Answering Parents' Questions

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Episode Overview

0:30In today's episode, Mike and Ryan answer parents' submitted questions. Topics discussed include how to help a child who wants friends but resists reaching out, how to manage conflict between siblings at different developmental levels, and how parents can respond when a teen starts avoiding responsibilities by claiming they're not feeling well. They also address a controversial ADHD treatment that involves brain scans. If you're a parent trying to balance support, structure, and realistic expectations for your child,

1:02this episode should give you some practical ways to think about those challenges.

Host Introduction

1:06Welcome to the ADHD Parenting Podcast with Mike McLeod of Grow Now ADHD and Ryan Wechselblatt of ADHD Dude. Learn about parenting kids with ADHD from a licensed clinical social worker and speech-language pathologist who specializes in ADHD. No fluffy parenting advice, only practical information that will equip you to help your child with ADHD effectively. Welcome to another episode of the ADHD Parenting Podcast. Mike, welcome. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you?

1:38I'm good, thanks. So before we get started, I think some congratulations are in order. Mike's book, The Executive Function Playbook, and The Executive Function Playbook in Action, which is in the workbook, sold out their first edition on Amazon. So congratulations, Mike. And from my understanding, now they've replenished the supply so people can get the books again? Yes, Amazon is all back in stock now, so you can order and get it delivered fairly instantly, as Amazon typically does. But yeah, the response has just been overwhelming, all the presentations I do,

2:09and the schools buying it in bulk, and parent support groups buying it in bulk. It's still a five-star review with close to 50 reviews on Amazon. So if you did buy the book, you did read it, it goes a very long way to go and leave an honest review, whether you liked it or not, on Amazon and Goodreads as well.

Ryan's Rebranding

2:26But thank you, everybody, for all the support. And if you did read it, I would love to hear from you personally. So feel free to reach out. So congratulations. That's great to hear. And, of course, I've been reading the good feedback about the book on Facebook as well. Yeah, and Ryan, you recently posted a great video on the ADHD Dude Instagram and Facebook page about how there's a little bit of a name change. So some of your great followers might have noticed some new acronyms and new letters. And I'm sure everyone would love to hear about that. Yes, thank you. So we're going through a little rebranding. It's now going to be called Confident Parents, Capable Kids Method by ADHD Dude.

3:00The reason for that, I'll just tell everyone real quick. When I started this, my intention was to make a YouTube channel of educational videos for kids. That's where the ADHD Dude name came from. Like, I even had a little character I made on, like, an animation program of, like, ADHD Dude. Well, one thing led to another, and, you know, I started, you know, putting out content for parents. And it was a little expensive at the time to do animated videos. But the ADHD Dude name stopped. I never liked it. It doesn't really speak to what we do. And most importantly, over the course of this year, I'm going to be designing a training program for therapists.

3:34Because I really want this work to be not about me, but about the method. And I want people to run with it and, you know, apply it in their work with families and so on. So that's the name change. So Confident Parents, Capable Kids by ADHD Dude. So, yeah. Yeah. And one thing I noticed was because it was called ADHD Dude, a lot of people just naturally assumed that your strategies did not work with females. And I know that you have done incredible work with parents and parent training of, you know, ADHD, executive dysfunction, and females. So I think this is a really helpful thing to really make that a little bit more distinguishable.

4:07Well, thanks. And I'm glad you brought that up. Because you know what, actually, Mike, is interesting. Most of the appointments I do with membership site members who are parents, most of them are parents of girls. So, you know, yeah, it really bothered me that people thought, oh, it's only for parents of boys. Not at all. So, yeah. So I'm excited for that change. It feels like, you know, a new breath of fresh air. So, yeah.

Answering Parent Questions

4:25All right. We're going to get started. We are doing an answering parents' questions today. We have so many questions backed up. So if we don't answer your question in this episode, please know that we will get to it. It might take a few months, but we will absolutely get to it. So, Mike, I'm going to start off with the parent of a 12-year-old. She said, I have a 12-year-old boy on methylphenidate since age 7 for his combination ADHD. He also has auditory processing disorder and social pragmatic disorder. Mike, I want you to address that in a minute.

