052 - ADHD in Parents and Kids - With Jo Mitchelhill

Welcome to the podcast. Today we will be addressing navigating big emotions from the child, yes, but mostly from the parents point of view, when the parents are navigating their own big emotion and how to deal with them. And to do that we will welcome Jo over on the podcast.

Welcome to Parenting the Intensity, where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice that doesn't work with our emotionally intense kids anyway, and let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together, Here we'll find solutions and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are, deep down, you know what you need. But you need a little encouragement to keep going on harder days, and permission to do things differently, and help you fully trust that you already are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging kids. Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed and uncertain when it comes to parenting your emotionally intense child? Do you often find yourself playing with guilt, fearing that you're not doing enough to help them navigate their intense emotion? You are not alone. Many parents face these challenges and struggle to find the right path forward. But take a deep breath, there's hope.

That's why I created the Parenting the Intensity community. Imagine having a clear roadmap tailored specifically to your child's unique needs and your family's reality. Picture feeling empowered and confident in your parenting, knowing that you are providing the support and understanding your child needs. It may seem like an unattainable dream right now, but I'm here to tell you that it is within reach. Come join us for monthly group support to connect with other parents and get supported with your challenge right now. You also get one -on -one chat and audio office hours for the things that you're really not ready to share in the group, and workshop tools, courses to help you in the process of finding that balance of parenting in a way that works for you, your child, and your family. Welcome Jo over on the podcast, I'm glad to have you here.

Thank you for having me. I'm very pleased to be here.

So can you start by introducing yourself and telling us a little bit of why you do what you do?

Yes, so I work with parents as a coach around ADHD, either that they have ADHD or their children have ADHD or they both have ADHD. And I've been working with parents with this for a very long time because it was something that I noticed as a teacher, a lot of, you know, there was a lot of primarily like I've been out of the classroom about nine years now, but it was very much not talked about around girls, you know, that there was, we've heard a lot about with autism and ADHD over the last sort of five years, or probably since the pandemic, about how prevalent it really is in girls. But prior to that in the It was kind of like something that was almost not even discussed. They can't have it because they don't show these things. So I've sort of been really interested in that, obviously being female myself, and how to help support parents because some people are still very resistant to, oh, no, they can't possibly have that because they're not showing these signs.

I work very much in a trauma -informed way, so there is a lot of what I do and talk about that we have to have questions around stress and trauma and look at, you know, is this impacting what we're seeing? Because there's a lot of things that we see that there's a crossover. So we've always got to ask those questions about what's going on. And that very much comes from, we were foster carers for a very long time, fostered teenagers. And we had a lot of children that came into our care who had diagnosis or assessments around ADHD that actually, when you sort of unpicked it

and you started working with them and they were living with us now, kids lived with us long -term. So they were with us for more than a year, A lot of them were with us for three or four years, so for quite a significant amount of time. And we would see drastic changes in their behavior and in their needs for medication. Some of them came off medication completely. And a lot of them would say, like when we would have conversations, we would say, you know, why do you feel you no longer need this medication

or why do you feel this is different? and they would very clearly say that it was because they live in a house that doesn't, they don't feel those things or they don't, those things aren't happening to them that would make them respond in a different way. So those were kind of, I guess in my background, the reasons why this is quite an important topic and I very much enjoy working in this space because I don't ever feel that we can say it's definitely this or it's definitely that we have to be curious about what is actually going on for our kids. And lots of parents are struggling to find the answers and struggling to find solutions or strategies or that to the to the challenges that they're having. And often they're met with resistance or people don't believe them. And it's a really, it's a really frustrating place to be when you're saying to somebody, I need help. And they're going, Well, we don't see that behavior. You know, and I and I know, I can honestly say hand on my heart that there's been, you know, I would have parents come to me as a classroom teacher, and they'd be like, they're like this at home. And I'd be like, you know, I really don't. It's almost like you're describing another child. Because that's not what I see. As not to say that I disbelieve you, but I can only tell you what I see. So I understand that I understand that things can be very different in two very different settings as well. So for me, I'm

