Podcast Engineers (00:00.13)
The other day I was driving past the apartment that my husband used to live in before we had kids. You know, you remember those days pre-kids, we had all the time in the world. And, we were talking about how when we lived there, we thought we were busy. We thought we had no time compared that time to now where we both have our own businesses. We've got three kids that have extra needs and require a lot of attention and support.
are all of the things like, what were we doing with our time? I've got so many questions for past Sharon. Like what were you doing? What was making you so busy? I don't know what we were doing. I think I was watching a lot of MTV, but what we were talking about is that now a lot of parents feel like they are constantly overwhelmed by the amount that's coming at them. And I want to say something to you very clearly. If you're parenting a child with ADHD and, or you have ADHD yourself,
which it's likely in the circles that we run are because ADHD is largely genetic and you're feeling constantly overwhelmed, then you are absolutely not alone. Because this kind of overwhelm isn't from one big traumatic event or explosion. Although those things can certainly make it more intense. I'm talking about the overwhelm that comes from the everyday buildup.
The morning that starts tense, getting a few phone calls from the school, the afterschool meltdowns, the sensory overload in the supermarket and the way everything feels just a little bit louder, harder and more intense. Because this kind of overwhelm isn't from one big traumatic, dramatic explosion, right? Although those things certainly happen and they do make it worse. I'm talking about the everyday buildup of overwhelm.
So you know what I'm talking about the mornings that start tense, you get a few calls from the school, your systems on high alert, the afterschool meltdowns, the sensory overload in the supermarket and the way that everything for our families feels a little bit louder, a little bit harder and more intense than other families. And this is the part that no one really talks about, right? Like I think that we need to acknowledge that it is more overwhelming. It isn't sunshine and rainbows sometimes. And I think that.
Podcast Engineers (02:23.02)
We don't want to live in a state of overwhelm. And this is the part that no one talks about when it comes to our own kids, our beautiful kids in front of us. Everything hits us harder emotionally. Everything is more overwhelming. It triggers us. It activates us. It pulls out our deepest fears and that intensity builds. And then one day you're standing in the kitchen and you think, I cannot keep doing this.
So today I want to do two things. First, I want to explain why everything feels so overwhelming. And second, I want to give you three practical tools that you can start using immediately. Cause it's okay for overwhelmed to be here. I just don't want you to live there permanently. It's not good for your system. It's not good for my system. So we need a few things that we can create a little bit of capacity for ourselves as parents.
So if you're tired of living in survival mode and ready to work with me this year to improve your family life with ADHD, then I have some exciting news. The ADHD family's quest is now open. This is my 12 month fully supported coaching experience where I get your whole family out of the jungle. That's where overwhelm lives.
to higher ground where we can see things clearly and operate in a way that feels spacious and aligned to your family. This is not magic. This is step-by-step strategic system implementation to improve your family life. I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes, but go and check that out if that, if the timing feels right for you. So let's talk about why it feels so hard. And it's not just fear, why it is so hard.
Let's unpack this ADHD by nature is a sensitive nervous system, which means that if you have ADHD or your children have ADHD, then you get dysregulated easier and more frequently. us moms, it doesn't matter whether you have ADHD yourself or not, your body is trained to respond to your child's body. So all three of my kids, I'm just thinking back to when they were babies. This is when this started, right?
Podcast Engineers (04:36.814)
When they were babies, they were all terrible sleepers, different degrees of terrible, but all terrible. Like especially my eldest, I can remember when I brought him home from the hospital, firstly in the hospital, one of the nurses came and gave him back to me. He was like, so I could have a sleep, they'd taken him away and they came and gave him back to me and said, we can't settle him. As a first time mom, was like, what do you, what do you mean you can't settle him? And she's like, we can't settle him.
So here he is, back to you. And I was like, Oh, this, this feels like a significant start. He was always fist clenched, in, in discomfort. had reflux. was all over the place in terms of sleep. Uh, it was, I can remember my mom used to come over, just to give me a little bit of respite and she used to face his head as a baby towards the sun. This is terrible.