4:55While he loves sports and participates on travel club and rec teams year-round for baseball and basketball, he does not know how to initiate or carry out meaningful conversations to build friendships with peers. I don't know if I agree with that. When he complains he's bored, we encourage him to text a friend to hang out or to shoot hoops, but we are always met with resistance. He seems to be more and more satisfied with being by himself, playing on his phone or Switch or shooting hoops by himself. How do we encourage him to try to make friends, or is there a point that we should stop pushing as we've been trying to encourage him for the past seven years, and he's perhaps immune to our asks now.

5:31And let him figure this out on his own. Thanks, Concern Mom of a Content Lover. Well, thank you. Mike, I want you to address the social pragmatic disorder label because that is one personally that drives me crazy. And if it drives me crazy and I'm not a speech-language pathologist, I have to imagine it drives you even more crazy. So why don't you explain what that label is and why we both feel the same way about it? Absolutely. So I can basically already assume that the individual who did that evaluation is going off of very, you know, old, outdated information about ADHD.

6:03That ADHD is an academic-based disorder. It's attention, hyperactivity, and it's going to affect kids at school. And what we now know is ADHD is a disorder of executive functioning, and executive functioning is not time management organization. It's the ability to self-regulate and self-motivate towards non-preferred, non-instantly gratifying tasks, which goes into the second part of this question, of course. But there is an absolutely huge social aspect to ADHD, which is the zone of social executive functioning,

6:34which Ryan and I have done many episodes about, breaking down what social executive functioning is and how it truly is the crucial set of skills that really moves the needles so much more than just focusing on external behavioral-based social skills like you see at school and lunch bunches and social skills groups. So this social pragmatic disorder is not a separate disorder. You know, this all goes back to being a little bit too label-happy and creating a label for every single symptom. The social deficits are absolutely part of the ADHD in terms of social executive dysfunction.

7:10And, Mike, I just want to add to that that this is the part of ADHD that I find professionals have the least understanding about is the social piece. And to their credit, there's really not much literature on this, which is why. So what I often find is that when kids with ADHD struggle socially because they have inconsistent and lagging use of these social executive function skills, what often happens? Well, they get labeled with something. In this case, social pragmatic disorder. But the one that really bothers me, Mike, is how many kids with ADHD get misdiagnosed with autism solely because of the social piece.

7:42Absolutely. And this is what we see time and time again. You know, we have to start to recognize that ADHD is holistic. It affects all three areas of life, academic, social, and home. Most often, obviously, the home. As Ryan and I talk about, it's all about parent training and mom and dad and especially moms see the worst of ADHD behaviors. And it affects socially a lot. You know, the social executive functioning is probably Ryan and I's, you know, probably favorite thing and the closest thing to our hearts in terms of helping these kids and helping these parents. Because the social deficits are, you know, the true heartbreak of ADHD.

8:16These kids want their relationships. They want to be loved. They want to be part of a group. They want to be accepted. But they're at the mercy of their impulses due to the, you know, ADHD executive functioning challenges. And it's very hard for them to be, to have behaviors that are congruent with their feelings and their goals. And they end up, you know, as Ryan describes in his parent training program, the socially smarter, giving kids kind of cringy thoughts and not understanding internal social perspective taking. So it's not social pragmatic disorder or, you know, or, you know, in that Venn diagram of autism, this all falls under the umbrella of ADHD.

8:55And we need clinicians and individuals who are doing these evaluations to understand that and start to recognize what ADHD truly is because we're causing parents to add too many labels to their child. And when parents get one label for every single symptom, they start seeking out treatments for every single label, for every single symptom. And now this kid is probably getting ADHD stuff plus social stuff. And it's probably getting social skills when really it's social executive functioning. All right. So, Mike, to answer this question, we might go about this a different way.

