# Janelle Booker & Hamish Blake - The ADHD Playbook for Parents

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 28 Jun 2026, 1 h 43 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/kqlwfctt0hgc03dsj6hov4gs.mp3

How do you raise a child whose brain works differently? This episode is for parents of kids with ADHD. And parents who have ADHD. And people who don’t have a diagnosis, but would consider themselves ‘fast and loose’. And for everyone who knows someone who fits the above criteria. 💌Join 8,300+ people getting our takeaways and favourite moments from this episode in our weekly newsletter - http://bit.ly/45NyQDy Janelle Booker, a psychologist who specialises in ADHD, is BACK, this time, to talk to parents of ADHD kids, and how to parent when you yourself have ADHD. And also, ADHD-curious Hamish Blake is here too. We look at the role of dopamine, energy vs stressors, and how to make your mornings less chaotic and more compassionate. Hamish and Janelle. What a duo. 0:00 – A dynamic duo: Hamish and Janelle 5:58 – The penny drop moment for Hugh 11:35 – ADHD or Fast and Loose? 19:56 – The beauty and beast of ADHD brains 22:38 – The life of an ADHD kid 27:16 – A crash course on dopamine 37:26 – Structure, sleep and school 44:38 – Identity and diagnosis 55:13 – ADHD kids and friendships 1:02:50 – Parenting WITH ADHD 1:16:29 – Finding and supporting regulation 1:23:13 – Slo-pamine 1:28:54 – Let’s talk about the strengths 1:34:35 – Get ‘em outside! If you’d like to watch this full episode on YouTube, follow this link - https://youtu.be/WwEBTIMohwg 🫖Imperfects episodes mentioned in this episode • Janelle Booker - Living With ADHD - https://bit.ly/4g0CUXK • Hugh’s ADHD…brief - https://bit.ly/4g567Rw • Maria Ruberto - Advancing Despite Adversity - https://bit.ly/4uYFbGS 💻Things to check out • Janelle’s website - https://bit.ly/3QJdO5t • The MEHRIT Centre - https://self-reg.ca/ • The ADHD Parent Circle Online Program - https://bit.ly/4g5Anvu • ADHD Women’s Support Group (Perinatal and Early Parenting) - https://bit.ly/3T0BJ0N • Online Q&A with Janelle about ADHD parenting - https://bit.ly/4g5wneu 📖Things to read • ADHD: A Delightful Human Difference. Reframing ADHD for Good, by Janelle Booker and Matthew Johnson - https://bit.ly/4w7scU3 🎧Things to listen to • Hamish & Andy podcast - https://bit.ly/43Z0RHJ • Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction, by Huberman Lab - https://bit.ly/4xPnMCZ 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuWz 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuW 🩵To join our subscriber community, A Little More Imperfects, follow this link - http://bit.ly/4mqunxu 🩷 AND you can subscribe to A Little More Imperfects through Apple Podcasts too, here - http://apple.co/theimperfects See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] We decide at age seven or eight whether we're smart or not, and that lasts for the rest of our life.
[0:05] Almost 800,000 Australians have ADHD.
[0:08] Approximately one child in every classroom.
[0:11] And maybe some older children as well.
[0:13] I don't want to make this without me at all, but I suspect I might have it.
[0:18] But I've always just called it fast and loose, and it's just always been who I am.
[0:24] So how do you raise a child whose brain works differently?
[0:27] I felt so guilty because I had always given them a hard time for having such a messy bedroom, never studying, big emotions.
[0:37] If I could, I would have those years again so that I didn't criticise for the things that they couldn't help.
[0:43] Psychologist Janelle Booker is back with special guest host Hamish Blake.
[0:48] I just always thought everyone felt like I do, but they're better at life.
[0:52] They're better at dealing with it.
[0:54] And then so there's a bit of the stigma attached where you go, well, everyone's getting it.
[0:57] So it's like a Von Dutch hat in 2006.
[0:59] I was like, I can't buy one now.
[1:01] Everyone's got a Von Dutch hat.
[1:08] Well, as you just heard in the opener, the fuzzy-haired guy from Rove today is being played by Hamish Blake.
[1:14] Fuzzy-haired.
[1:16] Fuzzy-faced.
[1:18] Fuzzy-faced guy, also from Rove.
[1:20] Yeah, also from Rove.
[1:21] I probably don't bring it up as much as Rye.
[1:26] But back by extremely popular demand today, we have Janelle Booker, who last year joined us to talk about ADHD, and it was the most shared episode in 2025.
[1:38] Did you know that?
[1:39] Yes.
[1:39] Yes.
[1:40] Em told me.
[1:41] Em told you, yeah.
[1:42] And so did Bridge.
[1:42] Yeah.
[1:42] How does that feel?
[1:43] Yeah.
[1:44] Well, I was shocked, absolutely astounded by that.
[1:48] I mean, it's great that The Imperfect's got the top spot, but it was astounding to me that it was the episode that I was on.
[1:55] Yeah, I think there was a Hamish and Andy episode that did pretty well.
[1:59] I think the share button was broken, which is annoying.
[2:02] I remember Apple saying, I'm so sorry, guys, our share button's down this week.
[2:07] That would explain it.
[2:08] Well, I mean, this might just be jumping straight into it, but I'm so fascinated by this topic and I'm very excited to talk to you, Janelle.
[2:16] Do you think it was shared because people going, oh, my God, that's me, or like, hey, Dave, this is you?
[2:21] Do you think it's because it's something that people see themselves in a lot?
[2:24] But then I suppose for your role of like going, okay, well, how do you diagnose someone?
[2:28] It's not just like that's a little bit of it, but it's –
[2:31] It then tips over into something that's actually a diagnosable condition rather than just a trait where you're like, hey, Dave, you're sloppy.
[2:40] This reminds me of you.
[2:43] Look, the thing is I've been working in this area for about 14 years or something like that.
[2:48] Sorry, I should probably actually say like officially Janelle is a psychologist.
[2:51] I'll just give you one paragraph because Janelle Booker is a psychologist who specializes in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and,
[2:58] and highly sensitive person trait.
[3:01] Janelle is interested in helping people understand how the brain works and working with them to develop practical strategies to enhance how they interact with the world.
[3:09] And now just to paint a picture, you're very qualified to answer the question that Hannah was just asked.
[3:13] So about 14 years ago I got interested in ADHD and back then it was really a very narrow, until about six or seven years ago, a very narrow understanding of what ADHD is and...
[3:26] And so I started to learn about it because I wanted to start a group.
[3:29] I was working as a psychologist in a university and so many ADHDers struggle at university.
[3:35] It doesn't matter how smart they are or how motivated they are.
[3:39] There's a lot about university that really trips people up.
[3:41] It's impossible.
[3:42] Yeah, it can be.
[3:43] It can be impossible.
[3:44] Can I ask, is it easy to describe why?
[3:47] Not really quickly, but all the things that make a lot of things hard for ADHD are so dopamine differences and executive function differences are the predominant ones.
[3:58] So executive function refers to the brain's management system.
[4:04] So time, like being aware of time, tracking time.
[4:08] Mm-hmm.
[4:09] Organising, planning, prioritising, remembering, starting a task, assisting until it's done, those sorts of things.
[4:19] So if you struggle with all of those sorts of things, university studies, especially the breadth of a university degree, is a real challenge for ADHD because ADHD brains are curious.
[4:32] And they like change.
[4:33] They like novelty, new stuff.
[4:37] And there's not much about university that really fits into that.
[4:40] And those kids might have done well at high school when there's a lot more of a system to help them.
[4:46] And then you're a lot more autonomous at uni and it falls away.
[4:49] Yeah.
[4:50] Yep.
[4:50] Yeah, that's another aspect to it is the lack of structure.
[4:53] Absolutely.
[4:54] But also the very long deadlines.
[4:57] Yeah, I really hide for ADHD.
[4:59] Oh, my God, yep.
[5:00] So in the last episode, just quickly as a recap, for people who didn't listen, a lot took place and it was absolutely life-changing for myself.
[5:08] So we talked about what ADHD actually is and what it isn't.
[5:11] We talked about the role of dopamine, which I think we'll discuss a bit again today, the impact of ADHD on relationships.
[5:17] Ryan shared very generously about he and Jam, how you actually go and get a diagnosis, and then we did an introduction to highly sensitive personalities.
[5:27] That was kind of the structure from last time.
[5:30] So amazingly- Nothing to stop people going back and listening even more.
[5:33] Sharing it again.
[5:34] Yeah.
[5:35] I think the share button's working again.
[5:36] Yeah, they're back.
[5:37] Perfect.
[5:37] Now I go to taste some apples.
[5:38] Oh, it goes good.
[5:39] That's good.
[5:41] I know there are so many questions that are very top of mind for the three of us here on the topic of ADHD.
[5:46] But just so people know, I think what we're going to try to do today is to specifically get to conversations around parenting ADHD kids, but also parenting as an ADHD adult.
[6:00] I mean, I still can't believe this happened, but I sat in this interview with you a year ago and I had no concept of... To me, ADHD was...
[6:12] I know a lot of people have been diagnosed recently.
[6:16] In my head, it's still, as a boy, it's just being a naughty boy at school who couldn't sit still.
[6:20] But then I sat here and I listened to you explain...
[6:24] In fact, we're going to grab now.
[6:25] If it's possible to play that grab, I think is a really nice thing to do here is maybe to think empathetically about people with ADHD.
[6:33] Is there a way that we can put ourselves in their shoes so we can understand what life is like?
[6:39] Absolutely.
[6:40] That's a great idea.
[6:41] Okay.
[6:42] What I get you to do is just close your eyes, if you can, and then just...
[6:46] Play through, as a bit of a movie, you getting up this morning and then, you know, doing what you had to do and then leaving the house.
[6:55] And just notice, you know, what that was like for you.
[6:59] And so now what I want you to do is I want you to... That was quite traumatic for me.
[7:04] Sorry, you.
[7:07] Now what I want you to do is I'm going to paint you a picture of what it might have been like if you had ADHD.
[7:13] Okay.
[7:14] So the alarm goes off and you've had to put a lot of thought into this because time doesn't come so naturally to you.
[7:21] And the night before, have to work out maybe, like sit down and really deliberately work out how much time you needed to get ready to go out.
[7:29] But the alarm goes off and really you've had to set five alarms because it's really hard to wake up.
[7:34] And so let's say you manage to rouse yourself on the third or fourth alarm and you've
[7:42] And bear in mind, it was really hard for you to get to sleep last night, so you haven't had a lot of sleep.
[7:47] But you know that this is really important, so you're going to get up.
[7:50] So you go to the bathroom and do what you need to do.
[7:53] And then, even though you know you've only got 30 minutes until you leave, you notice that the shower curtain is sort of missing one of the hooks inside.
[8:04] And so you think to yourself, oh, I know where that hook is.
[8:08] I know where there's a spare hook.
[8:10] And so then suddenly you're in the laundry looking for the hook.
[8:13] And then when you're in the laundry, you might notice something else that needs doing.
[8:18] And before you know it, somebody is yelling at you that you're running late.
[8:23] And so, okay, so I'm back on track.
[8:24] Okay, so now I'm in the kitchen.
[8:28] And I'm having my coffee and I'm just going to have a look at the front of the newspaper.
[8:33] And then before you know it, again, you've lost track of time.
[8:36] So you quickly clean your teeth, potentially getting distracted in there as well.
[8:41] And then you go to get dressed and you realise that you didn't put the washing out.
[8:46] It's all wet in the washing machine.
[8:48] You're feeling really crappy about yourself and you're feeling very, very stressed.
[8:53] Somehow you managed to find some clothes to put on.
[8:57] And now you can't find your keys.
[8:59] You don't know where your keys are.
[9:01] And this is going to take you, you know, five or ten minutes of yelling because you're so stressed.
[9:06] Were you watching me this morning?
[9:10] How I listened to that and didn't realise it was me in that moment, I'll never understand.
[9:15] Well, to me, it's really obvious because we all had a stereotype about what ADHD was, including me.
[9:21] Yes, but just then you clearly outlined what it can look like.
[9:24] And that was actually my morning and I still didn't click.
[9:27] And I went home and said to Penny, oh, an incredible episode with this lady with ADHD.
[9:31] And it made me think of this person, this person.
[9:33] And Penny said, anyone else you thought of?
[9:36] And no, that was just them.
[9:37] And she looked quite shocked and a bit disappointed.
[9:40] And then my Instagram algorithm adjusted aggressively and all I was getting sent was signs you might be ADHD.
[9:46] And then we had a chat on the phone for a while and then I ended up getting a diagnosis and then recently medicated and it's incredible.
[9:55] But yeah, it was amazing.
[9:57] It was very life-changing.
[9:59] But I'm also sitting here with two people who I'm very close with who have different stories on the same topic.
[10:07] I feel like Josh has been a bit unlucky because I feel like all those things we just heard were probably a little bit more me than you, but they do have elements of you in them.
[10:15] And I feel like it became my story.
[10:17] You couldn't have it.
[10:18] Well, I mean, yeah, maybe.
[10:20] I mean, not so much that I couldn't have it, but for whatever reason, when I was,
[10:26] When you got diagnosed, Hugh, and I'd heard all those things, as you said, I feel like I'm bad at most of the things you're bad at, but not quite as bad.
