Season 4
Episode 1: Why Nothing Seems to Work When You’re Parenting a Child With ADHD
Podcast Host : Sharon Collon
Hi there, I'm Sharon Collin and before we start today's podcast, I want you to take a big deep breath with me. Because if you're listening to this episode, there is a very good chance that you are tired. Maybe you've tried routines, reward charts, consequences, visual schedules. Maybe you've read all the books, you've followed all the people on Instagram and you've saved all the posts.
And somehow things still feel really hard. If that's you, I want you to know that this episode is for you. Not because you're doing anything wrong, but because perhaps you're trying to solve the wrong problem. And today I want to talk about why trying harder doesn't help when you're parenting a child with ADHD.
Whether you can see this play out in your family right now or not, this is a trap a lot of families fall into. And I'll share a moment from my own family that completely changed how I approach everything. Most parents I work with don't arrive or come across my door having done nothing. In fact, they are doing everything. They're proactive. They care deeply. They're working really hard.
They're trying to hold their family together with love, effort, grit, and sheer willpower. And usually it starts with hope. You get that diagnosis, right? Like we've been waiting for ages for the diagnosis and then you think, okay, I understand what's going on here. And now we can fix our family life. So you start gathering tools. You create routines and you introduce charts and you spend a fortune on Etsy.
And you buy all the apps and things and you explain expectations really clearly and you adjust consequences. And for a moment, it feels like you're being a very good parent, a responsible parent, a parent who's finally doing the right things. But then the wheels fall off again and you're left thinking, why does this seem to work for other body families, but not for us? It is human nature when things are difficult.
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to look for solutions, to try new things, to keep adding more and more. I call this the more and more. If I just tried this strategy, no, this person is doing it better. Maybe if I just tried their strategy. Here's what I want you to hear very clearly. Most parents are not underdoing. The problem isn't underdoing. They're actually doing too much. They are overloaded.
overloaded with information, overloaded with strategies, overloaded with responsibility. And when things still don't work, they don't stop. no, no, no, we don't stop. We double down. They try harder. Here's the part no one really tells you. ADHD is a nervous system difference. And when you keep layering more strategies onto an already overwhelmed family, it doesn't create calm.
It creates pressure. You know how I feel about pressure and ADHD, right? Pressure is different to urgency. Urgency is okay. Pressure isn't. Because every new tool comes with more remembering, more monitoring, more explaining and more correcting. And guess who's doing all of that? Usually the primary caregiver, the person, you, you listening to the podcast, you're doing all of that. And when parents are overwhelmed, kids feel it.
Disregulation is contagious and dysregulation also loves action. Feels like we should be doing something. So that extra strategy that you're adding with the best intention often lands on a child whose nervous system is already maxed out, not to mention your own. And if you've ever thought, if I can just find that right strategy, everything will settle down. You are not wrong for thinking that. You might have just been aiming at the wrong target.
I want to tell you about a moment from my own family life, because this is where everything changed for me. It was one of those evenings where on paper, everything was set up properly. You guys know I love a system, right? So we had our routine, although I don't really like the word routine, prefer rhythm. We had our little rhythm going. We had our expectations set. We had calmly explained the sequence of the evening earlier in the day and still everything was going to crap.
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Everything was unraveling. You know, those nights, one of my kids was just baiting the other after a reaction. Another was really escalating. The boys were fighting. They were actually seeking each other out from room to room. Like they couldn't leave each other alone and things were heating up. And I could feel that familiar feeling in my chest. The moment where your brain starts racing, my head was full of shoulds and whys. They should be able to get along.
They should be able to do these basic tasks. Why is everything so hard? Why can't we get through an evening without hurting each other? Then the nebbers come in. Things are never going to get any better. Things will never improve from my family. And then I switched to problem solving mode. Okay, what do I do? Do I throw in a consequence? Do I explain it again? Do I take away that stupid iPad? Do I act as a referee?
