TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
43 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 9 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What inspired Dr. Phil Boucher to specialize in ADHD as a pediatrician?
I'm Debbie Reber, and this is Full Tilt Parenting. Today, I'm talking with Dr. Phil Boucher, a board-certified pediatrician, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and a dad of six who spent years supporting families and answering thousands of questions about children's health, development, and behavior. Phil has a particular interest in helping families understand and support kids with ADHD. And through his clinical work, his writing, his speaking, his parent education, he helps parents better understand their child, trust their instincts, and make informed decisions about what their family needs. This is a really unique conversation for the show because for the first time, we're looking at the whole journey through the lens of a pediatrician, especially in those early years when parents might be wondering what they're seeing, whether to pursue an evaluation and where to begin.
So Phil walks us through how he approaches ADHD in his practice from evaluation and diagnosis to sleep, nutrition, screen, school supports, emotional regulation, anxiety, and medication. It's a very thoughtful, comprehensive look at supporting the whole child and family. And if you'd rather watch this conversation, please go over to our YouTube channel, subscribe while you're there. It's on YouTube at Full Tilt Parenting. Okay, here's my conversation with Dr. Phil Boucher. Hey, Phil, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to get to be here and to talk about ADHD and all the things.
All the things ADHD sounds like a good plan to me. I'm happy you're here. And I would love if you could kick us off by just talking a little bit about who you are in the world, the lens through which you come to this conversation.
So I'm a pediatrician in Lincoln, Nebraska. I grew up here in Lincoln and I've been back here as a pediatrician for 12 or 13 years now. I have a full kind of scope pediatric practice, but one of my specific areas of interest is ADHD, in part because I think that a lot of families have a lot of questions and concerns. And we developed a different practice model where we have long visits with our families. And so for ADHD in particular, it gives us the time to to really talk through all of the different aspects of ADHD, not just medications or not just, you know, like what the things that they're doing wrong at school are, but really take a whole picture view of the child. And parents really like that.
And I really like kind of diving deep into the weeds when it comes to ADHD evaluations and management.
I'm curious to know what was the appeal for you for ADHD? Like, why did that become something you got really curious about?
Yeah. So way back when, when I was in college, I was trying to decide, do I want to be a researcher or do I want to go into medicine? And the thing that I liked more about medicine, one is that like the problems to solve, you get a solution faster. And whereas research, it takes years and decades to, you know, make the experiments and run the studies and all those sorts of things. I like kind of the more instant gratification, but But I also like following kids over the long time. And ADHD in particular allows me to put some interventions in place that we're gonna see in the next days and weeks, and then follow these kids over months and years and get to see the progress they make. So it scratches both itches of, I want to figure out what the problem is and then put some solutions in place and see what happens.
And nowadays we have so many good tools that allow us to objectively look at, are things better for the child? at home at school with their learning with their curiosity with their friendships all those sorts of things that it really fills the bucket for me of like here's some interventions we can put in place and then we can see what happens and it's not going to take years for the study to come back to know if we're on the right track
As you're talking, I'm like, oh, this is such a good opportunity to really get into the weeds of like the experience from your lens, because we've obviously talked about ADHD a lot on the show over the past 10 years, but it's often around very specific areas like sleep or movement or the executive function.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What inspired Dr. Phil Boucher to specialize in ADHD as a pediatrician?
0:03–7:06
2
At what age do parents typically start recognizing ADHD signs in their child?
7:06–13:05
3
How does family history influence the evaluation of ADHD?
13:05–16:29
4
Why are sleep, nutrition, and screen habits critical in a whole‑child ADHD plan?
16:29–21:56
5
What practical strategies (movement, protein, visual checklists) help children manage daily routines?
21:56–27:23
6
When should medication be considered, and how is it positioned as a skill‑building tool?
27:23–31:56
7
How do side effects and effectiveness guide medication adjustments for ADHD?
31:56–37:29
8
Where can listeners find Dr. Boucher’s deeper resources and join the conversation?
37:29–43:31
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids
TPP 519: Brendan Mahan on Overcoming the Wall of Awful