[10:38] And so...
[10:40] So sweet.
[10:46] And so when you got diagnosed, I was like, oh, I guess I'm just shit at things.
[10:51] Right.
[10:54] Was what I felt.
[10:56] And so I don't have a diagnosis.
[10:57] I haven't seeked a diagnosis.
[10:59] And I don't even think I am necessarily ADHD.
[11:04] But I did feel myself this feeling of like, well...
[11:08] Well, what's my reason?
[11:09] What's my excuse?
[11:11] And it kind of sucked quite a lot.
[11:15] But it was also it's a difficult thing to be seeing you because I want to be so supportive of you and not make it about me because it's been such a helpful thing for you and it's changed your life.
[11:28] So it's this thing of like, well, I might just keep it to myself because I don't really want to rain on your parade or make it any worse for you or bring any kind of my downer stuff to it.
[11:37] Yeah, so that's kind of where I'm at with it all.
[11:39] I guess that's what I was asking before.
[11:40] Yeah, like, Josh, it's that thing of going like, well, how much of this is just like sometimes there's a struggle and then how much of it clicks over into like a clinical diagnosable situation?
[11:54] I don't want to make this without me at all, but I just want to do a huge 2.0.
[11:57] So I'm struggling in this very meta way because I suspect I might have it, but I've always just called it fast and loose.
[12:07] It's just always been who I am.
[12:10] And so I'm just going to do one minute on me quickly because I do want to talk about the more broad stuff that will actually help people, not just me.
[12:18] What if your morning also, I was just thinking about my morning this morning, looked like you're staying at your mum's house at the moment, so you're living out of a suitcase, and even though you got in last night, all the stuff from the suitcase is everywhere.
[12:28] You've never actually ever folded a thing in a suitcase before, nor, so I'm away for four nights, I think.
[12:35] It also occurred to me this morning, I've never once gone, I'm away for four nights, his four T-shirts, four running, his four socks, I just grab handfuls, sometimes overs, sometimes unders, don't have time to count.
[12:45] Yeah.
[12:46] Hey, we'll figure that out later.
[12:47] Kind of enjoy giving myself the tools to improvise later on, but no plan.
[12:52] So that's how I'll pack a suitcase.
[12:54] I've also got quite a lot of pairs of shorts for Melbourne in the winter and not enough shoes.
[13:02] But then let's say this person that was, this was their morning, they thought they got a little bit distracted with stuff, read a little bit of the back of a book that they saw at their mum's house, didn't have time to wash, so did a pirate wash with a face washer under their armpits because they were going to the gym anyway.
[13:17] Then when Des was like, I need to eat some food, and rather than look through the cupboards to remember where the stuff was, ate porridge from the saucepan and just tipped ingredients into the saucepan.
[13:29] And even used a spoon to get peanut butter out.
[13:34] And then I guess to try and minimise or like to increase efficiency, sometimes I think I'm being really efficient, I use the other end of the spoon to get honey.
[13:42] And then I licked it because I'm like, don't have time to go back to the, because my brain thinks I'm saving time by not going to the drawer.
[13:51] And I love it.
[13:53] And could not, could not and cannot.
[13:56] And again, this is the last I'll talk about me because it's not about me.
[13:58] It's interesting though.
[13:59] I cannot do something until I'm late.
[14:02] Sat there and was like, get it.
[14:05] I was because of meeting Hugh.
[14:06] Like we were going to the gym this morning.
[14:07] I was like, call the Uber.
[14:10] My brain's like, if I call it now, it'll be like four minutes early.
[14:12] Oh, God.
[14:13] And I've just like, and I just, I basically just stand on the train tracks and wait until the train's almost on top of me.
[14:18] And then I jump out of the way because I can't do anything until I feel like the train's about to hit me.
[14:23] And, yeah, that was the test study B's morning.
[14:28] We don't need to give this guy a name.
[14:30] Let's just say that's this fast and loose fellow that we may know.
[14:35] I wish that we didn't have to give it another name, Hamish, because fast and loose, I love that.
[14:39] Well, I've realised I've accidentally just made it.
[14:42] Like, that's my job.
[14:44] But here's why when I started thinking, so maybe there's a lot of people like this where you're like, oh, wow, people are getting diagnosed, that kind of,
[14:51] I just always thought everyone felt like I do, but they're better at life.
[14:55] They're better at dealing with it.
[14:56] And then so there's a bit of, I know there's, you know, to talk to this was covered on last episode, but the stigma attached where you go, well, everyone's getting it.
[15:03] It's like a Von Dutch hat in 2006.
[15:05] I was like, I can't buy one now.
[15:07] Everyone's got a Von Dutch hat.
[15:09] I was like, cool hat man.
[15:11] We've all got them.
[15:12] It's a genuine spit take from you.
[15:15] So that's sort of, and there's also part of me going, well, I've made it this far, so, you know, things are going okay.
[15:20] And I would also hold on to my year 12 performance to go, well, I do have the ability to, it's not like I'm completely away with the fairies.
[15:30] I've, like, I did maths and physics and things at high school.
[15:35] I'm not trying to relive high school glory as a 44-year-old man, but I'd point to it and I'd go, well, I got...
[15:41] I could focus.
[15:43] I got 98.9, but that makes it sound like I'm really remembering my scores.
[15:49] You know, like you could do well.
[15:50] I knew the game and I could focus and I could pay attention.
[15:53] And then so I'm like, so I have the ability.
[15:56] So I must not have ADHD at all because who could do that if they did have this thing that I know makes it really difficult?
[16:02] And I know there's a giant spectrum too.
[16:04] So it makes it really difficult for kids to pay attention.
[16:06] And I obviously was able to do that.
[16:08] So who am I, like to Josh's point, who am I to also put my hand up and go, I'm struggling when there are people that, to my perspective, probably struggle a lot harder.
[16:18] Yeah.
[16:19] But it's so funny what you're saying about uni because I got to uni and I was doing science at uni and I just didn't stand a chance.
[16:28] Like thank God I just did two years poorly of failing and then I found radio and went, no, this is way better.
[16:33] This way suits my brain a lot more.
[16:36] But see, I'm just going to talk about that last thing that you said.
[16:39] Someone who got 98.9 in their ATAR, you would expect, wouldn't you, that you'd go to uni and do extremely well.
[16:45] Yep.
[16:45] Yep.
[16:46] But there's just so much unmet potential in ADHD years.
[16:50] Because someone with a 98.9, I mean, they're smart and they know their stuff.
[16:55] But I also realised I gamed the system to myself.
[16:58] I was terrible at slow burn things.
[17:02] I always put myself in subjects where it was an exam because that to me had the potential of you stay up all night cramming and you give yourself one chance.
[17:10] You just have to perform for 90 minutes.
[17:12] And I also...
[17:14] guiltily noticed other kids did not like pressure.
[17:17] And so I was like, great.
[17:18] So they'll choke and I'll be above them.
[17:22] If I can just enjoy the pressure, I enjoyed the pressure.
[17:25] So I was like, I knew that I was way more suited to this.
[17:27] If I had to do something like art or graphics back then where you had to like, maybe you had to like build a portfolio over the year.
[17:34] And not lose it.
[17:35] No.
[17:37] It's the pressure to not lose it.
[17:38] Ever since I was a kid.
[17:39] Like I remember in year six we had to have these work.
[17:41] At the end of the year we had to hand in all our worksheets and every week I would just like be stuffing him in my bag going, I'll sort this out later.
[17:49] And I got to the end of the year.
[17:50] Organisation.
[17:51] I almost didn't pass year six.
[17:53] I could still be in year six.
[17:54] Mr Boxall hadn't been so kind and kind of gone, well, I know you didn't, mate, but just try to sort this out by the time you get to high school.
[18:01] So I'm like I didn't.
[18:02] But this is where the word disorder comes in because you said you found radio two years after you started uni and then you've just taken off since then.
[18:10] So it's not a disorder for you.
[18:12] Yeah.
[18:13] Career-wise anyway.
[18:14] Exactly.
[18:14] I don't know about at home.
[18:15] But career-wise it's not a disorder.
[18:18] That's what I'm saying.
[18:18] That's a bit where I go.
[18:20] I'm not going to –
[18:24] Out of respect to people that are struggling with it, I don't want to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me because it's – you're right, like through luck and circumstance and a whole bunch of other things that are fortunate, it isn't something that's impacting really negatively in my life.
[18:41] I mean, I can't get out of the house, but –
[18:44] You know, in the grand scheme of things, I know I'm a lucky one.
[18:46] You're not at the severe end.
[18:48] Well, and this is why I think that we need to expand our understanding of what ADHD is, not just the deficits.
[18:56] There's so many positives as well.
[18:58] And so it's not to say that you don't have that brain type.
[19:01] A lot of comedians are coming out and disclosing that they're ADHD.
[19:06] I mean, I've got a friend of mine who works behind the scenes in comedy.
[19:10] I was talking about this the other day with someone and he came over because we were working and he was like, I'm just going to break up this conversation because – sorry, just to fulfil this, I haven't actually been diagnosed.
[19:19] I went to get the test and it was –
[19:22] I missed the appointment and then it was, then I did the test and it was too hard and I never went back for the follow-up, which I thought was the test in itself.
[19:31] But anyway, we were talking about, and this friend of mine's like, all right.
[19:36] And then they were talking about medication.
[19:37] They're talking about dexies and he goes, I'm sorry, we've got to move on.
[19:41] He goes, but, um,
[19:42] He works in comedy a bit and he's around a lot of comedians.
[19:45] He's like 90% of the conversations I break up for us to have to start rolling are about people comparing their medication for ADHD.
[19:54] Lots.
[19:55] Yeah.
[19:55] But to me it makes sense because when you have an ADHD brain, it tends to be not in a straight line.
[20:01] Like...
[20:02] interacting with the world, seeing things.
[20:04] It's not like in a sequence like this, then this, then this.
[20:08] ADHD brains are much more 3D.
[20:10] Everything everywhere all at once.
[20:11] Yeah, everything all and all connected.
[20:14] And so when you've got that sort of brain, you're going to notice things that other people don't see and you're going to be maybe faster.
[20:20] Like so many comedians, including you, Hamish, are really fast.
[20:23] Like your brains just see it straight away.
[20:26] And so you've got those aspects to a brain that makes sense to me why so many comedians would be ADHDers.
[20:33] Yeah, there's something to do with creativity or, yeah, speed is one too.
[20:37] Like, sorry, pace at which you notice things, not active ingredient of dexamphetamine.
[20:46] And I think that's why I didn't ever go back to bother following through because I was like, well, I'm okay with where it's at.
[20:54] There are times where I go, okay, but maybe it would help me understand and structure things a little bit better for the people around me to help me be better for them.
[21:05] But I suppose in the broader context of what I'm fascinated with today is the people that I do know.
[21:10] with ADHD and I know a lot of parents who either have kids that have got ADHD and what we want to get to today is that or they themselves get a diagnosis in their adulthood to go, okay, well, how can I better help my – be more useful for the family, show up better for the family now that I've got the diagnosis?
[21:31] Yeah, and I think there's so many people, adults, as you say, getting diagnosed, a lot of women.
[21:36] You know, it's only maybe six years that it was realised that women are just as likely as men to be ADHD.
[21:42] Is that right?
[21:43] Yeah, yeah.
[21:43] Did it used to be?
[21:44] Well, they used to think, and this is only going back six or seven years.
[21:47] They used to think for every girl there were 10 boys.
[21:50] Really?
[21:50] Wow.
[21:50] Yeah.
[21:51] It's only about two decades since they realised that you don't outgrow it at 18.
[21:54] Yeah, wow.
[21:56] Was it because little boys, generally speaking, it manifests in more physical activity and with the little girls that have got ADHD it's not as obvious?
[22:06] Yeah.
[22:06] Is that something to do with it?
[22:07] Yeah.
[22:07] Yeah, because we're socialised, all of us are affected by what, you know, the norms of society are.
[22:13] And in our culture anyway, boys are allowed to be rambunctious and physical.
[22:19] Girls are not.
[22:20] Boys are allowed to get loud.
[22:22] Girls are not.
[22:24] Girls are allowed to talk a lot.
[22:25] So girls talk, you know, ADHD, little girls with ADHD often and older girls.
[22:32] That's what they get into trouble for is talking too much and distracting everybody.
[22:36] Yeah.
[22:36] Yeah, so it just presents differently.
[22:37] Yeah.
[22:38] Can we start with the child side of things?
[22:42] Bit of a two-part question.
[22:43] What are the environments that will challenge an ADHD kid?
[22:49] And as children age, they're encountering different situations.
[22:54] obviously you play a lot more in kindy but then rules and regulations do get gradually introduced as you grow up through primary school.
[23:02] And how does that, you know, is that where you begin to see signs of how kids that might be somewhere on the ADHD spectrum, how they're starting to react to those rules and, you know, you're kind of getting a little bit more, I suppose, being asked to conform a lot more as you get older as a kid.
[23:20] Is that where it starts to kick in?
[23:22] Well, first to say that every ADHD brain is different.
[23:26] So even if you had two children, they both had ADHD, they'd potentially be very different, even if they were the same gender.
[23:35] And so it's difficult to just make a blanket sort of statement.
