Why Do I Struggle with Executive Dysfunction

We reframe ADHD in teens and young adults as a developmental nervous system issue rather than a character flaw, then unpack why independence can feel impossible when executive functioning lags. We share practical ways to reduce shame and power struggles while building autonomy, skills, and real readiness for adult life. 
• executive dysfunction and why task initiation stalls 
• prefrontal cortex development and the role of attachment and attunement 
• how stress, trauma, and misattunement can shape ADHD symptoms 
• shame, negative self-talk, and lower self-esteem in ADHD 
• why teens can act younger than their age emotionally 
• how pushing independence too hard can trigger shutdown and “failure to launch” 
• moving from command and control to a teaching mindset 
• autonomy, choice language, and letting natural consequences teach 
• scaffolding independence with realistic home agreements and supports 
• progress over perfection and the importance of rupture and repair 
• flexible pathways to mastery through step-by-step goals and quick wins 
If you like our show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Follow the show and share it with your friends. 

We referenced the book, Scattered Minds, by Dr. Gabor Mate during this episode. You can find the book here: https://drgabormate.com/book/scattered-minds/

Laura's Free Course on Emotional Development and Regulation:
https://benavieri.com/neuroception-sign-up/

This show is sponsored by: 

Core Self 

www.coreself.org

Benavieri Counseling & Coaching
www.benavieri.com

Active Healing Psychiatric Services
www.activehealingpsych.com

Transcript

Laura 0:02

Hello, and welcome to Why Am I Like This, the podcast for those who didn't get enough hugs as a child.

Speaker 0:09

I'm Laura Wood and I'm a trauma therapist. And I'm Michaela Beaver. I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner. So Michaela, why are we doing this podcast? I am so glad you asked.

Michaela 0:23

We all have patterns we don't fully understand. Ways we react, think, and feel that seem to show up no matter how hard we try to change them. On this podcast, we explore how our past experiences, relationships, and nervous systems shape who we are today. Together, we ask the question we've all wondered out about at some point, why am I like this? And more importantly, how we can understand ourselves with a little more compassion.

Laura 0:56

Yes. Today, we are talking about how to help parents, teens, and young adults understand uh ADHD as a developmental and nervous system issue and not a character's flaw. And we are going to explore why executive functioning skills lag, especially in adolescence, and how to support readiness for independence without shame, pressure, or power struggles. So let's get into it. Why does independence feel so much harder than it should be?

Michaela 1:31

Mm-hmm. That's a great question. And I think the short answer might be executive dysfunction. This can happen with or without ADHD, but it is a really common struggle in teens and young adults. Well, all ADHDers really. But especially if their parents have been acting as if they're their frontal lobe for most of their life. They really haven't been able to develop a strong, um, these strong executive functioning skills. Yeah, well, if someone else is doing it for me, why would I need that? Exactly. And I think someone else is doing it for you, probably in part because it's already like something that's lacking. Um, I think about like my own experience with my own kiddo. And, you know, task initiation is one really big one where it's like it's really hard to get things started. And I know every parent out there is like, I've already said this five times, right? Like, I don't really want to keep asking you to do this. And so task initiation is really challenging for some kids. That makes so much sense.

Laura 2:38

And so with ADHD, our prefrontal cortex develops a little bit later in life. And we've talked about our free prefrontal cortex before on this podcast, probably a lot. Um, like the breaks, right? The the also it's the thing that helps us plan, organize time management, um, and emotional regulation, and then of course, task initiation. So that all comes from our prefrontal cortex, which you know develops in everyone's brain and every human's brain. But what fosters the development of the prefrontal cortex is that is partly that attachment relationship. So when we are babies, we have to have that attachment relationship because we're so dependent. But an ADHD brain tends to be a lot more sensitive to the relationship disruption and to like the environment that it's in. So an ADHD kid is going to be really sensitive. They might be more reactive, right? So they're they can sometimes feel harder to parent, making that attachment relationship a little bit more challenging, therefore feeding the ADHD stuff and the suspended development of the prefrontal cortex. So it's like this vicious cycle.

