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Men's ADHD Support Group
We are a nonprofit organization created to help men with ADHD find community and acceptance by raising awareness about Men's struggle with ADHD and mental health. We are here to provide access to experts, tools, and strategies so that men can learn how to thrive with ADHD. It's hosted by coach & speaker Marc Almodovar ( @wellnesswithmarc ), and Shane Thrapp, Life Coach and Business Consultant (Order_from_Ka0s), among other leaders of the Men's ADHD Support Organization; find out more information about us at www.mensadhdsupportgroup.org
Men's ADHD Support Group
ADHD Parenting Featuring Mike McLeod of GrowNow ADHD
In this episode of the Men's ADHD Support Group podcast, we are doing a cross-over event for the ADHD Parents Support Group!
Our host Shane Thrapp talks with Michael McLeod, the founder of GrowNow ADHD Coaching and Co-Host of the ADHD Parenting Podcast featuring ADHD Dude Ryan Wexelblatt.
They discuss Michael's journey into ADHD coaching, the importance of executive function skills for those with ADHD, effective treatments for ADHD, and the impact of screens on children with ADHD.
They also delve into parenting strategies, balancing work and family life, and the benefits of outdoor play. Michael provides invaluable insights and practical advice for parents managing ADHD in their families.
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Introduction to the Podcast
Welcome to the Men's ADHD Support Group and the ADHD Parents Support Group podcast, new initiative that we're working on in the realm of ADHD support. I am Shane Thrapp operations director for the Men's ADHD Support Group nonprofit. And today I am joined by Michael McLeod. He's the founder of GrownNow ADHD coaching and co host of the ADHD Parenting Podcast with Ryan Wexelblatt, where they dive into practical strategies for children and families managing ADHD. Michael's executive function coaching expertise helps parents create supportive growth oriented environments at home and beyond. And I just really want to say thank you so much for coming on, Michael.
Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, this is, I was so excited when you reached out and just being a part of this support group and the Men's ADHD Support Group, this is awesome. So it's a, it's definitely a privilege to meet you and to talk to you and to be a part of all the great stuff that you've put together.
So, so yeah, this is great.
Michael McLeod's Journey into ADHD Coaching
Excellent. So talk to me, Michael, what got you into working specifically with families and children impacted by ADHD?
Yeah. So long story short I started my career. I always wanted to be a teacher long story short again ended up becoming a speech and language pathologist.
So I was training in the field of speech pathology. I was working with someone who was an apraxia specialist, which is a motor speech disorder, and we were working with a non profit organization down in Annapolis, Maryland, in Washington, DC that worked with boys with chromosomal disorders, and all those boys, of course, had apraxia, but they also had ADHD.
So I learned very quickly that there's very little out there in terms of treatment for kids and teens and, 18, 19 and below for ADHD. So I developed my own treatment model, the grow now model of internal skills for executive functioning. We did a year long research study on that. And the, the positive benefits of that has really allowed everything to kind of expand.
So everything has just been through straight word of mouth of We know real world progress and real independence gained in terms of the GrowNow model of executive functioning, which is one on one work with a child combined with parent coaching and parent training and a real model based on relationships and experiences and things like that.
And. I'm an individual with ADHD myself, so this is a very passionate thing for me, and I've always been very big on working with kids and teens on quality of life, not, teaching them the periodic table or the Pythagorean theorem and things I'll never use in life. Executive skills are the greatest predictor of success we have so being able to work directly with students to strengthen their executive functioning is all about quality of life.
Understanding Executive Functioning in ADHD
Right. Excellent, man. I did all the research and everything because you come up a lot in the ADHD Parent Support Group that I run. And one of the biggest things I've seen about you is the kind of unique approach that you come with, with the executive functions and the things like that that you mentioned.
Why is, things like that so important for kids with ADHD and the parents?
Of course. Well, that's an excellent question. I'm so glad we're starting with that, because executive functioning is ADHD. ADHD is a disorder of executive functioning, period. We have to stop talking about ADHD as ADHD.
ADHD is a terrible name for ADHD. It really is. ADHD is not an attention disorder, and it's definitely not an attention deficit, if anything, individuals with ADHD have an abundance of attention, not a deficit of attention so it's just a terrible name, and then, the whole idea of hyperactivity and kids who can't sit still, and inattentiveness, and kids who daydream, it's nonsense, and it, and it causes these kids to get ridiculed, be called lazy and just doesn't help.
So ADHD is executive Functioning developmental disorder. And then also people don't really seem to understand what executive functioning is when you say executive functioning, people think time management and organization, the ability to manage your time and organize yourself. But that's, the smallest possible piece of the puzzle here.
Zones of Executive Functioning
So there are three separate zones of executive functioning. The first is academic, which is what most people think of, which is the ability to start work. Persist it, complete it, get good grades, get your work done, study, organize your backpack, organize folders, that's academic executive functioning. But for kids and teens with ADHD, the most common symptom is actually home executive functioning.
A lot of kids with ADHD actually do quite well in school. Not all of them, of course many of them struggle and hate it, but a lot of them do quite well. pretty, pretty darn good in school. The, the, the math, the vast majority of the issues are with home executive functioning, which is two separate things.
The first is self regulation towards parents. Are they constantly yelling at parents and, constantly screaming and creating lots of stress in the home? So are they constantly just negative attention seeking and emotionally manipulating their parents? Of course not, with bad intentions, they're just doing what works.
