ADHD and Discipline | ADHD Parenting

[Music] hey my adhd family this is yakini coming to you from adhd love today i have another episode of adhd love parent talk i tend to talk to various people who have some adhd experience i will be talking to parents doctors educators coaches and those just simply grown up with adhd and my goal is to really bring you information so that way you are simply informed and then most of all i just want you to know that you are not alone in this journey so today my guest is caitlin mabry did i pronounce your last name correctly you sure did yay i'm so excited to have her back again so she and i actually talked a little bit on instagram and i was not happy with the video she looked beautiful but i was very blurry so i decided to ask her back so i'm very excited to have her so please caitlyn please definitely tell the audience a little bit about yourself your background and why do you know so much about adhd thank you thank you for having me i've enjoyed our last conversation and i'm looking forward to this one too so um yeah so my name is caitlin mabry i am i live in wisconsin with my husband and my four children one of which also is diagnosed with adhd and i say also because i was diagnosed at the age of 10 and so here i am an adult with adhd i am a special educator so i have taught many children with adhd and now i've entered into the world of parenting a child with adhd so i'm i have a unique perspective from different angles um you know in terms of looking through the lens of the different scopes of how you you know respond to adhd in these different ways so it's been it's been quite an interesting journey and it's it's one i i'm love i'm loving going on because i i feel like i never truly started my journey until i got older and i recognized that i needed to understand my the way that my mind was working more in order to grow and in order to you know develop tools and strategies that i need so so yeah that's a little bit about me well i'm very excited to have you like i said so so tell us when were you actually diagnosed and with what types so i was diagnosed as i said at the age of 10 by a psychologist who diagnosed me with adhd combined height and with comorbid comorbid comorbidity um with also anxiety and mild depression we're tagged on to that and it was interesting because he even saw some ood some oppositional defiance which my parents were kind of miffed by because i was a very compliant child so they were like right but interestingly enough my daughter was also they saw that in her too so i think there's which just kind of sheds light on maybe some of the behaviors that are seen um but yeah so i was diagnosed then and i just remember feeling really alone in my diagnosis because i didn't understand what it meant i knew my parents did the best that they could i mean i'm 38 years old so that was a while ago and back then it just wasn't really there's still a pretty strong stigma on it and it just wasn't really talked about and they did the best that they could in terms of you know implementing strategies and having me do checklists and informing the teachers and the teachers i had really great teachers that helped me navigate my schooling and all the things but at the same time i still felt very different and i felt like a lot of people didn't understand some of my behaviors or some of my intense feelings or you know some of those things so um so that's actually why i went into early childhood special education because i wanted to learn more about it and other other struggles that kids have so um did that answer your question yeah definitely so awesome the so my question to you is as a person that was diagnosed at 10 years old now that your adult what have you learned what are some of those things that are different for you since then well it's interesting because i've learned how important and how valuable mindset is so i growing up i was in a very fixed mindset i figured out growing as as an adult i look back and i was a big ruminator i would ruminate on things and i would just get stuck on things and i would allow some of my challenges with adhd to overwhelm me and kind of define me as a child and it just created all these false beliefs in my head and so now as an adult looking back i i think and i see all of the things that kind of the shame and the you know feeling that i wasn't good enough and that i wasn't capable of doing things because of um the projected thoughts feelings and emotions that adhd brought right and so not until i learned about it in college and um not until i studied it more just so i wrote a book i wrote this is kind of a side note i wrote a children's book hi it's me i have adhd and i wrote it in college and so that kind of that kind of got the wheel spinning towards me researching it more and so i really realized that the value in understanding the depth of our adhd brains and understanding that a lot of it is misunderstood and a lot of it that we do try hard that we do you know we're not lazy we're not we're not enabled to do things we just sometimes do things differently and so really wrapping my head around that as an adult brought me out of that fixed mindset and then threw me into more of a growth mindset and so now i'm on this growth mindset journey which is allowing me to implement tools and strategies into my life and in my daughter's life that are helping us grow so yeah that makes a lot of sense and do you find that there are still a lot of people today especially adults or other educators who really just don't have the grasp of what adhd truly is and what it's about and how they can support children as needed absolutely and i mean that's where some of my passion comes from i just want people to see through her clear lens of adhd because there's so many layers i always i love the analogy of the iceberg right you can see it on the that i'm just the tip of it on the surface but there's so much going on underneath it and i think that's such a great analogy for adhd because that's how it is like you see some impulsivity you see some forgetfulness you see you know those little top of the iceberg things but then underneath there's so much more there's so many intense emotions and there's so many you know um struggles with you know feeling rejected rejection you know rejection sensitivity there's the emotional dysregulation and that i mean that's a whole nother element that a lot of times gets um people people don't see it for what it is right so i feel that there's it's so misunderstood and misrepresented