Attachment And Misattunement Effects

Michaela 3:56

It really is. You're so right. I think that like um when when I read um scattered minds a while back, it's been a little while since I read it, but I remember um latching on to the concept um that uh Gabor says is that um the the interactions even between the the the mother and the child specific or the caretaker and the child, you know, um different attachment issues can can look differently and and be exhibited differently in different kids. And so, you know, if you are distracted and you're on your phone and you're not, you know, having good eye contact and you're not you're not connecting in a certain way, that might, you know, the the genetic disposition for ADHD plus the environmental trigger of dis not that that misattunment can lead to those ADHD symptoms of like inattention and poor focus, where like um, I don't remember what the other one was, um, but like then like a different kind of misattunment might end up being more of those hyperactivity, like hypervigilance type things. Maybe you're not as attentive to their needs, or you know, you're misreading their cues, and that leads to a different kind of symptomatology from um the child and the development standpoint. I thought that was fascinating.

Laura 5:20

I think so too. And one of the things that I liked about what he was saying is that attention deficit disorder, right? ADD, like has those terms, attention deficit. So if you think about it from the perspective of a deficit of attention given is a deficit of attention developed, right? I love that. So with attunement, which we talk about attachment and attunement all the time. I know that, like broken record, right? But here's why that matters because every single human's brain is developed through that attachment relationship. We are dependent on our caregivers when we're babies. So we learn what to expect out of interactions, and our brain wires itself to adapt to our environment. Just like when we're babies, we learn to walk. And if we walk a certain way, you know, that walk gets wired into us, and we sort of have this pattern. Like everybody has a walk, right? The way that we walk, like we develop that when we're little, just like we develop our ability to attune and attach and and um our expectations of relationship develop, you know, we can't escape our childhoods. Like none of us get out of this unscathed. We are all influenced by the way that we're raised. So if I'm an adult now and I have ADHD, I can maybe look back at some of my childhood experiences and notice like, you know, my mother had depression. And so with we know that as a depressed mother, we're less able to like mirror and um attune to our child's cues for attention and support and empathy. Depression really clouds our ability to do that. And like as a mother, I was a depressed mother. My kids uh suffer from ADHD. And um, you know, I'm not saying that that's the only thing that like matters in terms of like that wasn't the direct cause, but it's a factor, right? There it's a factor in my ability to attune to them. Like, I remember days where my depression was at its worst and my kids needed me, and I'm phoning it in, right? And a baby is so good at determining whether or not their interactions with a person is safe or dangerous, they know that I'm phoning it in because they're not listening to my words. They're reading my body language, they're reading my visual cues, like my even um down to like my eyes dilating or not dilating, or my, you know, smile muscles being authentic or being inauthentic, you know, babies are really good at determining like your authenticity and your mood and your affect. That's part of our our uh human nature when we're born. And so kids of depressed moms or kids of um moms and dads who have high, high levels of stress in their lives. Um, you know, some examples are if maybe we had a natural disaster in the neighborhood, right? At the same time that the child is developing, like I'm gonna be distracted, I'm going to be highly stressed, I'm not gonna be as present. And so that can impact my relationship with my child while they're developing that critical prefrontal cortex, and um, you know, that's gonna make a difference in how that turns out for them later on in life.