So they're not, this is not a character flaw. The next is the ability to initiate, persist, and complete non instantly gratifying, non screen based tasks in the home. So home executive functioning is number one on this list. And the second is social executive functioning, which is very different than Then that nonsense, social skills that other people try to do.
Social skills is garbage. What is really helpful is social executive functioning. So no more of that. I contact BS and the, and the turn taking and the, and the topic maintenance and all of that. It's really just understanding perspective, taking skills and understanding the thoughts you give to others.
Social reciprocity, 50/50 relationships and situational awareness. So those are the three zones of executive functions, but the based on the internal skills executive functioning model. There are four executive functions. The first is self awareness, where you can become more aware of yourself, and aware of the impact you have on others, and be aware of how your choices also affect you and your future.
The second is self regulation of emotions, language, body, behavior. So there's your outbursts, your tantrums, your anger that you see with ADHD. The third is self motivation towards non preferred tasks. I can't tell you how many parents will say, My, there's no way my son has a self motivation disorder. He can play Minecraft for 10 hours straight.
Yes, yes, that's ADHD. But can, can they brush their teeth? Can they take a shower? Can they do the dishes? Can they walk the dog? Can they go outside? That's self motivation. And then self evaluation, the ability to learn from past experiences and apply it to the present and not repeat mistakes. So we have the internal skills that create external symptoms of hyperactivity, inattentiveness all disorganization, those things, but it's really a lack of the internal skills that create all of the external problems.
That is a lot to take in, bro. Yeah, it is. Sorry. No, that's exactly why I want you on here is to talk about those different things. Now, when you're talking about these different things with the parents, a lot of the biggest struggles that I see in the ADHD Parent Support Group is. Timing of diagnosis.
What kind of treatments do I give my kids, medication? When is the prime age that you think as a professional for parents really to think about whether or not their child has ADHD or autism or something along those lines?
Really right around, obviously depending on the child, but really five, six, seven in that range, pretty much six and up.
So obviously we talked about how ADHD is a disorder of executive functioning. No preschoolers, neurotypical or neurodiverse, have executive functioning. So you need to be at an age where there is executive functioning, where you can tell. Obviously there's going to be warning signs and red flags and Delayed milestones and those sorts of things.
Those are the things that you always discuss with your doctor, but you're, we're really not looking at medication and looking at a confirmed diagnosis. And ADHD just like autism is a spectrum disorder. So there's no two individuals with autism are the same. No two individuals with ADHD are the same.
And we've gotten so caught up in social media these days of, Oh, my son has autism. I have to do this. My son has ADHD. I have to do this. My son has dyslexia. I have to do this. We we've gotten a little diagnosis happy. You, we have to look at the unique individual, you can have autism, you can have ADHD, you can have dyslexia and you don't need anything.
You don't need a medication. You don't need therapy. If it's not affecting your quality of life and your ability to pursue your goals, you might not need anything at all. That's just, and another thing is, based on how American medicine works, you can go and get 10 different evaluations, and you can get 10 different diagnoses.
It all depends on who's doing the evaluation and what their background is in. So, there's so much gray area between all of this. You have to look at the unique individual, and you have to look at home, academic, social, and, where is there deficits, and, how can we help?
Yeah, one of the biggest struggles that we've seen and I actually heard on the podcast with you and Ryan was that a lot of pediatricians don't really know how to properly diagnose and because they're so wrapped up in needing to see so many different clients and things like that, that a lot of science might be missed.
So, One of the things that I always talk to the parents group about is like, Get your child into a doctor and get ready for a process to start developing an understanding of where your child is dealing with different deficits, right? Because we know two to three years behind in a lot of different developmental areas for most children with ADHD, we have to be able to start measuring those and understanding those.
My children were born at 27 weeks and so there's a huge Like likelihood of some sort of neurodevelopmental disorders. Also dad has ADHD and autism. And so like. When my wife and I really started looking into this my wife is a special needs teacher. We were awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Oh, yeah I'm like super lucky.
How old are your kids now? Five. Five? Awesome. Cool. And so like we see a lot of the signs but again I don't want to take my hammer and hit the nail with it every time and one of the things that we just really decided on was The pediatrician, we needed to make sure that they understood ADHD and autism, but we're not really worried about that so much because both of us are experts.
Right. And we want to make sure that the pediatrician is as aware of it. And if we start seeing signs, let's follow it, but they're five. So I don't expect a whole lot out of different things, but now looking at it. I'm fairly certain that my daughter is more on the ADHD side and my son's more on the autistic side, but again, because there's different strengths that I'm seeing with them and different things that my son does that are very on that spectrum that I realized from my childhood.
And then the ADHD side of things with my daughter, I remember from my childhood and I'm going, I'm going to put y'all in a box. We'll just see where you go from here. We'll just focus on your strengths and develop those as we go.
Effective Treatments for ADHD
Now, when you're talking about, like, not really worrying about, treatment if the children aren't showing out, what kind of treatments do you see that are effective for children who really are showing a lot of signs for ADHD in their age appropriate?
Well, I'm so happy you asked that question because this is the information parents need to hear because you and I were talking before we started recording, one of my main roles now with GrowNow ADHD is I do the intake calls. So parents call me when they find out about GrowNow, they see my face on whatever.
They call me directly. I speak to all GrowNow families directly before they start working with a GrowNow coach. And I would say 99 percent of the families who reach out to me have already been through several unsuccessful therapies in the past. They have wasted thousands of dollars and thousands of hours on things that saw zero progress.