9:26So I'm going to go with my thing, what I'm hearing here first. And then, you know, I want to hear yours. Let's first look at where he's at developmentally. So he's 12, meaning he's likely in sixth grade, possibly seventh grade. Developmentally, you know, early adolescence is when kids become really self-conscious. They become really inward focused in the sense that they think everybody is thinking about them all the time. Everybody is talking about them all the time. So what you described was, you know, in terms of this, that he doesn't know how to initiate or carry out meaningful conversations. When I said, I don't know if I agree with that, what this might be is what we call social anxiety.

10:01So social anxiety at its core is a fear of judgment of others. So, for example, if you feel that, you know, you might think, okay, well, if I reach out, you know, to my friend to come over, you know, my school friend to come over to play basketball, they might think I'm weird for reaching out to them. Or they might say no, and then I'll feel stupid when I go to school on Monday. That is all socially anxious thoughts. Okay. And there's names for them and we can label them. But this is something that's really common in kids with ADHD. And we know that approximately 30% of people with ADHD also meet the criteria for some type of anxiety disorder.

10:34But social anxiety is the one that I find goes extremely under the radar and particularly for boys. Because boys don't know how to articulate social anxiety for the most part. And more importantly, they have no context for understanding it because nobody has ever explained it to them. So, I can't tell you how many boys over the years, middle school boys, I've worked with social anxiety and I explained this to them. And they really thought they were the only one in the world who had this because nobody has ever explained it to them. So, I hear this parent saying this has gone on for the past seven years. He might have, you know, this kind of low grade we'll call social anxiety where he is fearful of reaching out because he thinks he's going to be judged or the fear of rejection, you know, from other kids.

11:14So, yeah, I don't fully believe that this is a matter of not knowing how to initiate. Now, it can be and we can certainly teach that. That is one of the things I teach in my guys group program. But I think we have to look at the social anxiety part here as well. And the way we help kids with that is a few things. One, we help them to understand what's called their thought distortion. So, thoughts that are not based in facts, such as, you know, if I call somebody and I ask them to hang out, then, you know, he'll think I'm weird. We have to teach them that that's called mind reading. You have no evidence to back that up, you know, and what's the worst thing that could happen?

11:45They might say no. So, that's the one thing. We also have to teach them that they are not their anxious thoughts and your thoughts don't control you. And then the most important part is we need to have what's called gradual exposure where we take these, you know, graduated risks. So, for instance, you know, first you might have to, you know, invite somebody over, you know, in school or, you know, invite somebody over, you know, through text, not through the phone. And I'm just kind of, you know, you know, just giving a, you know, a rough, you know, kind of idea here. I'm not saying it in a systematic way. But the idea is that when you have gradual exposure to things that make you anxious and you learn that you can persevere through the anxiety and it's not going to kill you, that's how you learn to get through social anxiety.

12:24And the good thing is social anxiety, if I'm right about this, is one of the most treatable conditions there are. Now, I just want to be clear, Mike, on one last thing, you know, people, Mike, as we know, they love to run to therapists for their kids. Okay, going to a therapist, sitting and talking about feelings or sitting and talking about anxiety is not something that's going to help with this. All right. What you want to do is you can, you know, read the, you know, book for parents from Dr. Ellie Liebowitz, a creator of space. If you can find, you know, a clinician that will, you know, solely focus on with exposures and, or I'm sorry, not solely, but focus on doing the exposure part of cognitive behavior therapy, that can help.

13:04But sitting in a therapist's office, doing worksheets, CBT worksheets is not going to be effective. And that's not my opinion. That's supported by research. What the research data shows is that cognitive behavior therapy shows efficacy for older teens and adults with ADHD. And the caveat with that is that they have to be motivated to participate. We don't have good evidence showing that cognitive behavior therapy works for 12-year-olds with ADHD. So that's my take. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them.

13:40But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at Redfin.com. Own the dream. Yeah, so Ryan did a great job describing the internal skill deficits and sort of what's happening internally. But when it comes to ADHD and kids who are dependent on their parents living at home, here's always the internal and the external. Parents tend to respond better to some of that internal skill deficit stuff.