Brain Wiring Pruning And Overwhelm

Michaela 8:59

Well, and I know that I've talked about how my kiddo has ADHD, and um my husband had a very significant accident, and he was about 10, 11 months at that time, and he's probab he has some pretty significant executive function um developmental, you know, problems. And I think I think that that plays a huge role in it because well, I think I thought at the time I was handling it really well. Um I don't I don't know that like you know, I do think that there had to be some impact on things for him in that type of situation. And I can tell the difference between his level of skill set and his brothers who didn't have trauma during that time. Um and I and I think it's important to know that like this isn't a blame thing, right? This is just information. We're not we're not trying to like um say like, oh, this is the problem, you cause this. It's just like, hey, it's important to know that these things impact what's going on right now. And so, you know, these these lags in executive dysfunction, I think about like if I if I was going to look at like a show like a brain and all the connections that are happening in it's in a tiny child, right? We over time have something called pruning. And uh things that don't get used, you know, the those areas of the brain, you know, get snipped, basically. They're like, okay, that's not important, let's get rid of that, you know? And it's it's for a process of automation. I know we've talked about if we had to think about how we brush our teeth every day, and you know, thinking about every single movement that we're making, you know, that would take a lot of a lot of time. So the brain is trying to automate things and learn so that it so that it can be efficient. And so when we learn things or when those things are happening, things are getting pruned, or areas of like, oh, my mom's in distress, I'm not safe, that's getting strong, that pathway's getting stronger, and that, you know, that's not getting pruned. And so then we are those things are what like how our brain is being developed, which leads to these potential delays in executive dysfunction. And um the the the parts of the brain may not always be talking to each other efficiently, right? And so we we talk a lot about the ADHD and the prefrontal cortex and dopamine deficiencies, and we think about the medications that are used for ADHD, like that are gonna increase that dopamine and norepinephrine, but it's really more than that. It's it's also a it's a connection between different parts of the brain. You know, I like I liken it to, I heard this um someone say this once, and I really liked it. It's like um a symphony is playing, and and all of the instruments are playing all at once, all the time, but then we're supposed to be able to have this violin solo, right? Where it does this amazing solo work and everything else goes quiet. Now, the brain has to connect with different parts of it to help that quieting happen. And in an ADHD brain, that's not happening efficiently, so the it's loud and it's everything playing all the time, which can lead to distractibility and difficulties with time management. Getting, you know, we think about I'm doing this, I and then I'm doing that, and I'm starting this halfway and that halfway and that halfway, and I'm not really finishing anything. And, you know, problems in executive um in working memory and being able to recall things. Um, emotional regulation is really important. You know, I think a lot of kids end up having a lot of struggles with being impulsive with their emotional responses to things. And I liked what you were talking about before too, when you were talking about how um, you know, our reactor interactions with each other, you know, leads to for furthers the dysfunction. And so if you have poor emotional regulation and I have poor tolerance for your emotional regulation, my reaction to that isn't gonna be very good, right? And that further perpetuates that idea that we're not safe, that the child is not safe. And so then that carries on into the teen years and young adult years.

Laura 13:30

And if I am from the child's perspective, right? Like let's say I am reaching out for that attention and attunement, and the response from a busy, distracted parent is you're just looking for attention, you're not like you're being a dramatic, you're being the right, like those are shaming, blaming responses. And so I retreat into myself and shame comes up, and shame makes me suppress all of my emotional needs and basically tells me that I'm bad, that something's wrong with me. And so as an adult, like um with ADHD, we often have a lower sense of self-esteem. We often have hyper-critical um voices about ourselves that kind of tell us that we're bad or that we're wrong or that we're not achieving enough or that we're not doing enough or that we're not good enough, that we're lazy, that we're, you know, we have all this like negative self-talk as an ADHD adult. And we have that because we had to sort of shame ourselves into compliance when it came to we tried to express ourselves and we were met with that rejection. Um, because our feelings were so big, our reactions were so big, our parents might have felt tired and and upset, you know. Not we're not causing what we couldn't know at the time is that we are not causing our parents to be upset. Our parents are upset because they lack the tolerance for our distress, they lack the tolerance for our big emotions, like they may have limited skills and or limited time, right? And so it's like this combination of environmental, genetic, and relational factors that really lead to our uh development or our delayed development. And we need to remember that in adolescence, especially this is important for an adolescent to know, but also for a parent of an adolescent to know that it's we're under construction. Like we're still we're working on it, right? We're not quite there yet. Even though I might look like an adult, I might seem like I'm just minutes away from becoming an adult. I am not an adult. And I don't have like the most important thing to me is whether or not I'm going to voice that. The most important thing to me is still that my parent is approves of me and thinks that I'm special and is interested in me and wants to um spend time with me, right? Like, I just want you to like me. I want you to think I'm cool and special and fun. But when I'm not getting that from you, then that's that attention deficit that I'm experiencing. I might go act that out in ways that are unhelpful or unhealthy. Because from an attachment perspective, I'd rather be abused than abandoned. I'd rather get bad attention than no attention.