because i remember somebody said to me i can't believe you tell people you have adhd like there is this and that was like stigma to the max right there and i was like well transparency is very transforming you know and right right exactly high from it but i can understand where some people are coming from right and so but i want that's the thing is i want to empower people i want to empower parents and educators and kids to get out of that funk of it being a negative you know full of challenges full of yes they have those things but where is our mindset around it if our mindset is that it's all negative is all full of challenges and that's going to bring us down then that's what it's going to do but if we can change the trajectory of our thoughts and we can go into the direction of you know what there are some challenges but there's also awesome tools and strategies out there that can help me through that challenge and guess what there's stuff beneath the surface that i am really good at i am really interest driven and passion driven and there's so many gifts and talents beneath the surface of adhd that it's sadly they're not brought up enough because they're pushed down by the negatives so i think that's that's one of the biggest things is just to be very for you know parents and educators and any sort of professional working with kids with adhd to be extra mindful of the fact that when we're interacting with our kids who have adhd that we're we remember those under the surface struggles and that we empower them to work through those struggles and rise up you know to be the best version of themselves so i completely agree with that and i know just from you know the struggles that my seeing my child go through actually both of my children now that i officially know my daughter also has adhd um you know just seeing this i'll say daycares and school systems that were not supportive and i just had a just this horrible taste in my mouth because you're right number one they just thought they were bad kids right they didn't really understand that there was something else that was going on behind the scenes and then the you know those who did want to help didn't have the support system you know they just didn't have the activities in place you know to really help them so i end up having to move school systems and so now they're in a wonderful school system and like my son who's on an iep is getting i will say the community around him right so he has not only the best education but he also has the best system and assistance and strategies put in place to help them move forward so it's just it's just been a great experience so i completely understand those parents who have gone through or going through those bad experiences and i know there's hope out there to go through yeah absolutely i agree and i was i was just gonna say three things that i think are super valuable to think of and i i always like to have words to grasp onto you know because sometimes we're we don't know where to start like well i just don't know what to do they're it's out of control and i feel like if you can remember patience empathy yeah right and then walking in grace and love with your child so i guess that's four things but leave it to me to add one little extra nugget but i feel like if we can and even me as a woman with adhd raising a child i have to remember that with my own daughter i have to remind myself of these things okay ask myself am i walking in grace with her am i giving her you know am i loving her through these challenges and seeing the challenges for what they are and helping her or helping to make sure that she's not allowing those challenges to define her you know i think that's that's super valuable and empathizing i mean even if you're a parent that doesn't have adhd or a teacher that doesn't have she empathizing in a way that you know i forget things sometimes too and that's super frustrating you know just giving them that connection i think is very valuable too so i like that i do like that so what would you tell a parent who has just found out that their child has adhd um they don't have any experience with it what tips or what tricks or what would you suggest to them what would be that first step or how you know what direction would they go this is a great question because a lot of parents will ask me okay i know they have radio she know what and they don't know how to tell their child that they have it and one thing that i really want to bring to light because i think it's important is that when you choose to tell your child that they have adhd be prepared for any reaction because every child reacts differently so my book my book is actually meant for kind of that transitional introduction into the diagnosis but i have some parents that are like oh my gosh this is my child keeps your book on his nightstand he loves it right but then i have other parents that say well they didn't they just didn't want to read it they once they read it to him they they kind of pushed it away well there's an example of different types of reactions right and i've had those same parents say oh two months later now they really are liking your book you know because then they were ready for it but it's almost you know there there's a process with it once they recognize they have it for the parent and for the child because there's i don't i don't like to call it a grieving process but kind of those same like there's the the acceptance or the the confusion you know asking questions why why is this happening what does this mean you know all those questions around it and then you know walking towards that place of acceptance takes different people different amounts of time so i think that's super important to remember just because every journey looks a little bit different and i think another thing i would just encourage parents to do is at your own time and pace just learn about your child's brain and where it's coming from where these these behaviors and these you know these things that you're seeing are coming from because knowledge is power and knowledge of an adhd brain softens your heart because once you see what's going on inside and internally all of a sudden you just feel differently uh when you see what's happening externally and you then in turn you respond to it differently yeah so perfect sense how did your daughter um take it when she found out well because it was a little different because i live and breathe i talk about it all the time she actually so it's because i'll talk about it sometimes