Latest / Raising ADHD: Real Talk For Parents & Educators / Why Your ADHD Child Won’t Listen: The Brain Science Nobody Explains

Transcript

Why Your ADHD Child Won’t Listen: The Brain Science Nobody Explains · Raising ADHD: Real Talk For Parents & Educators

• 0:00
  Apryl: Number one most asked questions about ADHD is why does my kid why does my ADHD kid not listen?
• 0:09
  Apryl: In today's episode, we're gonna be breaking that down and we're gonna go look at the science.
• 0:15
  Apryl: Today, in today's episode, we're breaking down the science behind why kids with ADHD struggle to listen and it goes beyond executive function skills.
• 0:25
  Apryl: Let's dive in.
• 0:27
  Apryl: Hey there, welcome back to Raising ADHD.
• 0:29
  Apryl: If you're new here, I'm April Bradford.
• 0:32
  Apryl: I'm a neurotypical mom raising an ADHD family, a former elementary school teacher and a parent coach.
• 0:38
  Apryl: I take what we're learning about ADHD and turn it into practical things you can actually use at home.
• 0:45
  Apryl: I want us to raise kids who understand how their brains work, build the skills they need to become independent, and maintain a strong relationship with us parents along the way.
• 0:57
  Apryl: Okay, let's get into that science.
• 1:00
  Apryl: So I went and I looked at the research because we know that our ADHD kids struggle to listen, and we've talked about all about executive function skills, and they don't listen because they forget or they have a hard time transitioning.
• 1:19
  Apryl: We've talked about that, but I really wanted to look and see what the science say beyond we know the executive function skills, right?
• 1:27
  Apryl: But is there more to it than though these executive function skills?
• 1:32
  Apryl: So there were two studies that I looked at, and I will link them in the show notes.
• 1:38
  Apryl: The first study that I want to talk about was published in 2012 in the journal Clinical Neurophysiology.
• 1:46
  Apryl: This one was really interesting.
• 1:49
  Apryl: Researchers wanted to understand something specific about kids with ADHD.
• 1:54
  Apryl: When they struggle to pay attention to sounds, is it because they're getting distracted by everything around them, or is something else happening?
• 2:04
  Apryl: So they studied 30 children between ages 7 and 13.
• 2:09
  Apryl: 15 of those children had ADHD and 15 did not.
• 2:13
  Apryl: They also included a group of adults.
• 2:16
  Apryl: This study isn't a massive one, but I think what we learn from this is actually super helpful for us to understand what's going on with our kiddos.
• 2:26
  Apryl: So they put EEGs on the kids, which are these caps with electrodes, and they measure the electrical activity in the brain.
• 2:35
  Apryl: So here's what they did with those caps on.
• 2:39
  Apryl: They played different tones into the children's ears.
• 2:43
  Apryl: And the children were supposed to pay attention to sounds coming through one ear and ignore the sounds coming through the other.
• 2:50
  Apryl: When they heard a particular target sound, they were supposed to press a button.
• 2:55
  Apryl: So I don't know about you.
• 2:56
  Apryl: Back in elementary school, they used to do hearing tests, and that kind of is what it reminds me of is when you would put on the headphones and you had to like raise your hand when you heard the sound.
• 3:06
  Apryl: Same type of thing.
• 3:07
  Apryl: You hear the sound, you press the button.
• 3:09
  Apryl: But there are other sounds coming from the other side.
• 3:13
  Apryl: Here's what the researchers found the children with ADHD were significantly worse at detecting the sounds they were supposed to be paying attention to.
• 3:22
  Apryl: Their responses were also less consistent.
• 3:26
  Apryl: Sometimes they responded more quickly, and other times they responded slower.
• 3:30
  Apryl: What was really interesting about this wasn't just the kids' performance on this, it's what the researchers saw happening in their brain.
• 3:39
  Apryl: In the children without ADHD, the researchers could measure a difference in brain activity between the sounds they were supposed to pay attention to and the sounds they were supposed to ignore.
• 3:51
  Apryl: That difference is one of the brain signals researchers use to study the selective attention.
• 3:56
  Apryl: But in the ADHD group, the attention-related difference wasn't significant.
• 4:01
  Apryl: So these kids with ADHD weren't showing the same consistent brain response that the other children were showing.
• 4:10
  Apryl: I found that fascinating.
• 4:12
  Apryl: And here's something else that I was really intrigued by.
