ADHD or Bad Behaviour? The Parenting Question That Causes So Much Confusion
Podcast Host: Sharon Collon
Welcome to another episode of the ADHD Families Podcast. I'm your host, Sharon Collin, and I am so happy you are here. Today we are jumping into a really big topic. You know those behaviors, you know those challenging ones, what the old guy in the supermarket would label as a bad behavior? Is it ADHD or is it just bad behavior? Now this is the parenting question that causes so much confusion for parents.
So ADHD or bad behavior, have you wrestled with this, whether you've externalized it or not, you're looking at a challenging behavior and you're thinking, how much grace should I show this? Is this ADHD? Is this an ADHD executive function challenge or is this just having a challenging behavior? Are they just pushing boundaries? And it's one of the things that causes parents a lot of confusion. So that's why I wanted to do this episode today. Cause a lot of the time with ADHD, I'm sure that you've noticed it is a won't.
So looks like they won't do the thing, but actually underneath it is a can't. They can't yet. They can't yet do the thing. They can't access those skills. And there's a whole lot of rubato and a whole lot of noise that happens when a child can't, it doesn't yet have the skills. So this is one of the most painful questions that parents ask themselves because underneath it isn't judgment. It's a little bit of fear. So fear that they're missing something, fear that they're being too soft.
Are you being too soft with your parenting? you ever asked, asked yourself that is, you being too harsh? Are you being too strict? my gosh, parenting is such a wild ride. And when behavior escalates, parents don't just question their child, they question themselves. So it undermines everything. So today I want to help you understand what's really going on beneath behavior. So you can respond with clarity instead of confusion. Cause I definitely don't want you having confusion when it comes to your parenting style.
So this exact confusion is why I run my free coaching week coming up in March. We are making every single family that joins their own bespoke tailored ADHD plan. It is going to be amazing because parents don't need more opinions. They need understanding and a really nice, clear, easy path forward. And that week's going to help you with that. So let's chat about where behaviour confusion lives. It lives at the intersection of fear, blame and exhaustion. So parents constantly get told, they're just testing you. don't let them get away with that. I want to see if you've ever been told any of these things. Has he told it to yourself? Perhaps someone has told you. In my day, kids would never dream of talking to their parents like that. You need firmer boundaries. don't, don't like, don't label them. It's not nothing to do with ADHD. That's not an excuse. So ADHD.
Behavior looks a lot like defiance on the outside and most parents swing between self blame. So I'm failing and child blame. They should know better. This isn't about good parenting versus bad parenting. It's about missing information. We're missing some vital steps here. So I'd love to tell you a story about a recent parenting moment that I asked myself this exact question.
So I got, was dropping my little guy off at school and, the guy at the local news agency came up to me and was like, Sharon, I've got to talk to you. your son has been in here and he's been very rude. And I was like, no, this is not how I want to start my day. And the backstory was that my son had gone into the news agency and he had left his skateboard right across the doorway and a old lady had come and said, Hey mate, you should not do that because I could trip.
And she was a bit worried about tripping and falling, which is very valid. We're not discounting her experience at all here. But when she went to get his attention, she'd grabbed him on the backpack. Okay. And so that, the grab on the backpack sparked a reaction. And so instead of just going, sorry about that. I'm moving it out of the way, which is what my child would normally have done. His impulse, his poor impulse control kicked in and he panicked.
because he'd just been touched and he wasn't expecting it. And he also thought he was in trouble and he wasn't able to use his executive function at the moment to explain what he was feeling. So he started answering back and being very rude about it. and had a little bit of two and fourths with the old lady and the shopkeeper. Wasn't awesome. Right. So when I got up there and I got confronted without knowing all the details of what was going on.