14:13And the external kind of falls on the parent's shoulders. So this is the part they tend to not want to hear. So what parents need to understand overall. So first of all, discussing the mindset of ADHD frustrated, burnt out parents. What you continually hear is ADHD parents say, why won't my child just do the task? Why won't he do his homework? Why won't he do what's expected of him in the morning routine? And in this case, why won't he just go out with friends? Why won't he just go do these different things? We have to remember, the ADHD brain is the path of least resistance brain.

14:48As long as the path of least resistance is available to them, they are going to take that 100 times out of 100 times, period. So you just giving a couple of verbal prompts, a couple of, come on, please text your friends. Come on, do this. It'll be fun. But there's always a fork in the road. You're asking him to go do these things that you know are beneficial for him, that you know he needs to do. But if the other option is scroll on my phone, play games on my phone, play with my Switch, they're going to choose that every single time.

15:19And every verbal prompt and every suggestion, every heart to heart is going to go in one ear, out the other, because it's so much easier, especially if they have this social anxiety Ryan's talking about. It's so much easier to be in your bed, be in your room, scrolling on your phone, playing your Nintendo Switch, than to go out and have to share an experience, social perspective taking, and follow someone else's lead and have a 50-50 social experience. So the ADHD brain is the time-blind, instant gratification brain, what is most dopamine-producing now.

15:51So as long as screens, and oftentimes with ADHD kids and their parents, conflict, as long as screens and conflict are available to them, they are going to choose that 100 times out of 100 times. So like, for example, when you sit with your child to do homework with them, they end up getting into a three-hour fight with you instead of doing five minutes of homework, because conflict was available to them to avoid having to do the homework. So I can tell you from experience, from working with hundreds and hundreds of families, you're not going to see improvement in him doing more quantity of positive social experiences until some significant boundaries are set around that phone and around that switch, because as long as those things are an option for him, he's going to choose those things.

16:40He's going to choose the virtual world over the real world 100 times out of 100 times. I'm glad you brought up the thing about the comfort zone, Mike. I think that was really important, you know, for people to hear as well, because, yeah, that's very accurate.

Managing Sibling Conflict

16:52All right, moving on. Mike, this next question is also from a parent of two, and she says, first, thank you so much for your content. Even as an educator of 21 years, I still learn something every time I listen to your podcast. I recently signed up for the membership site and have started to devour the videos. Thank you. I guess you can say I'm anxious to get a better grasp on things at home. I'm almost certain my 7-year-old has hyperactive ADHD, my oldest, 11, is diagnosed with it, and my middle 10 has inattentive ADHD. My youngest always wants to play with his brothers, that's a 7-year-old, and the other 5th and 6th graders in the neighborhood, but it always ends up in fighting and tears from all sides.

17:31The younger one wants to play and tries to keep up, but he can't handle it emotionally or physically. He cannot follow the rules the older kids set, and the older kids are not flexible enough to modify rules for him. He also doesn't understand the social hierarchy and has a strong personality, so he pushes back and yells and fights. My older kids are begging me not to let him play, and the younger one is determined to anyway. When I keep him home, he's miserable and becomes defiant and grouchy. Even if I have things he can do, like cook, bake, walk the dogs, play a game with mom, he doesn't want to do anything with it.

18:01The resentment builds and comes out during bedtimes, with one trying to get revenge on the other. Their similar type of ADHD is like a ticking time bomb, even during the calm times. The dynamic of my older versus younger kiddos is destroying us. The gap in age is too far to expect appropriate play, yet too close to find something else to do that makes them happy. My question is, how do I manage my 7-year-old when he wants to play with his older brothers and older friends, and what can I do to encourage better behaviors between the oldest and youngest?

18:32Is this a phase, or are we doomed for the next 10 years? My affective calmness is in serious jeopardy every night, and it's exhausting. Thanks for considering my question. Yeah, so you are definitely not doomed for the next 10 years. I know it feels that way as parents, but first of all, you're probably going to want to find some other kids in the neighborhood his age. We're going to want him to practice these social executive functions in real time, in the natural environment, with other kids his age. I think it's fantastic.