always about being the advocate for the child. And I believe that the best way that I can be the advocate for the child is to help the parent understand what's going on. Yeah. So they can support or change the environment that the kids are living in or understand why they're responding to situations in a certain way. So, so that's, yeah, that's kind of it's kind of like a journey that sort of meanders very much of how I've got to where I am now. And it changes, you know, it's it, the more the more you sort of delve into it, the more you know, the more research you do, and the more learning that you do, and you go, Oh, okay, well, that makes sense now. And it's of like pieces of puzzle. So yeah, and I think as well, my own personal struggles with everything with understanding myself a lot better. And understanding why I do things, the things I do, or why I don't do the things that I don't do. It's probably more to the point, why don't you do that? Are you lazy? No, I just I want to do it. You know, I sort of understand myself more. And I understand where that comes from. And I understand the frustration of being somebody that goes, I really want to do those things. But at the same time, I just don't do it. You know, it's a really frustrating place to be. So I understand, like, you know, the time blindness and actually needing help with getting started with stuff. And, and so

I get it and I understand it. So I think all of those things just have led me to this point where I am now.

Yeah I love that you're addressing like it's kind of fluid between different diagnosis or different reason why the child is acting the way they are and I that like lots of people are asking like why how can I support my child if I don't have a diagnosis if I don't want get one or if the professional are not getting one that is, that makes sense to me as a parent, because we see that often. And that in fact, it doesn't really matter. Like you can address what's happening with the child and support the child and their needs, even if you don't have a specific

diagnosis. Absolutely. And the thing is, and this is this is very much the conversation I have with parents is, you know, you've got a diagnosis, or you go and have an assessment done. It's not changing anything. It's a piece of paper that says yes or no. You know, it's that it doesn't actually change the behaviors, you're still going away with the same child, with the same frustrations. So it's about understanding how to help that kid to help you as a family, because I very much come from a therapeutic parenting background. That's what we were trained as foster carers in a parenting style, which is which really did lead me down this path of things. That's very much how I parent my own child. Because it works because it's very clear. It's very much about boundaries. It's very much about understanding the behavior and understanding what the need is behind it. It doesn't matter whether you have autism, ADHD, OCD, all the other things that you can be diagnosed with because fundamentally at the end of the day, you've still got to understand the best way to interact with your child for them to understand you, for them to understand, so you're both on the same page. And I say to people, because I do assessments for autism and ADHD, and that's one of the questions I ask parents, you what do you hope to get? What do you want to get out of this? Because if you want me to make things better, that's not going to happen with that assessment. what it will do is it will open the doors to conversation and give you an opportunity to look at things differently. But that can be quite confronting for a lot of people, you know, that need to change stuff. Because if you do the same thing that you always do, you get the same results you've always got.

You know, it's that kind of thing. So when we sort of then start having conversation of, I had a conversation with a parent who said to me, but my child doesn't show remorse. My child doesn't show that they're sorry about anything. And that's like, well, how do you know? If I apologize to you, how do you know that's not a heartfelt apology? You know, what is it that you want? Do you want me to throw myself on the floor and roll out the red carpet and cry and gnash my teeth and beat myself on the chest?

You know, just because that's what you expect doesn't mean that my apology isn't any more sincere when I say I'm sorry. You know, so it's that understanding of if you're pushing your kids to do something because you don't believe that they're sincere in what they're saying or doing, then you're never going to get what, you know, you're always going to have a conflict. And when we struggle with the challenges that we see with our kids around behavior, when we're thinking that they might have ADHD, if you're going to be taking stuff away from kids, being a very authoritarian parent, then things will have to change. Otherwise, it's just you've got a piece of paper that says, yes, my child may have this, but actually nothing's going to