[23:39] But if you have a very energetic child, you might notice it before they go to school.
[23:47] But, again, boys tend to sort of demonstrate sort of high energy anyway, so that's a bit tricky.
[23:52] I think school's hard for any kid, to be honest, because we all have to conform and do what we probably don't want to do.
[24:00] But for ADHDers, it can be really hard.
[24:03] And these days a lot of kids with ADHD and a lot of kids with autism are not coping at school terribly well, primary school.
[24:11] Um, but it can come out in, um, you know, if they're not paying attention and nobody, this is why I think anyway, nobody is in charge.
[24:20] We can't control our attention all the time.
[24:23] None of us.
[24:24] And so if you're a child or even an adult whose attention wanders, you're not in control of that.
[24:31] And if you're a child whose attention wanders, then you miss a lot.
[24:34] Yeah.
[24:35] That's interesting.
[24:35] I don't think I've ever heard that explained that way because I think that would help that you're not in charge of your attention.
[24:42] Because I know a lot of people, myself included, and my kids haven't been through any kind of diagnosis, but you do get frustrated with kids when you're like, how many parents go pay attention?
[24:54] You're not paying attention, you're not listening, and you do act as if it's a deliberate choice they're making.
[25:01] Yeah.
[25:02] Could you maybe actually, you did such a great job explaining the mourning of an adult with ADHD.
[25:08] Do you want to maybe have a go at describing a mourning for an ADHD child?
[25:13] Sure.
[25:14] Okay.
[25:15] Maybe this child wakes up when the sun gets up and probably has woken up periodically through the night, maybe has restless legs and doesn't sleep very well and maybe took a long time to get to sleep.
[25:26] And maybe mum or dad has to be in there for a long time before they can get to sleep.
[25:31] And then they wake up and they don't have enough energy on board.
[25:38] Just like all of us, if we're trying to pay attention, it requires – and we're not good at it anyway, then it requires extra energy –
[25:47] And the attention part is really important for children because they've got so many things that they want to pay attention to, toys in particular, or whatever it is that they're really interested in.
[26:00] And so that's where they're going to gravitate to is what is going to give them some dopamine.
[26:06] And that's why you couldn't get study done until the night before, right?
[26:10] This is...
[26:12] and inconsistent access to dopamine.
[26:13] That's what ADHD brains tend to have.
[26:16] And so whatever is providing the dopamine, we're going to be drawn to, and that's how our behaviour is initiated requires dopamine.
[26:25] And so you're going to have a child potentially...
[26:28] who's just very, very wrapped up in whatever they're interested in, even though they're supposed to be getting dressed.
[26:34] I mean, it's a big struggle, isn't it, getting an ADHD child ready for school because they just sort of like get distracted all over the place.
[26:43] And then...
[26:44] Mum and dad, if they're not ADHDers, you know, that makes it easier.
[26:48] But if they are ADHDers, maybe they're getting distracted as well.
[26:51] And then suddenly they're realising what the time is.
[26:54] And then the emotions are really escalating in the house.
[26:58] Now, if you've got multiple children who are neurodivergent, then that just makes things even more complex.
[27:05] Everyone's playing by their own rule book.
[27:07] Everyone's playing fast and loose.
[27:10] Four different sports.
[27:11] Four different sports on an ice rink.
[27:14] Absolutely.
[27:14] From my experience, complex is a generous word for that situation.
[27:17] Can we just dip to the left for one second and just for people and myself included who don't,
[27:24] who know dopamine is this thing and is the drug that our brains produce and it's what keeps us scrolling on our phones and tried to listen to the human episode on it, but it's four hours, so didn't.
[27:37] Can you help me understand or help us just what dopamine does to maybe a neurotypical brain and then maybe in an ADHD as brain?
[27:45] Okay.
[27:45] So dopamine, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a neuropsychologist, but dopamine is a neurotransmitter, which is a messenger in the brain between our brain cells.
[27:56] And it's required in order for us to do a thing, a task.
[28:02] So it will tell us which tasks are worth doing.
[28:06] And so...
[28:08] neurotypical brains, so not neurodivergent, but neurotypical brains, which is the majority of brains, they tend to have a pretty consistent access to dopamine.
[28:18] So it doesn't matter what the context is.
[28:21] If they find something boring like studying for a math test, they can just do it.
[28:25] They can see the long-term benefit.
[28:29] They can also, that's executive function, but dopamine builds into executive function.
[28:33] So yes, they've got a good access to time.
[28:36] They think in this linear way so they can see that, you know, like maybe it is 20 minutes before they've got to get to the gym.
[28:44] So right now is the time to be ordering the Uber.
[28:47] You know, that's not an issue for them.
[28:49] Just going back to what we were saying before.
[28:51] But dopamine is important for all of us.
[28:54] The difference in order to say this thing is important to do and this thing is not important to do, which is why we're scrolling on our phones, our brain is giving us a lot of dopamine, which makes it hard to stop.
[29:05] It tricks us into thinking this is important.
[29:07] Yeah.
[29:07] Yep.
[29:08] But when you're an ADHDer, you have inconsistent access to dopamine.
[29:12] So you're only going to do the things that bring about some dopamine for you.
[29:18] It's really hard to overlook the things that are going to give you dopamine.
[29:23] And it's nigh on impossible to do the task if you don't have any dopamine on board.
[29:30] Just a quick story to the first time I experienced, the first time I went on medication was actually when we were doing our live tour last year, Josh.
[29:37] And funnily enough, I was actually in the Perth show.
[29:40] It was my first time.
[29:41] Were you in?
[29:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[29:42] Of course, yeah.
[29:43] So I'd just been medicated then and I'd taken my first lot of medication.
[29:48] I think I feel normal, but I'm not sure if it's working or not.
[29:53] did our tech rehearsal.
[29:55] We went backstage in the green room for two hours before the show.
[29:58] And I said to these guys, I don't know if it's working or not.
[30:00] I'm not really sure.
[30:01] And then five minutes later, Ryan turned around and said, what are you doing?
[30:04] And I had got all the parking tickets from my bag, which was nine parking tickets.
[30:08] It was a very common thing for Pilbara to actually do parking tickets.
[30:11] Yep.
[30:11] Oh, yes.
[30:12] Yes from the ocean.
[30:13] I don't.
[30:13] Yeah.
[30:14] Yep.
[30:16] But I don't keep them.
[30:17] No.
[30:17] Well, they often just fly off the window.
[30:20] And then you wait for the extra.
[30:22] I wait for the reminder.
[30:23] Yeah.
[30:23] Well, actually.
[30:24] The system, they'll tell you later.
[30:25] It's cost another 27 bucks, but they'll let you know.
[30:27] It's the ADHD tax.
[30:29] Yeah.
[30:30] Well, Josh will know that they weren't the actual tickets.
[30:32] They were the reminder letters.
[30:33] I'll save all the reminder letters.
[30:35] And I was paying them off one by one.
[30:37] And I hadn't even realised.
[30:38] I was like, I need to sort this out.
[30:41] I can't.
[30:41] This is ridiculous.
[30:42] I've got nine parking tickets.
[30:43] I'm going to pay them all at once.
[30:44] And I just line them all up.
[30:45] And I actually decided to line them up in order of like when they were actually due as well.
[30:49] He's like, well, let's do this properly.
[30:50] And Ryan said, are you actually paying your parking tickets?
[30:53] I am.
[30:54] And he said, I think it's working.
[30:55] I said, I think you're right.
[30:58] Because you've got access to dopamine all of a sudden.
[31:00] So that's what's happening on the medication.
[31:02] So chemically, the brain is now like, I'm going to go for an analogy here, but rather than us being a pub in the desert who sometimes has beer and sometimes doesn't, and when there's beer, everyone come in, we're having a party, and like, sorry, it's two weeks to the beer delivery.
[31:15] We are now a pub in the city that has a well-tapped keg, and you can just sip.
[31:20] at your leisure and it's always there.
[31:22] That's exactly what it's like.
[31:24] That's exactly what it's like.
[31:26] Right.
[31:26] And so that's what a chemical is having in the brain.
[31:28] It's just like, all right, it's levelled it out.
[31:30] So when needs be, you get the regular amount rather than just complete feast and famine.
[31:34] Which means in that situation there when I'm sitting there,
[31:39] Without medication, I'm like, there's the parking tickets.
[31:42] But if I go on YouTube, I could watch Usain Bolt highlights and that interests me right now.
[31:48] So that's what I'm going to do.
[31:49] Not the priority.
[31:50] I'll do what interests me.
[31:50] Like I've noticed before I was very, whatever is most interesting, that would guide my behavior as opposed to what was the priority.
[31:57] Now when I'm medicated, I'm like, well, I'm getting dopamine.
[32:01] I'm getting this drip dopamine.
[32:02] So I feel good.
[32:03] So I can actually do this parking tickets and not be distracted by Usain Bolt.
[32:07] Yeah, and not only that, but you were organizing everything, weren't you?
[32:10] You were organizing it in like order of due date.
[32:16] Yeah.
[32:17] That was a thought process.
[32:18] Very impressive.
[32:19] There's another example of me up at night.
[32:22] I took a tablet too late.
[32:24] I was very stupid.
[32:24] I couldn't sleep.
[32:25] But I had all the kids' textures and I'd line them up and I was testing them all to see how much ink was left in all the textures.
[32:32] And then I was putting it back in different cups to go, well, there's this much life left in this texture.
[32:36] And so I really, yeah, it really got me.
[32:39] Wow.
[32:40] Absolutely.
[32:41] Wow.
[32:41] Don't have your tablet's too light.
[32:44] I wrote a shopping list the other day with the closest thing I had to hand, which was a big fat crayon.
[32:52] And even though I could have spent probably 10 more seconds getting a pen from somewhere...
[32:58] My brain was like, no one's got time for that, no time.
[33:00] So I wrote a giant thought that is illegible because it's just solid crayon.
[33:08] But my brain's like, well, we've just got to go now.
[33:09] We've got something in our hands.
[33:11] If I put this down, we might never get back to this job.
[33:13] So you don't know.
[33:14] We don't know.
[33:15] We don't know if I've got it.
[33:18] But can I go back to the kid?
[33:20] So the dopamine access for kids, and again, like let's just throw a blanket out here and say I guess younger kids.
[33:27] At what point, I'm just interested in the line because this must be a fascinating part of your work and I'm sure what you spend a lot of time on, is going, okay, well, no, you know, like all kids would like a cupcake this afternoon and no kids want to put their, you know, school shoes on on a cold morning.
[33:45] But for ADHDers, they're like, I definitely can't do that and I'm thinking of the cupcake.
[33:50] But then for neurotypical kids as well, it's not...
[33:53] wild for them to go, well, I'm only thinking about the cupcake this afternoon.
[33:57] Where does it kick into going, okay, well, this is now an unusually high dependence on something that gives you dopamine rather than the sort of quote unquote normal amount?
[34:06] Well, when you get a diagnosis, it's just a best guess.
[34:09] So the specialist, whether it's a pediatrician or a psychiatrist, is just making their best guess.
[34:15] And that's the same with anything that's to do with the brain, to be honest, anything psychological or psychiatric.
[34:23] And so they're going to just have to find the line wherever that is.
[34:26] But there are a lot of children at the moment and adults for whom attention is really poor.
[34:31] And there are a lot of people seeking an ADHD diagnosis just on the strength of attention and focus.
[34:37] And I think that that's a problem because, and it's not their fault, because we're calling it attention deficit disorder.
[34:45] And it's not about that really.
[34:47] Yes, it is about attention, but it's about so many more things.
[34:50] And when we keep that focus very narrow, it is easy to make mistakes.
[34:55] But when you're talking about all of the things that you've been talking about, I'm like, okay, tick, tick, tick.
[35:01] Whereas a neurotypical person wouldn't be making a shopping list with a crayon.
[35:08] You know, like they just would go for 10 seconds.
[35:11] Yeah, exactly.
[35:13] Exactly.
[35:14] Right.
[35:15] And so like the criteria, the DSM-5 criteria, how they diagnose.
[35:21] is relatively limited.
[35:23] But I think if you go and see someone who's really experienced, they will have so much data up here and, you know, in studies that they've read that they can start to see the patterns.
[35:35] What would you say to a parent who has got the diagnosis, okay, and going back to sort of the dopamine flood or drought that the kid is experiencing, okay,
[35:48] To, you know, move through the world even just sort of practically or as part of the family, what advice do you give to parents to go, okay, this is the way their brain's working and this is how you could set up the world to be less friction for them?
[36:03] Yeah, and that's really important to first understand what ADHD is, to understand what the brain is doing, and then to put what we call scaffold children, if we're talking about kids, and also teens.
[36:16] Teens have a whole other sort of group of difficulties.
[36:22] But for children, things like structure, as you mentioned before, structure is really important for children with ADHD.
[36:30] And I remember Michael Phelps, who was an amazing swimmer,
[36:34] An eater.
[36:35] Okay.
[36:35] Well, I'm always amazed that he's a 14,000 calorie training.
[36:39] Oh, wow.
[36:39] Okay.
[36:39] Because I always just remember he could eat 10 pizzas a day, but he looks like a Roman god.
[36:43] Yes.
[36:44] He was also five hours in the pool.