• 4:15
  Apryl: The researchers also found that children with ADHD had a smaller brain response to sounds at around 100 milliseconds.
• 4:25
  Apryl: That's one tenth of a second.
• 4:26
  Apryl: So we're talking about something happening incredibly early in the process of listening.
• 4:32
  Apryl: The research suggested that children with ADHD might be getting less useful information from the sound signal very early in the processing.
• 4:42
  Apryl: And that right there could make it harder for their brains to figure out which sound deserves attention.
• 4:48
  Apryl: Now, like I was saying, this is a small study.
• 4:52
  Apryl: And so this study didn't prove definitively that this is, you know, like end all be all, but it's a possible explanation of what is happening in our kiddos' brains when we start asking them to do something, right?
• 5:08
  Apryl: When they start to hear our voice.
• 5:11
  Apryl: We often assume that our kids aren't listening because they're choosing to focus on something else or they're choosing to ignore us, right?
• 5:20
  Apryl: And they're kids, we're all human, right?
• 5:22
  Apryl: So sometimes that might be true, of course.
• 5:25
  Apryl: But this study suggests that for some kids with ADHD, the difficult, the difficulty may start much earlier.
• 5:33
  Apryl: Their brains may have more difficulty selecting and processing the auditory information they're supposed to focus on.
• 5:40
  Apryl: There was one more finding that really surprised me in this study.
• 5:44
  Apryl: The researchers found that the ADHD group wasn't significantly more distracted by the irrelevant sounds on their main measures of distractor processing.
• 5:55
  Apryl: So why would that be interesting?
• 5:57
  Apryl: We often think of ADHD as a brain that pays attention to absolutely everything, right?
• 6:02
  Apryl: They have so much noise going on in their brains.
• 6:05
  Apryl: Every little noise, every movement, every distraction, everything that's happening around them.
• 6:09
  Apryl: But in this particular experiment, the bigger difficulty was actually appeared to be directing attention toward the important sounds rather than failing to ignore the unimportant ones.
• 6:23
  Apryl: So let's take this back into your home.
• 6:26
  Apryl: If you're standing in the kitchen telling your child to get their backpack, your child may physically hear your voice, but that doesn't necessarily mean their brain has successfully directed attention toward your words.
• 6:40
  Apryl: If that attention isn't there, the rest of the process is already going to be harder.
• 6:44
  Apryl: Now, one thing to remember about this study is it used tones.
• 6:48
  Apryl: So, like I'm assuming like beeping sounds, you know, higher, lower, those types of things, not spoken instruction from parents.
• 6:57
  Apryl: It wasn't spoken word.
• 6:58
  Apryl: And again, it was a small study.
• 7:01
  Apryl: So, like I said, we can't say this proves exactly what's happening every time your child doesn't listen, but it does give us evidence that some of these listening difficulties involve measurable differences in how the brain processes and selects sounds.
• 7:16
  Apryl: So I found that very interesting.
• 7:20
  Apryl: And it also made me think about how this could maybe be showing up in our home.
• 7:27
  Apryl: And I don't know about you, but and I will say, I think this happens with all kids, neurotypical and neurodivergent.
• 7:35
  Apryl: But my daughter, I will say something like, hey, go get your pajamas on, please.
• 7:42
  Apryl: Hey, go get your pajamas on, please.
• 7:44
  Apryl: Hey, go get your pajamas on, please.
• 7:46
  Apryl: And it isn't until I'm actually yelling that she hears it.
• 7:51
  Apryl: And she's and then the response is, why do you always yell at me, right?
• 7:56
  Apryl: And so as I was thinking about this study, I'm like, maybe it's that part of the, you know, maybe it is that their brain isn't picking up, that the my voice is the important thing to be listening to until it hits that yell, and then it like fires that warning of like there's something important going on.
• 8:17
  Apryl: So that's just something that I thought about while reading this study was that would make sense, right?
• 8:24
  Apryl: They're not detecting, like, hey, mom's talking.
• 8:26
  Apryl: You should probably pay attention to that because that's usually important when mom's talking.
• 8:30
  Apryl: No, like it's just part of the noise and they're having difficulty being able to pick up.
• 8:38
  Apryl: Here's the important thing, we need to listen to mom.
• 8:42
  Apryl: This is another time that I think it's really important that if your kiddo does struggle to listen, is that we make sure that we're setting into place some things to make sure that when we're trying to say something important to them, that we are looking at them, they're looking at us, we're in close proximity and have those good communication skills with our ADHDers, because again, they're trying to decipher what's important, what's not.
