Collected Wisdom

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Category: Parents

• Three Reliable Ways to Ease a Meltdown and Support Your Child or Yourself with ADHD
  The transition from carefree days of summer sunshine and relaxation to the structured demands of school or work can be daunting, especially when you live with ADHD and other neurodivergent conditions. Potential meltdowns become a source of anxiety as you anticipate challenges. Navigating these complexities with empathy, patience, and understanding adds a layer of weight to your already full plate, leaving you grappling with mixed emotions and likely emotional dysregulation. Here are four ways to ease a meltdown and support your child, yourself, or someone close to you who lives with ADHD or another neurodivergent condition.

• Crush Overwhelm in Five Promising Ways for More Success with ADHD
  We all experience overwhelm but when you live with ADHD, autism, and related neurodivergent conditions, it’s common to experience overwhelm consistently in your daily life. Here are five promising ways to crush overwhelm so you can achieve more success with ADHD.

• ADHD and Lying: How to Stop Lying and Gain More Trust
  People who live with ADHD, autism, and related neurodivergent challenges don’t lie more than others. At the same time, living with these conditions can create situations for a person to be more susceptible to telling lies. Here are five reliable ways for you or your loved one to stop lying and gain more trust.

• Got A Question? Ask Me Anything And Get It Answered!
  Are you looking for answers, advice, or guidance about living with ADHD and embracing neurodiversity, parenting, being an entrepreneur, ADHD coaching, and anything you've always wanted to ask? Now's your opportunity! Bring your questions, conundrums, challenges, and problems for us to solve. Learn more here!

• Embrace Neurodiversity in Four Powerful Ways To Fulfill Your Life
  Neurodiversity is a concept that celebrates the natural diversity of human brains and minds. It emphasizes that neurological differences are natural variations of the human experience rather than defects that must be fixed. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of neurodiversity and the need for neurodiversity-affirming practices to support individuals and their families who live with neurodivergence. Here are four ways to embrace neurodiversity so you and your loved ones can empower yourselves to live a fulfilling life (in a world built for neurotypicals).

• Three Proven Ways to Stay Calm and Assert Boundaries Parenting ADHD
  As a parent of a child with ADHD and related challenges, you may face the demanding and stressful mission of sticking to boundaries. Impulse control, staying consistent, weathering intense emotions, and self-management are executive functioning challenges that make it tough to establish and enforce boundaries when you live with ADHD. Here are three proven ways to stay calm and assertive to maintain your boundaries and have peace in your family.

• ADHD and Impulse Control: How to Really Help Yourself Regulate
  When you live with ADHD and related challenges, you can run into difficulties holding back your initial response to a situation. You want to put on the brakes so you can make better choices, but your brain’s command center is like a runaway train racing down the tracks. Here are three proven ways to manage impulse control so you can help yourself regulate.

• ADHD and Gaslighting: How to Easily Gain More Confidence and Control
  When you live with ADHD, you can be vulnerable to unintentional gaslighting that can lead to self-doubt, as if you can’t do anything right. Here are three ways to manage unintentional gaslighting and easily gain confidence and control.
  
  

• Don't Let ADHD Burn You Out: Six Powerful Ways to Unmask Your Full Potential
  Do you tend to hide your impulsivity, hyperactivity, or attention challenges, to avoid judgment, criticism, or social rejection? Masking -- or camouflaging your ADHD symptoms — is a coping mechanism that exerts a significant toll on mental health, self-esteem, and social relationships. Here are six ways to overcome burnout so you can unmask your full potential, enhance your well-being, and live a more satisfying life.

• Three Promising Ways to Manage Meltdowns for More Calm with ADHD
  Although temper tantrums and meltdowns are common in childhood, when you live with ADHD and related challenges, screaming, yelling, hitting, and other challenging behaviors, can be depleting, exhausting, and frustrating for everyone. Here are three promising ways to manage meltdowns when you live with ADHD, so you can have more peace and calm in your family.

• ADHD and Impulsive Buying: How to Stop the Battle for More Peace with Your Money
  Most of us buy things we don’t plan on from time to time, but when you live with ADHD, it can be tough to give up the instant rush of pleasure from impulsive buying. Here are three ways to overcome battles with impulsive buying, so you can have more control over your finances and make choices that enhance your life.