[36:46] That's right.
[36:47] But he's an ADHDer and his mum had him on 15-minute sort of a timetable of
[36:52] this 15 minutes you're doing this and that, you know, all the way through the day.
[36:56] And that's how he says he was a success.
[36:58] Right.
[36:58] But I would hear that and go if those 15 minutes are things that he didn't quote-unquote want to do or there wasn't any dopamine in, is that not impossible to go from task to task if you're an ADHDer that there isn't any dopamine there?
[37:16] For him, I can't speak for him, but he was highly motivated, I think, to achieve.
[37:21] So there's a lot of dopamine in that.
[37:23] But for young children, structure is important.
[37:27] Organization is important.
[37:28] And helping them.
[37:29] So scaffolding means just guiding them and supporting them to do the thing, just giving them enough support that they can do the thing.
[37:37] And what that requires as the parent is getting enough sleep, getting up early enough so that you're sorted before the kids get up.
[37:45] And that's not easy.
[37:46] How important is sleep for an ADHD?
[37:48] Sleep is everything.
[37:50] Really important.
[37:51] Because we need energy in order to be in balance.
[37:58] We need energy to focus and do the things that we need to do.
[38:03] It's all in the background.
[38:04] We're not even aware of that.
[38:06] energy balance that we require.
[38:10] But it's super important to get a lot of sleep if you want to be able to overcome the challenges in daily life.
[38:19] I mean, that sounds like the biggest challenge of anything because if you're already, I'm imagining a situation where you as a parent have ADHD and your child has ADHD and sleep is a priority, how do you scaffold for yourself, let alone scaffolding for the child to get enough sleep?
[38:41] Are there things that people could be doing generally or is it, again, just too hard to generalise?
[38:46] It's more of a...
[38:47] specific thing it's something with ADHD is because the brain is a curious brain it will find something that works for a while and then it gets boring and so then there's no dopamine in it and so then they have to find another strategy and then that will work for a bit and then they have to find another strategy and another strategy so making so going to bed as a parent so that you can support yourself and your children um going to bed on time it can be really tricky for ADHD brains and
[39:15] They don't want to go to bed early and they get distracted, not distracted, but they get, you know, engrossed in really fun things after everybody else has gone to bed.
[39:24] That's their time to shine.
[39:25] It was me last night.
[39:27] Was it?
[39:27] Yeah.
[39:27] I'm telling you.
[39:29] Yeah.
[39:29] What fun thing did you do?
[39:32] That's private.
[39:33] I don't know if that's dope to me.
[39:39] That's just curiosity.
[39:41] No, it was, I mean, talk about hyper-focused.
[39:44] Like it was listening to, so I'm obsessed with, I love the band The Strokes and it was listening, it was watching someone react to listening to them for the first time and then I went back through and listened to like three of their albums.
[39:58] Yeah, but then I couldn't sleep.
[40:00] Like I got into bed at like 11, which was two hours after everyone else in the house.
[40:06] And I think I got to sleep at about two.
[40:11] And then there was a light sleep after that.
[40:13] It was a shocking night sleep last night.
[40:16] But I find myself always like...
[40:18] My wife – I think if I was single, I just wouldn't sleep till like 1am every day.
[40:23] Whereas because my wife likes to be asleep by like 10, I will – Conformed to the house.
[40:30] I've conformed to it because I know it's better for me and it's better for everyone and I'm happier if I do it.
[40:35] But I kind of need her to take the lead there.
[40:38] Yeah.
[40:38] I –
[40:40] I mean, I want to say something here.
[40:43] I'm just not qualified to make a wild hypothesis, but I'm kind of curious.
[40:47] I'd love to get your take on it.
[40:50] So just thinking about kids with the dopamine squirts and the uneven squirting of dopamine that's going on for an ADHD kid.
[41:00] Their mind's going where their mind's going.
[41:02] As you said, they don't get to choose their attention.
[41:04] But as you go into school, and let's say most traditional schools, the traditional educational model, your attention's going – it's like it starts getting funneled.
[41:13] It's like, all right, we're doing maths.
[41:15] Like we're doing English.
[41:16] We're doing science.
[41:17] This is what we're doing and your attention must be here.
[41:19] Now, that obviously is much harder for ADHD than other kids because if there's no – maybe at the start it's exciting, but then once the novelty wears off, like there's no interest.
[41:29] Yeah.
[41:29] Obviously medication can help, but over time is there a chance for them to be paying better attention to those things as they get older and they can learn to manage it?
[41:40] Or is that never really going to happen because their dopamine system just isn't there where they're like,
[41:46] I know I'm meant to be doing this.
[41:47] Like they're good kids.
[41:48] They're trying their hardest to be really like to do what everyone else is doing.
[41:53] So like I know I'm meant to be doing this and I don't want to be bad.
[41:58] I can't.
[41:59] They just, you know, they're just struggling.
[42:01] Like you hear the parents telling me like they're just struggling so hard to do the right thing in class.
[42:07] So then what replaces the dopamine isn't like an anxiety that drives them to not be naughty or to not be bad.
[42:15] And then you end up with someone who maybe on paper is looking like they've kicked it or whatever.
[42:20] Like, oh, great.
[42:21] They used to have trouble, but now they're paying attention in maths and they're in year eight and we're all good.
[42:26] But really it's just anxiety that's fueling them to not get in trouble.
[42:31] Yeah, you nailed it.
[42:32] Absolutely.
[42:33] That's really common.
[42:34] For a lot of children, school, and this is, I mainly work with adults and teens.
[42:39] I work with so many adults for whom school was torture.
[42:44] Smart, motivated, conscientious people and school was torture for them because what happens is they, as you say, they're good kids and they don't want to get into trouble.
[42:56] And because they're sensitive as well,
[42:59] You don't even have to say anything to them and they know that they've done the wrong thing.
[43:02] And so they internalise that again day after day after day and then their identity starts to shift to either I'm bad.
[43:12] A lot of adults with ADHD are going through the world trying to look for evidence that they're not bad because of their school experience.
[43:22] Because it's such a rigid system.
[43:24] Yeah.
[43:25] And it's not about interest.
[43:26] You know, if it was a school system where we followed a child's interest, that would be different for ADHDers.
[43:33] Yeah.
[43:34] Because that's the thing is it's not that they learn to get more dopamine.
[43:39] Their brain is what their brain is.
[43:40] Yeah.
[43:40] The thing is with ADHD brains, there'll be lots of dopamine if something is interesting or it's new or it's urgent.
[43:48] That's why, you know, studying at the last minute.
[43:51] Or if they're doing something for someone else.
[43:53] Lots of dopamine.
[43:54] Otherwise, that's why so many kids will have inconsistent grades at school.
[44:00] So they have maybe A for art or history.
[44:02] A lot of my ADHD clients loved history and a lot of them were not good at maths.
[44:08] I've never met anyone who loves history more than Josh, just as a comment.
[44:11] Oh, really?
[44:11] Just as an observation.
[44:13] Shit.
[44:13] Josh loves history.
[44:15] Dan Cullen, yes, please.
[44:17] Is it because it's kind of like, I suppose every subject, if you want to get in the weeds, is endless novelty, but like history in particular is well suited to that.
[44:26] Josh, what's yours?
[44:28] What do you love about history, Josh?
[44:30] Just find my brain lights up.
[44:32] Yeah.
[44:34] I could talk about history for ages.
[44:36] The thing I want to ask about this is that,
[44:40] I think this is something that's going on in my own brain and in the sort of self and not diagnosis but self-evaluation of like do I have it, do I not have it.
[44:51] One of the things that kind of concerns me and I've heard, we had Maria Roberto, the psychologist on here before, and she said, and it's not her line, it's someone else's, but the problem with misdiagnosis is that people will attach themselves to an identity and can die for that identity.
[45:12] confusing or hard when I think about that and I lay that over a child and say, in the case of I've got a prep child who is, there are many things that like I see them, just the general struggles of school, of starting school, how energy zapping it all is.
[45:31] And I don't think that he's ADHD at all, but he's certainly like any kid who's just starting something new and beginning a whole new era of his life.
[45:40] There are challenges and there are things that he's loving and all that kind of stuff.
[45:44] And I find it really hard because when we talk about this kind of thing, because I worry that if I – not that I ever would for him, but I'm imagining a situation where it's more someone's got a kid that they're more like, well, maybe they do –
[45:59] There's two problems.
[46:00] There's like if I go down the path of saying you've got ADHD and they don't, then they might start to see that as their identity and restrictive.
[46:09] But then if I choose to ignore it and just say, no, no, no, you're fine, you don't need a diagnosis, then they can start telling themselves a story that's incredibly unkind, that they're lazy, they can't pay attention.
[46:21] So how does a parent navigate that struggle of like I'm kind of doomed, I feel like I could be doomed either way?
[46:29] Thank you.
[46:30] I think for me, I get asked this question by adults, you know, do I identify myself as an ADHD or who do I share that with?
[46:38] I don't like the name of it, et cetera.
[46:40] And it's even more so for kids.
[46:43] I don't think that we need to hang our hat on the name ADHD.
[46:49] And certainly for kids, I wouldn't be doing that.
[46:51] Some parents, they'll refer to their child as having a busy brain or like, you know, seeing some of the positives about it and then just helping them with strategies, you
[47:00] You know, they don't really need to know too much about this pathologising label that we give it, I would say.
[47:09] It's really interesting as a – and this is another tick for me, but as a child, we used to have these books called Mental Maths.
[47:15] Did you guys have that?
[47:16] Do you remember them?
[47:17] Mental maths books in primary school?
[47:18] 50 maths questions.
[47:20] 50 maths questions every day.
[47:22] And they were like very simplistic and very repetitive.
[47:26] And I could not do them.
[47:28] Like I could not get through this book.
[47:30] But I ended up like in the maths questions in the exam situation, I was like usually near the top of the class in that, but I couldn't complete these books.
[47:41] And mum always used to say like,
[47:43] you're terrible with repeated stuff, but that doesn't mean you're not smart.
[47:49] Yeah.
[47:49] Like you're very good at novel new questions and new ideas, but this is an area that you're not great at, but you don't need to worry about it, which I felt was just such an, I've never forgotten that lesson in that framing from mum because it made me feel like, oh, no, I am smart.
[48:03] I'm not, it's not a deficit.
[48:06] And I love that your mom was able to see that.
[48:09] Like she was observing, wasn't she?
[48:10] Yeah, yeah.
[48:11] She could see that, yeah, you were struggling with the simple.
[48:14] And this is what I see in a lot of children and teens, ADHD is, is that the simple maths or the simple whatever is, it can be really challenging because of the memory aspect to it.
[48:24] Yep.
[48:25] But the harder stuff they really can get their teeth into.
[48:28] And it's that complex brain again.
[48:30] That's how ADHD brains sort of encounter the world with that more complexity.
[48:34] Yeah, like you said, it's not linear.
[48:35] No.
[48:36] It's not, well, if you can't do easy stuff, you can't do hard.
[48:40] Like if one question's, you know, 10 times harder than a times table question, there's no way you can do it.
[48:46] But sometimes that's where their strength is because the timetable's so boring to them.
[48:49] Yep.
[48:50] Yep.
[48:51] And ADHD brains seem to need to understand how, not just what.
[48:57] And so if you're just saying to kids, and I think this is why a lot of ADHD students struggle with maths, is that they haven't been explained why or how this thing is.
[49:07] And they're just being asked to just like remember all of this stuff in their head that doesn't make any sense.
[49:13] Yeah, that was when algebra was introduced to me in year 6 or 7, whatever it is, I remember going,
[49:18] Hang on a minute.
[49:19] Hang on.
[49:19] Why are letters involved here?
[49:20] When am I going to need to know this?
[49:22] I don't – what are you talking about?
[49:24] Someone give me some context to why letters have been thrown in the mix here.
[49:27] I used to get so frustrated with the fact that no one could explain why that was happening.
[49:31] My wife, who shares a lot of Instagram reels and TikToks with me about these signs you might have ADHD, both for her and for me, the other day I was talking to her about maths and I was like, do you remember trigonometry?
[49:44] Do you remember sign, cos, and tan?
[49:46] And she looks at me and goes –
[49:47] Yeah, that rings a really boring bell.
[49:54] Yep, fair enough.
[49:56] That's one thing my idea, Zoe, is not here for maths.
[49:59] Yeah, and I don't know if she's an ADHDer or she's not, but a lot of ADHDers just don't understand.
[50:05] They don't get it.
[50:06] It's not interesting to them at all.
[50:08] I mean, I hope this doesn't embarrass my daughter in a few years if she ever listens back to this.
[50:13] And like I said, she's got the most unique – I mean, Rue's one of one and I don't want to like –
[50:21] I was speaking to someone the other day and they're like, Rudy doesn't need maths.
[50:25] We've got plenty of people who can do maths.
[50:26] We need Roo to be Roo.
[50:29] And I couldn't agree more.
[50:30] It's such a good way of putting it.
[50:31] But I was trying to do maths with her the other night.
[50:35] And she was, I thought she was, I was like just getting one sheet ready.
[50:41] And I'm talking about like, we were like, let's just do 10 minutes.
[50:44] We also needed Maltesers as part of it, which could be a little dopamine.