Michaela 16:39

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think that, you know, what we see in those kids that are seeking out negative attention is that they are digging their heels in, they're strong-willed, they're they have that counter will, as um Gabor says, and those kids are having these really big behaviors, and a lot of times parents are coming in trying to solve the behavior, they're really frustrated with the behavior. And I really like in um, I can't remember, is it no drama discipline that they talk about how we should really be looking at the behavior is a behavior. What is causing the behavior first and foremost? Like understanding why is my teenager acting in this way? Why are they doing this? What's the lesson that we want to learn or teach? And what's the best way to teach it? But a lot of times the problem is that this 16-year-old kid is really acting like a 12-year-old. And that's because their emotional capacity is lagging behind. And um, you know, I think that you know, we can do a lot of things to help support them. And attachment and attunement is one of the best ways to help catch them up because um, you know, we they need success to feel like they can get that and grow that internal motivation.

Laura 18:05

And as an ADHD adult, that still kind of plays a part, right? We we see that in our relationships. Um, a lot of the time we might experience our relationships as like shaky or fragile, and we have an inability to say no, and we want to please and we want to make sure that the people around us are happy. Well, why do we do that? Because we need their approval. We need that gratification of the satisfaction of knowing that we're good enough, we're okay enough, we're acceptable, we're um, you know, we're special enough. And and I think, you know, that connection feeds a sense of self and self-esteem that gives us that internal motivation, that gives us that um strength and resilience to tolerate disappointment, gives us that ability to um learn from our mistakes instead of feel shamed by our mistakes, right? Because when we're lagging behind, we're getting in trouble in school, or we're acting out, we're getting in trouble in school, we're being told that we're failing, we're being told that we're not meeting expectations. There's a lot of stuff that's coming in, a lot of messages that are coming in about how we're not performing adequately and we're not doing good. You know, we need to um find the thing that makes us feel good enough in those moments to be resilient enough to not experience every single thing, every single failure as total rejection of the self.

Michaela 19:41

Yeah, absolutely. That makes a huge difference. And that shutdown is so real. And then what we see is what they the feedback they get is that they're lazy and that, oh, you know, you you have so much potential if you just applied yourself, you know, and they so people can see that this isn't an intelligence issue, right? It's it's an ability to regulate the nervous system long enough to have the motivation to um get things done. And I think that, you know, when we push teens and young adults too hard for independence too quickly, that can further overwhelm that nervous system and make them shut down. And so then they kind of have that failure to launch, or you're you maybe they're a teen and they're not they're getting ready to go to college or plan their future and they're really shutting down. And part of that is that they're getting this constant um communication of the parent trying to solve their problems and be their frontal lobe like they always have. And it doesn't allow the the teen or young adult to be able to fully try to understand how how they can be successful and and start to learn and grow those independence, they're just shutting down because they're feeling overwhelmed because they're they're trying to be pushed into this thing that they're not really necessarily ready for emotionally.

Shame Messages And Self-Esteem

Laura 21:13

Yeah, when we are doing too much, um, and we can think about this, you know, from my perspective as an adult, like I had to be an adult really early in my child in my youth, right? So I had adult responsibilities before I was an actual adult. And so I constantly have this inferiority complex, right? Because it's like, hey, be an adult, be an adult, be an adult. And I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, but like I can't. I can't be an adult. I'm not an adult. And so when my, let's say, you know, even that's just like one example of feeling, you know, inferior, but when my executive functioning skills are lagging and I don't have the emotional regulation, and I'm a 12 year old in a 16 year old's body. And I'm, you know, lagging behind so much. Like, that's a constant sense of inferiority. That's a constant sense of like, I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it. And then it's like, so everyone's rescuing me. My parents are saving me. My parents are my frontal lobe. They're, you know, making my decisions. They are controlling my environment. They are controlling my outcomes. They're, you know, forcing me by like teeth and, you know, tooth and nail to get me to finish my homework and pass and graduate. And I didn't learn how to do any of that on my own. And then now I'm like, oh, I'm about to turn 18. I'm about to graduate high school. I'm about to have to go to college and do this on my own. I can't do anything on my own. So I'm overwhelmed. What do we do when we're overwhelmed? We shut down. We suppress all that. We shut down and we freeze. You know, and we don't move. We don't move forward. And we just get stuck in this independent loop or this dependency loop that prevents us from becoming independent. And that's where you get that failure to launch.