change because the change has to happen in the environment that they live in. So it's that, I think it's a personal choice, whether you decide to have a diagnosis, whether you decide to go down the road for assessment, whatever you decide to do, that's your personal choice as a parent. But I think there's more to that is the question has got to be what do you want to see happen after this. Because you can either take it and then go down the road of, well, they, you know, it's because they've got this, that's why they're behaving like that. Or I know I need to make changes to support them and give them the right sort of strategies so that they can thrive in their life. So it's a very big topic of conversation. That's not a that's not a one and done conversation either. It's something that I of revisit a lot with parents, because there's a lot of guilt and there's a lot of sadness around when parents get a diagnosis for their kids, because they feel that there's a lot of things for them that they have to sort of process as well. So yeah, so it's not a one and done conversation.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And

it's

interesting

how a diagnosis can crystallize things that in fact were always there. It puts a name on it and it becomes sometimes harder, but the reality is that the child does not change by a diagnosis. It's just assessing what's happening, but nothing's going to change, as you said, by a diagnosis. It's not going to solve itself and it's not making anything worse because we get a diagnosis. Sometimes it's needed for some services though. So I would say, in some places, we don't have that much of a choice if we want to get some services

to get the

diagnosis. But that

really

changes from places to places.

Exactly. And it depends on the place, you know, where you live and, and, and as you say, what services you can or can't access. I know, in the UK, you don't have to have a diagnosis to access services and there's reasonable adjustments that schools, if we're talking specifically about children, you know, schools can put in place reasonable adjustments that don't need to, you know, you don't need a diagnosis for that. It's based on needs, basically. It's based on the needs, yeah, and what they can put in place.

And what we wanted to specifically address today was like the struggle of having an ADHD or emotionally intense child and being ourself an ADHD or emotionally intense parents, which comes with its specific set of challenges. What would you say might be different when both parents and children are that way? Is it easier because they understand each other better or is it harder because there's more conflict or it's a mixed, of course it can. I

think, potentially, in most cases, it's probably a lot worse, because it can be quite volatile, be quite a volatile situation, where it goes from naught to 60 in literally seconds. And I have seen that happen. I've witnessed it myself. I've been on both sides

of that. It's really one of the most important things. And we're never told this before we have kids. Because, you know, I always thought I was going to be like a really super cool parent, you know, and I'm not really, really not. There are things that irritate me that I never even knew irritated me. And there are times that things irritate me more. So if I'm tired, if I've been really busy, if I'm stressed, stupid things like, I don't know, whether they're stupid or not elbows on tables when we're eating dinner. Does it really matter? But actually, at the same time, it's like, it's bad manners in my in my the way I was brought up and stuff like that. So we had this conversation on Sunday over dinner. I was like, you know, my daughter was like elbows on table. And, and, and I was just a bit like, you know, can you not like it just, and then I was, and then I was having to check myself and go, Okay, why is this irritating you? It's like, because you're tired, because you're tired, because actually, when she did it yesterday,

it didn't really bother you. So it was that thing of consistency is key. But I think the thing about parenting is we don't know what triggers us until we have a mini version of ourselves running around doing the things that get under our skin. And the things that trigger us that make things more emotionally intense for us are the things that we didn't have resolved when we were children. So there are things that are still in our past that, which, you know, I talked about the therapeutic parenting, it was so good for us when we went through it, my husband and I did it. Because actually, it gave us the opportunity to reparent ourselves and give us the things and the closure for certain things that we were never going to get from our parents. So I think when you so and we were very lucky, and I say this a lot to parents that I that I work with, you know, I was really lucky we fostered for a long time before we had our own child. So we had a lot of training, a lot of stuff that we did had to do because it was the job that we were doing that that lots of parents don't get you just kind of go, hey, you know, I remember, what's her name? Dr. Sharif, I think her name is.