But was the only way we could getting to close his eyes, face his head towards the sun. So he would close his eyes for a minute and just give up the fight and actually go to sleep for a little bit. We ended up having to do really significant sleep work with him and trying like very, very nurturing sleep work. But yes, we had to do all of that stuff because we were all really burnt out. And one of my mom's friends came to visit, you know, she was so exciting. We having my first baby and she came to visit, but she had had terrible.
postnatal depression and she spent the day with us and she ended up saying, I can't be here. I can't be here because it is triggering my postnatal depression. Like I can feel my anxiety rising because he just doesn't stop crying. my gosh. think I'm quick. Like I'm actually shaking, but I'm even sharing that because it was just, it was just a lot. It was a lot.
And the other two were easier, but not still not by any stretch of the imagination, easy babies. actually think when I see a baby, like I love, I love my kids once they could sit up, once they could smile. I love them always. Of course, of course. But I wasn't, I'm not a baby person, like because of that experience for me, baby equals terror. Right. Once they're up and they can like sit up and smile and engage in everything. I'm all for that. I step in then.
Podcast Engineers (07:03.31)
But I just remember in those days feeling completely lost. And so now when there is a noise, if my kids make a noise in the night, my body is trained for their body. Right. So my body is, is listening out for their noises. And so even if they make a noise now as, as, you know, I've got a 16 year old for goodness sake, my body jumps, they make a noise, they sleep talk.
one of my children's sleep walks, everything, I jump. I wonder if your body does the same. When you're constantly reactive to dysregulation and your child is, because they have ADHD, is already more prone to being dysregulated, you become hypervigilant and it's bloody exhausting. That's why everything feels so overwhelming. I wonder, and I'd love you to let me know, by email or in the comments of the podcast or whatever.
Does your body jump when you're, when you're in bed and you hear your child make a noise? Have you been able to progress past that? I always think it's fascinating that my husband slept through. Yeah, you know, there's some built up resentment there, I'm sure. But I was hyper vigilant to every noise that they made because it just didn't stop. It was relentless, the sleep torture. Number two was.
One of the reasons why it feels so overwhelming is because traditional parenting advice just doesn't work. So often parents are trying all the things, right? Like we're doing sticker charts, we're doing consequences where we're told to just be consistent, but those strategies really are all a version of just try harder and they assume a neurotypical brain. So when they don't work, you just end up feeling really frustrated. feel like you're doing it wrong somehow, that you're stuffing it up.
Now carrying all of that stuff is mental load, that constant second guessing yourself, it just sucks the energy right out of you. So no wonder we're feeling permanently overwhelmed. And I hear a lot of parenting strategies, right? Like I'm in this space all day, every day. And a lot of it, sometimes I just think it just leaves parents with nowhere to go. You know, like there's not a clear path for it. And so.
Podcast Engineers (09:20.948)
I know from the intensity that my household's roads, we really need to give people a clear step-by-step process because a lot of it is just kind of this ambiguous instructions that doesn't really work when you put it under the pressure test of ADHD family life. So next let's talk about the invisible load and part of the ADHD family's quest when I was creating this 12 month coaching experience was really about making that invisible load visible.
I really wanted to show that in a way. And someone actually commented on my picture of the quest cause in the graphics for the quest, I've got this family going off in a kind of like Jumanji style adventure, which is the branding for the quest. Super excited about that. And in the picture, the mom is the one carrying the backpack and someone actually called that out on Facebook. They were like, Hey, why is the mom carrying the big backpack? And I was like, well that's the invisible load. That's easy.
That's what she's carrying, right? And the comment back was like, that is amazing. I just wanted to make that visible. and in the quest, we actually start off in the jungle. That's where overwhelm lives. That's where not being able to make sense of a lot of the challenging behaviors that come up and, know, for everything being a bit chaotic. And then we moved to base camp. That's where we introduce all our environmental strategies, all our systems and ADHD specific scaffolding that we do that I'm.
famous for, and then we go to the rapids. That's all our behavioral stuff. So everything that kind of makes us feel a little bit topsy-turvy, we're on the whitewater rapids, right? And then we go to the mountain that is all climbing as a family. getting the whole family working together. And then we graduate into the village, which is where we have all our support and our beautiful coaching and everything that comes along.