• Loving with ADHD: Three Powerful Ways to Inspire More Intimacy, Love and Joy
  When you live with ADHD in your relationship, you may feel ignored, frustrated, misunderstood, and lonely. When you understand the role ADHD is playing in your relationship, there are steps you can take to have better communication and understanding so you can recreate your intimacy together. Here are three powerful ways to inspire more intimacy, connection, and joy in your love relationship with ADHD.

• Procrastination and ADHD: Four Exciting Ways to Stop Postponing Now!

  The fallouts of procrastination for individuals with ADHD can range from feelings of irritability, frustration, anger, and regret for not being able to accomplish what’s important.  There can also be academic, work, family, and financial setbacks for failing to follow through on deadlines and other meaningful responsibilities.  Here are four exciting ways to stop postponing what’s important to you so you can live a more fulfilling life with ADHD. 


• Four Informative Ways to Select and Really Benefit From Therapy or ADHD Coaching

  ADHD Coaching and therapy have a lot in common. Both disciplines help people create change and it can be confusing how to establish the best fit. To make the decision even more perplexing, when you live with ADHD it’s not unusual to live with other mental health conditions. Here are four informative ways to determine the optimal benefits of therapy or ADHD for you or someone you love.


• Boost Your Executive Functioning in Nine Exciting Ways with ADHD Now!

  We all have strengths and weaknesses in our executive functioning. We can be extremely intelligent and have challenges with executive functioning. Yet, when you live with ADHD and executive functioning challenges, difficulties in one or more executive functions can affect your performance and make it tough for your strengths to shine. Here are nine exciting ways to boost your performance and accomplish what's important to you.


• Four Powerful Ways to Embrace Life with Regret and ADHD

  Do you find yourself repeatedly going over the details of your previous interactions? Do you persistently search for anything you could have missed or said that was out of place? Individuals with ADHD tend to replay events, painstakingly reviewing the details of possible mishaps or situations that could have happened years ago. Here are four powerful ways to embrace life with regret and ADHD so you can find live a more meaningful life.


• Four Ways to Stop Ruminating and Unlock Overwhelm with ADHD

  Do you feel overloaded with a tsunami of stuff to do but worry about getting it done? Do you consistently feel like you’re in a state of overwhelm but your racing thoughts shut you down? Here are four ways to stop ruminating and unlock overwhelm, so you can accomplish what’s important to you.


• Six Unique Ways ADHD Coaching Fulfills Your Life with Empowerment

  You want to make your life ADHD-friendly but it’s more complicated than you expected. Whether you’re a parent or adult, you decide to seek out a coach so you can better manage your ADHD and your ADHD doesn’t manage you. Here are six unique ways ADHD Coaching fulfills your life with ADHD with empowerment.


• Master Feeling Intense Emotions in Three Reliable Ways with ADHD

  Many adults and kids with ADHD feel their emotions more intensely than others and struggle with staying calm and being flexible. It’s common to react impulsively, feel overwhelmed and frustrated, give up quickly, and withdraw or avoid situations.
  Here are three reliable ways to master feeling intense emotions when you live with ADHD. 


• Make Confident Decisions: How to be Bold and Really Commit with ADHD

  When living with ADHD there’s a tendency to get caught up in decision-making dilemmas. It’s not uncommon to get overwhelmed by mountains of information and details and get lost in the pros and cons. Here are four strategies for making decisions so you can make confident choices and commit to your decisions.   


• Strengthen Memory Abilities: Five Proven Ways to Really Boost Your Unique ADHD Brain

  Do you struggle with keeping up with important details in conversations? Does your mind ping with everything you need to do, so you "do it all" right away before you forget? Do you make a mental list for the grocery store, but then forget the list and what you need?  You may be struggling with working memory challenges. When you live with ADHD and other brain-based conditions, working memory can become chaotic and incomplete. Here are five strategies to build your working memory so you can follow through, stay accountable, and remember what’s most important to you.


• Empower Your Young Adult with ADHD in Three Inspiring Ways

  Discussions of young adults with ADHD who live with their parents often focus on whether these young adults will ever leave, but it's useful to address what young adults can gain from life at home as parents balance support and independence.  Here are four inspiring ways to empower your young adult with ADHD so they can take more ownership, develop resilience, and ultimately become independent.


