Dr. Coleman Noctor

So if you want somebody to be able to parent a child with ADHD better, let the parent know how ADHD affects that child.

And I talk always about the child who's unwilling versus the child who's unable.

And the holy grail of parenting is being able to separate two.

So if you have a child with ADHD who says, I can't empty the dishwasher because of my ADHD, you're going to go, no, that's nothing to do with ADHD.

I'm to the dishwasher.

whereas a child who's really struggling to try and do their homework after 40 minutes of doing the same thing and is pulling their hair out being able to step in and say i'm going to write a note you don't need to do the rest of that the cost benefit analysis here is not working out so i'm going to give you a break with that and you only get that by trying to understand how that child is and that works really well with smaller children so you might have a there's

A child who's maybe three or four years of age and their parents are saying they're really interrupting everybody.

They don't really take boundaries.

They're pushing themselves on things.

They're really difficult to manage.

They're mostly dysregulated.

And you might talk about, well, they were kind of two when their third sibling arrived and they were in the midst of all that sort of stuff that was going on.

And they're just trying to be visible.

You know, they see this as an attention economy and the only way that they get attention is

is by being this way and so if a parent can understand what they're doing they might say well he comes up and he tries to engage me three times and I keep saying I'm too busy I'm too busy and then we have a meltdown and we say well if you try and even just entertain him for two minutes when he comes up the first time we may avert the meltdown later on and parents come back and go

When I think about his behaviour from a visibility perspective, I have so much more empathy for him or I understand his struggle so much more.

And you can see it, like sometimes the dramatic impact that that can have.

That parents may come for two sessions, one session to get that guidance and the second session is just to say, it's working.

Thank you.

It's changed a lot, you know.