That's because these doctors, neuropsychs, whoever it is, are still sending kids to very outdated recommendations. So number one, obviously, is talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, all of these things that are not going to strengthen executive functioning skills. We have to look at the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC, places like CHAD, what do they recommend?
as appropriate treatments. Number one, of course, medication management when appropriate. Number two has to be parent coaching and parent training. One of the things that frustrates me the most is these parents of kids with ADHD end up signing their kid up for talk therapy, signing their kid up for cognitive behavioral therapy.
And what I always hear from them is, yeah, I have no idea what's going on in there. We drop him off at the office. I know he likes going. I think they do Legos or something. I take him out. He's happy. And that's it. And they have no idea what's happening. The therapist doesn't even talk to them. Doesn't tell them what to do.
They don't discuss things like screens, or experiences, or anything. And that's not helpful. So, if your child is in any sort of therapy, and you don't know what's happening, and you're not being given homework or parent coaching, that's a major problem. Just like we discussed before, Home executive functioning and self regulation towards parents is the most common symptom of ADHD, not school based stuff, it's home based stuff.
So you, the parent, need to learn evidence based strategies on how to interact with your child, how to create an environment around your child, and how to create structure in their lives and accountability in their lives. So parent training has to be number one. And the second is executive skill training, executive skill building.
So true executive functioning, skill building, not a coach. Who's going to sit with your kid and organize their backpack and organize their folder and give them a checklist. That's nonsense. That's absolute nonsense. It has to be true skill building. Around nonverbal and verbal working memory and the internal executive functioning skills to help strengthen those things and to work directly with the parents.
And that's the grow now model is we get to know the kid is a unique individual. And that's what helps us. to then individualize the parent coaching. So we have a relationship with the child as a neutral third party. We know the child. We know their strengths. We know their needs. We know their likes. We know their dislikes.
We know that what makes them tick, what gets them going, what gets them motivated. And that's what helps us to go to the parents and say, try this. Try that. Try this. Try that of what works for their specific kid. Not every kid with ADHD, their own kid.
Right.
Parenting Strategies for ADHD
So what happens whenever you start recognizing that the parents themselves, because we know ADHD has a hereditary background, what happens when you recognize that in the parents and understand that there's probably going to be some executive function issues with the parents as well?
Oh, so we so, so we do every parent's favorite thing and we make a referral. So, you talk all the time about when I was getting my master's degree and I was getting licensed, you learn all the time about, make a referral, make a referral, you have your own scope of practice, you got to refer out, you got to refer out.
The one thing that they never teach you is that parents hate getting referrals. They want you to do everything for them. So they, so they, a lot of them get insulted by referrals. Like, why can't I And I get it. It's frustrating. And you, I totally get it. But we don't do the diagnostics.
We're not psychiatrists. We're not licensed physicians. So you, you need to go speak to your primary care doctor and get that evaluation done and learn if medication is helpful for you as an adult, learn what you need to do to manage your ADHD. And that's, it is. Insanely hereditary. It's not like a little hereditary.
It's very hereditary where, if a child has ADHD, chances are one or both of the parents has it. Also,
what is the percentage? In your opinion? I think I've seen as high as 60%. Is it? Yes,
I believe so. So I go from Dr. Russell Barkley and all his stuff. I would say I'm pretty sure it's between 60 and 75.
Yeah,
that's one of the things that I keep trying to point out in the ADHD Parents Support Group is, Hey, have you gotten tested for ADHD yourself? Like, I noticed that like a lot of the struggles that you're talking about, especially whenever they're just very upset at their child for lashing out and things like that.
And they just come into the group and they just need a place for support themselves as parents.
Challenges and Solutions in ADHD Parenting
When you see that kind of frustration, what is the, what is one of the things that you've seen that helped the children and the parents the most when dealing with that frustration of Both people having ADHD and, or both, the parent and the child having ADHD.
What tools do you give them to start managing that aspect of it? So,
What we have to remember about ADHD is it's a neurodiverse brain with very low levels of dopamine and there are two Main things that stimulate the brain and give it a dopamine rush. The first, of course, is screens. So we have to be very, very careful with screens.
If you're a parent to a child with ADHD and not have video games in your house and things like that. And number two, it is conflict. So they are a conflict. It is a conflict seeking brain. So the 18 and below ADHD brain and oftentimes adults as well get highly stimulated by the brain. And arguing and fighting and getting the full attention of others and feeling like you have somebody else in the palm of your hands.
Especially if you're a child who doesn't have a life yet, doesn't have an identity yet, is a true dependent on a parent, and you're hearing nothing but, Get your shoes on. Get ready. Pack your bags. Do this. Go to sleep. Brush your teeth. Do that. You have to think, when you tell your ADHD child to brush their teeth, what's more stimulating?
To brush, go brush their teeth and hear a good job or run around the house saying F you mom no chance I'm doing that and having your parent chase you for the next 20 minutes that or or several hours so that's the biggest thing is we have to recognize that the brain is conflict seeking and language makes Dysregulation worse.
That is the number one piece in ADHD parent coaching. The more you talk to your child when they're dysregulated, when they're attention seeking, when they're looking for you to follow them, looking for you, like we have our adult brains and we want them to do this task and we want them to do it, to do it now.
We want them to do it on our watch. That's not going to happen with most, with an ADHD kid or a neurotypical kid. It's not going to happen. Kids do things on their own time, and ADHD kids do things on their own time. So what we tell the parents is you control the environment, you don't control your child.
So get rid of the screens, unplug the TV, hide the remote, get rid of all those things that they keep trying to do, turn off the smartphone, remove the smartphone, whatever you have to do, and you say what they have to do once, Go brush your teeth. Go take a shower. Go do your homework. Say it once and get away from the child.