Michaela 23:07

Or you have this kid who really didn't need to try very hard in high school. The parents did a lot of things for them. They didn't really gain independence, but school wasn't that hard. And then they they go off, they they they're pushed into a four-year college, and then they get sent, they they go off to college. And the reality check is that they actually have to try really hard, but they never gained any of the skills because they never had to do homework. They could get by without doing stuff. And then that doesn't really work out when they're in maybe college classes that are really boring to them. Like they're not participating in things that are really of interest. And so then they have very low um motivation to actually do any of it. And so then they kind of have this big failure. You know, the thought is is like graduate high school, go to college, get a four-year degree, then move go to go to work. And then when that doesn't work out, they return back to the home and they're back in a position where they are um, you know, taken care of, they they're very comfortable there, and um, they're scared to go out into the world and try anything because they're scared, they're they're ashamed of their failure, and they don't have the the skills to be able to figure out what go what happens from there.

Laura 24:31

And so when we're helping these kids, we have to do what sounds antithetical, which is let them fail and let them make like we have to give them autonomy where there was none. We have to accept a lot of things that we don't want to accept and sort of give up that control. A lot of times, as parents of kids who are struggling, we are in distress because we can't tolerate that our kid is struggling. And so what do we do? We go into um command and control mode. Yeah, fix it. Command and control helps us regulate ourselves, it doesn't have anything to do with the well-being of the kid. It regulates our own system because we're doing something about it and we're fixing it and we're making it better somehow, but we're really not teaching. When we have a teaching mindset, we recognize that they're learning, they're growing, they're developing. They're not there yet. And so we can't expect 100% success. We can't expect consistency from, you know, when the road is under construction, like, well, yesterday it was the left lane that was closed. Well, today it's the right lane that's closed, right? Like you can't, it's just it's gonna be moving around a little bit. You're not gonna get that consistency where it's like, you know, I hear parents say to me sometimes, well, they, you know, they do it most of the time or they've done it before. Like, why can't they keep going? You know, it's because they're inconsistent, they're under construction, they're not quite ready yet. So we need to offer autonomy everywhere that we possibly can, which is really hard when we want things to be a certain way to regulate ourselves. For example, clean your room, keep your room clean, clean it every Saturday, do it like this. Do you know, make sure you have, you know, this done at this time. Um, organizing, we organize their lives, we we control their lives in order to regulate our own nervous system, but they're feeling and flailing like they just can't manage it all. It's just too much. And so then we end up with these power struggles that are just like outrageously awful and unhelpful, and everyone loses, you know. Sometimes I say, Well, you know, when we're power struggling, like parenting is for losers only, like we're all we're going to lose, like we're not going to be in like in a winning position ever. Um, so we have to back off that power struggle struggle and acknowledge and accept like where are you? What is happening in your brain? What is happening in your body? We we want to remember that behaviors are external responses to internal stuff. So we want to say, like, what is that going on inside?

Failure To Launch And Shutdown

Michaela 27:23

Yeah, I think being curious, and then I think one of the other things that I really I really thought was um helpful in the Smart But Scattered book, they talked about taking this quiz and understanding like where you're at and what your executive skills are and what the what the young adults' executive skills are, so that you can figure out where you meet in the middle and what may be very different. Because I think that like just because you don't find that it's difficult to get up in the morning and do the things, get to work on time, those are things that are just easy for you. It doesn't mean that it's actually easy for them. You have to remember that this isn't laziness, this isn't defiance, this isn't them just trying to take advantage of the situation. They're doing the best they can with the skills and knowledge that they have right now. This is a neurodevelopmental problem, this is an executive function problem. And so when you kind of understand what their what their um gaps are, then you can say, okay, like here's how I can support you, right? I am really good at time management, I have a very good internal clock, therefore, you know, I can I can help with with making sure that I'm giving you reminders on things. Hey, it's you know, 10 minutes till, but if I'm also terrible at time management, I shouldn't try to support you with that type of thing because I'm gonna be inconsistent. I'm gonna set you up for failure if I'm agreeing to support you in that kind of way. And so it can, you know, kind of understanding your strengths and weaknesses and their strengths and weaknesses, and then coming together and figuring out what opportunities you have to support your young adult into being successful, it but also while not, you know, you're talking about the like your room is a mess. And it's like that's if you have a young adult living in the house, there needs to be an agreement that that's their space, and they need to learn how to manage that space on their own. I feel like I was a very messy teenager, and it wasn't really until I moved out into my own space that I respected it enough to to keep it, keep it clean to, and it's been a work in progress. Like I'm not the most, you know, I'm not an I'm definitely not an OCD person, right? Um, but I think that like, you know, one of the suggestions that they had was like, okay, this is driving me crazy. Your room is gonna smell like okay, I'll agree that I'll I'll take the trash out and put it, you know, I'll make sure that I'm cleaning the trash out of the room, you know, and so we can agree to we can agree on that. Like your room is your room, it's your space, but like the trash has to come out once a week, you know? And so like coming up with ways in which you can support the young adult into being successful and teenager, right? These are things that we should be starting in in their teen years and in and knowing that like this is this is going to be a work in progress, but yet you're trying to set them up for being successful and learning how to manage things on their on their own instead of being that that um constant, you know, frontal lobe for them.