• 9:13
  Apryl: And so when we can reduce the noises around them and what's happening around them and kind of become that main focus, then that does tend to help.
• 9:25
  Apryl: So the second study was published in 2003 in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
• 9:33
  Apryl: And this one gets even closer to what we experience at home as parents.
• 9:39
  Apryl: Researchers studied 77 boys.
• 9:41
  Apryl: So this was just a boy study, but I think it's still relevant, between the ages of nine and 12.
• 9:47
  Apryl: They divided them into four groups.
• 9:49
  Apryl: So there were children with ADHD, children with ADHD and language impairment, children with language impairment and no ADHD, and then children without either condition.
• 10:01
  Apryl: So their goal for this is they wanted to understand how ADHD affects listening comprehension and working memory.
• 10:08
  Apryl: They found several things that I think, as parents, it's going to be very helpful for us to know and understand.
• 10:17
  Apryl: Finding number one was children with ADHD could understand basic facts.
• 10:22
  Apryl: This was so incredibly interesting.
• 10:24
  Apryl: The children with ADHD who did not have language impairment were able to understand factual information from spoken passages about as well as a child without ADHD.
• 10:36
  Apryl: So they could listen to something and understand the basic facts.
• 10:40
  Apryl: So let's imagine I tell a child a story.
• 10:43
  Apryl: Sarah went to the store with her mom, she bought a red backpack and a new pair of shoes.
• 10:47
  Apryl: And then I ask, what color was Sarah's backpack?
• 10:50
  Apryl: And they would obviously answer, red.
• 10:52
  Apryl: No problem.
• 10:53
  Apryl: That was easy for them.
• 10:55
  Apryl: The issue isn't necessarily that they can't understand spoken language.
• 11:00
  Apryl: But here's where things got interesting with this study.
• 11:03
  Apryl: Finding number two is that the kiddos with ADHD struggled with deeper comprehension.
• 11:12
  Apryl: So they had more difficulty making inferences.
• 11:17
  Apryl: We actually teach this um in elementary school.
• 11:21
  Apryl: When kids are reading, you have to start to infer what's happening in the story.
• 11:25
  Apryl: So this is actually taught in school.
• 11:28
  Apryl: What it is when your brain has to figure something out that wasn't directly stated.
• 11:34
  Apryl: So let's change the story a bit.
• 11:36
  Apryl: Sarah grabbed her umbrella before she walked outside.
• 11:40
  Apryl: And then I asked, What do you think the weather was like?
• 11:44
  Apryl: Well, I never said it was raining, so you have to make an inference.
• 11:49
  Apryl: The brain has to take the information that I gave you and connect that to what you already know and figure out what it probably means.
• 11:57
  Apryl: That's what an inference is.
• 11:59
  Apryl: The children with ADHD had more difficulty with this kind of comprehension.
• 12:04
  Apryl: Now you may be wondering, well, how does this help me at home?
• 12:09
  Apryl: Because I'm telling them blatantly, go clean your room, right?
• 12:14
  Apryl: So let's think about that type of instruction.
• 12:18
  Apryl: Go clean your room.
• 12:20
  Apryl: Well, what does that mean?
• 12:22
  Apryl: They have to pick up their dirty clothes, they have to put the toys in the bin.
• 12:28
  Apryl: They have to make their bed, they have to make sure garbage is put away, they have to make sure the art supplies are in the art cabinet or art cart, right?
• 12:37
  Apryl: There's so much more to it.
• 12:40
  Apryl: And we think the instruction is clear, perfectly clear.
• 12:44
  Apryl: Go clean your room.
• 12:45
  Apryl: It makes so much sense to us.
• 12:47
  Apryl: We know what a clean room looks like, right?
• 12:49
  Apryl: But when we say something that's more vague, like go clean your room or get ready for bed, our child has to understand what we're asking and sometimes fill in information we didn't actually say.
• 13:03
  Apryl: Now, the researchers weren't obviously studying bedtime routines or cleaning a room.
• 13:09
  Apryl: That's just my example.
• 13:11
  Apryl: But their findings do help us understand why we shouldn't automatically assume that understanding our words means understanding everything we expect.
• 13:20
  Apryl: Finding number three from this study is that they struggled to recognize when they didn't understand instructions.