19:02He wants to be with his brothers. He wants to be with other kids. They're cool. They're older. They're role models. They're more mature, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, we're at the point now where you have the older ones begging to keep the younger one at home. So I see this time and time again. You see the younger one crying and upset, and, you know, it's causing a lot of turmoil and stress and really falling on the parent's shoulders. So now the parent now finds that I need to entertain them. I need to bake with them. I need to cook with them. I need to do all those things. Don't put all of that on your shoulders.

19:34Do your very best to network with other parents, maybe in his grade, maybe in his class, maybe in the neighborhood. You know, find some other kids his age or get him involved in, you know, age-appropriate camps or clubs or sports or activities. After school, those kinds of things. Don't ask him what he wants to do. Don't leave it up to a choice. You know, find ways to get him around kids his age so he can be around kids on his more maturity level and get more of that experience. And then once he starts feeling better socially and performing more appropriate socially, then maybe he can interact with his friends more.

20:09But right now that age gap is quite large and there's a lot of executive functioning skills developed in those age gaps. So I can see how it's tough. But over time, they're going to catch up and they're going to have more similar interests and the younger one's going to gain some maturity. So this is not going to be a permanent problem. But overall, you look at the silver lining in it, it's great that your younger son wants to be with his brothers and wants to have that experience. And first of all, you have ADHD kids that are outside playing with neighborhood kids. So you're already ahead of the curve.

20:40So I really like that answer. I don't want to add too much. But what I do want to add, Mike, is, you know, to your point that developmentally, there's a big difference between a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old. And if your older boys are saying, please don't let him, you know, come because it just, you know, kind of makes it not fun for us, I think that needs to be respected. Because he's not going to catch up developmentally to where your older boys are. And whether they feel embarrassed or whether they don't, you know, they feel like, you know, they have to protect him or whatever it is, this is not enjoyable for them for him to tag along.

21:11And I love that your guys are going outside because we know that the way, you know, both social and executive functioning skills develop organically is through unstructured play and hanging out where adults are not hovering or directing. So that's great. But the age gap right now, to Mike's point, is just too big here. Now, in terms of, you know, what do you do at night when they try to get revenge on each other? We can have daily expectations in place for how family members are treated. Now, I have a new saying, you know, we're not looking for perfection. Rather, we want to give opportunities for self-correction so we can have an expectation like, you know, there is no, you know, insults or hitting with, you know, two reminders.

21:49And I say that two reminders because things are going to happen, but we want to give them those two opportunities for self-correction, okay? So I think daily expectations in place, I have videos about this in my YouTube channel, would help with the nighttime conflict stuff. And I think, you know, to your point, also, you're just going to have to say to the seven-year-old, I know you really want to play with them, but, you know, right now, you know, it's, you know, we can't do that. And, you know, you usually end up upset and they end up upset. So I think Mike's point about, you know, finding other things for him to do with, you know, kids more in his age is a good thing.

22:21Now, I also agree, Mike, that things will get better with age, but I think we also have to be realistic that, you know, it's, what, it's 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. There's a five-year age difference there, right? So when your older one, when your oldest is 15, he's not going to want to hang out with his 10-year-old brother, okay? That's developmentally appropriate. That's okay. So we just have to acknowledge that, you know, there is an age gap here and there's times when they will get it along better, you know, throughout their life than other times. But no, you are not doomed for the, you know, the next 10 years.

22:52Things will get better. And the last thing I want to add is, you know, the families where I've seen the highest rate of sibling conflict is the families where parents try to intervene and micromanage the sibling relationships. And to this mom's point, you know, her 7-year-old has to learn social hierarchy, right? He has to learn that, you know, you don't get to dictate how things work here, you know? And that's just life. That's in any family dynamic with your siblings, okay? So I think this mom's intuition is good here. And I think we just have to be realistic about, you know, developmentally where the kids are at.

23:24So, yeah. Yeah. And just overall, this 7-year-old needs his own identity. He needs his own friends. He needs to, like, literally, and don't go nuts trying to build his own little social club. Literally, all you need is one other 7-year-old, two other 7-year-olds that are his friends that he can have his own unique experiences with. And he'll gain maturity by having his own identity away from his brothers, away from, you know, causing chaos, which he may get dopamine from. And then the crying and the screaming, that's then your responsibility that happens after all the chaos happens.