[50:48] Yeah.
[50:50] But I was getting like one little thing ready and I'm just quickly trying to relearn year three maths.
[50:54] I'm looking and going, yeah, I think I understand what a regular polygon is.
[50:57] I could see the pen moving on her side of the page and I went over and it was just a whole bunch of sums and wherever the equal sign was, she'd drawn things over and underneath them.
[51:06] I'm like, what's that?
[51:07] She's like, I just thought they look like lips.
[51:10] Just making them into lips.
[51:12] I love that.
[51:13] And I was kind of a bit of me just went,
[51:16] I'm fine with this.
[51:19] I think that is spot on because, and that's what your mum did, right?
[51:22] Because she just saw you as a child and she said, you're great the way you are.
[51:26] And this is what I worry about though because we're going into a system that's like, okay, they get graded.
[51:31] Like there's going to be percentages and I'm like, how do I, and like let's just say for argument's sake I have no idea what,
[51:39] her situation because let's just say someone had been diagnosed and in that instance it's like, all right, I've got a child who, you know, we want to like to your point of not letting the identity either label them or allow this, you know, I think all parents would not want this internal voice to grow that's self-critical to go, when you're talking about putting a framework around the kids and,
[52:04] Is that for and for teens, is that to framework things that do work for them, for dopamine-wise to go, okay, let's create a structure where we're going from not just task to task but from tasks that you enjoy and can do to tasks that you can enjoy and can do to tasks that you can enjoy and do?
[52:24] Is that what you mean by that?
[52:25] Well, it won't always be things that they can enjoy and do.
[52:27] Because otherwise we're just, yeah, eating candy and never really learning.
[52:30] Lots of Maltesers.
[52:32] Kids these days are learning about emotions.
[52:34] I don't know about your kids in kindy and whatever it is.
[52:39] They're learning about emotions, but that's getting them to look internally and maybe parents can be helping their child notice what gives them energy and what doesn't give them energy.
[52:48] Yeah.
[52:48] That's nice.
[52:49] You know, and then I used to always with the students at universities try and get them to like get some energy going and then slingshot off that and just then see if they can do 30 minutes of whatever boring task it is.
[53:05] Yeah.
[53:05] That's such a good idea because I can imagine it would be so easy for parents or teachers to label those kids as lazy without a strategy like that.
[53:13] Yep.
[53:14] I believe very strongly in this, that there's no such thing as a lazy child or teen.
[53:19] Everybody wants to do their best.
[53:22] Everyone wants to feel competent and everyone wants their parent or their teacher to feel proud of them.
[53:28] And so if a child is not doing what they need to be doing, there's a reason for it.
[53:33] I don't believe there's any such thing as laziness.
[53:36] I think it's a judgment and it's not a description of behaviour.
[53:40] And so whenever we observe a child or a teen...
[53:46] doing something that we consider as being lazy, like they're not cleaning their room or they're not doing their homework or for the 10th day in a row they've left their breakfast, you know, stuff all over the kitchen.
[53:57] We need to get curious about that and wonder, like, what's that about?
[54:01] Like, have they got enough energy?
[54:03] Are they, you know, are they struggling with something?
[54:05] Is this a dopamine thing?
[54:06] Is it an executive function thing?
[54:08] Yeah.
[54:09] And I mean, I remember being a teenager and just not having a lot of energy and probably not caring all that much about certain things.
[54:17] But that's not laziness.
[54:19] There's always a reason for it.
[54:21] No, I feel like I remember that age too.
[54:23] You're not going, ha ha, I'm having the best time, I'm being lazy.
[54:27] More likely you're frozen with...
[54:31] There's anxieties or a challenge you can't solve.
[54:35] So maybe I suppose it's more of that moment to step in to be like an ally for them, to try and to be compassionate, as you said, rather than critical.
[54:47] And curious.
[54:47] Yeah, sometimes we need to be a bit more patient and then maybe have a conversation with them.
[54:52] Not now because they're not in a state for it, but, you know, when they've got a bit more energy, just wandering with them, trying to help them work out what's getting in the way.
[55:00] There's always something getting in the way because they want to do the right thing.
[55:04] That's such a good point.
[55:05] Get rid of the word lazy.
[55:06] Yep.
[55:07] Yeah.
[55:07] Ban it.
[55:08] Yeah.
[55:09] It doesn't serve anyone.
[55:09] Yeah.
[55:10] Yeah.
[55:11] You mentioned in the last episode you are the parent of an ADHDer.
[55:16] Interested to know what would be your most important lessons that you could pass on to other parents?
[55:21] So I've got three kids.
[55:22] They're all adults now.
[55:24] But my ADHDer doesn't really want me to identify them, so I will try and use them for the gender.
[55:34] Very energetic child and just endless energy, but then became an athlete at quite a high level.
[55:41] So that all made sense.
[55:44] Didn't take to reading very easily or maths.
[55:49] And that was a bit confusing.
[55:50] Yeah.
[55:52] And then just was a really nice kid and so was rewarded at school with awards and things like that, but just never really met their potential.
[56:03] And it wasn't until – and I felt really guilty about this.
[56:08] This is what I'm coming to.
[56:09] It wasn't until I started to – I realised that they had dyslexia and we got them help for that –
[56:17] But it wasn't until I started to do some research for the ADHD group at the university, which was many years later, I think they were about 17 at this point, that I went, oh, they're ADHD.
[56:29] And then I felt so guilty because I had always given them a hard time for having such a messy bedroom, never studying, or, you know, big emotions.
[56:40] And I just felt so guilty.
[56:42] Yeah.
[56:42] I don't think I felt shame, but I felt really guilty.
[56:46] And then I just like, because I'd done some work myself, I was able to just be compassionate towards myself and say, well, you didn't know.
[56:52] You did everything you could and you didn't know.
[56:56] But if I could, oh, gee, I would have those years again so that I didn't criticize the things that they couldn't help.
[57:04] So that's one of the biggest lessons that you've learned.
[57:05] Yeah.
[57:07] Is to understand what ADHD does.
[57:09] So if your child is messy and maybe that doesn't come out until maybe puberty or something like that and suddenly the bedroom is a tip and everything's disorganized and they forget everything and they're not doing their homework, etc., is not to criticize them because they can't help it.
[57:26] They're not doing it willfully.
[57:28] It's not that they just can't be bothered.
[57:30] It's just the way their brain works and they're good at other things.
[57:33] And then it's up to me as the parent to be able to scaffold them.
[57:38] And, you know, I just had to learn to just close the bedroom door so I didn't see it, you know, and then I didn't criticise anymore.
[57:45] But it must have been particularly, that's a leap to take as someone that isn't an ADHDer to go, okay, I'm not.
[57:53] That dawning that you have to have, I suppose, as a parent to go, oh, our brains don't work the same and I need to put myself in your shoes to go, this is just who you are.
[58:02] And it's not helping build any kind of connection here to try and bend you to something you're not.
[58:10] No, exactly.
[58:11] And I mean, I think I've got some ADHD traits, but just like you, Josh, I just sort of feel like, you know, like I feel like I'm taking it away from other people to say that I'm an ADHDer because I don't struggle with a lot of, you know, all of the things.
[58:26] But it was very confusing to me the way that this child's brain worked just all the way through.
[58:33] and probably until adulthood because their brain just works very differently to mine.
[58:37] And isn't that a great thing?
[58:39] You know, this child is better at so many things than I am.
[58:45] How about friendships, ADHD kids and friendship?
[58:48] Is it more challenging for an ADHD child to maintain a friendship?
[58:53] It can be.
[58:53] So not all ADHD is.
[58:55] Some ADHD kids are, you know, just really charismatic and they get other kids.
[59:02] They get social cues.
[59:04] And that's a really helpful thing because then they can bring all the energy and the fun and et cetera.
[59:10] But some ADHDers will not have as good perception of social cues.
[59:16] Or they might be talkers and not be able to stop themselves from talking.
[59:20] That's a really common one.
[59:22] Or for girls, if they get angry, because, you know, ADHD is sometimes, especially as they're going through puberty and in the teen years,
[59:31] Emotions are big and the emotion breaks are not very good.
[59:35] And girls often don't forgive each other if they get angry at them.
[59:40] And so all of these things, feeling like you're different than everybody else and then maybe you're holding back and now you're starting to just like censor everything that you say and you're starting to question, you know, do I fit in here?
[59:54] A lot of ADHD is, even though everybody loves them, feel like nobody likes them.
[59:59] Yeah, that's so tragic.
[1:00:01] Yeah.
[1:00:02] I imagine when you hit puberty and hormones and all these other things start to come into play, that must be an enormous stressor on the system.
[1:00:13] Absolutely.
[1:00:14] And I think even we particularly talk about females in terms of hormones.
[1:00:19] I'm not sure about the impact for males with hormones during puberty.
[1:00:24] There's not enough known about that.
[1:00:26] But for girls and young women,
[1:00:30] The time, it's called the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle and it sort of leads up to menstruation starting.
[1:00:39] Everyone's heard of PMS, premenstrual syndrome, but what we've become more aware of is premenstrual.
[1:00:47] premenstrual dysphoric disorder.
[1:00:49] And that means that is a lot more intense.
[1:00:52] So a lot deeper depression and a lot worse anxiety.
[1:00:58] And what they are discovering is that females with ADHD are much more likely to develop PMDD than females without ADHD.
[1:01:09] Oh, wow.
[1:01:10] And estrogen seems to be the biggest problem there because when estrogen drops, it affects our brains in many ways, but very intense ways.
[1:01:23] And so one of them is, you know, depression.
[1:01:26] Another one is anxiety.
[1:01:27] But it's also...
[1:01:29] Brain clarity, memory capacity to think clearly and put together cogent arguments for things.
[1:01:37] So this is a really big disability for females in general, but particularly if you are struggling with PMDD.
[1:01:46] So this is just something that we've become aware of just maybe in the last five years or so.
[1:01:50] The treating doctors, so in Australia that's psychiatrists and pediatricians, well, pediatricians treat until about 16 or 17.
[1:02:00] They're starting to get on board with coming up with some treatment for that.
[1:02:05] So if you're already taking a stimulant medications, and this isn't medical advice, this is just for education purposes, but...
[1:02:12] Some of those doctors are prescribing like an increased dosage of the stimulant medication just for that period of time.
[1:02:20] This is for teen girls.
[1:02:21] For teen girls.
[1:02:22] Yeah.
[1:02:23] If they have PMDD.
[1:02:24] Yeah.
[1:02:25] But another way that the hormones can affect ADHD is ADHD is much more likely to have endometriosis or PCOS disease.
[1:02:33] Really?
[1:02:34] Yeah.
[1:02:34] So they're much more likely to have a lot of pain and other, we won't get into all the details, but teen girls who are ADHDers are struggling with even more.
[1:02:44] Yeah.
[1:02:45] Just on a hormonal level as well.
[1:02:47] Yeah.
[1:02:47] Got it.
[1:02:48] How about, so parenting with ADHD.
[1:02:53] So I burnt out June, July last year quite badly and a lot of it was straight away, well, I'm doing too much work or I'm too busy.
[1:03:01] But the more I look back on it, I actually wonder about the parenting element, if that was probably more to blame than doing two podcasts a week.
[1:03:12] doing the odd talk.
[1:03:14] We're quick to blame that.
[1:03:16] But the parenting as someone with ADHD is it can be really, really exhausting and you can be amazing at it, but then you can be not as amazing very quickly in the same, like I said, the same day, but the same half hour.
[1:03:36] Do you work a lot of adults on that specific thing, on how to be a – well, could you give me some –
[1:03:42] What are the secrets?
[1:03:47] Burnout is really common for ADHD and autism, neurodivergence in general, because having to fit into, and I'm talking about adults here, so the parents, having to fit into that neurotypical way day to day, especially if your career is not conducive to having an ADHD brain, which most ADHD is, that would be their story.
[1:04:10] But having to remember everything and organize ourselves and be on time and be on time and
[1:04:15] all of the things uses up so much energy so that then there's less energy available to do all the other things that we've all got to do.
[1:04:24] And so it's very, very common for people, you know, ADHD is to have very low energy and high stressors.
[1:04:31] And when there's that gap,
[1:04:33] then over time that can create very big problems.
[1:04:38] If that's just happening once a week or something, then you might get a bit irritable, you might snap at people.
[1:04:44] But if that's happening day after day after day, this is where the problems start to happen.
[1:04:49] And burnout is a clinical diagnosis and it's a serious issue that a lot of people have.
[1:04:57] But certainly you're an ADHDer and you're parenting multiple children
[1:05:02] And they are likely because if you're an ADHDer, each child has a 57% chance of inheriting that from you.
[1:05:10] And if both parents are ADHDers, I don't know what the stats are there.
[1:05:13] 114.
[1:05:14] I think that's how it works.
[1:05:16] It was fast.
[1:05:17] That's a very good amount.
[1:05:19] I'd get you on those books.
[1:05:21] Josh never filled any of these.
[1:05:27] But when you think about all of the executive function that, you know, is required just to run yourself as an individual and then you're multiplying it, maybe someone who's really good at maths would be able to work out the exponential sort of range of what is demanded of you as a parent when you're an ADHD-er.
[1:05:46] And you're most likely to have some ADHD in your children because they are having executive function problems.