One of her quotes is horniness is not a pre, I can't think of the word that she uses, but basically horniness is not a qualification for being a parent. You know, it's that thing of The chances of, you if you have sex, you're gonna have a baby. If you're not emotionally ready, if you're not able to meet your own needs, then it's only gonna intensify when you have your own children. So I think when you've got a parent and a child that have high emotional intensity,

it's really important as the parent to recognize that and to find ways or to find people who can help you put in place strategies that help you disengage, to move away, to walk away from a situation. You know, I remember one of our lecturers when I was at uni, when I was doing my teaching degree, I remember, and I quote this quite a lot. He said to us, no one looks smart arguing with a 10 year old. And it's one of those things. You don't, you you know, it's like, what you walk away from that going, Yeah, I want an argument with a 10 year old child, like, well done. You know, you're the one you put it

that way. Yeah.

Yeah, it really is. And it's something and I say that a lot to the pair to my parents, you know, that I that I work with is like, you know, what, what is the end game here? What is the end result? What are you hoping to get out of this? Because the conversation as you're relaying it to me just sounds like you just want to pick yourself up and you want to win. So it's recognizing all of those things. And if we haven't had a childhood where our parents were emotionally regulated and able to give us that, be that beacon, I guess, for us when things were difficult for us, then we're not necessarily going to be that sort of parent because we haven't had it modelled to us. We parent the way we were parented and that's just, that's fact, you know, I don't care to argue about that point because that is just fact. Unless we recognise we don't want to parent that way. And therefore, we go off and find, you know, the help

that we need to change that. A lot of people don't realise, I guess, that they are emotionally volatile, if that's the right word to use, until they do have children and they are put in situations where things irritate them, like elbows on the table. And know that for some people, they'll be like, oh, she's a bit, she's a bit, you know, elbows on the table doesn't bother me. And for other people, they'd be like, yeah, right on elbows on the table, my god, I'd be like, having a hissy over that. So it is very individual, because what what's annoys me doesn't annoy somebody else and vice versa. So I would say, to anybody who has children, who is thinking about having children,

that really start to look at yourself and look at your emotional response to things. How do you respond to not being able to find your car keys, not being able to find your shoes, to the dog waking you up in the middle of the night, barking at the back door at the fairies in the garden? How do you respond to these things? How do you respond to coworkers? How do you respond to friends who stand you up or lie to you. You I think it's about,

because it's not just how we respond to our kids, it's how we respond to everybody. Our emotional intensity might change a little bit, but really, okay, so in a situation at work, you might have learned that you don't scream and shout at your coworker, but those feelings are still there. And that just means that you're gonna go and scream shout at somebody else when you get home or whatever. So I think it's that kind of thing of how do you respond to these situations? And do you think maybe there's a different way? Could there be a different way? And that's all very much the conversations are when I work with parents is, okay, so you responded that way and you got that response. Could there be a way? What if we explored a different way? And you will notice the more you take the emotion out of a situation and you respond, you change your response, your children's emotions will change as well. Their intensity of the way that they respond to you will change. If you scream and shout at your kids, don't be surprised that they're going to scream and shout back at you. They're just responding to the energy that you put out there. If you are quiet, if you are, if you're bringing the energy down, it doesn't mean they're not going to scream and shout at you. What it means is that is going to drop very quickly. And they will come to you. I had it

this morning, my daughter, I can't even remember how I annoyed her. I might have asked her to put her socks on quite probably, asked her to put her socks on. And she went, I'm putting my socks on. And I just walked downstairs. And then she came downstairs. And she said, I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. I said, Thank you very much for the apology. And it was done. And it was dusted. And there'll be a time where I'll say to her, you know, at some point, just remember how we speak to people. You know, that wasn't cool. So So yeah, so I think an answer to your question in a roundabout way, if a parent has strong emotions and their child does, it is very likely going to be quite a volatile situation. And it's about digging deep for you and working out why you react in those ways, and what you can do about it.

So it would be about addressing, identifying the trigger of the parent to be able to not react as much to the child reaction,

that would be

the

best way

to answer to that, basically. Yeah,

yeah, because. So if we take, for the I'm the parent, you're the child, therefore, you should, you should respect what I say, right, which is something that lots of parents say, and I'm not necessarily saying that it's the wrong thing. However, respect only comes if respect is given. So if you're not respectful to your child because you scream and shout at them, you're unfair, you punish them, then there is no respect, their respect is a two -way street. So if your idea of parenting is you do what I say and you don't question it, then it's not going to change the kid's response. you know, they're either going to fight back or leave. You know, that's what's gonna happen.

