After all, lots of people don’t feel like doing things and they do those things everyday, so the problem must be my effort.  For better or worse, though, effort has nothing to do with our struggles.  In fact, it is in part our belief that our effort is the problem that gets us into trouble in the first place.

Am I being lazy or do I simply need clarity in how to complete this task?  What does it mean to sleep “better”, or to study “harder”?  The more you (as an ADHD person, or the parent of an ADHD child) can get curious about the labels we casually prescribe to ourselves, our process, or our experience, the more likely you are to find the root cause of the problem rather than a symptom of the underlying condition.

Acceptance that this means systems, tools, techniques that work for others are likely not going to work for you.  Acceptance that this isn’t your fault, and also, you will need to find what does work for you.

Seeing the humor in the goofy things we do as individuals with ADHD helps us stay away from automatic negative self-thoughts. It also brings joy into our lives, and it encourages our brains to reframe the challenges and adversity we experience in a composed and cheerful way.

Your child is approaching the interaction with certainty that they are on a different team than you are.  They are trying to get to yes, and you are trying to get to no.  This fundamentally flawed assumption is more often than not the source of what feels like an unbelievably rapid descent into a meltdown.

As the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Life is not always going to go the way we want it to. We can’t control when our expectations don’t meet reality, but we can be prepared for the possibility, think about how to cope and manage our emotions, and even be ready with a plan B.

As parents with young children, you hone the skill over years of telling your child what to do in a way that they are able to hear. As that child gets older, however, it becomes readily apparent that no matter how you frame it, your child is likely to rebel at being told what to do. 

Being the parent of any child having meltdowns is about picking your moments. When you’re the parent of an ADHD child with emotion dysregulation, if you’re seeing meltdowns, you might consider picking more moments for comfort and support.

The power of positive psychology (positive thinking) has been well documented.  We all know that positive thinking, while not likely to solve all of your ills, will help you generally feel better on a day to day basis.  However, we can’t really control what our children think about

Griffin Rouse speaks with mentor Jeff Copper of DIG Coaching about helping a client find a creative solution to a problem he was facing.