That there are kind of images as we are moving through the quest, but I wanted it to be a whole family experience, but I very much wanted to make visible that invisible load. So let's talk about that invisible load. It's one of my favorite topics. Let's talk about the 50,000 school notes that we have to process the emotional regulation that we co-regulate our kids, know, support our kids to co-regulate managing appointments. Like it's your second full-time job.
Podcast Engineers (11:37.762)
doing all the research about ADHD and are consuming all the content because things are changing all the time. Let's talk about navigating sibling dynamics and breaking up fight club that goes on and our own work and our own feelings and ADHD. Let's face it. It requires more scaffolding, more reminders, more transition support, more emotional support.
Of course you're overwhelmed. Like of course, of course you're overwhelmed. I would be surprised if you're not overwhelmed when you think about all of that stuff. And I didn't even touch then on like maintaining a house and feeding pets and all of those things. Like no wonder we're all overwhelmed. And then of course there's your body. So as moms, we're more vulnerable. And I apologize if you're a dad listening to this, this is a very mom centric podcast, but I know my demographic, right? Like there's like 2 % of men that listen to this.
I wish it was different, but it's mainly women, women in Australia and New Zealand. It's the moms listening to this. So I'm going to talk directly to you. So as moms, we're more vulnerable at and overwhelmed at certain times. We're more prone to overwhelm at certain times. So when our sleep is affected, so we're looking at the slab of the house now, you know, with sleep diet, exercise time in nature, they're our slab of the house for ADHD management.
If you build on a wonky slab, you'll get much more variable symptoms. Your house will be a bit wonky. And so if you're sleep deprived, we know at certain stages or phases of our cycle, we are more likely to feel overwhelmed. There's a lot of research that's coming out, but if you have it yourself, then there is certain stages like that late luteal stage and perimenopause and menopause where your ADHD medication will just be ineffective. So.
There's that. And when your own nervous system is really stretched, when you've got a lot of pressure coming for various reasons above, then these things are going to be much more variable. So if your capacity is lower, everything feels harder because you're a human. You're, you're an actual human, not a robot, right? Like you do not have this consistent go mode yet. We sort of put ourselves on this. we plan as if we are always.
Podcast Engineers (13:53.134)
high capacity days and it's just not the case. So now let's get practical. A lot of people that I talk to talk about overwhelm like it is a time problem. So they're saying, I just don't have enough hours in the day. I don't have enough time. There's too much to get done. I don't have enough time. When I want to reframe this a little bit, I don't think it's a time problem. Although, you know, you guys know me from listening to this podcast. I do like to squeeze a whole lot into my day. There is a lot.
that happens in any one day, but I actually think we're framing this wrong. actually don't think it's a time problem. think it is an energy problem because when your energy is not running optimally, like when you have low energy, everything takes longer. Everything feels harder. Everything feels more overwhelming. Everything just sucks a life out of you.
So when I really realized that, that I was trying to save a time, I was trying to play a time game, optimized time. And I am ruthless with this, right? Because I know that I have such limited time. When I actually switched gears and approached it like an energy management problem, that's what I actually needed to look at my energy. That's when I got the biggest shift. So although I'm prone to fitting a whole lot in any given day, probably too much.
What was more important was my energy management. So one of the only benefits of me having this stupid autoimmune disease, which I have seratic arthritis, is that I have become ruthless with my energy. I am careful with it. I spend it like it is valuable because I only have such a limited amount. I do not run on a hundred percent any given day. In fact, some days I'm running on like 30%.