• Emotional Flare-Ups with ADHD Getting the Best of You? Four Ways to Pull Through

  Individuals with ADHD can act without thinking with regular temper flare-ups and impulsive outbursts. This is difficult to tolerate and can lead to embarrassment and shame for the person with ADHD. Here are four ways to pull through so emotional flare-ups don't get the best of you. 


• Build Strong Connection with Loved Ones in Three Genuine Ways Living with ADHD

  Living with ADHD can be intense, and life with those we love can sometimes feel strained. When we take a moment to connect, this adds warmth and closeness to the relationships that are most precious to us. Here are three genuine ways to build a strong connection with those you love when you live with ADHD. 


• Unlock Meaningful Change in Three Proven Ways Living with ADHD

  When living with ADHD and related challenges, there can be a history of failures and missed opportunities, making it difficult to move forward with meaningful change. Here are three proven ways to help yourself and your loved ones unlock resistance to change and stay on track.   


• Overcome the Burdens of High Achievement and ADHD

  You’re the accomplished, go-to person whom people count on, and just about everyone does. But the piled-up projects, numerous spinning plates, and mounting stress have gotten to be too much. Here are three strategies to assist you in overcoming the burdens of living with high achievement and ADHD.


• Racism: How to Talk About it with Your ADHD'er

  How parents choose to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement, anti-racism and systemic racism is influenced by each family's experience. Our kids will benefit from the opportunity to talk about what’s happening which can reassure them and help promote change. 


• How to Transition in These Scary Times with ADHD

  With COVID-19 and shelter-in-place recommendations, the transition to staying at home isn't easy. It's understandable to have challenges balancing your kids' e-learning with working at home, or keeping up with your business while staying motivated. 


• How to Crush Screen Overuse with ADHD

  Many adults and parents living with ADHD are anxious and concerned about their experience with a magnetic attraction to the internet, mobile technology, and videogames. Here are four strategies you can put into place to monitor and curb screen time when living with ADHD. 


• How To Be School-Ready With ADHD

  We do our best as parents and teachers to vigilantly support our students throughout their school years. The challenge is that by the time our kids reach high school, our well-intended support can backfire when our students do not learn skills for themselves. As well-meaning parents, we tend to shield our kids from experiencing failure because it’s painful to watch, as their self-esteem plunges. Our task is to figure out how to best pass the baton onto our kids when the ADHD brain may need more experiences than what is perceived as typical for learning to take place. 


• The Best Chicago Summer Fun & How to Calm the ADHD Chaos

  Summer. Sunshine. Play. Chicago summers mean sandy beaches, troll hunts and fireworks all season long. Chicago has a lot to offer families, whether you live here, or are visiting for a Chicago adventure. We need to hold in mind that transitions are tough when we live with ADHD so we can prepare for and enjoy our summer bucket list. 


• Why ADHD and Mindfulness are a Promising Twosome
  When it comes to ADHD, mindfulness develops awareness and attention. Mindfulness meditation is learning to step back and observe one's thoughts and feelings, without judgment. What results is a resilient, positive self-image. Learn more about the mindfulness-ADHD connection and how to get started with mindfulness meditation when you live with ADHD.

• Four Tips to Reduce Clutter and Stress with ADHD

  If you or a loved one has ADHD, you know all too well that managing things and stuff can be overwhelming. Unless those things involve your personal interests, your mind may focus on other things that interest you.


• Four Ways to Make the Most of Family Time

  Our three kids loved the Chicago Museum of Science of Industry, with so many fascinating exhibits you could barely cover it all in a day! Plenty of preparation went into planning this day-long trip to the south side of Chicago.


• Go To Bed, Stay In Bed

  “I just want to tell you one more thing before I go to bed!” “Can I have a banana? I’m hungry!” “I need to cuddle the dog one more time.” “I barely got any screen time!” Settling down to bed, staying there, and surrendering to sleep can be challenging for our kids with ADHD.  


• Let Go of Judgment - Parenting a Child with ADHD

  There we were, in the front foyer of the restaurant, my ADHD son screaming, barely catching his breath in frustration. Do I cave and let him have his way or do I hold my ground? Mortified and exasperated, I felt I had failed my child and failed as a parent. 


• Three Ways to Make a Decision and Get Things Done

  If you are a person living with ADHD, chances are decision-making can at times be overwhelming and can delay getting things done.