My son, Jay, will be 10 in October. He’s a firecracker and a half, very funny, extremely creative and observant. When he was in kindergarten, my husband and I had our first parent teacher conference, and I’m basically like, “Did he bite anybody? Did he hit anybody?” His teacher said, “He is the most emotionally aware five-year-old I’ve ever met.” It was probably the proudest moment of my life. I looked at my husband and was like, “We’re doing something right.”
Jay had a speech delay. At two-years-old, he would take a two-gallon carton of milk and drag it from our kitchen to our living room and grunt at me with his sippy cup. I was worried he wasn’t speaking the way he should, and I also didn’t know why he was so defiant and stubborn. I laugh now, because I’m stubborn, but at that point, there wasn’t enough repetition possible to put the pieces together. I ended up getting him evaluated, and he got speech therapy, but he didn’t get diagnosed with ADHD until elementary school.
“It’s about compassion, understanding, and trying to educate and co-regulate with your child.”
Looking back at my own childhood, what prompted the conversation of whether or not I had ADHD was my room. When I was younger, my room was completely upside down. Not gross, but messy. Books, notebooks, and scraps of paper everywhere. Bowls and plates and cups. Every once in a while, I would do a complete overhaul of my room. But I’m not just cleaning; I’m rearranging the furniture. That was the only way I could start fresh, and I kept hearing that example from different people. I didn’t have the language we have today to explain things like “hyperfocus” or “rejection sensitivity,” but looking back, if someone had said, “She has ADHD,” I think it would have changed my perspective and perspectives from other people.
- In addition to diagnostic symptoms of ADHD, which medical providers regularly use to diagnose the condition, many people have associated symptoms that affect their everyday lives, such as executive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation.
With Jay, 90% of the time, I see a carbon copy of myself in little-boy form, and it impacts my parenting. My son plays video games, and like a lot of video gamers, sometimes has ugly outbursts. Instead of meeting fire with fire, I’m aware that I also have a reactionary ADHD rage in me. It’s like our neuropathways aren’t aligning. Sometimes if we’re hyperfocused, things can trigger a negative response, which causes friction. So if I’m in the middle of writing something—really deep in it—and Jay comes in to share something, I have turned around and snapped, “I need a minute.” I see so many similarities between us. I know what Jay’s going through as he’s explaining it to me, and that has been the most crucial part: being aware of that and able to support from that lens. I also know sometimes he can’t control it, but I like to believe that planting seeds now will make it easier once other hormones come into play.
- Another common, if overlooked, symptom of ADHD is hyperfocus, in which someone can focus on a project for a long period of time if it’s interesting to them.
When we have little ones who are literally incapable of impulse control, it’s about compassion, understanding, and trying to educate and co-regulate with your child—not to prevent every outburst, but to make them aware that there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
He’s very aware he has ADHD, and that there’s no shame or guilt around it. The more I’m aware and the more radical acceptance I have will allow my kid to also have radical acceptance of himself, hopefully. This is how our brains work. In a world where it’s kind of scary to be yourself, we need more of that, right?
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