So I do not have a hundred percent of energy because I have a degenerative disease. and I sometimes wonder, I was like, if I could be like Lady Gaga, cause I know she has fibromyalgia. I was like, if I could get a massage every day, cause I know she does that as part of her fibromyalgia management. was like, I don't know what I would be capable of. I could have like, could solve like, I don't know, maybe, maybe I've got some sort of amazing world peace solution. We'll never know because I don't have a massage every day. Like Lady Gaga, we'll never know.
Podcast Engineers (16:12.922)
but I oft I often think, that we have to be so intentional about our energy. And this is where I'm thinking this is an easy win within your control because we can't necessarily change. Like control our child's nervous system response, right? We can give them scaffolding around it, which is what we do. But for the sake of this podcast, I want you to think about what are the easy wins that in your control.
So when we're talking about energy management, I was spending time with people that drained me. was saying yes to things I should have said no to. I was scheduled. I wasn't scheduling any buffer time or anything that filled me back up. So I got ruthless with my energy. I reduced my time with people who sucked it. There's always people, there'll be people in your life that give you energy and people who suck your energy. If possible, put.
little barriers around people that suck your energy. might not be able to cut them out of your life. I'm not suggesting that you do, but having some little boundaries and barriers may not necessarily be a bad thing. so I started planning things into my week that gave me energy. was starting to notice what sucks it, what gives me energy. Okay. If I've got a big day, what little thing can I do to give me a little bit more capacity? And I mean, I'm a simple being. Okay. I just see the ocean.
This is why I live here, right? Like if I just see the ocean, I feel a little bit better. I don't have to get out. In fact, I don't even really want to get in. I just want to look at it. That gives me energy. So I'm planning these little, little, things that give me energy to give me back capacity. And here's what shifted. My parenting didn't change overnight, but my capacity did. These are the easy little shifts that we can build in.
So when you protect your energy, you respond instead of reacting. Now I want you to ask yourself this week, what is draining me this week? What is restoring me? What is your energy sucks and your things that give you energy? And where can I shift this just by five or 10 % doesn't have to be a big dramatic thing. Can we just lean more towards the things that give you energy this week and what feels good for you?
Podcast Engineers (18:36.75)
So I know a lot of moms inside my community are absolutely running on empty. This is why I, when I'm working with a family, I go for the environmental changes first. This is, this is why we go for that base camp stuff first in inside the quest because we, when we first introduced systems, we create time and capacity without those things. When we go straight into the rapids and we start looking at behavioral things first.
We don't have any capacity for any of that stuff to land. So without it, things just don't work. We need to create time and capacity first. So this is the work that we do together inside the ADHD family quest. We need to build those systems to give you back time and capacity. So tool number two, let's recap. So number one is it's not a time problem. It's an energy problem. What can we do to put some boundaries around that and give you back a little bit more energy?
Number two is the rainbow wall. This is one of my all time favorite tools that I support families with. So I know that if you look for the negative, you will find it. If you look for the positive, you will find it. Right. And I am a doer. I'm like, let's get stuff done. Chop chop. Right. But what happens, one of the side effects of doing that is you move very quickly onto the next thing. So when we had a win.
I was moving very quickly onto the next thing that needs doing, and I wasn't celebrating that win. So when you live like that is you tend to not remember because all brains have a negativity bias. tend to remember the negative experiences that we have more than the wins and the positive experience we have. I wasn't able to really recall a lot of the wins that we were having.
And when I was looking back at the week or the year, or, know, looking back and reflecting across my life, I was only really remembering the hard stuff. Right. I did it then, even when I was talking about my kids as babies, I only told you the negative stuff. I didn't tell you all the times that they're like a little smile and how cute they were and their little fingers and their little feet that looked like party pies, all of that stuff. Didn't tell you any of that.
Podcast Engineers (20:55.084)
Right. Cause my brain went to the negative, which you, which I'm assuming, especially if you have ADHD, your brain will be collecting that data too. So the rainbow wall is a great strategy for just evening that up a little bit. Let's remember some of the positives and some of the wins that we are having. So it's a really, really cute little visual system. You get Post-it notes, multicolored, whatever, get the super sticky ones because otherwise they will fall off your wall and it'll be a rainbow waterfall, not a rainbow wall.
