Debunking Four ADHD Parenting Myths

Introduction to ADHD Myths

0:00Mike and I see it as our job to provide clarity in the ever-increasing sea of misinformation about parenting kids with ADHD. So today we're tackling four of the loudest myths in Facebook ADHD parenting groups and walking through what the actual research says. Welcome 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

0:30pathologist who specializes in ADHD. No fluffy parenting advice, only practical information that will equip you to help your child with ADHD effectively. So Mike, welcome. And Mike, as you and I know, you know, personally, I cannot look at Facebook ADHD parenting groups because they make me anxious because of the amount of misinformation I see. But I will say, you know, anytime I put on social media, Mike, I feel like there is double the amount of misinformation about parenting kids with ADHD or even just ADHD in general as there was the day before. And, you know, this is just making

1:03things so hard for parents to be able to discern between what is factual information, what is opinions, and what is just straight out misinformation. Exactly. And these ADHD parenting groups on Facebook and Instagram and social media overall, they're well-meaning, they're often passionate, but they are frequently wrong and not based in actual research and science. And this misinformation spreads faster than the research it ignores. It's algorithm driven, the exact same things that's getting your kids

1:35screen addicted. They're emotion driven and anecdote driven. And that's the problem we're looking to help educate and stop today. Our job on this show has always been to translate the actual research for parents in an easily digestible way to help you understand so you can make meaningful change. And right now, with all the misinformation that's out there, this matters more than ever. So today we're going to talk about four of the loudest myths circulating these groups, what parents

2:08are saying, what the research actually shows, and what to do with it.

Myth One: Genetic Panel Testing

2:13All right. So let's get started with myth number one. Genetic panel testing tells you which ADHD medication will work for your child. So the myth commonly in Facebook ADHD parenting groups is that parents are being told by other parents and sometimes even by professionals and by clinics marketing the test that a cheek swab test will identify the right ADHD medication and dose sparring you the trial and error that we know we need to go through to find the right medication. So here's what the research actually says. Pharma genetic testing for psychiatric medications is not recommended for routine clinical

2:50use to guide ADHD prescribing in children. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has stated that this testing should not currently guide medication selection in children. And the American Psychiatric Association's resource document concluded the evidence does not support routine psychopharmagenetic testing for psychiatric prescribing. So studies on commercial panels, and I'm not going to name the companies here, but we all know the big ones, they consistently fail to

3:21show clinically meaningful improvement over standard prescribing practice. And the variants these panels test affect drug metabolism. They do not reliably predict which medication a child will respond to. And I want to mention, I go to the medical ADHD conference pretty much every year, and this comes up every year at the conference. Also at this year's international conference on ADHD, Dr. Carolyn Lentz-Parcells, who's an amazing pediatrician in the Fort Worth area, explained during her talk that these genetic panel

3:55testings only have two markers on them for stimulants. So even if they were accurate, you're not getting a full picture with them. So the bottom line is those tests are not crystal balls. They tell you a tiny piece of how a body processes a medication, not whether it will help your child. The actual research-based approach is still careful titration with a knowledgeable prescriber who tracks responses. And if a parent group is telling you a $300 cheek swab test will skip the work, the research is not on their side. So just know that. So myth number two is that all ADHD kids need therapy. Every ADHD kid

4:32should be in one-to-one talk therapy. If you're not sending your child to a therapist, you're not advocating for them. That is a huge thing Ryan and I see all the time on these parent Facebook groups. What the research actually says is that the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Clinical Practice Guidelines for ADHD lay out the first-line treatments by age. Ages 4 to 5 is always going to be parent behavior training as the first line, medication added if needed. Ages 6 to 11, FDA-approved

5:07medication and behavior parent training. And possible also now for this age, behavioral classroom interventions, which often looks like the teacher training. And then ages 12 to 18, FDA-approved medication and behavioral training interventions. The Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology lists the well-established evidence-based psychosocial treatments for ADHD, which is behavioral parent training, behavioral classroom management, behavioral peer interventions, not your adult-directed

5:44social skills groups, and then organization training for older kids. What's notably absent from both lists is individual play therapy, talk therapy, counseling, CBT with the child as the stand-alone treatment for ADHD. So what is common on this list, what you see the pattern here, is that it is parent behavioral training. So this concept of having your child be the stand-alone treatment,