Your child heard you. They know what to do. They're just going to start when they're ready. Yeah,
one of the things that we put in place is We, we use the screens and honestly, I'm going to be truthful about this.
You and you and millions and millions and millions of others.
I will say this primarily, we have the screens locked down to purely educational stuff.
It's they're not watching a lot of garbage or anything like that. And. We are pretty regimented on it. And this is because my son loves schedules, loves structure and schedules. Awesome. Like he will keep time for you. And we just put a lot of emphasis on making sure that we're doing things at the same time every day.
And we really just built a culture of structure for both kids. We don't know and we don't care whether or not they're neurodivergent or not. We're going to empower them with those executive function skills from childhood on, regardless of whether or not they have ADHD or autism or anything, and pay attention to what their strengths are, and then develop that system, and One of the things that we really found that was really helpful, like you said, is not really responding to the emotional dysregulation, not really giving them that feedback that they're really looking for.
Sometimes that happens. We both will yell at them. Of course. Like, look, it is nine o'clock at night. Both of us are supposed to sleep. No, you cannot watch your tablet. Yes, you will go to bed and we're done with this conversation and you will get to have fun in your room yelling and screaming by yourself.
And, but. One of the things that really worked for us is also is sometimes they just need somebody to be there with them. And I kind of slightly disagree with you and Ryan about this, by the way. Of course. It's not so, it's not so much necessarily enabling parenting and things of that nature, because one of the ELLs podcasts, she'll talk about parents who are a little bit too permissive and things along those lines.
But one of the things that I found that was really beneficial for them is me doing some of the things and inviting them to do them with me. Yeah. And making it fun. Co-reg
co-regulation.
Right? Co-regulation. Yeah. Yeah. And at the same time, when they do have that freak out moment. Cool. Do you need help with it?
Mm-Hmm. ? Yes. Okay, cool. Let's go, let's go work on it together. Get up and do it. And then I kind of like let them get into the groove. And also another thing is, is we kind of make it into more of a timing ga or like a a instead of time based, we do it more along the lines of a. Pick up X number of things off the ground and put them away.
And then you can go back and do your thing, pick up another things a few minutes later and things like that. And we, we, of course we use Alexa religiously in this household, and it's just back and forth like that where they don't have to pick up the entire living room because that's really overwhelming.
Let's just pick up five things. Cool. Go back to what you're doing five minutes later. All right, let's pick up five more things. Now, this kind of goes to what you were saying, kids will do it in their own time. Yeah. It's cool. You can pick up those five things in whatever timeframe you are, but you won't have the screen until you do that.
And then, and then back and forth kind of going like that. So that's my tangent as far as that's concerned about what I do, but that's
actually, that's actually exactly what Ryan, I, we're not, this whole idea of ignoring all behavior, that's taking it to the extreme a little bit, what you just described is affective calmness and you being calm in the face of dysregulation, you don't have, yeah, but that's, you're co regulating.
You're walking them through it, you're setting an expectation, you're not lecturing them and giving them monologues and words, and you're undivided attention when they're dysregulated, you're basically saying, okay, you need some help right now? What, what, the way you phrased that is actually what I talk about all the time is, hey, take as much time as you need, come to me when you're ready, and then you leave.
And then they can come back then. I
misunderstood that from what I was listening to. And now I have to go back and listen to it again because I was just like, it sounded like y'all were kind of like, actually no, now that I'm thinking about it and you triggered my memory and everything. Now I'm getting to what it was that you were negative about it.
It seemed more, what did y'all call it? Noise. No. Ah, this is why you write notes, Shane. Emotional manipulation
or noise or
Well, it was the, it was the part about different types of parenting that a lot of the influencers are putting out there about being a little bit
Low demand
parenting. Low demand parenting.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So I was, I was thinking of low demand parenting and I think I was comparing it more closer to positive parenting techniques rather than low demand, which is two separate things. Right.
So based on 100%, so, so low, based on what you just described, cleaning things up and putting them away, picking things off the floor and putting them away based on 2024 Instagrams, pathological demand avoidance, low demand parenting stuff you're going to find out there, pseudoscience.
It's. I can't ask my kid to clean up his mess because it's going to set off his nervous system and he's going to, he, I can't place a demand on him. I'm just going to have to clean it up myself. So, so low demand parenting is true, like, is, has become. In by definition, permissive parenting, which is over indulging your child to avoid conflict.
So you see there's a mess on the floor instead of taking the screen and saying, clean up when you're done, you get the screen back. You basically just do it for them because you don't even want to bother them because we're avoiding conflict at all costs.
I'm actually thinking back to one of my friend's moms, that's, that's how she was.
She was like, I just can't argue with this kid. I'm just like, I remember growing up late and I grew up in a pretty like hardcore parenthood with parents. Like, like I didn't have a choice, but to do the thing because there was significant consequences, including pain if I didn't do them.
So you had a close friend growing up who had a very highly permissive parent.
Yeah. And he grew up and he was just. All over the place. He would come home cause we were roommates for a long time. And he would come home, F my boss. He can't see here and tell me what to do. I'm like, I mean, technically speaking, he's your boss. Like, what is it that he was wanting? Well, you wanted me to go outside and pick up a whole bunch of pallets without the forklift.
That sounds like work, and you're a warehouse guy that kind of, what's your work what's your work description say,
there you have it. There, that, that, that's exactly it. So you just gave the absolute perfect example of what permissive parenting does to a child. They never learn social reciprocity.