23:56So it becomes this vicious cycle where you keep getting pulled in to, you know, to everyone's wishes, everyone's desires, everyone's emotions. And you getting overly involved and not being able to have your own life as a parent. So as soon as your 7-year-old starts to make one or two good friends his age, you should really start to see things improve. All right, Mike. Our last question for today. And always, I save the best for last. Okay. I think you're going to like this one. Hello. Thank you for making this podcast. I can only imagine how much work you put into it.

24:27And it truly makes a huge difference in our lives. Thank you. My question only applies if you have read the book Healing ADD by Dr. Amen. Our school psychologist recommended it. I'm sorry to be laughing during this. But, Mike, the fact that a school psychologist is recommending this, like, you know, my head's about to explode. Okay. Our school psychologist recommended it. I read it and found it incredibly insightful. Dr. Amen is a huge proponent of doing brain scans to assess your type of ADHD. And, Mike, what she's referring to is the seven types of ADHD.

24:59I don't know if you're from here. The ring of fire. Yeah. Yeah. The information he provides is very compelling. But when I dug into it, I learned that this practice is not supported by the American Psychological Association. Do you have a perspective on these brain scans? She's referring to SPECT scans. Aside from the brain scans, do you find the book helpful? Thank you for your time. So, Mike, I'm going to say I have not read the book. And I don't feel the need to read the book to answer this, you know, accurately.

25:29I'm going to start off with this. You know, I have been active in the ADHD community for a while. I speak at the International Conference on ADHD every year. I go to the Medical ADHD Conference every year. And I can tell you the individual mentioned here and his approaches are nowhere to be found in, you know, in these ADHD communities that are, you know, based in research and evidence. Okay. Okay. So, I think you should, you know, consider that, that if this person is nowhere to be found in the ADHD communities that are most active, that says something.

26:02Now, could it just be, well, they just don't want to? Yes. But the fact is, none of this work is supported by evidence whatsoever. Okay. It is emotionally compelling. It's easy for people to understand, particularly the seven types of ADHD that you can, you know, only find out about from doing a very expensive brain scan. So, to answer this question, no, this is not something I take seriously. It's not a book I would ever recommend to anyone. And I would never tell any parent to waste money on these brain scans. Because right now, we have no evidence to support that they're helpful.

26:35You know, and last thing, Mike, I want to mention, I don't know if you've seen this, Dr. Barkley has a video on YouTube where he dispels all the pseudoscientific myths that this individual and his book put out. So, that's my take on it. Yes, that's exactly what I was going to say. Dr. Russell Barkley has an unbelievable YouTube library that is so incredibly, it might be the best, you know, source of evidence-based information for ADHD parents out there. It is just, it's so incredibly valuable, him breaking down the pseudoscience and video by video, it's the best.

27:06So, please, before you go and read these different books, check out Dr. Russell Barkley. He is the worldwide leader for a reason. You know, number two, as we talk about all the time, I do a lot of professional development, teacher training, parent training. And every single time, it always happens where someone raises their hand and asks me, Mike, what is your opinion on medication? Just like this question says, what's your guy's opinion on brain scans? We've gotten too caught up in asking people for their opinions of things instead of seeking actual scientific fact.

27:39And this is the social media effect of influencers where basically you can have a guy who lives on a farm his entire life make an Instagram account and start making videos about what are the best cities in the world, basically. You know, like it gives people the opportunity to give their opinions on things when they're not experts on it just because they make fancy videos. So, we live in an era where we're constantly seeking opinions. How about scientific fact? So, people ask me, Mike, what's your opinion on medication?

28:10And I'll say to them, I'm not going to give you my opinion. I'm going to give you evidence-based, peer-reviewed research on the safety and efficacy of ADHD medication. And here we are being asked our opinion on brain scans. We're going to tell you that these are not evidence-based, peer-reviewed research proven to be able to diagnose ADHD. The science is just not there yet. And not only that, Mike, let's mention, you know, there are no seven types of ADHD with these cutesy names like Ring of Fire or whatever they are, okay?