• 13:29
  Apryl: How interesting is that?
• 13:31
  Apryl: So often we tell our kids, well, why didn't you just ask me if you didn't understand?
• 13:36
  Apryl: But the research found that children with ADHD had more difficulty monitoring their comprehension of instructions.
• 13:43
  Apryl: So what does that mean in this situation?
• 13:46
  Apryl: It meant that recognizing whether you're actually you've actually understood what someone told you.
• 13:51
  Apryl: I don't know about you, but I just assume that if my daughter's confused, she would say, Hey, I'm confused.
• 13:57
  Apryl: I don't know what you're asking me to do.
• 13:58
  Apryl: And we assume if they don't understand that they'll ask.
• 14:03
  Apryl: But recognizing that you haven't understood something is a skill in itself.
• 14:09
  Apryl: So let's again go for another example.
• 14:13
  Apryl: Go get everything you need for soccer.
• 14:15
  Apryl: Your child says, Okay, you grab their soccer ball and head to the car.
• 14:20
  Apryl: There's no cleats, no water bottle, no shin guards, no jersey.
• 14:23
  Apryl: And you're standing there thinking, how could you possibly think that you're ready because you only got the soccer ball?
• 14:29
  Apryl: Think about the soccer game.
• 14:30
  Apryl: What do you have to have for the soccer game, right?
• 14:33
  Apryl: So maybe your child didn't recognize that they hadn't fully understood what you meant by everything.
• 14:39
  Apryl: Maybe they thought they had understood the instruction.
• 14:42
  Apryl: Maybe they didn't realize they were missing information.
• 14:45
  Apryl: Now, I can't tell you that's exactly what happened in that example, but the study does tell us that monitoring comprehension can be more difficult with children with ADHD.
• 14:56
  Apryl: So sometimes our kids might not ask for clarification because they didn't realize that they needed clarification in the first place.
• 15:02
  Apryl: And I know for me for sure, this is something that I had never considered.
• 15:07
  Apryl: So maybe it's something that you haven't considered either.
• 15:11
  Apryl: And now as we start, you know, asking requests of our kids that we start checking for understanding as well.
• 15:20
  Apryl: Okay, and number four, and this one is not gonna be a shocker to anyone.
• 15:26
  Apryl: I wasn't blown away by this.
• 15:27
  Apryl: I was like, well, yeah, it's ADHD.
• 15:30
  Apryl: What this one was that their working memory was weaker.
• 15:34
  Apryl: Shocking.
• 15:35
  Apryl: We all know working memory is an executive function and ADHD affects the executive functions.
• 15:41
  Apryl: But there is some interesting stuff that came out of this as far as the working memory goes.
• 15:48
  Apryl: The children with ADHD did not perform significantly worse than the comparison group on a basic verbal memory span task.
• 15:57
  Apryl: Okay, but they did perform significantly worse on verbal working memory tasks.
• 16:04
  Apryl: So we have verbal memory span tasks, which they were they did not perform significantly worse, but on the verbal working memory tasks, they did perform significantly worse.
• 16:18
  Apryl: So you're probably thinking like I was when I was reading this, what in the world are you talking about?
• 16:23
  Apryl: What are it's the difference between these?
• 16:25
  Apryl: So imagine I say three numbers four, seven, two, and then I ask you to repeat them.
• 16:32
  Apryl: That's a basic memory span task.
• 16:35
  Apryl: Now imagine I ask you to hold those numbers in your mind and repeat them backwards.
• 16:40
  Apryl: Now I would really want you to think about that here on this podcast episode.
• 16:44
  Apryl: You probably, when I said four, seven, and two, your brain probably repeated that four, seven, and two.
• 16:50
  Apryl: But now you're like, wait, what were the what were the numbers, right?
• 16:54
  Apryl: Now your brain has to remember the information and do something with it.
• 17:00
  Apryl: Now we have to flip it because I ask you to repeat them backwards.
• 17:03
  Apryl: That's what working memory is.
• 17:05
  Apryl: That's where the kiddos with ADHD struggled more.
• 17:08
  Apryl: They also showed difficulties on measures of spatial memory and spatial working memory.
• 17:14
  Apryl: So think about what happens when your child goes upstairs and you've given them several instructions.
• 17:19
  Apryl: Go upstairs, get dressed, brush your teeth, and bring your laundry downstairs.