[1:05:54] They are having dopamine challenges.
[1:05:56] And you are.
[1:05:57] And maybe other people are as well.
[1:05:59] And that is just a lot.
[1:06:02] I do notice I notice when the medication wears off and it's often around when I get home from a big day of work and I think I would like it the most right now because this two hours before bed this is important if I'm seeing my kids for half an hour before they go to school or an hour before they go to school then an hour before two hours before they go to bed I would like that time to be really good
[1:06:21] But now I think about it, I take my medication when I wake up so it doesn't start till after I've dropped them off.
[1:06:27] And then it kind of wears off by the time I get home and they're getting someone who's like, you know, I'm not getting that dopamine.
[1:06:34] But sometimes if I take it late and it's still there, I notice a difference in a really big way.
[1:06:38] The energy is the really big one.
[1:06:41] Yeah, I mean, it's just really hard, isn't it?
[1:06:43] Because also they've had a, and I'm not saying anything about your children, but imagine that, you know, you've got maybe three kids and two of them are ADHD to some sort of degree.
[1:06:53] They've got their challenges.
[1:06:54] They've got their school challenges as well that are coming home.
[1:06:57] Maybe they're having some friendship problems or maybe it's academic or maybe, you know, it could be anything.
[1:07:03] And they've each got their problems that they're sort of dealing with and their big emotions.
[1:07:07] And then you've got your stuff and your big emotions and, yeah, it's really hard.
[1:07:11] Put us under the same roof with a deadline that they never agreed to, but they have to get into bed by this time.
[1:07:15] Absolutely.
[1:07:16] You're there to get them in there.
[1:07:17] Absolutely.
[1:07:18] And it's like, my gosh.
[1:07:20] Yeah, it's hard.
[1:07:20] I can also imagine that I remember speaking to my psychologist years ago about something that I went through when I was a child.
[1:07:27] And she said, when your kids reach that age, that's going to be really hard for you.
[1:07:33] because it's really hard to not overreact or underreact because you're sort of being, I think triggered is probably the appropriate word.
[1:07:44] But I imagine that to layer on top of all that energy, if you have ADHD and you start seeing the struggles that you had as a child and your own children, it would be so hard to respond rather than react to the situation.
[1:08:01] Yeah.
[1:08:01] Yeah, yeah.
[1:08:03] It's really, it's good when people realise that they're doing it, but I'm sure that there's many who don't realise that they're doing it, but it can be that the parent is over-identifying with the struggle of their child and then taking it out on their child because they haven't done the work on themselves to really sort of be compassionate to their own child when they were that age.
[1:08:26] So it's a really common one of just lashing out.
[1:08:29] Yeah, and tragically just end up repeating the mistake that you could have done without as a child.
[1:08:35] It feels like at the heart of this, whether you're parenting an ADHD or you have ADHD yourself and you're parenting a child that may or may not have...
[1:08:46] have ADHD.
[1:08:46] I think compassion is a great word.
[1:08:49] You just said that that's sort of what it all boils down to, doesn't it?
[1:08:51] Compassion for yourself, if you are an adult with it, and compassion for the child, if they're a child with it.
[1:08:59] I think that's where so much of this tension comes from.
[1:09:02] It's from maybe holding an ideal...
[1:09:06] that reality is not conforming to and rather than kind of trying to push and push and push and get everything to bend that way until it snaps, it's about just accepting things where they are.
[1:09:17] Yes.
[1:09:18] Because I imagine there'd be so many parents that have a teen maybe that get an ADHD diagnosis and sit there going, well, we still, you know, I don't know, they're in year nine and we had hopes and dreams for them to do well, quote, unquote.
[1:09:34] Yeah.
[1:09:35] But that just might not be on the cards in the same way that it might be for another kid because school is this rigid system they're in.
[1:09:44] I suppose that's part of being a parent that gets that diagnosis for their kids, isn't it?
[1:09:48] Just like learning to let go a bit maybe of what the script was that you had in your head.
[1:09:53] Beautifully said.
[1:09:54] Absolutely beautifully said.
[1:09:56] Yes.
[1:09:57] Absolutely.
[1:09:58] As a parent of an ADHD, we need to just relax a little bit, I think.
[1:10:04] And if I could go back and speak to my younger self, I would have just said, everything's going to turn out okay.
[1:10:12] You don't have to worry.
[1:10:13] Like, it's going to be okay.
[1:10:16] Because I think also as parents, we want to be the good girl and the good boy, and we want to please the teacher.
[1:10:23] And, you know, and so... That's awesome.
[1:10:25] They see it, they feel it.
[1:10:27] Yeah.
[1:10:27] Even people that are aware of it can't help but slip into that.
[1:10:30] Yeah.
[1:10:31] And so, you know, I work with lots of parents of young children who end up screaming at their children because they're going to be late again to school when actually it doesn't matter.
[1:10:41] Like who cares?
[1:10:42] It's like you're five and who cares if you're half an hour, an hour late.
[1:10:46] It doesn't really matter.
[1:10:46] What does matter is the connection between you and your child.
[1:10:49] So it's like if you can just take a moment and –
[1:10:54] Organise your life, get to bed earlier so that you've got more energy and start the morning with an intention just to work on connection rather than compliance.
[1:11:03] I think you used that word before.
[1:11:06] Instead of having compliant children and being a compliant parent at the school, let's be on the child's side.
[1:11:12] Let's see them for who they are.
[1:11:14] Let's notice what they're good at.
[1:11:17] Support them in that, even if it goes against what we were taught in our conventional goals.
[1:11:22] you know, upbringing that says you must do medicine or law or engineering, if they're really good at dancing.
[1:11:30] You've got a dancer.
[1:11:30] Yeah, you've got a dancer.
[1:11:32] Yeah.
[1:11:32] Congrats.
[1:11:33] I mean, I think, I also think, and this is just primary school world at the moment, but the class WhatsApp is like a little version of Instagram because everyone's like, in terms of like presenting the ideal thing, everyone's just like.
[1:11:47] hey, did everyone get those two practice exams?
[1:11:51] They're like, what?
[1:11:52] But then to a lot of parents, even though then you could be like, this is not the emphasis we put on in our house, you can't help but go, oh, shit, our house is doing two practice exams.
[1:12:02] We are playing.
[1:12:05] Yeah.
[1:12:06] whoops, we're making an apple pie.
[1:12:09] I mean, we can't outrun it because it's part of our childhood and we've had that good kid, bad kid ingrained in us.
[1:12:16] We're trying to back it.
[1:12:17] To your point, Josh, when the kid hits whatever age you're at at primary school, then you're back in that world of going, I'm going to try and do well.
[1:12:24] Be compliant.
[1:12:25] I think it's a great message to, for me, I'm sure a lot of people to hear to go, just remember that it's like, that all that really matters, I suppose, is that the outcome is that you cared about, like where the curiosity is and the connection.
[1:12:40] And the thing is a lot of ADHD is, and, and,
[1:12:44] You are definitely one of them and maybe we don't know that you're an ADHDer, but potentially.
[1:12:49] I don't know if I ever get back there and finish that test.
[1:12:53] But, you know, it's really common for the really amazing people in the world to be ADHDers.
[1:12:58] So when they're kids, let's just support them and encourage them.
[1:13:03] And as your mum did, see what they're really good at, reframe things for them because they are sensitive and they pick things up and they're going to internalize the messages that they're not good enough.
[1:13:15] Yeah.
[1:13:16] You know, my girls went to a private girls' school in Perth and they...
[1:13:22] I don't know over here whether they do that, but they have what they call blazer bling over there where you get badges.
[1:13:29] Oh, my God.
[1:13:29] It's like you've been on 10 Tools of Duty, some of these days.
[1:13:33] It's unbelievable.
[1:13:34] Well, that's right.
[1:13:35] And I was never a believer in any of that.
[1:13:37] I don't think that that's helpful because not, you know.
[1:13:41] it's unequal in terms of who gets those and who doesn't get them.
[1:13:45] It's not about effort.
[1:13:46] It's not about creativity.
[1:13:48] It's not about anything except, you know, whoever was in the top 10% of whatever it is.
[1:13:52] It's one metric.
[1:13:54] Yeah.
[1:13:54] And I think any time you boil things down to basic metrics, you miss all the intangibles.
[1:13:59] Yeah.
[1:14:00] You know, it's sort of like –
[1:14:02] I don't know, fragments.
[1:14:02] It was like going, well, if I've done 10,000 steps today, I'm a good person.
[1:14:06] Yes.
[1:14:06] But if you did 10,000 steps and you left the house and your baby was crying and they needed food,
[1:14:12] You're not a good person.
[1:14:13] You probably should have been at home with your baby because, you know, do you know what I mean?
[1:14:17] Yes.
[1:14:17] Well, but my watch doesn't measure how much my baby needed me.
[1:14:21] My watch only measures steps.
[1:14:23] So it's like I think it's that thing of like, yeah, the academic, and this is most schools.
[1:14:29] I know there's a lot of great schools that aren't just, you know, conforming to this, but that's that hard thing, I suppose, of going the bulk of the system for these kids isn't the way their brains are wired.
[1:14:41] No, and I think, you know, one of my kids went to a primary school where there was no emphasis put on grades.
[1:14:47] None of them knew how anyone had gone in any of the tests.
[1:14:51] And this child of mine just went through this whole and had some learning challenges and they sort of righted themselves by the time this child was 13.
[1:15:01] Yeah.
[1:15:03] So this child went through just believing that they were just really smart.
[1:15:07] And they are.
[1:15:08] But the research shows that we decide at age seven or eight whether we're smart or not, and that lasts for the rest of our life.
[1:15:15] You'd know this test more than I do because I'm just, you know, vaguely trying to remember off a podcast I heard.
[1:15:21] But what was that study where they were like...
[1:15:24] They had kids and they sat them down and they were like, right, you're the smart kids.
[1:15:28] You're the really smart kids and here's a test.
[1:15:31] And they gave them the test with questions that couldn't be solved.
[1:15:34] And the kids kind of just freaked out because they're like, shit, I'm meant to be the smart kid.
[1:15:39] But then there was other kids where they just didn't tell them
[1:15:41] Well, the other kids, they praised effort.
[1:15:44] Yes, that's right.
[1:15:45] So one group, they praised their intelligence and the other group, they praised effort.
[1:15:49] And so what they found the difference was when they came against a hurdle, the children who were being told that they were smart just believed there was nothing they could do about that.
[1:15:59] That's how you're born.
[1:16:00] And so they kind of gave up and got quite powerless, whereas the kids whose effort was praised just got over the hurdle.
[1:16:07] Found a way.
[1:16:08] Yeah, they found a way.
[1:16:09] That's a lovely, that's really nice.
[1:16:10] And that's what I'm here to bring to the show, guys.
[1:16:14] 20% of a misremembered study.
[1:16:15] A professional can come in and remember correctly.
[1:16:18] It was a good effort, though.
[1:16:19] I really like your effort.
[1:16:20] Thanks for praising it.
[1:16:22] Your intelligence on it was terrible.
[1:16:23] Your effort was great.
[1:16:27] One of the big challenges I see for kids with ADHD, I guess adults as well, but I'm more thinking kids here, is regulation and self-regulation.
[1:16:37] And our ADHD child at the moment is doing this thing.
[1:16:41] They love their footy, but they're taking species nonstop on the couch, cannot stop.
[1:16:47] And it's like, that's kind of like a way of trying to regulate themselves with that constant sensory input, like that quite firm sensory input.
[1:16:55] That's my question is like self-regulation from ADHD.
[1:16:58] That's it.
[1:16:59] Like, how do you see that as being like for kids you've seen do it well or adults that do it well?
[1:17:06] What have you seen?
[1:17:07] Well, I think self-regulation is something that we all are working on for the rest of our life, like our whole life.
[1:17:13] It's something – so it's based on this concept of homeostasis, which is just being in balance.
[1:17:19] And our body and brain wants to be in balance all the time.
[1:17:23] And so, for example, if you eat lots of salty food, you'll get thirsty because there's too much salt.
[1:17:28] And so then the body will regulate.
[1:17:30] It will find a way of regulating back into balance.
[1:17:34] And so the way that we can, as individuals, we can learn how to self-regulate, but we've got to pay a lot of attention to what's going on for us.
[1:17:43] So you've noticed that your child needs to have that really strong sensory input in order to feel balanced.
[1:17:51] And others will shy away from contact.
[1:17:54] They don't like to be touched or hugged, et cetera.
[1:17:58] I think how it applies to ADHD as opposed to neurotypical people, ADHD is a regulation disorder, generally speaking.
[1:18:09] So there's not that consistency.
[1:18:11] So mood can be up and down and energy can be up and down.
[1:18:14] Sleep is up and down.
[1:18:16] Whereas neurotypical people be more like this.
[1:18:18] It's more consistent.
[1:18:20] And so when things are more consistent, they're having to use less energy to do, you know, to keep themselves in balance.
[1:18:27] Whereas when you're all or nothing, so that's a really common way of describing ADHD is all or nothing.
[1:18:33] Well, that's energy expensive to try and find that middle way.
[1:18:37] you know, and be regulated.
[1:18:39] So it takes a lot of energy to come down from a high high or come up from a low low.