Laura 30:33

Absolutely. And when it comes to like, you know, we talked, we were mentioned failure to launch, like I can relate as a parent, my kids are all very different kids, like all three of them are in different stages of their life in different phases. And I realized, you know, several years ago that like forcing them to go a certain direction or finish a certain thing or do a you know, work full-time, graduate high school, go to college, do the thing, you know, that just wasn't working. And I had to accept, like, where are you? I remember specifically with one of my kids, I was really forcing him to um go to school every day and go to therapy and take medicine and you know, do all these things. And he was just like it was just things were getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. Finally, I said, Okay, power struggle off. Let me get curious. Like, what is happening? He felt overwhelmed, felt forced, he felt like he didn't have any autonomy, right? Like he felt like failure, he felt like he was failing, he felt like he couldn't, and so I backed off, gave him some choices. He is doing better than he's ever done. He is happier, he's more social, he's you know, taking care of himself, like taking care of his room, he's responsible, he's starting college, like he's doing all these things. And I was like trying to force him into this like mold because of me, because I wanted him to be a certain way.

Michaela 32:12

Well, I think that you know, society says that your kid is 17, your kid is 16, they go to school. Like that, you know, there's like this like unwritten thing that like it's like if you don't go to school, I'm gonna go to jail, like I'm gonna be in trouble. I've had even parents tell their kids, like, I if you don't go to school, like I'm gonna get in trouble, you know. And it's like it it's because of the societal norm that says like this is what a good parent does. A good parent gets their kid to school, and if your kid isn't going to school, then you must be a bad mom. And so that, and I think that it's important to know that teens borrow regulation from the adult. You were dysregulated because they were failing, quote unquote, with the with the standard trajectory of what a kid is supposed to do, and you're trying to fix your dysregulation with him making him do the things. Right. Not all kids can do that, and so you know, once you kind of take that step back and be like, okay, here are your choices, they can figure it out.

Laura 33:14

He needed to find his own purpose, and internal motivation has three ingredients purpose, autonomy, and mastery. So he needed to find his own purpose, he needed space to have choices and autonomy, and then he needed some wins, right? Because he needed to make his own choices and see success and feel better and notice that he was doing better. And then he started to like really started to thrive, right? And so what I, you know, it's not to say, don't encourage your kids to like be successful and like achieve goals and recognize it's a balance, right? We can't just be this one or the other, like everything has to be a certain way. We have to back off and give autonomy where autonomy is permissible, and we have to, you know, when it's about not about like safety or whatever, you know, we have to um we have to give as many choices as we possibly can. And when we see a kid who's like dysregulated all the time, we're like, I don't think they should be able to make that choice. But it's but at the same time, if they don't make that choice and they don't have the natural consequence of like, let's say they fail a class. Oh, I guess I have to go to summer school. Like, I guess I have to do that. You know, the natural consequence sometimes is enough. We don't have to impose these arbitrary consequences as well. We have we have to let go of our own investment in their being okay enough so that we can be okay enough, right?