on my platforms and people are like oh my gosh your daughter's amazing i can't believe she's so accepting of it and i'm like well but she has a mom who talks about it all the time and has for years i mean she's she's heard about it since she was a baby you know so because i've always been transparent about my own diagnosis and honestly that shows the power of connection and the power of empathy and the power because she it's so sweet because not only do i empathize with her but now she empathizes with me and so and social if i'm having an emotional explosion i want to say it nicely i got you she'll say to her siblings watch out this is an adhd thing i need to get to mom oh and she'll just hug me and she's like mom i know i'm sorry you're sad like she's an empath to the core she's just just so sweet i have to say though there are times where she'll look at me and she'll be like mom ah i just don't like my adhd brain i'm like girl i get it i don't like mine either sometimes it's frustrating sometimes you know and so she will she'll express both ways but then other times she'll be like mom look at this cool creation and uh and i'll be like i love your creative mind i mean i talk because she has the most creative mind some things you know some academic stuff isn't her strong suit but man that girl can create anything i mean she'll just out of nothing she just has this beautifully creative mind and so i just really celebrate that and that's what i want to encourage other parents to do is kids really feed off of you celebrating those strengths and celebrating those gifts you know so i agree with that i agree with that so much so um and i don't know if i mentioned this with you or on another um uh episode but so i i will say i connected to adhd when my daughter was four years old because she was the first person that i actually took to the psychologist and she had all of the signs but he just thought she was too young to be diagnosed um but because my son was actually officially diagnosed first she was kind of upset she wanted to be part of the club she's like why am i not part of this club like why does he get to be diagnosed and i'm not diagnosed you know it's like officially diagnosed oh my goodness you would think we were celebrating [Laughter] let's go celebrate i'm like really that's funny really excited about it and but part of it is like you we have been talking about it forever you know so as soon as i actually grasped the concept um because i didn't know about it growing up you know even though i was also recently diagnosed i did not know so once i understood it we talked about it all the time and she just wanted to be a part of it but then also she was able to connect to it then she understood a little bit better why she did the things that she did you know why she was acting certain ways and not that way other times and like you said the creativity is just unbelievable so i can completely completely get your daughter that is just too funny well and like and like you said to piggyback off of what you said about you know her being excited that her and her brother well so my daughter she loves that i have it i mean she's like we share a brain i mean she just thinks it's the cool thing ever but she'll actually who else has it um she kind of has that same and i i hear that from a lot of kids they want to know that they're not the only one that has it you know and so i feel like that connection piece is really big which is why i i i don't know if i mentioned so i launched my podcast and on my podcast i try to i tie in kids voices in the podcast because i want the listeners to feel connected i want them to hear other so they're not just hearing from an adult woman they can hear other kids saying these things that they're feeling and thinking and then they can feel that they're not alone just like what you said that's my heart and mission too is just to make sure these kids know that they're not alone so that is awesome so i want to touch on one other topic um you know that people tend to ask about because they just don't know what to do and that's discipline so you know their children are going through their moments and as we have learned we can't handle you know adhd children sometimes that we can handle other children so what are your thoughts around discipline as a whole and then what are your thoughts and tips in terms of what are some healthy ways to help a adhd child move for you know move through the frustration that they are going through in that moment yeah just i've been thinking a lot about this since we've done and discipline's one of those very tricky topics because i do feel as a whole kids with adhd are over disciplined because they're misunderstood and so i think the first step we as parents and i'm guilty of it too even even as knowing as much as i know it's so easy to get wrapped up in everything and it's so easy to just quickly you know throw discipline at our kids left and right and so i think we just need to be mindful that's the first step is to be mindful of the fact that we need to to sift through and figure out was that behavior um intentional or was it something that was a byproduct of their struggle with working memory or their struggle with impulsivity right so i think that we that's the first step is we need to almost train ourselves as parents to sift through those things so that we can respond we can respond appropriately so that we're not over disciplining our kids and so and that'll create in us empathy too so so for instance my child my my daughter has a really hard time with her working memory i mean legit the girl i say something in one ear and out the other like she has a really hard and she knows it she's like oh i can't remember anything mom i mean she gets so down on herself you know but i'll say to her elena can you go down and you know i'll ask her to do something right or you need to do this or this isn't gonna happen right so then i'll have so here's an example so i just do that and she goes and she starts playing the piano in the basement because she gets an answer to right so i could go down there and i could discipline her i could be like well now you're not going to have dessert after dinner whatever right first of all that wouldn't be an appropriate discipline because it doesn't tie into what she just quoted what i thought she disobeyed me you know and so i think that's one another important point is that you want to make sure that the discipline um connects to what they've done um but instead that's where the grace comes in