[1:18:45] So finding ways of regulating is really important.
[1:18:50] And I did training with the Merit Centre in Canada and maybe we can put the link to their centre in the show notes.
[1:19:01] But they talk about this idea of energy versus stressors and having to manage that.
[1:19:07] So if I have lots of stressors but I have a lot of energy, then there's not a problem.
[1:19:10] That's the classic high achiever.
[1:19:13] Yeah, both.
[1:19:14] They've got both, yeah.
[1:19:15] They can figure out a way to manage high stress and high energy.
[1:19:19] Yeah.
[1:19:19] And so they've got the resources that they need to deal with those stressors.
[1:19:24] But what happens is for our children, for us as well, but for our children, if we're just going to talk about children, is that we have obvious stressors.
[1:19:32] So it might be stressful to go to school if they're not enjoying school, but there's a lot of hidden stressors.
[1:19:37] And I'll give you some examples.
[1:19:39] One would be being hot and not doing anything about it.
[1:19:42] So a stressor is anything that requires our body to burn up energy to bring us back into homeostasis.
[1:19:49] So there's a lot of hidden stressors.
[1:19:52] Going to a party and having a lot of fun, that sort of riles us up and then we've got to regulate again.
[1:19:57] So that's a stressor as well.
[1:19:59] And so as parents, we can be trying to watch our children and working out what are their hidden stressors.
[1:20:05] So some ADHD children will really respond to strong smells.
[1:20:10] That will be a big stressor for them.
[1:20:12] Others, it will be bright lights.
[1:20:15] Others, it might be being around people they don't know.
[1:20:17] Whatever it is, we've got to get to know our children, identify the hidden stressors so that we can help them reduce their stress load.
[1:20:25] And in that way, they're much more likely to find balance more of the time.
[1:20:30] That's brilliant.
[1:20:31] And just to be even more granular than that, how do I know that that was the stressor?
[1:20:38] How do I know that it was bright lights or loud noise or whatever?
[1:20:43] It takes a while.
[1:20:44] And so you've just got to be curious.
[1:20:46] And if they're old enough, you're encouraging them to start to look for it as well.
[1:20:50] There's a lot of resources on this, and it's all aimed at children and parents of children.
[1:20:53] Yeah, there's lots of worksheets and things like that that you can use.
[1:20:57] Right.
[1:20:58] But, yeah, it's just being curious, identifying what the hidden stress laws are for your child and helping them to manage those.
[1:21:04] But I tell you what, for us adults, and some of these will apply for kids, hidden stress laws, massive ones are screens, unfortunately.
[1:21:14] That's a hidden stress law.
[1:21:16] Sugar or salt or fatty things.
[1:21:19] Not moving the body is a massive stress law.
[1:21:21] So basically life these days.
[1:21:22] Life these days.
[1:21:23] Absolutely, yeah.
[1:21:25] And that's why so many people are hooked on stress.
[1:21:27] all those sorts of things because, you know, having low energy and high stress is a really awful place to be and our brain doesn't like it.
[1:21:35] So it's going to like reach for these things.
[1:21:37] Yeah.
[1:21:38] I mean, why do we, going back to dopamine for a second, like so obviously phones are just, we all know they're just engineered to trick us.
[1:21:48] Why do we get stuck in the loop of knowing this is not good for us but unable to stop?
[1:21:53] Yeah, it's hard.
[1:21:54] It's what Stuart Shanker at the Merit Centre calls being in a stress cycle.
[1:21:59] It's a vicious cycle.
[1:22:00] So I feel crappy, so let me reach for my phone.
[1:22:03] I don't even realise I've done that.
[1:22:04] My hand's just reached over for it because I don't want to feel this way.
[1:22:07] Or it might be alcohol or it might be gambling or whatever it is.
[1:22:11] All of the things that get us addicted are all of the things that are giving us dopamine to numb us out so we don't have to feel that.
[1:22:19] It gives us an illusion of some energy.
[1:22:22] You know, if we're on Instagram or whatever it is or having a glass of wine or it gives us that illusion but it's numbing us out.
[1:22:29] But not only that, all of those things that we reach for are using up more energy because they require our bodies to activate different systems.
[1:22:39] And so it keeps us.
[1:22:40] That's why it keeps us in this vicious cycle.
[1:22:42] So the only thing that we can do is start to –
[1:22:45] make choices that more closely resemble living like our grandparents used to.
[1:22:50] Yeah.
[1:22:53] Gotcha.
[1:22:53] So stealing heaps of sugars from Maccas.
[1:22:55] No, not that.
[1:22:58] That was my crab mouth number one trick.
[1:23:01] No, I understand.
[1:23:03] It's an epidemic and most people are like hooked into it, this epidemic of having too many stressors, not enough energy.
[1:23:10] Is it possible?
[1:23:11] I think my brain tries to buy things.
[1:23:15] Like 10 o'clock at night, I would just buy, not even expensive things, just be like, oh, God, I really need that engraving tool.
[1:23:24] And that's why, like, we make a joke about it a lot on our podcast, me and Andy.
[1:23:28] Like I am a just, like, I'm completely susceptible to Instagram marketing.
[1:23:35] Like I've bought the best pair of shorts in the world ten different times from different, like, best socks, best T-shirts.
[1:23:40] Like, yeah.
[1:23:42] I'm the biggest sucker, world's most powerful torch.
[1:23:45] Like I just, it just gets me straight away.
[1:23:47] And I know what I, and I know.
[1:23:49] But it's dopamine.
[1:23:50] It's dopamine.
[1:23:51] Sometimes I turn up and I'm like, what is this?
[1:23:53] Yeah.
[1:23:54] Like who bought this?
[1:23:55] Oh my God, that was me.
[1:23:56] I bought three of these.
[1:23:58] Yeah.
[1:23:59] Well, that is dopamine.
[1:24:00] And that's in the top six of behaviours that we're addicted to is online shopping.
[1:24:06] And ADHD is falling into this trap more than other people do.
[1:24:09] Yeah.
[1:24:10] I'm a whale.
[1:24:10] Online shopping.
[1:24:11] Instagram loves me so much.
[1:24:13] I'm probably responsible for most of Meta's profits, to be honest with you.
[1:24:15] But online shopping is an interesting one because you don't only get dopamine when you're looking at it.
[1:24:20] It's the chase.
[1:24:21] So you're getting dopamine as you're considering to buy it.
[1:24:24] And then when you buy it, then you're anticipating it arriving and then that's more dopamine.
[1:24:29] And then when it arrives, it's sort of like, meh.
[1:24:31] Dopamine.
[1:24:31] We call that dopamine mining.
[1:24:33] Dopamine mining.
[1:24:34] Yeah.
[1:24:35] Yeah.
[1:24:36] How do we close the mine?
[1:24:40] The thing is you're going to have to find slow dopamine.
[1:24:43] So that's fast dopamine, so things that give us a big hit.
[1:24:46] So screens give us a big hit.
[1:24:47] Alcohol, sugar, online shopping gives us a big hit.
[1:24:50] We've got to find slow dopamine, which is we've got to work for it.
[1:24:55] We've got to put effort in and then we just get a small amount of dopamine.
[1:24:58] So Hugh's a runner.
[1:24:59] So Hugh would get dopamine from running, but he's got to put a lot of effort into that.
[1:25:03] Do you get slopamine from that?
[1:25:05] Slopamine.
[1:25:05] Slopamine.
[1:25:06] Slow dopamine.
[1:25:09] I do, yes.
[1:25:10] I do.
[1:25:11] But I also get it from live ants.
[1:25:14] Yes.
[1:25:15] It's the medication.
[1:25:19] I see the challenge for, I mean, self-regulation, as you said, is a challenge that we'll have for our whole lives.
[1:25:25] But as a parent, I find that keeping myself in a zone of emotional regulation is one of the biggest challenges because when I stuff it up, it's when I really stuff up parenting.
[1:25:36] I'm assuming that is another level of difficulty for an ADHD parent.
[1:25:44] Yeah, self-regulation, like keeping ourselves in that state where, you know, we've got enough energy to deal with the stressors that we have requires planning and it requires consistency and organisation and these are not things that ADHDers tend to be strong at.
[1:26:03] The reason that it's so important is that when your child needs you,
[1:26:09] let's say you've got a daughter and she's come home from school and she's really upset about something that one of the kids said to her.
[1:26:17] What I see happen a lot is that these kids stop telling their mums oftentimes because their mum, in response to their daughter's
[1:26:28] upset feelings, then their feelings get even bigger.
[1:26:32] And now the child's having to deal with mum's big feelings and these big feelings are contagious.
[1:26:38] And so then the daughter might sort of run to her room and sort of say it's fine, I'll sort it out for myself.
[1:26:44] And then mum's more dysregulated and, you know, on and on it goes.
[1:26:48] So for us to be useful to our children, we need to be self-regulating ourselves so that we've got the capacity
[1:26:56] It doesn't matter what age they are, but it does get more complicated when they're teenagers, generally speaking.
[1:27:02] We need to have that capacity to be able to absorb and co-regulate with them when they're not regulating well.
[1:27:09] And we can't do that if we're dysregulated.
[1:27:12] It's such an important point that I think it's something a real weakness of mine as a parent is that I always – I'm not good.
[1:27:20] I always feel guilty taking time for myself.
[1:27:23] I'm really bad at putting things into like routine or things that will give myself a break to get my brain back into a regulated state and then I start –
[1:27:35] overreacting to things and I get myself into a point where it's bad for everyone but I think I'm kind of this martyr that's like I'm always here I'm always doing like I'm never taking a break and I need to remind myself that it's actually it's making you a not so good parent and it's actually the kids who are suffering here as much as you it's better for you to take some time away absolutely so you can be the parent they need you to be
[1:28:01] You know, the Dalai Lama always says, he says this so much, he says, be kind whenever possible.
[1:28:07] It's always possible.
[1:28:08] And I think that's a very high bar.
[1:28:10] But I work with ADHDers and ADHDers are really kind.
[1:28:12] So I ask people, like, how do you think you're going with that?
[1:28:15] And people are like, well, I think I'm doing all right.
[1:28:18] And I say, well, but he meant to yourself first.
[1:28:21] That's what he means is be kind to yourself first because from there all else flows.
[1:28:26] So we can't be kind to our children if we're not kind to ourselves.
[1:28:29] And for a lot of us, we grew up being self-sacrificing and feeling guilty when we do put our needs equal, not even above, but equal.
[1:28:37] So your need for rest is just as important for your child's need for whatever else.
[1:28:44] And so we can feel guilty.
[1:28:45] But, yeah, we've got to remind ourselves that even if we're feeling guilty, we need to do it anyway.
[1:28:49] Do it anyway, yeah.
[1:28:51] We've talked about the, you know, the strengths when you get to being an adult of being, you know, there are a lot of upsides to having an ADHD brain that thinks differently.
[1:29:02] What about as a parent?
[1:29:03] Like are there things that you can bring to the table as an ADHDer in the parent role that are strengths?
[1:29:11] I think there's lots of strengths for ADHD parents.
[1:29:14] One of them is just the energy and the fun.
[1:29:17] ADHDers tend to be fun and know how to have fun with their kids, and that's a really important thing.
[1:29:24] They might lose track of time and they might be making a mess, but the kids are having a great time and just, you know, really being creative and just all in.
[1:29:34] And that is something that ADHDers do in spades is they're all in.
[1:29:38] But ADHD parents are very empathic, very kind.
[1:29:42] Well, ADHD is very empathic and very kind, and that's a beautiful thing to give to your child, for them to know how important they are in your life.
[1:29:52] The other thing I'd add to that, which I find a lot of ADHD is that I speak to is very good in a crisis when something kicks off and it's like proper crisis.
[1:30:01] I feel like my brain does this weird thing.
[1:30:04] What's a good example?
[1:30:05] It wasn't apparent in the moment, but I was getting into my car the other day and a guy was walking up right behind me with his hood on and his head down.
[1:30:14] He's walking straight towards me and I was like, oh, this guy's about to steal my car or...
[1:30:19] And my brain just slowed down so much.
[1:30:21] I was like, okay, so if he wants to steal my car, the way I can probably steal – well, if he doesn't have the keys, he can't do it.
[1:30:27] So I'm going to throw my keys to a place, but I don't want to throw them to a place where it's very hard for me to get them later.
[1:30:32] It needs to be a place where he just can't get them the next two minutes.
[1:30:35] And I saw a ledge that was like he wouldn't be able to climb up, but I could go and get something.
[1:30:40] And I just – I thought all that in like the space of, I don't know, like half a second.
[1:30:44] And then he just walked past and he was just cold, so he had a hood on.
[1:30:47] Yeah.
[1:30:48] You had a plan.
[1:30:49] How long does it take you to get the keys down?
[1:30:54] You need to ask for yourself.
[1:30:55] Sorry, can I get a booze?
[1:30:57] Oh, you're mugging me.
[1:31:02] But I had worked it out of my head and that I often notice when things go, when a child hurts himself or I just notice that my brain really slows down to go, okay, let's sort this problem out right now.
[1:31:12] I just feel like that's a strength for parents as well.
[1:31:14] Is that an ADHD strength?
[1:31:16] Yes.