I just got told my child was being rude. I had one of those parenting moments of like, what, what should I do in this situation? Because it does sound legit, like he was being quite rude and I don't want him to get away with that. But I also know that there's a whole sequence of reasons why he would have done what he did. So the first thing I had to do was I had to ask questions about what happened. I had to really find where.
the executive function struggle was coming from because I could have just gone, could have made it something about respect. He doesn't respect his elders. He didn't listen. I could have easily gone to respect. And to be honest, I think that's where my brain went first. But the first thing I did is I asked questions. The next thing I did was I told my son, I whispered in his ear, it's okay.
I've got you, we're going to sort this out." Because I needed my son to know that even though he might be in a little bit of trouble here, because people were yelling and screaming, that I had his back. So he had me as a teammate. So I positioned myself as his teammate, not as another person coming down on him. Cause that would have just further pushed him into dysregulation. So I had to position myself on his team, which was very hard to do at that moment. Cause I really didn't, it wasn't my natural reaction, if I can put it that way.
positioned myself on his team, made sure that he knew he was safe and that I had him. And then I asked questions to try and work out what was going. So what I was, I had to move myself out of making it about respect. And when you, you know, I always know when I'm making it about respect, cause I start doing, oh, like these kind of, this kind of like, oh, like I don't respect it. Like this internal drone of like rubbish going on. That's not really based on anything. It's just a whole backstory of stuff that's based on my childhood and
All sorts of things. So when you really broke that incident down, he was a child who did something careless, right? Which kids do, like leaving your skateboard somewhere. That's the story as old as time. But then he panicked and his poor impulse controls and, and because he was dysregulated, he wasn't able to regulate in that instance. He started biting back because he just didn't quite have the skills to handle that situation.
Which is classic ADHD, right? So I was able to smooth it all over, the shopkeeper, apologize to all the people. Now, when I say that it's an executive function challenge, that doesn't mean that I'm giving my kids a free pass. When I say I'm on their team, I've got you, doesn't mean that they're not, we're not going to have a discussion about it later. It doesn't mean that we're not going to workshop it, but what I'm not going to do is add further to their dysregulation in front of everybody. I'm not going to shame them. I'm not going to humiliate them.
And I'm going to explain a little bit more about that in a minute. Why? so notice the stories that you're telling yourself, because I tell you, I was telling myself a lot of stories that had nothing to do with my son or the behavior. so notice the stories you're telling yourself when behavior escalates. So inside my free coaching week that's coming up, if you're listening to this live, we're doing a free coaching week in March. we slow the, this momentum.
down because clarity changes how you show up instantly knowing what to do when the, like anyone can be a good parent when times aren't tough. Like you can show up and be a great, like put together parent when you are not put in these situations. But in the moment when you've got an angry shopkeeper yelling at you and an old lady looking at you disapprovingly and your thumbs like,
fighting back, it's very hard to know what to do in these situations. And that's why I think it's so important that we do that coaching week and give you that clarity of what to do in the moment, because it is really tricky to navigate this as a parent. So let's talk about ADHD behavior versus typical boundary pushing behavior. Cause I see this a lot, especially when it comes to the teen years. So the difference is an attitude. And this is where this is the shift that I need, I need us all to take. The difference is an attitude is access to skills.
So ADHD driven behavior may look like explosive reactions that feel like out of proportion, difficulty stopping or switching tasks. that not being able to move from one thing to the other, not being able to do the movie of the mind strategy. So what I mean by that is they, you know, if I was going to a birthday party, for example, my, I would think about what the birthday party is going to be like. I would picture what it's going to be like inside there.
Who I'm going to see, what I'm going to talk about in my small talk, maybe how I'm going to feel there. A lot of people with ADHD don't do the movie of the mind. They don't picture it because they're always, their brain's going in a hundred million different directions. They don't do the movie of the mind. And so then when they get them into the situation, they have a little bit of a panic when they get there and they become dysregulated quite easily. so role playing with your kids is one of the.
best things to do for a movie of the mind because they can actually step them through different scenarios. Have you ever had like been to a birthday party and the birthday, like the kid whose birthday it is starts crying when the candles come out because everyone turns and looks at them? Classic example of movie of the mind. It feels very overwhelming. Even though they might've liked the idea of the birthday party when everyone, like when it comes out, they haven't, they don't know how it's going to feel and they have a big reaction to it. so that can be one of the reasons why that happens. We need to do a movie of the mind.