Autonomy Natural Consequences And Control

Michaela 34:46

We can't depend on them for that, which is something that I see a lot in like authoritative parents. Um, I will say a lot of times got like the the male, like the the father figure, but sometimes the mom as well. We have we have this attachment to what like them being a good productive member of society, and like that that we are not that that's our job, and if that doesn't happen, then like we're not doing our job, and that they're gonna, you know, be some kind of criminal that let you know, whatever. Um but I think and I think that like, you know, I I really like choice language. Um, I think that it's really helpful, and I think that it's it it really makes a huge difference in in um helping my my kids specifically, you know, like hey, if you're choosing not to do this, then you're choosing not to get this reward later, or you're choosing not to have good grades, or you're choosing not to, you know, you're choosing to go to summer school or whatever. If you don't do your homework, then you're choosing to have another this other thing happen. And I think that that helps them understand that it is their choice. They can choose it's not like I can force you to to eat your vegetables anymore. But if you're choosing to not eat your vegetables and you're choosing not to get dessert, sorry, you know, like that must be really challenging when it comes to dessert time and everybody's getting whatever. That must be really hard. Maybe next time.

Laura 36:16

Yeah. And that's where we can have that connection, and it's still I accept and support you, and I love you. My love's not gonna change, but these consequences are gonna happen. And that's just the way it is. It's matter of fact, it's not, it's not emotionally driven, it's not um, I'm not desperate and helpless as the parent, right? Like when we as parents feel desperate and helpless, we reach for those command and control and those, you know, power struggles happen and all of that. And what we really need to do is recognize like that the kid is gonna make their choices and they're gonna have their consequences, and we have to do certain things like as parents to keep them safe and to teach them, but ultimately they're a separate person from us. I'm not them, they're not me. And that's where that individuation comes in and that independence gets built.

Michaela 37:08

Yes. And I think that you're you're looking for progress over perfection, and when you mess up, you repair, like rupture happens, you don't handle things well, like you grounded them from you know, um their game, their video games for the rest of their life, which is really not something that you actually can control and actually follow through on. And so when you say things that are really not true or not, you're not able to um stand by, you know, then you come back and you say, I'm sorry. Like I just I I I got overwhelmed, and that's my stuff, not yours. And you know, here is a more appropriate consequence. Here's what I what I wish I would have said in the moment, you know, my brakes weren't working that well, you know.

Laura 37:55

Yeah, for sure. I love that repair that's so necessary in every relationship. So as we're learning how to experience relationship, we have this model of rupture and repair instead of as we're learning how to experience relationship, we recog we have outcomes-based like um conditions of worth placed on whether or not we're going to receive love. And that's what makes us scared all the time. And when we're scared all the time, then executive dysfunction is increased, right? So, you know, it's we can't have those conditions of worth worth placed on this quality of the relationship that we have with our parent and attachment figure.

Michaela 38:44

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's important. And I think that sometimes, like, if our kids aren't going in the direction that we want them to, right? Maybe we want them to go to college and get like this, you know, big degree, like, I'm gonna go be a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Like, that'd be great if my kids did that. But on the flip side, if maybe they need more support, maybe they need a shorter term goal, like I think that that's what really made me be successful is that I was able to take every single step along the way. And I got to see the fruits of my labor very quickly, right? I got a CNA, which got me a job in the hospital where I was learning on the job. Then I got my LPN, my RN, my BSN, right? And each step of the way I was working and getting the getting that benefit of making more money, of getting experience, of seeing how I was good at what I was doing, which led me to be able to keep going, you know, and I don't know that I could have been as successful if I had tried to do a four-year university instead, right? And and so I think that like sometimes these kids aren't gonna go get their veterinarian, you know, degree. Maybe they're gonna go be a vet tech, maybe they're gonna not be a physical therapist, they're gonna be a tech first, and then that gives them the capacity, you know, they're gonna go to a two-year uh trade school to get some some something that gives them on the job experience and lets them see that, hey, I can pay my bills, make money, um, support myself, I can be successful in these things, which then gives them the ability to continue to further into whatever direction that they want to go. And I think sometimes us as parents, like, well, you're not doing what I think you should be doing. So therefore, like, I'm gonna withhold my support from you because you're not like I don't think that this is the right direction for you.