[1:31:17] Is that to do with the fact that because life seems pretty uncertain all the time, would you say ADHD is more comfortable in uncertainty or unpredictability?
[1:31:26] I actually don't know why it is because why would that be that Hugh's brain can slow down but be so fast at the same time?
[1:31:34] Because that's a lot of planning to do in half a second, isn't it?
[1:31:37] Well, so when I say slow down, so my brain works really quickly but my – Time slows down.
[1:31:40] Time slows down.
[1:31:41] Time slows down for me to just work out the problem.
[1:31:43] Things like reality slowed down and you were calmly, you know, going through all the possibilities –
[1:31:49] I actually don't know the reason, but it's just a really common thing for ADHD.
[1:31:52] Like an extreme hyper-focus, like we can hyper-focus and then that's an extreme version of like, I just feel like my brain absolutely clicks into like a percentage of like we only use 5% of our brain.
[1:32:03] I feel like 100% of our brain is active in a crisis.
[1:32:05] It's all going, okay, let's sort this out right now.
[1:32:08] Well, yeah, to me that is just, that's aligned with this idea that ADHD brains are specifically designed for certain things.
[1:32:15] Yep.
[1:32:16] You know.
[1:32:16] Like a high adrenaline situation.
[1:32:18] Yeah.
[1:32:18] Like being an explorer, an adventurer.
[1:32:21] Yeah.
[1:32:22] Where are you sitting with this at the moment, Josh?
[1:32:24] Because I feel like you just said before, you know, it hasn't been too much of a disorder for you.
[1:32:28] But I do know that you do have a habit of getting really down on yourself when you don't do things to the level that you perhaps would like.
[1:32:38] Yeah.
[1:32:39] I don't know why.
[1:32:40] I think you said it before, I think pretty well is that I don't feel like I deserve it for some reason.
[1:32:44] It's like I can hit myself with both sides of the hammer.
[1:32:47] Like you're not good at those things, but you don't deserve to have an excuse.
[1:32:52] That's a tough no man's land to be in.
[1:32:54] Yeah.
[1:32:54] Yeah.
[1:32:55] It's not nice.
[1:32:57] Yeah.
[1:32:57] But then I think I do have many traits that would be from.
[1:33:04] from what we've been talking about.
[1:33:05] But I also wonder if it's just like the world in which...
[1:33:10] we live like we've designed a world that makes those traits a lot worse.
[1:33:14] Absolutely.
[1:33:15] And so in another context, I think I'd probably be not noticing any of them.
[1:33:20] But with the dopamine addiction devices in our pockets and the regularity that the world needs to run on it puts certain pressures on my brain that I'm not great with.
[1:33:33] But I think if I
[1:33:35] you know, I don't know, lived on a farm, I probably wouldn't notice any deficit whatsoever.
[1:33:42] So is that me or is it the world?
[1:33:43] Exactly.
[1:33:44] You know what I mean?
[1:33:45] That's a really good question.
[1:33:46] And I know what I think the answer to that is, and that is, yeah, that is the world.
[1:33:51] Mm-hmm.
[1:33:52] And a lot of people believe that ADHD brains are just perfectly designed to be, you know, if we're going back 300,000 years ago, the explorers and the adventurers, the hunters, rather than the ones who stayed behind and did the same thing every day.
[1:34:10] Like, we need all brains.
[1:34:11] Yeah.
[1:34:12] We need the brains that can do the same thing over and over again and pass that knowledge on to, you know, humans.
[1:34:17] future generations and we need the innovators.
[1:34:20] And ADHD brains are very good at being the innovators.
[1:34:24] Yeah.
[1:34:25] There's no room for them in the school system or even at university.
[1:34:29] Or in some workplaces.
[1:34:30] Yeah, a lot of workplaces.
[1:34:33] Should you be extra cautious?
[1:34:35] I mean, I think you should be cautious full stop as a parent, like, you know, with phones and whatnot.
[1:34:39] That's just my personal philosophy.
[1:34:41] But, like, extra cautious if you've got an ADHD because these things are – like, we can't handle them as adults.
[1:34:47] These, like, as you say, Josh sees dopamine machines.
[1:34:50] Yeah.
[1:34:51] Like to know that if you've got an ADHD kid, they're particularly susceptible to these levers being pulled, is that extra reason to be – or not just phones, but to anything that provides a high dopamine system?
[1:35:06] Should you be a little more careful with that?
[1:35:09] I think so.
[1:35:10] And teaching your kids about that, not to say that everybody else can have it but you can't, but start to look for –
[1:35:17] things that give them slow dopamine and teaching them about that, you don't have to use those terms.
[1:35:22] But children, you know, when I was quite a bit older than you guys, but when I was in primary school, we walked to school, we played all the time and, you know, we walked home and then we were out playing and we were outside and we were moving our bodies.
[1:35:35] We weren't eating a lot of sugar.
[1:35:37] Things were simple.
[1:35:38] There was not a lot of stress.
[1:35:40] Your parents were at home.
[1:35:41] You knew where they were.
[1:35:44] And then on the weekends, you weren't allowed to be inside.
[1:35:46] You weren't allowed to be watching TV or anything.
[1:35:48] You had to be outside doing stuff.
[1:35:50] There was nothing on.
[1:35:50] Exploring.
[1:35:51] No, there was nothing on.
[1:35:52] That's the other thing I tell with our kids.
[1:35:53] I was like, hey, we didn't have screen time because their screens had forgotten about us.
[1:35:59] Screens only knew about us for two hours on a Saturday morning and like half an hour on a Wednesday night with New Simpsons was on.
[1:36:05] It wasn't like we could just go to the TV at 10 o'clock on a Sunday.
[1:36:09] And demand anything.
[1:36:09] You could watch Surf Lifesaving, I think, from memory.
[1:36:13] Like supercars.
[1:36:15] But thank God, we just didn't have the option.
[1:36:17] No.
[1:36:19] And I think back then as well there wasn't the same pressure on children to be amazing at everything.
[1:36:25] You just did what you did.
[1:36:26] Yeah.
[1:36:27] Yeah, yeah.
[1:36:28] Absolutely.
[1:36:28] So really one of the, you know, would you say nature's a great provider of slow dopamine?
[1:36:33] Yes.
[1:36:33] Yes.
[1:36:34] That is, apart from sleep, getting outside is the next, getting outside and moving your body would be the next highest priority.
[1:36:43] And so going on walks with your kids, going to the beach, going to the park, going just for a walk around the block is much better than everybody sitting inside on screens because everyone's going to be tired.
[1:36:56] A lot of people are going to be burnt out.
[1:36:58] But getting outside as much as possible is,
[1:37:01] Our learning from that as parents still works.
[1:37:04] It will stop working once we get teens a bit more resisty.
[1:37:08] But we don't keep going to each other like, got to stop asking.
[1:37:12] We're like, hey, guys, do you want to go for a walk?
[1:37:14] Of course.
[1:37:15] Like, no.
[1:37:15] We're like, goddammit, we have to stop asking.
[1:37:18] We have to just be like, hey, we're going for a walk.
[1:37:21] Get your shit together.
[1:37:22] Like, we are going for a walk.
[1:37:24] Yeah.
[1:37:24] And, God, there's a lot of resistance.
[1:37:26] But the times we do, and we, you know, this would just be around the block or whatever.
[1:37:31] Yeah.
[1:37:32] I mean, there are some full, like...
[1:37:34] wailings and like throwing themselves on the floor to get out of it.
[1:37:38] Like they're protesting the logging of a forest.
[1:37:41] But eventually if we get going, everyone is always better for it.
[1:37:46] Yeah.
[1:37:46] For sure.
[1:37:46] Yeah.
[1:37:47] My mate's mum, who is the Grammati's kids,
[1:37:51] has a thing she calls wonder walks, which are for her like, they're young, so they'd be like three.
[1:37:57] And I've stolen this from her and I use it now with my three-year-old.
[1:38:02] They basically just go out the door and then it's like you start walking.
[1:38:07] You go wherever you want and he just like starts wandering and then she'll just kind of wander and then whatever he points out, they'll stop and just take, it can take them like two hours to go 200 metres.
[1:38:19] But it's just basically Heli leads everything.
[1:38:22] And it's such a great little thing.
[1:38:24] It's awesome.
[1:38:24] And I feel like that's extreme slopamine.
[1:38:28] Very regulating.
[1:38:29] Yeah.
[1:38:30] The other one I should probably mention, which has been very helpful for our family and our ADHD child, is a trampoline.
[1:38:36] I don't know if there's any research behind trampolines, but one of the best investments we've ever made is a – yeah, in fact, the guy who put it in actually said to me, we are doing so many of these for kids who are neurodiverse because it's the way they regulate.
[1:38:51] It's not now, but there was for two or three years.
[1:38:54] Our child would self-regulate, just go on the trampoline and –
[1:38:57] and they'd come back a different person.
[1:38:59] Wow.
[1:39:00] Well, that is regulation, isn't it?
[1:39:01] And that's what I learned is anything that's rhythmic and repetitive is regulating.
[1:39:06] That's why walking is regulating.
[1:39:08] That's why listening to waves is regulating, you know, dancing, et cetera.
[1:39:13] But jumping up and down, very regulating.
[1:39:15] Our brain loves it.
[1:39:16] Body loves it.
[1:39:17] Interesting.
[1:39:19] And Janelle, two of your colleagues are running a course, like an online course right now as well for parents with ADHD.
[1:39:25] Is that right?
[1:39:26] Well, it's coming up at the end of July and it will run for eight weeks.
[1:39:30] Yeah, and it's going to be online focusing on parents with ADHD.
[1:39:34] And how do people find that?
[1:39:35] Well, they can come to my website or I can give you their website address.
[1:39:41] LinkinBio.
[1:39:42] LinkinBio.
[1:39:42] No, not LinkinBio.
[1:39:43] LinkinShowNotes.
[1:39:44] That's it.
[1:39:45] Okay.
[1:39:45] That's good.
[1:39:46] And the show notes.
[1:39:46] And that will help.
[1:39:48] Yeah.
[1:39:49] Is it designed for parents that are like, okay, I've been diagnosed probably, you know, a lot of the time for adults it's recent.
[1:39:55] Then to go, okay, how do I be better for the family?
[1:39:58] Yeah.
[1:39:59] And it's also working on things like self-compassion.
[1:40:01] Yeah.
[1:40:03] that we talked about and just various skills and developing capacities to take good care of yourself as a parent when you're an ADHDer, whether your children are ADHDers or not.
[1:40:16] And I'm right saying you are co-authoring a book at the moment as well?
[1:40:18] You are right.
[1:40:19] I am collaborating.
[1:40:20] It was actually after the first time I was on The Imperfects, I got contacted by a hero of mine who is Matthew Johnston, and he is an author-illustrator.
[1:40:29] He's produced 10 or 11 books.
[1:40:32] His most notable one is I Had a Black Dog, and it's about depression.
[1:40:37] And so what he does is he takes a concept like depression and puts it into pictures, which is really powerful.
[1:40:44] So he contacted me and said, do you want to do one on ADHD?
[1:40:46] And I said, of course I would, yes.
[1:40:48] Yes.
[1:40:48] Wow.
[1:40:49] Yeah.
[1:40:50] That's amazing.
[1:40:51] So is it a children's book?
[1:40:53] No, adults.
[1:40:53] Right.
[1:40:54] It's for adults but it's in picture form.
[1:40:56] There's text as well but it's in picture form and it follows the hero of the story is a woman and we just sort of look at her with her challenges and her strengths.
[1:41:07] and then someone suggests to her she might be in ADHD.
[1:41:10] So she starts to reflect on her childhood and the sorts of struggles that she had there.
[1:41:15] And then she sort of beautifully starts to find ways of being kind to herself at the end.
[1:41:21] But because of Matt's beautiful illustrations, it's really powerful stuff.
[1:41:26] And the ADHDers we've shown it to already are loving it.
[1:41:30] Correct.
[1:41:30] Amazing.
[1:41:32] Well, we're going to let you go because it's so amazing.
[1:41:35] Again, this is a topic we could talk about for so long because there is so much in this, but I love this so much.
[1:41:41] Obviously, I have a very big bias towards it, but it's great to have a conversation with two other people who are ADHD curious.
[1:41:51] As we all should be.
[1:41:55] But also just personally, thank you for your –
[1:41:58] contribution, significant contribution to my ADHD journey.
[1:42:02] I remember calling, it was just for Christmas and we had an hour on the phone and it was the most, you were so kind and gentle with your, like you just said, tell me about your life and I was telling you things and you were just doing a very gentle and kind laugh at everything I told you.
[1:42:15] And I could hear the pen going tick on the piece of paper, but it was life-changing.
[1:42:22] And yeah, thank you so much.
[1:42:25] Oh, my pleasure.
[1:42:25] Thanks for having me.
[1:42:26] Awesome.
[1:42:27] Thank you.
[1:42:28] Nice to meet you.
[1:42:30] If you enjoyed this episode and want a little more, you might enjoy our subscriber-only apps, available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts.
[1:42:37] If you want a little more but don't want to pay anymore, then you can join our newsletter at theimperfects.com.au.
[1:42:42] And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who helped make this show.
[1:42:47] A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri, Woiwurrung people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present.
[1:42:53] The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
[1:43:00] The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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