So really got to understand ourselves as parents. Whether we have our own diagnosis, whether we have our own stuff going on, because we all have our own stuff going on, but it's not an excuse, it's an understanding. And I think this is like going back to that point we were saying before about having a diagnosis, or going through the assessment process, is very much about having an understanding of who you are as a person. Yeah. And say, Okay, I know that thing irritates me. I know that that's really going to push my buttons. What can I do to change that?

It's

the same

for the kids and for their parents basically,

it's just more

understanding.

Absolutely, we can't expect our kids to, we're really unfair to our children if we expect them not to react in the way that we react to something. If that's what we're modeling to them. You know, so yeah,

yeah, I would say like, I've, I've been thinking that about cleaning the house forever. I'm always like, if my house is not like my kitchen is not clean, how can I ask my kids to clean their bedroom, like, it makes no

sense.

So it's the kind, but that one is kind of easy. It's kind of obvious, you know, yeah, but I see the mess.

and you could address it and you could be like, you know, or maybe just shut their door. I've shut it, my house feels cleaner. I just think it comes back to that thing of,

there is no manual to be a parent. There is no book that sits there, you know, there is no HR department to go to, to raise a grievance. There is no learning and development department that you can go to and say, I've not learned teenagers 101, can you please teach me? You're kind of just thrown into it and gone best of luck. Yeah, you know, exactly. May it forever be you know, may the gods forever be on your side. And I think we're more aware of we're more aware of child development, we're more aware of the impact of environments that they have on our children's development. We're more aware of trauma, how that impacts generational trauma, how that impacts us as parents and the cycles that we see from our parents and our grandparents and you know, all of that sort of stuff. So I think it's, you know, I think we've really got to look at this stuff and go, what do I want? When I'm 80 and sat on my rocking chair? What are the memories I want to take away with my kids? Do I want my kids coming home for the holidays? Do I want my kids to bring their kids for the holidays? What

do I want? Because those are the things, if they're important to you, those are the things that will help you change or consider changing what's currently happening.

Looking way ahead because we often have to feel like we often spiral down because we're looking a few years ahead and we're feeling that things are never going to be better. But when you look 30, 40, 60 years ahead, then things, the perspective changes for sure.

Exactly, exactly. And, you know, even looking at the relationship that you have with your parents and sit there and go, right, okay, is it a good relationship? Is it not a good relationship? What would I have liked to have seen happen differently? And that might you might not be able to change that. But for that relationship, but for the relationship you're having with your kids, you absolutely can. And I don't see it. I challenged the I challenged the narrative of yes, but they have this condition or that condition doesn't mean they can't do stuff. It might mean it has to be done in a different way. Yeah. Or it might mean that, yeah, sure, there might be limitations because, you know, maybe they can't do a certain thing, but it doesn't mean that your expectations have to drop. It just means you sort of think about, okay, well, still expect my child to tidy up after themselves. they're able to do that, you know, they're able to, we're not talking for in this instance, we're not talking about children with severe learning or severe, you know, severe learning disabilities. In in this, like, you know, for the purpose of this podcast, I know there are children out there who wouldn't be able to do those things. But, but yeah, we've still got to set those expectations and not make excuses for oh, well, they've got this, you It just

means it's going to be adapted in some way, but they will eventually reach. It might take a different time frame to reach.

Yeah, exactly. It might take six months instead of two for them to learn that thing, but it is all achievable. But we've also got to be consistent with that thing. So one of my big bugbears when I was teaching was that you'd have the ed site would come in and say, here the strategies, but I suggest you put in place to help this child. And then I would then have meetings with teachers that would then say, well, I've tried all of that. Like you can't have tried the six or seven strategies on that report because we're only two weeks post the ed site coming in.