• 17:23
  Apryl: Your child has to hold that information in their mind, which we know that would be that span task, right?
• 17:30
  Apryl: They could probably literally a lot of times, and I hear this from parents, like they can repeat back to me exactly what I said.
• 17:37
  Apryl: Yes, you're right, they can.
• 17:38
  Apryl: And this study shows why, because they can, that's the span, right?
• 17:43
  Apryl: They can do that.
• 17:45
  Apryl: But once they have to actually do something with that information, that's where it becomes the working memory, and that's where it lags and where they start to struggle.
• 17:56
  Apryl: Okay.
• 17:58
  Apryl: So they might start that first task or even finish the first task, and then they lose all track of all of the others.
• 18:06
  Apryl: This is, like I said, literally why your kid can repeat back to you the instructions, but still come downstairs, not having brushed their teeth, not having brought their laundry downstairs, but they do have their pajamas on.
• 18:20
  Apryl: So remember that next time that they have to remember all those things.
• 18:25
  Apryl: And finally, number five from this research article was that these difficulties existed even in children who didn't have a language impairment.
• 18:35
  Apryl: So these were the kids, remember, there were the four groups, kiddos with ADHD, kiddos with ADHD and language impairment, just language impairment and none.
• 18:45
  Apryl: These kiddos, even the ones without language impairment, the ADHD or the language impairment, it still affected them.
• 18:54
  Apryl: This, it's important to understand this because we might assume that if our child speaks clearly, understands conversations, and has a good vocabulary, they shouldn't have trouble understanding instructions.
• 19:06
  Apryl: A lot of ADHDs are very high IQ.
• 19:10
  Apryl: They're in the they're 2e, which is twice exceptional, right?
• 19:13
  Apryl: So they're like in the gifted program, but then they're also neurodivergent.
• 19:18
  Apryl: But they still struggle with this.
• 19:20
  Apryl: These researchers found higher level listening comprehension difficulties in children with ADHD, even when they did not have that co-occurring language impairment.
• 19:32
  Apryl: So again, your child can be incredibly articulate.
• 19:36
  Apryl: They can talk your ear off about Minecraft or dinosaurs or whatever they're interested in.
• 19:41
  Apryl: They can understand all kinds of things, and they can still struggle with certain types of listening comprehension.
• 19:48
  Apryl: So I think that's really important for us to remember when we do get frustrated, is that understanding, yes, there is something going on in their brain that does make this difficult for them.
• 20:02
  Apryl: Again, one of my favorite phrases, which I don't think I've actually said on the podcast for a while, is my child's not giving me a hard time, they're having a hard time.
• 20:12
  Apryl: So literally, their brain is having difficulties in these moments when they aren't listening.
• 20:19
  Apryl: Okay.
• 20:20
  Apryl: So now let's put these two studies together and see how we can use this here at home.
• 20:27
  Apryl: I want to give you a way to think about what happens when you give your child an instruction so that when we have asked them a thousand times and we are about to explode, we can go back to this and go, yes, okay.
• 20:40
  Apryl: This isn't a five-step model from either one of the research studies.
• 20:44
  Apryl: It's just a simple framework that I came up with to help us connect what the research says is happening in their kiddos' brains so we can use it in our homes.
• 20:54
  Apryl: So here are the five things that need to work together anytime we give our kiddos a task.
• 21:01
  Apryl: Okay.
• 21:02
  Apryl: Number one, they have to hear it.
• 21:03
  Apryl: The sound has to reach your child's ears and be processed by their auditory system.
• 21:10
  Apryl: Remember that first study found differences in early auditory brain response in the ADHD group.
• 21:17
  Apryl: So we know that this may be a little bit of a struggle for them, just to be able to hear and decipher what is important in that moment.
• 21:26
  Apryl: They're hearing everything, they just struggle to decipher the important things.
• 21:30
  Apryl: Okay.
• 21:31
  Apryl: Number two is that focus.
• 21:33
  Apryl: Their brain has to direct their attention toward what you're saying.
• 21:38
  Apryl: That's again where that first study found significant differences in how the children with ADHD allocated auditory attention.
• 21:46
  Apryl: Number three is understand.
• 21:49
  Apryl: They have to make sense of your words.
• 21:51
  Apryl: Sometimes that means more than understanding the basic facts.
• 21:54
  Apryl: Remember when we talked about inferencing and they have to figure out what you Mean and recognize when something isn't clear.