They never learn 50 50 relationships. Their brain gets hardwired towards all take and no give.
How pervasive do you think that is in, in not to sit here and like be the old man, like yelling at the kids? How, how pervasive do you see that in our current generation moving forward?
Well, I think it's getting worse for two reasons.
The Rise of Social Media Pseudoscience
Number one is social media pseudoscience and all these, BS parenting gurus out there that are just, just posting, it's a lot easier to get likes and follows when you post feel good information where it's not negative attention seeking, it's connection seeking. It's, like the more feel good information you put out there.
That make people feel good, they're going to follow you if you tell it like it is. And you're, you don't beat around the bush, you're not going to have as much success.
The Impact of Screens on Parenting
So social media pseudoscience one and number two, I hate to harp on this topic, but it's screens. Screens have increased permissive parenting because they've created an uphill battle that a lot of parents.
Just can't win. Back in the day, it wasn't that hard to take, a kid's Nintendo away or to take a kid's, Legos away or action figures away or whatever to get them to do things because they eventually got bored and did things. Now we have straight up addictive drugs in our house, to the ADHD brain.
The ability to touch something with your finger and make it change is an instant stimulus response, and it's an addictive drug, and all of big tech knows it. Big tech sees ADHD kids, and they see dollar signs. So, all these online games, Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, YouTube, smartphones, iPads, computer games.
There are drugs to the ADHD brain and they dysregulate the child. They addict the child. They're marketed as social. So the parents feel bad taking them away because the parents think that they're going to, Oh, he's going to lose all his friends if I take his phone away. Or he's going to overindulge later in life.
And he's going to be ostracized and made fun of by others if he has no phone or if he has a flip phone. Or if he can't play Fortnite with his friends, he's made so many friends playing Fortnite. It's, it's, it's, it's bad. It's really, really bad out there. And it's created an uphill battle that a lot of parents are just too scared to fight.
So they just become permissive.
Personal Anecdotes on Screen Time
Yeah, my son figured out how to get Alexa. We took the tablets away for a couple of days. Like, hey, let's take a break. I think we're going to take a break. We're going to spend some more time outside. We're going to do some more artwork, stuff like that. And now granted, again, our tablets are locked down pretty hardcore.
They have games that are just purely creative coloring, stuff like that. There's no roadblocks. There's no fortnight or five, but there's nothing like that. They have access to educational stuff. And my son is just a sponge and. But we were like, okay, we've had enough on the screen. Let's go ahead and take a break.
Y'all are having a little bit more meltdowns now than normal. Let's take a break. Everybody took a break and my son figured out how to get Alexa to do all the things. This is a child who is five going, Alexa. Play this video and Alexis like, okay. And he's just like, and I'm like,
it's one of those screen based Alexis.
Yeah. Yeah. Now we have all dots. They're all dots. We have one that's like that. It's in my office and, and he's just like watching and I'm like.
Yeah, it's
crazy. Where did you learn? What? And time to find out, his grandma had taught him to speak to Alexa, to ask, to ask her what, where the temperature was somewhere.
And he retained that knowledge and started playing with different things for Alexa to play with. He's five. And I'm like, Where, how? And I'm like, okay, Nope, Nope. This is not going to.
Yeah.
The Struggle with Screen Addiction
And good for, and good for you for recognizing that and cutting it back. You said something very simple, but quite profound earlier, it's time to take a break.
Cause you guys have been having more meltdowns the amount of parents that are, are experiencing that on a daily basis, constant meltdowns. And they know deep down, they know it's the screens. They know that the kid is having more meltdowns. Because they're constantly living in the virtual world, so the real world is giving them anxiety and frustration, but they won't do anything about it.
They'd rather sign their kid up for talk therapy, and hope that the therapist can just teach my son how to self regulate, teach my son how to have a balance. This whole idea, so this is something I'm learning in my interactions with parents, is These parents just wake up every day and pray that their kid is going to learn to have a balance.
I want him to have a balance where I don't have to be the bad guy and take screens away. He's going to learn himself to turn those things off and go outside and do other things. I'm sorry. That's, that's a pipe dream. It's not going to happen. It's especially if your kid has ADHD, it's not going to happen.
And you're not going to be able to sign your kid up for therapy. And get a therapist to motivate your kid to do something else. The second that kid gets out of that therapist room, is in the elevators, in the car, that phone's coming out, they're gonna get home, they're gonna get on the Xbox, and that entire hour was wasted.
And the money you spent on that therapist was wasted, because they're going right back into the virtual world. So you can't hire a therapist to be the bad guy, and you're not gonna just hope and pray for balance when all they ever want to do is you know, screens. are the most gratifying, instantly stimulating thing.
Period. To the point where everything else pales in comparison. Everything. Being with a friend, getting a good grade going somewhere new, exercising, reading a book, hearing a new song. Nothing is as cool as being on a screen. So they're gonna choose to do that over everything else.
Yeah, I say this as I have two screens, an Alexa, my phone, my Xbox. Yeah, well, I say that though, but I work from home. So all my stuff is in one location. You're
also an adult with a fully developed, a fully developed brain. So, I, I understand like you talk, you're very open about your diagnoses and things like that, but you're an adult, like adults.
Struggle with screens, I think I think nine out of ten adults would say yes. I'm on my phone too much Yes, i'm on screens too much. Yes Yes, I I hear all the time from from my loved ones. You're on the phone too much and that's me. I'm an adult But we're giving these to children. We expect them to have a balance.