And every time something good happens, you have a win, your child, you know, goes through on it, like, does something, step on their system or whatever. You just write it on a, on the post-it note. It doesn't have to be neat. Doesn't even have to be all that legible and you stick it up on the wall. Right. I have it above our, like on the same wall as our fireplace and I just stick it there. Right. And what that means is that over time, number one, it's helping remind your kids and yourself of all the wins and the amazing stuff that you're doing.
But it's reminding us of all those little moments that we would easily forget and just remember that the challenges. And so when I look at our rainbow wall, I instantly feel like that overwhelm reduces. It is a key strategy for me because I walk past it because in our living area, I walk past and I just go, yeah, like things are going to be okay. Right. Because look at all the things on the wall and it'll just be like,
Little simple things. We're not made waiting for big significant wins here. We're just going for I'm you know, we found our soccer shoes, you know, like we You know the teacher said you had a great day like all these little little things that add up to create this beautiful wall of all the positives that are going on in your family life and I think that we just don't celebrate what is working enough and one of my key strategies for reducing overwhelm is to make that stuff visible
Make it visible. Let yourself see it. Let your kids see it and overcome some of that negative bias, which is completely normal and completely understandable. This is not discounting the overwhelm that we, this is not discounting the actual challenges that we are facing. All we're doing here is highlighting that there are positives and there are wins that need to be celebrated too. Next tool, tool number three.
Podcast Engineers (23:17.74)
rest is not a reward. It's actually critical. Now this one's uncomfortable. I don't know if you guys feel this too, like I am a child of the eighties and nineties rest was very much, you had to earn it. You had to earn it. And this is why we have, tend to have brains that when we switch off, feel a bit.
crap about switching off. Do you guys do that too? Like you're watching a show, but you're kind of half thinking, I should be paying bills and all those school notes that we haven't done. And we're not really enjoying it because we're thinking about what other stuff we should be doing because somehow we've been told or told ourselves that we have to earn rest. Now rest isn't rest. This might be something that I'll get tattooed on my forehead later. Rest isn't rest. If you feel guilty or crap about it, that's not rest.
That is paralysis. Okay. If you're resting and you're feeling bad about resting, you are not doing a nervous system any favors. You are not actually resting. You are just in a state of paralysis. When we rest, we want to rest. We want to enjoy it. Feel good. doesn't need, it's neutral. You do not need to earn it. In fact, I would go a step further than saying it's neutral. And I would say it is critical.
It is important for your, how you feel about your life, how you feel, how overwhelming your life feels, how you process all the challenges that come up in your day-to-day family life. So if you're parenting kids with ADHD, that requires nervous system strength. Your strategies for regulating have to be on point and you cannot regulate your child if you're exhausted and depleted. This is why it's so critical. I want to do a little extra step here of saying track your sleep and track.
your cycle, you will notice patterns. wear an aura ring and I love that damn thing because it's given me data. I like to know data. Right. So I know that if I have one glass of wine, my sleep's going to be crap. So it's given me the power to cut out that one glass of wine. I'll still drink at a wedding, whatever, but I know I can make a choice intentionally based on that data. So knowing also with your cycle.
Podcast Engineers (25:33.312)
If we know that there's certain times and certain days where you're not going to cope with what's being thrown at you. I've actually blocked it out in my calendar. Like I call it P one P two. Now I can't block them out. Like I don't have the luxury of going, I'm not going to work those days. Right. Like I don't have that luxury. got to pay a mortgage. Right. The reason that they're in my calendar and they're blocked out there is because I have more compassion for myself on that. Those days. I know not to book a.
photo, a family photo shooting on those days. Cause chances are, oh, low key wanting to be like not liking my husband on those days. Right. Um, but so I've actually blocked them out in my calendar because I just, it's good information for me. Not that I can call everything off and structure my whole life around it, but I just have compassion. just go, oh yeah. That's why you feel like moving to another state and starting a new life. Like that's why it's that day. It's P1, P2.