i could say to her elena what did i ask you to do right and ninety percent of the time she's like oh mom i totally you know and i genuinely can tell when she legit forgot what i asked her to do and she's she and she's not a by nature a disobedient child so um so i just i try to be really mindful of that instead of being on her i could be like okay well next time maybe we should write it down and so then you can take it with you and you can remember you need to pick up because that's another thing if we give our childre a child a task to do if that task seems too big for them they're going to shut down and so we need to make sure that we're giving them manageable bite-sized pieces to accomplish in order to be successful or else they're going to keep feeling like they've failed and then we're gonna keep disciplining them them for something that they weren't capable of starting or finishing because with adhd kids have a hard time starting things and they have a hard time finishing things so these are all things that we need to be aware of as we're choosing our discipline model i don't like to everybody has their different choice of how they discipline but i think that it's important to put these thought processes in place before you choose what that discipline will be for the act and another thing is i wanted to talk about lying so lying we discipline lying right that's one thing that we all discipline but we have to be careful with adhd and lying because a lot of times kids with adhd lie because they're trying to overcompensate for what they don't know how to do or they can't do right so they lie about the little things a lot of times and so i think this is this is a huge thing because i've had a lot of parents that are like oh my gosh i had no idea this was tied to adhd and so these kids are being disciplined discipline discipline and yes lying is wrong but we can't we instead of disciplining just disciplining it we need to teach it we need to we need to put practices into place right so that they can improve it or else it's just going to keep happening so yeah so i think it's important with lying that we evaluate okay what are they lying about and how can i help them get to where they don't feel like they need to lie right whether it be making tasks smaller and more manageable whether it be um giving them an extra reminder and that comes to my last point and that's just getting kids involved in their discipline can be super powerful and super helpful and it's crazy sometimes they're harder on themselves than we would be i should be grounded for three days uh [Laughter] okay so yeah yeah so i think um getting them involved in their discipline will help them be more self-aware as well and it keeps us calm right because if we're just enforcing enforcing forcing and then they're feeling like they're shrinking shrinking shrinking but if we can come alongside them and say okay this is what can't happen again or we don't want this to happen again so what do we need to do so you can think about the choices that you made or you know um and so and allow them to have that voice of well i did try my hardest and then as parents we need to believe that because kids with adhd it might not look like they're trying their hardest but our brains are exhausting and they are trying as hard as they can and they need a break and they need to to you know have that that grace and forgiveness from us so that they can learn and grow from from their mistakes love it i love it that's good that's good so as we close up here i just wanted you to see do you have any or say any final thoughts or anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to share with the the parents um i feel like i said a lot i sure i shared a lot um i just want to tell all the parents out there that you guys are doing an incredible job give yourselves a lot of grace remember tomorrow is a new day and some days are a lot harder than others and that it might not get easier per se but as we learn and grow it'll get better in those moments because we'll respond more appropriately and our kids we want to get to that point where we're we can feel that calm and that peace as we're responding and then that will project onto our kids too so yeah thank you so much for having me oh that was good that was good so if they wanted to um get a hold of you so three things how could they get a hold of you what is your handle or any other information you have where could they find your book and where is your podcast yeah so they actually can visit www.caitlinmabry.com is my website and right on my website they can click all my platforms are up there so whatever their favorite platform is they can follow me on instagram is the one i'm the most active on but they can follow me on any of those platforms i'm working on getting my podcast on my website so they can just click right from there but you can find my podcast journey with me through adhd a podcast for kids you can find it on apple you can find it on spotify really any you can look it up on the web it will come up and i'm on episode 7 so there's seven episodes they're only five to seven minutes long and they're a great conversation starter so great great and your book yes so my book is on my website and if the audience would like a signed copy i send a little zipper fidget bracelet with it i do have copies on hand and they can just contact me through my website if they would like me to send them one of those great i'm so glad you came back caitlyn it was great talking with you that was a good conversation again thank you yeah thanks for having me perfect um so everyone thank you again for joining another episode of adhd love parent talk if you would like more content like this definitely hit that like button and again don't forget to hit subscribe and the notification bell so thank you again for joining us alright caitlyn have a wonderful day you too bye [Music] you

Channel: ADHD Love

Views: 4,338

Keywords: adhd and discipline, adhd parenting, parenting an adhd child age by age, how to discipline a child, consequences for adhd child, how to deal with adhd child, how to discipline a child with adhd in the classroom, to an adhd child parenting adhd, parenting ADHD, things not to say to an ADHD child, parenting adhd tips, helping adhd kids, adhd at home, parenting a child with adhd, how to help kids with adhd, how to parent a child with adhd, how to deal with kids with adhd, adhd, add

Id: gN5fsymCPQs

Length: 29min 32sec (1772 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 13 2020