And then some of the ADHD behaviors looks like being dominating or bossing or bossy and trying to control the game are impulsive words, like we had in our skateboard incident or actions followed by shame, behavior that doesn't improve with consequences. Now this is a huge one. When you throw a consequence, a lot of kids with ADHD don't learn from the consequence because to learn, you have to understand why the thing happened.
Okay. Now they don't understand why the thing happened because they weren't in control of it because most of the behavior happens just like the skateboard thing when you dysregulate it. He reacted that way because he didn't have the skills to handle it. So it was a skills, it was a skill that needs support, not a child being rude intentionally. So that's easy way to put a little bit of distinction between what is, what ADHD behavior actually is. When you see more typical behavior.
challenges for a neurotypical kid, they tend to be very situational. Like they're not all the time. They are goal-driven. So they might be to get attention or testing limits. They are responsive to boundaries and repair. They are responsive to challenges. Whereas it's the same can't always be said for ADHD. Kids with ADHD want to do well. I tell you, I've worked with hundreds of thousands of families actually. And there's no child that I've ever met that wakes up and goes, you know what?
I am just going to make everyone's life a living hell today. I am going to fail consistently at everything and I'm just going to, just going to mess stuff up. Kids want to do well. It's that Ross Green, kids do well if they can. And if they can't, what, what is lacking? What, what skill needs support? What environment needs support? So they want to do well, but they can't consistently access regulation, impulse control, and those emotional breaks.
So a child who melts down every time it's time to leave the house is not because they are spoiled. This is the things that we tell them ourselves, but because transitions overload their nervous system. So we want to look for patterns, predictability. I always talk about predictable problems. Now the problem is not the child. The problem is the friction that you're experiencing. So we're looking for predictable problems, patterns, because it's not just the behavior itself.
There's often lots of environmental components in here too. So as you're listening to me talk about this, does one pattern keep showing up again and again in your family life? Is it something that keeps showing up in your home? Next, I want to talk about why punishment often makes ADHD behavior or challenges worse. So you can't consequence or discipline a child into regulation. This is so tricky.
because it flies in the face of everything that we have been told in the parenting space. ADHD brains struggle with cause and effect in the moment and emotional recovery after and during stress. So punishment during overwhelm increases shame, escalates dysregulation and damages trust. And remember when it comes to ADHD connection is everything. So if you picture your child with ADHD as being like plugged into you, I like this little analogy.
So they plug into you at home and then when they go to school, if you picture like a wall plug and a socket, that's the word socket. so if you picture them that at home, they're, you're the socket and they plug into you for regulation. And then when they go to school, they need to plug into a teacher to feel safe and secure there. And when we go and issue a punishment for something that they can't control, we are damaging that connection. And especially when we're talking about teens, there is nothing more dangerous than a child with ADHD who's not plugged in. And when we have kids walking around, like these little humans walking around with little plugs in their hands and they've got nowhere to plug in, that's when we start to see a lot of escalation of behaviors. So imagine for a moment, I've got an example for this, cause I know these are big concepts to grasp. Imagine if for a second you were getting constantly in trouble for a skill that you didn't have yet. So for me.
I don't know how to drive a manual car. In fact, I don't care for it. I don't care about manual cars. I think that they are a slap in the face of evolution. Why would I do something that I don't have to? but anyway, that's that aside. I don't know how to do it. so would yelling at me or taking away my phone improve my ability to drive a manual car? If sending me outside the classroom make me more able to drive.
a manual car, if putting me in time out, would that make me more able to drive a manual car? And what's more, would it make me more likely to want to learn and practice how to drive a manual car? The answer to that is no. So when we punish kids with ADHD for skills, for skills that need support, we're asking them to opt out. They can't drive.