6:14having a therapist or a counselor work to fix the child or improve the executive functions in a one-on-one environment, that is not what is helpful. So overall, we have to remember, ADHD is not depression. It is not anxiety. Sure, these things can go hand in hand, but what all the research tells us is that when you strengthen executive functions, both mental depression and anxiety decrease. The research-backed interventions are skill-building and environmental, not insight-oriented. The work

6:49happens with the parents and in the classroom, not in a one-to-one therapy room with the child. So Mike, I just want to clarify a few things for people because I am a licensed mental health professional after all. And people often will say to me, well, I know how you feel about therapy. And I tell parents, how I feel about anything is completely irrelevant. What's relevant is the research that Mike just stated. So one thing I just want to clarify for everyone, Mike, in the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, which is part of the American Psychological Association,

7:21in their treatment recommendations, we say that they mention behavioral parent training, which is often called parent behavior training or even behavior therapy. It is a very confusing term for parents. And the, you know, American Academy of Pediatrics left that vague on purpose, which I think was a horrible idea because many parents, they hear, oh, behavior therapy. That means my child has to be working with somebody to improve their behavior. No, that's not what it means. Okay. The other thing, behavior classroom management means things like a positive behavior support plan. It's accommodations, you know, and scaffolding we put in school to support students to be able to stay

7:56in the classroom and to be able to be successful. The last one I wanted to mention is the behavioral peer interventions. Now, this is a really confusing one. What this actually is, is training the other students in the class about ADHD so they can be more understanding of their peers. I only know of one program for this and it was tested and showed evidence. I don't think it was ever put out. That was done by Dr. Amori Mikami. I think she's at Seattle Children's Hospital now. And what they showed was it was effective, but I don't think anybody's ever put out, you know, a program for that. So

8:29that also can be confusing for parents. And the last one, Mike, that where, you know, we talked about organization training, what that means is executive function skill training. So that is what is provided by GrowNow. And if you, you know, want to look into that for your kids, you know, please make sure you go with somebody who actually has, you know, extensive training in this, not just somebody who says, I work with lots of kids with ADHD. And please keep in mind, you know, there are great ADHD coaches out there. And then there are people who are licensed clinicians like the staff at GrowNow. And then there are people who just call themselves an ADHD coach and they took, you know,

9:02a three-hour course online. There's a big difference in skill sets between individuals who do this work. So please remember that if you're looking for somebody to, you know, work with your child directly. And again, they are not doing therapy. They are working on building executive functioning. And the most effective intervention will involve the parents. So what Mike does and what the staff at GrowNow does is that part of the session, and Mike, correct me if I'm wrong, part of the session is with the student and part of the session is with the parent. Because if you are only working with the kid, you know, that's not going to be very effective because skills are not really going

9:35to be able to be generalized. Yeah. And sometimes I have to remind parents of that. You know, they could be working with Dr. Russell Barkley himself, five days a week, multiple hours a day. At the end of the day, ADHD is a working memory disorder and a performance disorder. You know, there's no amount of work they can do one-on-one with a therapist, then that's going to make them leave that therapy room or leave that Zoom and then want to do non-preferred tasks more. They're still going to be at the mercy of their impulses outside of that session. And I'm so glad you made that first point. You know, social media, really the foundational issue with social media

10:08is it gave everyone a platform to express their thoughts and opinions, where in the past, it was just people with actual credentials and training that were giving their opinions, real professionals. So Ryan and I get these questions all the time of, I know how you feel about therapy or tell me your thoughts on medication because we've gotten so, so used to listening to people's thoughts and opinions when in reality, we're not giving our thoughts and opinions on medication and therapy. We're giving you the scientific facts. All right. So moving on to myth number

Myth Three: Sensory Related Issues

10:38three, everything is sensory related. So the myth that we often see in Facebook, you know, ADHD parenting groups is that, you know, every meltdown, every refusal, every behavior gets attributed to sensory needs or sensory processing disorder. And parents are paying, you know, for sensory integration therapy and occupational therapy and avoiding triggers as a way of life. So let's talk about what the research actually says. Sensory processing disorder is not a recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5, which is the

11:08diagnostic manual used to diagnose neurodevelopmental differences such as ADHD and autism and also mental health, you know, challenges. It was considered for inclusion and rejected for lack of empirical support. The American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2012 policy statement that still stands today advised pediatricians not to use sensory processing disorder as a standalone diagnosis. And they noted that limited evidence for sensory integration therapy as a treatment for behavior or attention concerns.