Laura 40:40

And for any of you adults who have experienced that as kids, like, you know how painful that is, right? Like I, as an adult, can remember the painful events of my childhood that shaped who I think I am and whether or not I think I'm good enough. And with kids with ADHD, you know, that hypersensitivity, remember, to that relationship and to the environment, they're gonna internalize a lot of this stuff if we don't, you know, reward them for being exactly who they are with our love and connection, and then we support them in their autonomy and we encourage them and we set limits and boundaries and rules and regulations in the house in order to like manage good community and be, you know, but we we recognize balance in that instead of rigidity. We need more flex, you know, kids with ADHD need a little bit more flexibility. When we don't have that, we tend to feel, you know, rage and anger. And, you know, so we want to focus on those things that support their success. And that's called scaffolding, right? What you just described is developmental scaffolding. It's um, I'm it's a little bit at a time that builds on the next thing, that builds on the next thing, that builds on the next thing. We have to be patient while they figure it out. And we have to, we can say to them, you know, let's figure it out together, and I'll be here to support you no matter what. I might not always like your choice, right? But I'm always gonna love you.

Scaffolding Tools And Home Agreements

Michaela 42:15

Right. I love that. I think that that's so important to let them know that they have our support and our our love in what ways that we feel like we can we can give the support, but they're always gonna have our love.

Laura 42:28

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then we're more um we're more free to make our choices. And when we make our choices, then we make natural and we have natural consequences and we experience success and failure, we can build on that and get better and better and better. And the more sense, the stronger our sense of self and the stronger our internal motivation, the more successful we'll be. And that learning happens and the development happens, and then we can even reduce our ADHD symptoms down the line.

Michaela 42:58

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I I like what you're saying because I think that like, you know, when some of the things that you said before to kind of like reiterate is like we when we feel like things are out of control, our natural tendency is to try to control the situation. And the natural tendency of being controlled in these kids, you know, people are talking a lot about pathological demand avoidance. And in these kids, when you try to control, when you're out of control and you try to control the situation, the harder you try to control the situation, the more they dig their heels into the sand, the harder it is to get them to move. And, you know, I see that in my own life day in and day out. And it's like when my when my husband gets to the point where he's not okay, I hear him, I've heard him say, you don't get any more choices. You know, and my brain's like That's so wrong, right? Like you're doing it wrong. What you need is less you need more choices, but kid sized choices. But I think that that's that's when our dysregulation is showing up when we're trying to control the situation because we don't want to be late to work. You know, it's not fun to have to repeat yourself over and over again. It can be very frustrating and overwhelming. But there are supports for you to reach out to to gain better nervous system regulation so that you can handle those situations in a different way. And when you when you change, the situation changes because the only person you can control in this is you.

Laura 44:44

Yeah, I agree with that 100%. And I see it time and time again. When parents get healthier, kids respond better.

Michaela 44:56

So not perfect, there's still humans, and it might be that they're hungry or tired or whatever. Like they had a fight, they broke up with their boyfriend, whatever. Like it, there's a number of reasons why people are having a bad day. But like it's so it's not perfect, but it it that's the ticket, that's the that's the cure to the the whole thing, it's just being able to regulate your own emotions and not permissive parenting, but parenting with boundaries and communication and kind, compassionate love.

Laura 45:33

I agree with that a hundred percent. And for those of us who aren't parents, but we have our own ADHD and we have our own challenges, we can do that same exact thing for ourselves by learning how to be a healthier, um, inner, like having a healthier inner dialogue, by having a healthier ability to manage our own nervous system, like getting that support, getting that help. Like we deserve that too. And we can do the hard work of retraining our brains that didn't get trained necessarily in the most helpful way in the first place. Yes, absolutely. And so I think that is a good place to leave it for today. Thank you so much, as always. This is the most fun time of my entire week. And thank you so much for listening to Why Am I Like This? If you like our show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Follow the show and share it with your friends. This episode was written and produced by me, Laura Wood, and Michaela Beaver. Our theme song is Making Ends Meet by Thick as Thieves And a special thanks to Core Self, Benavieri Counseling, and Active Healing Psychiatric Services for sponsoring our show.