• 22:03
  Apryl: That's what the second study helped us to understand.
• 22:06
  Apryl: Number four is they have to remember.
• 22:08
  Apryl: They have to hold that information in their mind long enough to use it.
• 22:11
  Apryl: And remember, just because they could repeat it back, it's once they have to start doing something with that information that struggle really came in.
• 22:22
  Apryl: Remember when I gave you the numbers four, seven, and two, and then I asked you to repeat them in backwards order.
• 22:29
  Apryl: Remember how that is when the struggle happens, is when they have to do something with the information you've given them.
• 22:36
  Apryl: So they can repeat.
• 22:52
  Apryl: Remember, working memory is like the sticky note for your kiddo's brain.
• 22:56
  Apryl: And the glue on their sticky notes are just not as sticky.
• 23:00
  Apryl: They fall off the wall sometimes.
• 23:02
  Apryl: Then we have step number five, which is do.
• 23:04
  Apryl: Now they have to act on the information.
• 23:07
  Apryl: That involves all those additional executive function skills, which we've talked about a lot on this podcast.
• 23:13
  Apryl: They may need to stop what they're doing.
• 23:15
  Apryl: They may need to switch tasks.
• 23:16
  Apryl: They may need to get started on a new task.
• 23:18
  Apryl: They may need to stay with the task long enough to finish it.
• 23:21
  Apryl: That fifth part wasn't directly tested in either one of these studies, but we know this is also another super important piece of following directions.
• 23:31
  Apryl: So let's go back to that original example.
• 23:34
  Apryl: You say get your shoes on, okay.
• 23:36
  Apryl: Five minutes later, no shoes.
• 23:38
  Apryl: Maybe they heard you, but they didn't fully focus on the instruction.
• 23:41
  Apryl: Maybe they focus, but didn't understand exactly exactly what you expected.
• 23:46
  Apryl: So maybe when you said go get your shoes on, they put on flip-flops.
• 23:52
  Apryl: And you're like, what in the world?
• 23:53
  Apryl: It's PE today at school.
• 23:54
  Apryl: You know you can't have flip-flops, right?
• 23:56
  Apryl: That would be something that they would have to infer.
• 23:57
  Apryl: Or you can't wear flip-flops to school.
• 24:00
  Apryl: So something like that could have got in the way.
• 24:03
  Apryl: They didn't fully understand.
• 24:04
  Apryl: Maybe they understood, but they forgot, or maybe they remembered perfectly, remember being able to repeat exactly what you said, but then they struggled to struggled to stop playing and get started.
• 24:16
  Apryl: And that working memory kind of lagged there.
• 24:19
  Apryl: And those executive functions kind of lagged there.
• 24:22
  Apryl: So, yes, maybe they simply didn't want to put on their shoes.
• 24:26
  Apryl: That is possible too.
• 24:28
  Apryl: Again, like I said, they are human as well.
• 24:31
  Apryl: Another thing, going back to the last couple podcast episodes, just because your child didn't do what you asked doesn't tell you which part of the process broke down.
• 24:43
  Apryl: That's why two children who appear to have the exact same behavior might actually need two completely different kinds of help.
• 24:50
  Apryl: When we talked about why in two episodes back, I talked about why nothing has worked with your ADHD child.
• 24:57
  Apryl: And so you may be thinking, like, I'm thinking the kid who struggles with the working memory, right?
• 25:03
  Apryl: A checklist, if that's truly what's breaking down, they heard you, they can do all the things, and they usually get like one task done, then we know the support is probably a checklist would be super helpful for them, right?
• 25:20
  Apryl: So anytime our kiddos are struggling with something, I want you to go back to the foundational four.
• 25:27
  Apryl: These are the four principles we can return to anytime with just about any single parenting struggle we have with our ADHD kiddos.
• 25:37
  Apryl: Number one, we pause.
• 25:39
  Apryl: Number two, we're going to get curious.
• 25:42
  Apryl: We're going to become the detective, we're going to figure out what is breaking, what is truly behind the behavior.
• 25:49
  Apryl: Because remember, behavior is an outcome of a skill lagging.
• 25:56
  Apryl: And then we're going to support the skill that they are lagging in.
• 26:00
  Apryl: And then if things blow up, things don't go as planned, we always connect and repair.
• 26:07
  Apryl: For today's conversation, I especially want you to focus on those middle two, getting curious of what is breaking down in the process of them listening, and then support that skill.