We expect them to self regulate themselves No, we're stealing their childhood away from them by giving them a drug
Balancing Parenting and Child Agency
a lot of people I think will come You Into these conversations that we're having here and things like that. And we do hear this kind of with the, the wow. Low, wow,
low
demand parenting, low demand parenting.
We hear a lot of things like this from low demand parenting is you're taking away the agency of the child. How do you balance both being the parent and needing to give your child structure And still allow them to have the agency to feel like they're, they're a little bit more in control of their lives.
How do you work that balance in there? Well, that's, that's such
a caveat.
That's a little bit too broad of a question. I think.
No, it's a great question. I'm actually, I'm no, I think you worded it very well. Okay. Worded, you worded it very well, because I think you described what a lot of parents are saying.
And this is sort of this uphill permissive battle. I think, I would say 99 percent of permissive parents don't want to be permissive parents. They just fall into these traps unintentionally. And we've kind of, with social media pseudoscience, it's, I really think, if I signed my kid up for soccer, it would be really good for him.
But, I don't, but when I ask him, he says no. So I have to, I have to agree with the no, because if I sign them up, that'll give them anxiety or I'll traumatize him. So there's a lot of really bad information out there. So, kids need free unstructured play away from adults. All kids need it. And that's what screens are taking away from kids is free unstructured outdoor play where they are in control.
They are using their imagination and all of that. It is your role as a parent.
The Importance of Varied Experiences
Remember, there's, some nature, some nurture, your kid is who they are, regardless of who their parent is, in, in many ways this is what Dr. Russell Barkley talks about parents are shepherds, not engineers, so you, you push your child into different things, you don't engineer them, they are who they are, based on their DNA, in many ways but Overall, your role as a parent is to ensure your child has varied experiences.
The trap that so many parents fall into is they allow their kids to find a comfort zone and stay in that comfort zone. How many of you, how many of you listening to this podcast right now have a child who wakes up and Goes to school, comes home and stays home and doesn't leave the walls of the house until the next morning when it's time to go to school.
And some of you may even have a kid that doesn't even go to school and refuses to go to school and lays in bed all day and watches YouTube. Cause that happens as well. But in general, most of these kids, every single day looks the same for them. And that's a problem. It's so somewhere along the lines, we came under the impression that kids develop skills through lectures.
And through worksheets somehow we learned that that's how kids learn, which is nonsense. And especially, especially, especially not for executive functioning skills, the greatest predictor of success we have, it is experiences that develop executive functions, experiences through play and experiences away from parents.
So it is your job as a parent, sign your kid up for as many different things as you can. Like we, we talk about over structuring kids, but you know, things like. Robotics, things like debates, things like karate, things like that, those are a lot of those things are just unstructured play based things, especially for younger kids.
Yes, you can over structure a kid. Yes, and it could have a negative impact. But overall, You just want, you want them staying after school. You want them sign up for activities. You want them sign up for clubs. You want them going to the library. You want them going to the YMCA. You want them spending as much time out of the house as possible.
Within the walls of the home is where the dysregulation is. Why? Because that's where mom and dad are. And mom and dad have something different than the teachers, than the peers, than everybody else. And that's a little thing called unconditional love. And if anyone doesn't fully understand unconditional love, it's a child with an ADHD brain.
They don't get it. All they do is they see two people that keep doing for them, keep loving them, keep coming to them, even when they treat them like crap. So it's a very odd thing for them to understand. So you, you as the parent need to get your kid outside, moving. Playing with other peers, with other adults, feeling a sense of purpose within their community.
That's what builds self confidence. That's what helps a child feel good. And start that at a young age, keep them away from screens, get them out of the house, and then they're going to start to pick and choose as they get older, what they like, what they don't like, what they want to do, what they don't want to do.
And you can fade back as the parent.
What about whenever you're dealing with parents who, and especially in this socioeconomic phase of our country, are dealing with working two jobs, aren't able to be at home as much, like, how can they put in place anything like this if they're not able to even be at home with their kids?
So, most public
schools have afterschool and extracurricular activities as part of the school based program through your taxpayer dollars to go to that public school. So, so whether you're signing your kids up for, afterschool sports, afterschool activities, most schools have it. You just have to work with the school to make sure your kid does not get on the bus.
You, or if you pick them up from school, don't pick them up after school. Pick them up when the activity is finished. So always look into those extracurriculars and, your local library tends to have a lot of programs or, if you're able to get a college student babysitter or some sort of cheap labor as a babysitter, they don't go directly home after school, take them to the playground and say, Go go play.
See you later. I'll take you home in an hour. That sort of thing. So, there's a reason why we talked a lot about social media and social media pseudoscience and what people do for likes and follows. There's a very big reason why we don't hear enough about the benefits of outdoor nature based play.
And the reason for that is when kids do that. Nobody makes money, nobody makes money when a kid goes into the forest, when a kid plays down the street, or when a kid goes to a local park and plays on the playground or plays basketball. No one's profiting off of it, so you don't hear about it enough. So there is enough out there in the world for kids to do and for kids to experience outside of the home, regardless of your overall
income.
Absolutely.
Medication vs. Supplements for ADHD
I want to switch gears and we've got just a little bit of time left, but I do want to cover some something around medication supplements and things of that nature in the ADHD Parent Support Group. I see a lot of things in there where parents are very hesitant to put their children on medication, even if the doctor suggests it and a lot of people suggesting different supplements like Omega 3s, Saffron, Magnesium, and different things like that.
What are your feelings as far as using these supplements versus medications?
