 18:46
  Apryl: What was my child being asked to do?
• 18:48
  Apryl: What part could they do?
• 18:49
  Apryl: Where did they get stuck?
• 18:50
  Apryl: What happened immediately before it?
• 18:52
  Apryl: Does this happen every time?
• 18:55
  Apryl: Does it happen at a certain time of day?
• 18:57
  Apryl: Can they do it when I'm standing there, but not when they're alone?
• 19:00
  Apryl: Can they do it, but sometimes not consistently?
• 19:04
  Apryl: Does adding a reminder help?
• 19:06
  Apryl: Does making the task smaller help?
• 19:08
  Apryl: Because now what we're doing is we're gathering information and the battle itself becomes information.
• 19:17
  Apryl: Your child's hardest moments are giving you clues.
• 19:21
  Apryl: This is the part that I really, really, really want you to take from today's episode is the battle isn't just something to make disappear.
• 19:29
  Apryl: The battle is giving you information.
• 19:32
  Apryl: If homework takes three hours every single night, there's a lot of information in that situation.
• 19:40
  Apryl: If your child melts down every time it's time to turn off the screen, that's information.
• 19:46
  Apryl: If they can clean their room with you, but completely shut down when you say, go clean your room, that's information.
• 19:55
  Apryl: Instead of immediately asking, what's the strategy for this?
• 20:00
  Apryl: I want us to get curious.
• 20:03
  Apryl: What is this telling me?
• 20:05
  Apryl: Once you know what you're actually trying to solve, the strategy becomes a whole lot easier to choose.
• 20:13
  Apryl: Try this with one battle.
• 20:15
  Apryl: I don't want you to leave this episode and analyze your entire child.
• 20:18
  Apryl: Please don't do that, because that would be exactly what we're talking about here.
• 20:23
  Apryl: We don't need 14 new things.
• 20:25
  Apryl: We need to pick one battle, the one that's making you lose your mind.
• 20:29
  Apryl: Again, maybe it's mornings.
• 20:30
  Apryl: I call these battle zones.
• 20:32
  Apryl: Mornings, after school, and homework time, bedtime, getting off screens or transitioning and getting kids to actually do chores or like cleaning up their room.
• 20:44
  Apryl: Pick one.
• 20:45
  Apryl: Pick your one battle.
• 20:47
  Apryl: And for the next few days, don't even try to fix it.
• 20:49
  Apryl: Just watch.
• 20:50
  Apryl: Just get curious.
• 20:52
  Apryl: When does it start?
• 20:53
  Apryl: What happens right before it?
• 20:54
  Apryl: Where does your child get stuck?
• 20:56
  Apryl: What are you asking them to do?
• 20:59
  Apryl: You're not ignoring the behavior.
• 21:02
  Apryl: You're not ignoring the behavior because we are going to come back and we're going to implement the supports they need to help fix this behavior.
• 21:11
  Apryl: So don't think that, oh, I'm just ignoring this behavior and they're just going to become an absolute tear because I'm just ignoring this.
• 21:18
  Apryl: No, that's not what we're doing here.
• 21:20
  Apryl: We're trying to understand it before throwing another solution at it.
• 21:25
  Apryl: Because maybe you haven't failed at every ADHD strategy you've tried.
• 21:29
  Apryl: Maybe your child isn't impossible.
• 21:32
  Apryl: Maybe you don't need another list of 47 things to try.
• 21:36
  Apryl: Maybe you just need to stop throwing strategies at the battle long enough to figure out what battle you're actually fighting.
• 21:45
  Apryl: So I'm very excited because I have something coming.
• 21:49
  Apryl: This is actually something I've been working on behind the scenes for a while because I kept coming back to the same problem.
• 21:56
  Apryl: Parents don't need more ADHD information.
• 22:00
  Apryl: And I actually had an amazing member of our community.
• 22:04
  Apryl: Uh, she gave me feedback on I did the behavior breakthrough week at the beginning of summer.
• 22:11
  Apryl: And she was like, it was so good, so much information.
• 22:15
  Apryl: It was such good information.
• 22:17
  Apryl: But I felt so overwhelmed that I didn't use it, right?
• 22:21
  Apryl: So you can have all the information.
• 22:24
  Apryl: You can have, you can Google, like we live in a time, especially now with AI, like information is overwhelming.
• 22:32
  Apryl: Like we have so much of it that it, I think that it's causing overwhelm, overthinking, all that stuff.
• 22:38
  Apryl: So you can Google ADHD strategies all day long.
• 22:41
  Apryl: You can, you can even put into Chat GPT, help me get my child out, my ADHD child out the door, and they will create a whole morning routine for you.
• 22:51
  Apryl: But that, like we just talked about, that's not going to solve the problem that your child's having.
• 22:58
  Apryl: So what I wanted was something that answered, okay, but what do I do with my kid with this problem in my house in a way that was so absolutely simple that it is impossible to get overwhelmed?
• 23:15
  Apryl: That is what I have been working on.
• 23:19
  Apryl: So things like how do I take one battle we're having over and over and figure out what's actually going on?
• 23:24
  Apryl: Then how do I know what to try?
• 23:28
  Apryl: How do I practice it without becoming the person responsible for doing it forever?
• 23:34
  Apryl: And how do I know when to step back?
• 23:37
  Apryl: And what do I do when the first thing doesn't work?
• 23:41
  Apryl: So, like I said, I've been working behind the scenes and I've built something around exactly that and made it so absolutely simple to implement.
• 23:51
  Apryl: It's called the ADHD reset.
• 23:54
  Apryl: I'm gonna tell you a lot more about it very soon.
• 23:57
  Apryl: I'm just putting the finishing touches on it, but the entire idea is ridiculously simple.
• 24:03
  Apryl: You pick one battle, give me seven days, and I know that sounds like a lot.
• 24:09
  Apryl: Seven days sounds like oh, a terrible long time some days, but what we're doing in these seven days is it is not downloading a 97-page parenting manual and having an hour course to watch every single day.
• 24:27
  Apryl: No, we're taking one thing that's causing conflict in your house.
• 24:31
  Apryl: We're gonna figure out what the heck is going on, and it's all gonna happen in less than five minutes a day with daily reminders from me.
• 24:41
  Apryl: Because, like I said, you don't need an hours-long course, you don't need another workbook.
• 24:48
  Apryl: Let's be honest, raising an ADHD kid is absolutely mentally, emotionally, physically exhausting, and you don't have time for that stuff.
• 24:56
  Apryl: So we're making it very easy.
• 24:58
  Apryl: You need to know what to try next, and that's exactly what we're doing in the ADHD reset.
• 25:05
  Apryl: So, like I said, I'm gonna tell you more about this very soon.
• 25:08
  Apryl: But for now, pick your battle, start watching what's happening, get curious instead of immediately trying to fix it.
• 25:16
  Apryl: Next week, we're gonna be talking about if consequences worked, you wouldn't still be having the same battle.
• 25:22
  Apryl: So I will see you next week in the next episode.
• 25:27
  Apryl: For now, remember choose the one battle, start watching, and remember you're not ignoring the behavior.
• 25:32
  Apryl: We're actually going to fix it, but we have to do this step first before we can fix the behavior.
• 25:37
  Apryl: Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.