11:42So sensory differences are real and are common in autism and ADHD. My son had plenty of sensory issues, still does as an adult. So that's not in dispute. The dispute is whether sensory processing disorder exists as a separate freestanding disorder. The research does not support that framing. So some sensory accommodations help some kids and the evidence for sensory integration therapy as a treatment for inattention or behavior or learning is weak. So calling everything sensory is often a way to avoid the

12:14harder, more specific work of figuring out what's actually going on, such as frustration tolerance, executive functioning, transitions, emotional regulation. Sensory tools have a place. They are not a treatment plan. So please be skeptical of any clinician or program selling sensory processing disorder as a primary diagnosis. That framing is not supported by current diagnostic standards. Last thing I want to mention with this, you know, my son had sensory issues. He had fine motor skill issues. My son went to occupational therapy. I believe in occupational therapy. It absolutely has its place.

12:46But I think like many fields, the OT field, Mike's field, the speech language pathology field, and especially my field, the mental health field, all have some what we would call overreach. They sometimes believe that they can do more than they actually can. So just keep that in mind.

Myth Four: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

13:00Absolutely. So the fourth myth we're going to discuss here is the idea that my child has rejection sensitive dysphoria, or you may have heard of RSD. So parents are using this term RSD as if it's a formal diagnosis, sometimes self-applied, self-diagnosed, and sometimes it can be clinician applied from an evaluation and using it to explain behavior and shape accommodations. So what the research is actually telling us is that RSD is a term popularized by Dr. William

13:34Dodson in his clinical writing. It is not in the DSM-5. It is not in the ICD-11. There are no validated diagnostic criteria for RSD. There are no standardized assessment tools for diagnosing it. The peer-reviewed empirical literature on RSD as a discrete construct is extremely thin. What the research does support is that emotional dysregulation is a real and well-documented feature of ADHD. Many kids with

14:09ADHD have intense emotional reactions to perceived rejection or criticism. That is real. The framework of RSD as a separate diagnosable condition is not. So a real cultural shift worth naming here is this identity-first language is having a pretty big moment here on social media and in these groups. Parents are moving from I have ADHD to I am ADHD. And from there, sometimes adopting labels like RSD as part of

14:45who they are. And a lot of what's behind that shift is good. It can fight stigma. It can build community. It can help adults who spent years feeling broken and help them finally feel seen. The complication for parents trying to follow the research when a label becomes an identity, questioning the label can feel like questioning the person. That is why conversations in parent groups can turn hostile very quickly. And we've all seen that. I know Ryan and I certainly have. A parent shares a piece of research and the response

15:21isn't curiosity. It's you're insulting and invalidating my child or you're invalidating me. You're not neurodiverse affirming. You're an ableist. We want to say this gently because we understand where it's coming from. A label can be a useful description of a struggle without being who you are. When a label becomes part of someone's identity, it gets so much harder to let it go, even when better research comes along. And being willing to update what you believe based on the research is exactly the place

15:59we want parents standing. So for parents, this is genuinely confusing territory. You're trying to do write by your kid. And the loudest voices in the room sometimes treat the research itself as the enemy. Our position is that research is not the enemy. It is what keeps your kid from being boxed in by a label that science does not actually support. So in closing, you know, one of the things that these four myths have in common is that they sound informed. They feel validating. They sound compassionate.

16:34And they spread because they are emotional. And they pull parents away from the actual evidence-based playbook. So our job here has always been the same. To translate the research, give families what works, and push back when popular doesn't equal accurate. And I have to say, we get some pushback from that when we share information that is not popular but is accurate. And that's okay. You know, we can handle it. We're big boys. So the closing line here I want you to take away from this is that loving your child means getting the information right, even when the information

17:06is unpopular or not emotionally compelling in the group chat. So please share this information with a parent who's gotten lost in the social media algorithm. And please send us myths that you want us to tackle in a future episode. And if you would like to see the research supporting what we talked about in today's episode, please make sure to see the show notes. We will list them there. Thanks so much. And we'll speak to you soon. Take care. Thanks for listening. To 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

17:44Mike 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. Our goal is to provide valuable insights and knowledge, not to replace professional services. Mike and Ryan cannot provide clinical consultation or free

18:18advice 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.