So really, you should still only really be on the first one, you've got to have that consistency, you've got to otherwise it just becomes chaos and it's the same in our parenting, you know, it's the same consistency, it's I still have the expectation that your elbows aren't on the table. I I'm going to hamper on about that, but I still have that expectation. That's my expectation. My expectation is that when we sit at the table, this is how we eat. My expectation is that when something hasn't happened for you that you're expecting, that you don't scream and shout at me, I understand that it's a, that it's a frustrating or an upsetting situation, but we can still address it. While still allowing you to feel those things. Because I think this is the other thing that people then confuse it with is, well, then we mustn't have any emotion. No, we can have all the no, we can have all the emotion. And it's a good

emotion. how we express them, what we act, the way we act on them. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah,

that's a great way. A great wrap up of everything that you've said, basically, because it's like, it's all those emotions, they are all okay, they are all correct. You just need to know how to deal with them. And, and just just it's not a great world, because it's really complicated in the heart. So that's

not a great

word. But like, it's, the concept is simple, that the application is not but the concept of I need to understand my emotion and my triggers. And I, that way, I will be able to better respond to the emotion and triggers of my child. So that's

absolutely, that's what

it comes down to, basically.

Yeah, there's, there's a, there's a concept or theory in business called Kiss, which written by a guy called Edward

De Bono. And it's basically about keep it simple. And I think that can be transferred across to parenting is that it doesn't have to be complicated. We try to overcomplicate it. Actually, at the end of the day, the simple things are the things that are going to matter, are going to make the difference. you know it's it's those keep it simple yes go and read if you want to read about something if you want to understand things absolutely but fundamentally at the end of the day it's the simplicity of it all you know we just keep things simple for ourselves and for our kids because otherwise it becomes too difficult for anybody to to follow what's going on

yes So thank you very much for for that. And that was very great. Is there any book or podcast or any website or anything that you love that you would recommend to let parents check out?

I like someone who I really admire and look up to is a guy called Gabor Mati.

and he talks very much around childhood trauma, but he has a book called Scattered Minds, which is about ADHD. He wrote it about 20 years ago. But I think reading that, it's a brilliant book. I think anybody who maybe thinks their child has ADHD or maybe thinks about it for themselves, It's a really interesting book to read. Again, it goes back, it's the simplicity of it. It's a simple book to read. It's going to take you a bit of, you know, you're going to have to sort of put some grit into it. But there is a simplicity behind it. These are the reasons why. And actually, these are the things that can help that and change the world for that person. So I really do rate that book. I really do rate him as somebody to follow because he I think he makes a lot of sense in my mind and in my experience around ADHD and trauma and stuff he is you know he just it's like he's come into my head and taken all the things that I've been thinking and and talking about it so yeah yeah I'm like it's amazing so yeah so I really I really would um would rate having a read of him or just having it looking him up on YouTube that there's a lot of stuff on there. Yeah, yeah. From him. He produces

lot of content for sure. You easily find things. I'm going to put the link for the book in the show notes.

But yeah, it's easy to find anything about like that he shares. And if people want to know more or work with you, where can they find you?

So I have a website, so .com, and I'm on Facebook, and I'm on Instagram and I'm on LinkedIn. So you can find me on all those platforms everywhere, but link to everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on

there. Thank you.

Yeah. So yeah, so that's where I am. Or, you know, if you just if you want to email me, you're more than welcome to. It's Jo at joemitchellhill .com. So same as the website.

it. So yeah, so if you want to email me and have a conversation further, you know, I'm all for that. And yeah, that's where I hang out these days, when it's not school holidays. Yeah, that's hard to juggle everything. Yeah, yeah, school holidays, I might be a bit quiet on my socials.

Totally get that. Thank you very much for being here today. You're more than welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad you joined me today and took that time out of your intense life to focus on finding a new way to parent that works for you and your kids. To get the episodes as soon as they drop, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and please leave everything in review so other parents can find it too. Also check out all the free resources on my website at familymoments .ca so you can take action on what's the most important for you right now. And take a deep breath, keep going, we're all in this together.