The manual car yet, they don't have the executive function yet. So they need support. This is why skills building and ADHD coaching is so, so valuable. And that's why I'm so glad that you're here. So connection is not permissive. It's regulating. And remember, I always say dysregulated moments are not teachable moments. Regulation is key to our children being on board to learn new skills. So instead of us asking and all the stories that you heard me say when my kids had that incident.
Instead of us asking, how do I stop this behavior? What we want to ask is what support is missing right now? So what can I do to support them with the skills that they need to handle this right now? So usually the first answer is regulate. Regulate first, almost always. That's why I went in there and said, I've got you. I assured safety first. Regulate first. You can teach later and build skills over time. And this is the part that I think a lot of where the gap is.
So a lot of parents are now getting up to speed about regulating first and the teaching later. We like to have a discussion later, but we're not doing anything about building the skills. So the idea is with executive function skills that you support the individual to learn skills that are in line for them. It's got to resonate with them. Cause I don't know if you've noticed, but our kids with ADHD hate being told what to do. Right. So we've to be able to coach them to work out what works for them in terms of those of developing those skills.
And we want to scaffold it for them because we need it to be easy. We need it to be easy so they can hit the target. And then over time, as they get older, as they get more competent with those skills and those systems and the scaffolding that we're putting in place, we need to remove some of them. We don't want to get stuck always supporting and scaffolding. That is the missing step. That is what we need to support our kids with. We want to scaffold. We want to make it easy. We want to, we want to support them. We need to regulate, teach, build skills over time.
But we also need to know that when those skills are there and when they have that nailed, we need to move on to something else and remove that scaffolding so that they can support themselves. Cause that builds self-efficacy. They need to be able to have confidence in their own ability as well. Tricky stuff. Hey, this is a big podcast episode. So this is exactly why in my free coaching week in March, we're going to be going deeper into this. So we're to be looking at real life tools for responding differently without losing boundaries. Cause I want you to know.
As a parent, you are allowed to have boundaries. The flip side of this, of what we're talking about today, isn't having no boundaries. It's about being very clear with what we will hold the line on. So we get to have really clear boundaries as a family. And we, that's why having your own tailored family plan for ADHD is very, very valuable, which you'll get inside that free coaching week, because you need to know exactly what you're going to hold the line on and what you're going to let slip.
So what did parents actually need? So parents don't need tougher strategies. They need a clearer lens most of the time. We need to have a bit of a playbook for how we're going to handle those tricky situations. I want you to think that the tricky situations aren't coming for you. Like our family navigates like probably one of those moments, maybe two, maybe three sometimes a week, right? We have tricky moments. So we need to have a playbook for what we're going to do. I want to reassure you that you're not imagining it. You're definitely not failing at it.
And your family isn't broken. What I want you to know is what changes everything is understanding nervous system behavior, knowing when to hold firm and when to support and having language that replaces guilt with clarity. So I don't want you to feel guilty. I don't want your kids to feel guilty. I want you to feel really good doing the strategies. It's no good if you come in with like a super nanny strategy and we put kids in time out forever because you're going to feel crap doing it.
So if this episode feels like I'm describing something in your home, perhaps you've had your own skateboard gate or whatever that incident was. I would love to invite you to our free coaching week in March, which we are giving every family their own tailored plan. We're creating a custom for each family. We will give you the structure, confidence and relief to know exactly what to do in these types of situations. So here's what I want you to remember.
ADHD behavior or challenges isn't bad behavior. It's often a skill that needs support and a nervous system under pressure. So when you change how you see behavior, you change how you respond and that protects your relationship with your child. Remember we want them plugged in. And if you're tired of second guessing yourself, I want you to come and join me at your family's tailored ADHD roadmap. I'm going to pop a link in the show map, in the show notes.
It is thefunctionalfamily.com backslash roadmap, and we will unpack behavior confusion step by step and give you a clear roadmap forward specifically for your family. This is not generic advice. This is specifically. Thank you so much for your time today. And I can't wait to share our next episode with you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the ADHD families podcast. If you loved it, please share it on your social.
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.