I could feel myself slipping into fix it mode, explaining more, talking more, trying to regain control. And then something small happened. I just stopped. Now I don't stop often, but I just stopped. I physically sat down. I was asking the wrong question. I was asking, how do I stop this behavior? When I actually needed to ask.
How do I get everyone to hit pause? And the answer wasn't routine. The answer was exhaustion. Everyone was depleted. Everyone's capacity was gone, mine included. So there's no chart, no consequence, no perfectly designed system that was going to work in that moment. Remember systems build long-term capacity, overall capacity, but in that moment,
can't systemize my way out of it. So I did something that felt a bit wrong or a bit against the grain at the time. I let the plan go. I didn't abandon my boundaries. We are parents. We get to have boundaries. I didn't give in. I just adjusted my expectations. I focused on the pause. The power of the pause is the most underrated, incredible ADHD strategy. I focused on safety.
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connection, getting through the night without adding any more pressure. And here's the thing. It didn't magically fix everything, but the energy shifted. My energy shifted. The room softened. The intensity dropped. And for the first time that night, things felt manageable. That's the moment I realized something huge. We didn't need better strategies in that moment. We needed better alignment.
So here's the grounding step I want to leave you with today. When things feel hard, instead of chasing another solution, pause and ask what is actually hard right now? I'm not talking about this week, not long-term, not overall, not in theory, but right now in this moment. Is it capacity? Is it exhaustion? Is it a nervous system that's overwhelmed?
You guys know, I love a strategy. I'm big on strategies. I'm big on systems, but sometimes the best thing to do is to pause to get clarity. Because clarity calms the nervous system far more than control ever will. And when parents stop trying to do everything, space opens up. That's where confidence grows. That's where function returns. This is also why generic advice so often makes
parents navigating ADHD feel worse. Because ADHD families aren't a problem to be fixed. They're an ecosystem. They're a whole thing of ecosystems. What works one day won't always work the next. ADHD by nature is situational and variable. And what works for one family can completely fall apart in another. That's why so many parents I support, they say to me, I don't need more information.
I need someone to help me see what actually works for us. And sometimes you can't actually see it for yourself. You need someone to shine a light on it for you. That's exactly why I'm running a free coaching week. I'm so damn excited about this. I'm running a free coaching week for our whole community where we create your family's very own personalized roadmap together. This is going to be the best thing ever.
Podcast Host : Sharon Collon
Not more strategies, not more pressure, but clarity, direction and breathing room. So if you're feeling stuck, tired or unsure of what to do next, you are so, so welcome to join us. You can find all the details at thefunctionalfamily.com backslash roadmap. It is going to be the best ever. Every family is going to walk away with their own tailored.
roadmap that is exactly for their family. It's going to tell them what needs support, what to do first. And it's going to give you that step by step action plan. And if no one told you this today, let me be the one to say it. You are not failing. You are overloaded because you are, this is one thing I definitely know for sure. You're an amazing human, but you are only one human and you are doing the work of like 10 humans. What I want for you is a clear.
roadmap so we can tackle one thing at a time. I'm not going to throw an encyclopedia of information and strategies and push it on your lap because that is going to push you further into overwhelm. Let's create a roadmap together and let's have a lot of fun doing it. And the moment you stop trying to do everything is the moment things start to feel lighter. And that's what I want for you for 2026. I want you to feel lighter.
I am really glad that you're here. And if it feels right for you and your family, I want you to join me for my free coaching week, thefunctionalfamily.com backslash roadmap. And I will see you there. Thank you for listening to this episode of the ADHD families podcast. If you loved it, please share it on your socials. I want this to start a conversation about ADHD. If you want to make this mum do a little happy dance, please leave a review on iTunes.
If you would like to know more about what we do, check out thefunctionalfamily.com. I truly hope that you enjoyed this podcast and you use it to create a wonderful, effective, joyful life with your beautiful children.