Right? So it's just knowing and tracking your sleep, tracking your cycle, noticing patterns. So you can see that less sleep, you're affecting your foundations of your house. You're going to have a lower tolerance. You're going to feel more overwhelmed. Certain phases of the cycle, you're going to feel emotion more intensely. Perhaps if you had ADHD yourself, your meds are not going to be effective on those days. That awareness changes everything.
I don't want you to think there's something wrong with you, right? Like on those days when everything blows up, you just think, I just want you to view it neutrally. it's that day. My capacity is lower right now. That's cool. That's cool. It'll pick up. So I'm not going to have a high expectations for myself that on those days. And then you might be able to plan accordingly depending on your job and what it demands of you.
And you can lower your expectations. You can add a little bit of extra support on yourself. You can protect yourself. That's not selfish. That is strategic. So I want you to feel super supported. Let's do a bit of a recap of this episode. We know overwhelmed. There's a whole host of very legitimate reasons why we are overwhelmed. have that it is, it is overwhelming. Our nervous systems are sensitive. Our kids nervous systems are sensitive.
Podcast Engineers (27:46.326)
We know that traditional parenting advice doesn't work when there's ADHD in the picture. We've got that invisible road, we're carrying that backpack and we've got our body, energy, our body and its responses to certain input and that slab of the house. Then we've got our practical tools. Number one, it is not a time problem. It is an energy problem. So let's manage and protect our energy like our life depends on it. We've got tool two, which is the rainbow wall. Let's remind ourselves of our wins.
And tool three, rest is not a reward. It is critical. How you feel about your life, how you feel about how overwhelmed you are and how, how you respond in those intense situations is all a part of how much you can rest and how good you feel when you are resting. Remember it is not rest if you feel crap about it in the time. And so I want you to be supported. You are just too important to just be surviving each day.
You are way too important to your kids, to your family, but more importantly yourself. So parenting kids with ADHD is not something that you can white knuckle. I just expect for it to get better, right? Parents often ask me, does it get easier? And my answer to that is always yes, yes, it absolutely gets easier, but not by accident.
What we need to do is be very, very strategic about what we do and it has to be the right thing for your family. We need to go for those environmental changes. We need to look at what behavioral strategies and skill building we can do for your family that feel good for you to do. No good putting strategies in that don't feel right for your family. They need to be ADHD specific. We need to get your family working as a team. That's why families work is just the business.
We just, need to get those things right. It doesn't happen by magic, right? We need to be strategic about these things. and my overall strategy is always to create you, give you back time and give you more capacity because I want better for you. So that is why I created the ADHD families quest. is a 12 month coaching experience because this work is layered, right? There's no magical fairy dust that I can sprinkle on your family and just go, there you go. You just, they're better.
Podcast Engineers (30:06.71)
Although I really wish I had that. What we build is ADHD friendly systems. We understand what is going on inside the ADHD brain and we honor it. It's not about changing our kids. It's about changing things around our kids. This is the most underrated thing in ADHD support. And then we look at building executive function skills, executive function skills that will see them right through their life. And then we support you and your confidence so you know what to do.
in any given situation because things come up and they will come up and we need to have the confidence to handle it. And when we have that confidence, takes a lot of stress out of the situation. So if you're, I don't want you to feel like you're constantly firefighting. If today resonated for you and you feel like the time is right to get your family extra support, then I want you to start with these tools that I gave you in this podcast. And if you're ready for deeper support, then the ADHD family quest is here for you.
I can't wait until next time, I'll speak to you soon. Thanks for listening to the ADHD Families podcast. My mission is to help you build a family life that isn't just managed, but truly joyful. If you're with me on that mission, please share this episode to help us reach more parents. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. It's a small act that makes a massive impact. And it also makes me do a little happy dance.
For more support and strategies, find us over at thefunctionalfamily.com. I am in your corner. See you next time.