• 26:21
  Apryl: Now that you understand the science, you can start asking a different question.
• 26:25
  Apryl: Instead of asking, why won't my child listen?
• 26:29
  Apryl: Because those kind of questions are the ones that just make us angry and upset.
• 26:33
  Apryl: We start asking which part of listening might be difficult for my child.
• 26:37
  Apryl: Then we give them the support that matches the problem.
• 26:40
  Apryl: If they're struggling to direct attention toward your voice, that's when the support becomes we walk over, we get their attention before giving an instruction.
• 26:50
  Apryl: If they're struggling to understand what you mean, we have to make the instruction more specific.
• 26:57
  Apryl: Break it down into simpler things that they actually understand.
• 27:02
  Apryl: Instead of get ready for bed, we're going to try to get your pajamas on.
• 27:07
  Apryl: And we're going to break down the instructions to be very, very clear for these kiddos.
• 27:12
  Apryl: If they're struggling with working memory, giving them fewer steps, or like I was saying, that visual checklist may be perfect for this kiddo.
• 27:21
  Apryl: If they're struggling to get started, maybe they need you to help them take that first step.
• 27:26
  Apryl: And if you've gotten frustrated or yelled, you can always come back and repair.
• 27:31
  Apryl: If you have not listened to the podcast episode on repairing, I highly recommend that one.
• 27:37
  Apryl: I will link it in the show notes.
• 27:39
  Apryl: None of this means that our children don't need expectations.
• 27:44
  Apryl: As always, we always want to hold our kiddos to expectations.
• 27:49
  Apryl: We hold the limit, we hold the boundaries, we still hold them to a standard.
• 27:54
  Apryl: We just do it in a way that they can actually have success.
• 27:59
  Apryl: We keep those expectations while giving them the support they need to meet them.
• 28:04
  Apryl: Now, you might be thinking, perfect, I understand the science, but I'm still having the same battle every single morning.
• 28:12
  Apryl: That's where the ADHD reset comes in.
• 28:14
  Apryl: Because understanding why something is happening is a great first step, but we also have to figure out what to do about it.
• 28:21
  Apryl: The ADHD reset is my simple, doable, easy, made for the overwhelmed mom seven-day program that helps you take one battle you're tired of having and build a plan to start changing it.
• 28:35
  Apryl: So maybe it's getting out the door, maybe it's getting in bed on time, maybe it's getting homework done, whatever that one battle is.
• 28:42
  Apryl: We're gonna look at what's actually keeping it stuck, identify the skills, and support your child's needs and start practicing a different approach.
• 28:49
  Apryl: You don't need 14 nude parenting strategies.
• 28:53
  Apryl: You need a plan for the battle your kiddo is having right now in your house.
• 28:59
  Apryl: You can learn more at raisingadh.org slash reset.
• 29:04
  Apryl: So here's what I hope you take away from today's episode.
• 29:07
  Apryl: When your child doesn't listen, there is a lot more happening than you realize.
• 29:13
  Apryl: The research shows us that some kids with ADHD struggle with directing attention toward important sounds.
• 29:20
  Apryl: They can struggle with higher level listening comprehension, like the inferencing.
• 29:25
  Apryl: They may have difficulty recognizing when they haven't understood instructions.
• 29:31
  Apryl: And they may have trouble holding and using that information in their working memory.
• 29:36
  Apryl: None of this means that your child with ADHD experiences all of these difficulties.
• 29:41
  Apryl: And it doesn't mean that every time your child ignores an instruction, it's because of ADHD.
• 29:47
  Apryl: Again, human, right?
• 29:48
  Apryl: And children.
• 29:50
  Apryl: It means that we have good reason to stop assuming that hearing an instruction automatically means the child can follow it.
• 29:57
  Apryl: So the next time you find yourself saying, How many times do I have to tell you?
• 30:02
  Apryl: Or why don't you ever listen to me?
• 30:04
  Apryl: I want you to think of those five things.
• 30:06
  Apryl: Hear, focus, understand, remember, do.
• 30:09
  Apryl: Ask yourself which one might need a little bit more support because the goal isn't just getting our kids to listen to us today.
• 30:16
  Apryl: We want to help them understand their brains, develop the skills they need, and become more independent over time.
• 30:22
  Apryl: Less fighting today, more independence tomorrow, and a stronger relationship for life.
• 30:27
  Apryl: I'll see you next week on Raising ADHD.