28:40Now, you know, could there be some diagnostic expansion eventually about the types of ADHD? Sure. But again, that needs to be supported and agreed upon, you know, based on evidence, not based on names or, you know, a super expensive brain scan. Because the reality is most people can never afford this. And there's no research to back it up. And again, it's very compelling to people because this individual is, you know, is very savvy when it comes to media. And look, Mike, as we know, all you need to do is be savvy on social media and you can get a following and people will believe whatever you say, you know.

29:13Exactly. And what is even the difference between the seven types of ADHD? It's still going to be your child is going to need varied experiences, interpersonal relationships. They're going to need you to raise the bar and have high expectations. It's going to be, you know, we know what's healthy and what's positive and what allows these kids to grow. So it's not like, oh, they have the sixth type of ADHD. You're going to have to do this as compared to the third type. It's it's this it's the same kind of thing in terms of making sure they're out of their comfort zone.

29:45You have high expectations for them. And you, the parent, are not wearing 10 different hats and overwhelming and burning yourself out. Mike, our last question today is from the mom of a 15 year old.

Addressing Avoidance Behaviors

29:55And she says, my daughter is 15 and taking guanfacine for her ADHD and fluoxetine, which is Prozac for her anxiety. She tends to want to quit when things get hard. We don't let her. So now she is using the excuse of not feeling well to get out of things. This happens most often when it comes to her after school sports activities or times when we need her to do things around the house like chores. More than lying. I think she is really convinced that she is not well, but it's more mental than a physical ailment. I say this because of the timing.

30:26It doesn't happen when she has a preferred activity. When I call her out on it, she claims that I never believe her and I don't care about her health. It's frustrating because I don't know how to get her to recognize that this is a pattern of behavior for her. Also, how do I help her break this pattern? Thank you. Yeah. So the fact that it's not happening during preferred activities means that your hunch is right, that this is an avoidance technique. You know, my first instinct, you know, number one, you really need to make sure this is not someone who's on social media. This sounds like sort of a learned behavior you learn on sort of like Discord, Snapchat, those kind of things where individuals tend to self-diagnose and learn some avoidance behaviors and manipulation techniques and things like that.

31:08So obviously, you know, we all know the dangers of social media and make sure this young female, you know, who's a bigger victim of social media than teenage females? So let's definitely make sure, you know, that's not an issue. But what you're going to want to do here is you're going to want to make sure you alter the environment to keep it where these avoidance techniques are not working. Like I said earlier, the ADHD brain is the path of least resistance brain, and it simply does what works. This is why Ryan and I have to say time and time again, when ADHD kids and teens emotionally manipulate, it's not a character flaw.

31:45It's not malicious. Their brain just does what works. So they learned a successful avoidance technique, and they're doing it. They're not doing it to hurt your feelings or be a bad person. They're doing it because it's working, and it's giving them more attention and allowing them to avoid. So you're going to want to make sure when she says she's not feeling well and she lays in bed or lays on the couch, what is she doing? Is she just staring at the wall, or is she scrolling on her phone, or is she, you know, doing other things to entertain herself and avoid? You're going to want to alter that environment to make sure that when she does avoid, she's not able to also get dopamine out of it.

32:17And if she says, I don't feel well, I don't feel well, I don't want to go to my after-school activity, don't pick her up. Let her go to practice and sit and watch. If she doesn't feel well enough to participate, she still has to go and follow through on that responsibility. So don't pick her up earlier and let her avoid after-school activities. Let the coach and her classmates deal with it. And chances are, once that bar is raised and the accountability is there, she still has to go to practice and watch. She's probably going to watch her peers and then want to participate.

32:49And you'll see this behavior slowly dissipate over time. Mike, I thought that was a great answer. I just want to address the last part. When this mom says, you know, when I call her out, she claims that I never believe her and I don't care about her health. It's frustrating because I don't know how to get her to recognize that this is a pattern of behavior for her. Okay. Number one, you don't need to get her to recognize anything, right? This isn't an insight issue. This is an issue of she wants to avoid non-preferred tasks, okay? As you said, you know, and again, this mom had, you know, good insight. The thing about that, you know, you don't care about her and you don't care about her health.