So the
supplements Medicaid, okay. What are your feelings about these supplements versus medications that are that are being advised by doctors? So
the supplements are not going to improve ADHD, period. So these are basic things you get at the, at CVS or like GNC or whatever.
Those things are not going to improve ADHD. Are they, could they be okay for your general health? Is taking omega 3s and, having a Mediterranean diet and things like that good for your overall health? Sure. Yeah, but, taking supplements that you buy at a drugstore are not going to strengthen executive functions and decrease ADHD symptoms.
It's just not gonna happen. Parents will do whatever they possibly can in these days to keep their kids off of meds because there's a lot of pseudoscience out there about medication. And they're abused on college campuses, and you hear all these horror stories on Facebook of, Oh, oh, my kid had all these mood swings, and he couldn't sleep, and he lost 50 pounds, and, You just hear all of this stuff, that it's very scary to parents, And there's all this stuff about big pharma, and all this stuff But, you have to go with your doctor, ADHD medication is, It's highly, highly evidence based, highly research based.
It's one of the most studied medicine in all of psychiatry and the benefits are actually enormous. If you get started on meds early enough, it actually, what Dr. Russell Barclay talks about is it actually speeds up that development of the prefrontal cortex and it gets to a point where you might not need medication anymore at all.
But I get it. It's scary. It's scary to put a young kid on a stimulant. And. I think one of the negatives about ADHD medication is there's probably one too many ADHD medications these days. So it's very, so this whole trial and error process of figuring out the right medication, the right dosage, that could really be hard on parents.
So I totally get that, but you gotta have these conversations with your doctor. Please do not use social media. To learn what supplements and what medication to give your child talk to somebody with a license Not with not with you know in today's world people care more about number of followers Than number of degrees and number and background, please talk to a license based physician somebody that has dr Md in their name, whatever it might be Don't go with john from facebook who has a thousand friends please please Get off my heels.
Yeah, or
my heels on Instagram. Yes, please. Now, we talked about those supplements, so, and, and, and, but there are supplements out there that are showing promising results for helping with various aspects of ADHD, like saffron. There's a couple of different studies that are out there that show that in some cases, saffron is just as effective as Ritalin in in treating some various aspects of ADHD, not all of ADHD, like, Ritalin, but some aspects of it.
What are you, what do you say to things like that?
I would have to say that I would need to see those studies. I would need to take a, take a pretty deep dive through that. And you got to see are these, true peer reviewed controlled studies. There's so many different things, what else was happening, in these kids lives while they were taking saffron.
Were they go, were they going through a screen detox? Were they exercising more? What were they exposed to? And this is the thing about ADHD. I mentioned earlier, ADHD is a spectrum based disorder. So, you're not going to give 10 kids with SAF, 10 kids with ADHD, saffron, and see the same results in all 10 of them.
They're all so different. Are they all boys? Are they all girls? Were they all inattentive type? Were they all hyperactive type? Were they, which one of them had serene access? Which, which one didn't? Which one sat sedentary for hours, which one didn't, which one had a school laptop, which one didn't, we get so caught up in show me the research, show me the research, but a lot of research out there is, is, a lot of it is nonsense because you don't know the full story.
You don't know the big picture. That's, that's kind of what you get these days where you talk about something. But at the end of the day, it's. Experiences and movement, few things. If you want something that shows the same progress as medication without medication, it's constant exercise period.
It's being outside, being in nature, constantly moving. There's enough research there to tell you that ADHD kids need regular exercise, regular outdoor play. So if you are, if you are really anti meds and you want to do something that gives you the same benefits of medication, it's regular outdoor exercise.
Right. And we know exercise is one of the leading treatments for ADHD across the board for adults and children. So, now, are there, okay, people can take supplements, they can give their children supplements just to, for general brain health, general physical health and everything. Are there any supplements that you really see on the pseudoscience that are being pushed that are, that you've seen are really harmful for children with ADHD?
Interesting.
I wouldn't say harmful. I just think it's, it's, it's a waste. I think, I just think overall it's a waste of time. You're you're, you're giving kids these, you're, you're afraid of big pharma from a prescription drug, but you'll give them something that's over the counter at CVS.
There's That's not been tested by the FDA. Exactly, exactly. So it's, it's I'm not going to say harmful because once again, it's all based on the unique individual and where they're getting it and all those things. But, the reason you're giving it to your child to decrease ADHD symptoms, that's not going to happen unless, parents will give their kids anything to keep themselves from having to remove screens and be the bad guy and deal with those withdrawal behaviors for two, three weeks.
So. If you're kind of scapegoating from having to be an authoritative parent and do the hard things and instead you're just going to try a new supplement I don't think that's going to work out very well for you.
I think one of the biggest ones I see that I actually do feel is harmful is this new push to be really using a lot of metformin.
for sleep supplementation and everything because a lot of kids with ADHD have struggles with sleep, especially if you're letting them have their tablet at night. Oh yeah, it's like eight o'clock that's the tablets away. Now you know one of the biggest things that I've seen in the group and I've actually wrote a blog about this was some of these parents were giving their children 10 milligrams of metformin and that's That's higher than an adult dosage.
And they're essentially just trying to knock their kids to hell out, and like, that's one of the big ones that I think is that I'm seeing out there. That's really causing a lot of harm because it can cause issues such as bedwetting irritability. Emotional dysregulation issues. And I'm like, I see the same parents talk about, oh yeah, I give my kids this, and then all of a sudden about 55 days later, I see another, my kid will not stop screaming.
