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.

As a parent, it can be painful to watch your child have a meltdown. Once they are in the thick of it, there is nothing you can do; you know your child is suffering and you may feel powerless in that moment to stop it.  However, you are not powerless to help them develop awareness of the impending doom, the triggers that send them into overdrive, or the ways in which they recover from that meltdown.

My wife would tell you I have a high pain tolerance, and very little tolerance for pain. I’d rather be at a pain level of 10 for 10 minutes than at a 2 for 2 hours.  This is not uncommon for those of us with ADHD.

ADHD can be a very isolating disorder, one which can limit our ability to create meaningful connections with others.  In order to achieve those connections, acceptance (of ourselves and those around us) and awareness of how our ADHD affects us and our relationships with others is paramount to almost anything else.

Griffin and colleague Riley Karbon joined Jeff Copper’s podcast, Attention Talk Radio, to talk about the ADHD urge to escape.