33:22That is what we call emotional blackmail. It is a very common trait that kids with ADHD use. And it is highly effective, particularly on mothers. Doesn't mean they have a character flaw. Doesn't mean that they're malicious. It means they're trying to get what they want when they want it. And they are highly resourceful, so they tend to resort to emotional blackmail because it's highly effective. That's why, okay? So those kind of comments, my saying for that is ignore the noise. You don't need to respond to those comments. Absolutely do not give her reassurance and start saying, no, but I do care about your health.

33:53Because that teaches her that that works on you, okay? And then the other thing is, you know, with this, again, that you don't have to get her to recognize anything. It's just this is what's happening. You know, you're going to whatever sport after school, okay? And if she keeps, like, digging her heels in and says, I'm not going, say, okay, well, if you're really that sick, well, then you're too sick to be, you know, sitting on your phone on TikTok if you come home, you know? And she might say, okay, but again, we don't want her avoiding things because the more she learns that she can avoid things that are temporarily uncomfortable, the more avoidance grows.

34:25The more she has to do things that might be a little difficult at first or might require some effort, you know, the more she's going to develop the resiliency and realize, you know what? I am capable and I can get through this and it really wasn't such a big deal. And I'll just, I'll finish with this. I'll use myself as an example. You know, Mike, I work with a trainer now. And every morning, you know, that I go, I don't want to go. And I'm annoyed and I get there and I feel irritated. And then when I'm done, you know, I'm like, oh, I'm glad I went, right? Because I see that it's helping. So same premise there. So. Exactly. And you just, and you describe that perfectly where, you know, like, like, what are you really, like, I see this all the time from ADHD parents.

35:02Like, are you really just trying to get them to admit that they're using avoidance behaviors? Are you just trying to get them to say out loud verbally? You're right. I'm doing this on purpose. Like, you see this all the time where parents get so frustrated. They're, they get into a back and forth with their kid, which just feeds into the behaviors because the parents have the goal of having the child admit what they're doing and say out loud and those kinds of things. That's never going to happen. You're the parent. You know what's best for them. You don't need to fall for that emotional blackmail. That is such a crucial term for these, the listeners of this podcast to understand because chances are, if you listen to this podcast, you're dealing with some emotional blackmail yourself.

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36:11Mike, I just recorded a video about this, about, you know, stop trying to get your kids to admit things or can, you know, convince them of something. So I'm glad you brought that point up. All right. So thank you, everybody, for listening or watching. If you have not subscribed to the podcast, we ask that you please do that. You can, you know, listen or watch on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, I think Amazon Podcasts is called, and on our YouTube channel as well. So just please subscribe wherever, you know, you are and make sure, you know, you like the episodes because we really appreciate that. And thank you so much. And if you have a question you would like us to answer in a future episode, you can email us at the ADHD parenting podcast at gmail.com.

36:47We ask that you include your child's age medication or if they're not medicated, because that might affect our answer. And just keep your question concise and keep it to one question because we can't answer, you know, we can't read a whole book in an episode. And last thing we ask, if you would please, you know, just leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify and just take a screenshot and send it, we would really appreciate that. All right. So, Mike, thank you so much. Great answers today. And we will talk to everybody soon. Take care. Thanks for listening.

37:17To learn more about Mike's practice, Grow Now ADHD, please visit his website, grownowadhd.com. To learn about the services Ryan provides, please visit adhddude.com. You can find Mike on Instagram at grownowadhd and Ryan on the ADHD Dude YouTube channel. We'd love to hear your feedback or questions, so feel free to contact us at the ADHD Parenting Podcast at gmail.com. The ADHD Parenting Podcast and content posted by Grow Now ADHD or ADHD Dude are presented solely for general information and educational purposes.

37:55Our goal is to provide valuable insights and knowledge, not to replace professional services. Mike and Ryan cannot provide clinical consultation or free advice through social media or other forms of communication. The information on this podcast is not a substitute for professional advice. If you or your child have any medical or mental health concerns, please consult your healthcare professionals.