And I'm like, maybe they're related. Cause that's a symptom of metformin overdose, let's, let's make sure.
Final Thoughts and Best Practices
So give me some of your final words on best practices for parents who are looking to get their kids the support they need and give me your final words on that.
Sure. Yeah. So, obviously one of the biggest things you have to look for is how often is your child out of their comfort zone?
So that's the biggest thing is the small and narrow ADHD comfort zone, which tends to be screen, screen screens, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft. You're, That screens, the reason why I make such a big deal about screens is it's a massive obstacle in the way of progress. There are far too many parents out there that are spending so much money on evaluations, on diagnostics, on lots and lots of therapies and counseling and all these different things, but they're not doing it.
taking care of the screen issue because they're waking up every day praying for a balance or praying for skills. At the end of the day, you can have your child can work with Dr. Russell Barkley himself for five days a week, five hours, five, five days, five hours a day, five days a week. But if they're still, Outside of those sessions, spending their entire life in the virtual world, getting stimulated by a video game or a screen, those sessions are going to be nonsense.
And they're not going to gain, they're not going to gain anything from them because their entire life is spent in the virtual world where they're in control. So the real world, where they have no control, is going to give them a lot of anxiety and a lot of dysregulation. So, yes, you're going to have to do the hard thing and deal with withdrawal behavior.
And that's exactly what it is. Parents, every single time I talk to a parent about having to remove screens, every single time the fear of God just comes over their face. And that's what it is. That's exactly like if I said to a parent, Oh take his Legos away, take his books away, take his action figures away.
They'd say, okay, I'll do it right now. But when it screens it's, Oh God, I don't know if I can do that. That's going to be bad. That's, that's a sign of how serious this problem is. That's a sign that this is an addiction. This is a drug. And that's the one of the biggest things. I can't tell you how many families we've worked with that's just refused to follow the screen recommendations.
And then the kid, Graduates high school. The IEP is gone. The 504 is gone. They're not employable. They can't go to college. And they're right back at square one and all that money they spent on advocates, on therapies, on evaluations Down the drain because the one thing was never dealt with. So that's a really, really big piece.
But overall varied experiences. I firmly, firmly believe that kids with ADHD have unbelievable gifts and each one has the ability to Share something with this world that nobody else can and too many times what gets me so passionate about this work Those skills and those talents remain dormant inside of them because they never get a chance to practice different things You may think your child is very unathletic.
He just hasn't had enough experience playing sports. You might think they're not artistic, or they can't play a musical instrument, or they don't like being outside, or they don't like drawing. Maybe because they were just given screens too early where they never got a chance to practice those talents.
So you have to make sure your kids are spending time outside of the home, outside, Having varied experiences, being held accountable to other adults. And one of the most important things that I want dads to understand, they're listening to this moms, whoever is just be your kid's parent, just be the parent.
Don't be the homework secretary. Don't be the school secretary. Don't drive them insane about homework. Parents get so worked up over homework and they think it's a reflection of their parenting skills. If their kid gets homework done or if their kid doesn't, I hate homework. I think homework is stupid and homework should never be given.
It is, no, it is the dumbest thing ever. And it's homework completion and homework success. Does not predict later success in life. So stop driving your kids nuts over homework. Find ways for them to do it somewhere else at school, at the library, with a peer in a pod of group of kids, whatever.
They don't have to do it with you. Stop checking their Google classroom every day. Stop driving them nuts. Don't talk to them about school, about grades. Let school and home be separate and just be a parent. Just be a parent. Just be their friend, guide them through life, be their shepherd, guide them through life into new experiences.
Don't drive them crazy over school stuff.
Yeah, but school stays school. I hate homework and I know my kids are gonna have to deal with it and stuff like that, but I'm like, cool, homework, outside, go do it on the table there. Yeah, at least you're outside, and I'm like, you're kidding gardens, why are you bringing homework home?
And I talked to the teacher about it and I'm like, And she's like, we have to prepare them for the for the school year. That's nonsense.
That's nonsense.
And I'm on the strategic committee for the Winston Salem school system. And I'm sitting there going in there. They are not going to be happy with me whenever I sit here and start railing against homework.
I'm just like, cause I hate it. A kindergartner, a kindergartner getting homework, are you kidding me? Those are the kids that need to be outside the most. So, so their, their homework should be go outside for two, three hours every day after school. And the fact that they're being given homework, keeping them from having free play, is hurting them more than helping them.
Yeah.
Conclusion and Contact Information
Alright, so how do people find you? Plug your stuff. Sure, so my website is GrowNowADHD. com so go right on GrowNowADHD, type in the information and you'll schedule a call directly with me to learn about GrowNow Services. So you'll get my number, you'll call me directly so find me on the website, GrowNowADHD.
com, and then follow me on Instagram. at GrowNow ADHD. So just if you listened to this interview and you liked it and you ended up following me, send me a DM, tell me about it. I would love to chat with you. I answer all those DMs myself. So, fill out the form on my website, message me on GrowNow ADHD, listen to the ADHD Parenting Podcast with Ryan and myself, leave a nice review and and reach out.
I would love to, to get to know you
guys. Definitely, man. Thank you so much for coming on. This has been a really good conversation. You've affirmed a lot of the things that I'm already doing. You've opened my eyes about a couple of things. And I think that's one of the best things about podcasting is getting that kind of feedback.
So thank you so much, Mike. You have a great day.
Yeah. And thank you for having me. You are a fantastic host and you do a great job with this. So, it's, it's been a privilege meeting you, man. Thank you so much.
