Parenting With ADHD: Communication - featuring Brendan Mahan of ADHD Essentials

Marc Almodovar and Shane Thrapp from the Men's ADHD Support Group  are joined by Brendan Mahan of ADHD Essentials,  together we tackle the challenges of parenting and communication while living with ADHD. We discuss what communication is, how to create meaningful connections, and how to build a relationship with your kids in this empowering conversation. Learn to navigate the unique hurdles faced by fathers, spark creativity, and bond with your children like never before. Tune in for an unforgettable ADHD journey!

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Transcript

Marc: [00:00:00] this is Marc Almodovar here. I am the founder and the president of the Men's ADHD support group.

The men's ADHD support group is a 5 0 1 nonprofit organization dedicated to educating, empowering and inspiring men with ADHD I am wildly excited about two days event. We are really, really excited to be working with my friend Brandon Mahan. Brandon Mahan is a host of one of the top ADHD podcasts, ADHD Essentials.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard it, if you consume ADHD content at all. He is a coach for people with adhd. He's got one of the best reputations within the community, and he's also somebody who is a dad with ADHD, which is part of what we're talking about today. What's it like to be a father with ADHD, and how do we navigate communication such an important part of our relationships?[00:01:00] 

Being a dad, I'm sure I'm not a dad, but I can imagine that it is, and it was important for my dad with me, and I am super excited to hear what Brendan has to say on this subject. I am not a dad with d h, ADHD myself, so I will be mostly on the listening side of things today and, and probably ask a few questions myself.

Yeah. But that said, Brendan, how you doing, man? And what comes to mind for you on communication as a dad with ADHD? 

Brendan: I'm good. Yeah? No, like communication. I'm gonna try to not just do slides, right? Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna like, we're gonna play a little bit today instead of doing like a, Like a workshop, workshop so that if people have questions, just throw 'em out out there.

If I can have one of like, I don't know Shane or Marc, like if someone throws something in the chat, ask it of me. If something happens on Facebook, if people are watching on Facebook, but they're not in the Zoom, throw those questions at me too. But one of the, one of the critical [00:02:00] components of communication that we don't talk about enough, and I, and I'm, I'm specifically trying to like lens this for dads, right?

And dads kind of especially, don't necessarily look at communication this way is the core part of communication is connection. Connection is where communication starts. And that just happened with me and Marc, right? Marc was like, I just found out you're a tribe called Quest fan. And then that we kind of ran with that, right?

And. And it, that didn't just happen now, right? For Marc, that happened when he found out I was a tribe called Quest fan and he was like, oh, I like Brendan even more now cuz we have this thing in common, right? And then I continued talking and I mentioned that sticker, and I don't know how many people are listening, but one or two of you might have been like, wow, you have a tribe called Quest sticker that also references Dungeons and Dragons.

I like D&D. [00:03:00] That's cool. So now I have maybe one, maybe two things to connect with you right about. And those kinds of commonalities are how we begin communication. That's where communication starts. And so as dads, one of the things we often try to do with our kids is share with them the stuff that we like, right?

Like, my kids go to Kempo with me, my kids play D&D with me. Those are things that started with me. And they, they enjoy that stuff. We re, we recently started going to the gym together. That's another piece of time together, right? And. Men. There's a couple reasons why that's an important thing to do with your kid.

One is that you're kind of like sharing your stuff, right? So there's connection there. As I, as I mentioned before, it kind of feels like it's your job as the dad to like impart the stuff that you like and share your version of the culture [00:04:00] that you live in and move that forward, right? Like that feels like a dad thing.

That's kind of a dad thing. So that's valid in there as well. But another component to all of this is that male relationship, and this is particularly true if you have sons, right? But not necessarily, it's particularly true if you're a dude. But when we, when men interact, right, the way men form relationships is often based around an activity.

So women, when they have friendships a lot of the time like. I dunno if you've seen your mom or your grandmom or your wife or someone like, do I just kind of hang out in the kitchen talking and drinking tea or coffee or something like, that's how their friendship works with an, with their best, with another female friend or something.

That is a level of intimacy that not all men are comfortable with and able to handle Now. Now Marc and Shane are working to like. Change that, right? I almost said fix [00:05:00] that, but I don't know if that's the right word. So change that so that men can just kind of hang out in the same room and talk and that's fine.

Right. And I'm not, yay, like I'm down with that. Right. But there's also this level for men, for men that are not as comfortable just like hanging out and talking and being together. We often feel like we need an excuse, we need to have something else that we're doing to kind of fidget so we can socialize.

We talk about fidgeting to focus as an ADHD strategy for men. There's a little bit of fidgeting to socialize, right? Like, we're gonna go to the ballgame together, we're gonna play Frisbee. We're gonna, I don't know, go like on a canoe trip like something else, right? And that's why we're gonna hang out together because, and, and think of that in for terms of like what the, what the statement of that is, right?

Because part of that statement is coming from a place of insecurity. It's coming from, I don't feel like my friend would want to hang out with me if there wasn't something else going on. Does that make sense? Like, I'm [00:06:00] not cool enough to just hang out with my friend. We need to have a thing. 

Going on. And, and also it's a way to protect ourselves from rejection, right? Because if I'm like, Hey, Aaron, do you want to come over and hang out? And he's like, no, I c no, I can't.

Then I'm like, oh. But if I'm like, Hey Aaron, do you want to come out, come over and like, I don't know, play pee knuckle? It's like, I don't really like pee knuckle. Oh, okay, cool. Then it's not, I'm not rejected. Pee knuckle is rejected. You know what I mean? Like, there's a little bit of that too. There's a lot of defensiveness happening in these, like men hanging out with an activity that's hiding in there.

And as dads, right, when we go to hang out with our kids, a lot of the time we're trying to have a, a thing that's going on. And you don't always have to, sometimes you just hang out with your kid and they can get that connection, particularly if you have a daughter. Because [00:07:00] daughters are more down to just be together.

Right. So you can just be together and with your sons, you can just be together then too. But I just, I kind of wanted to play with that a little bit in terms of like, connection comes before communication and that also brings up like a piece of parenting that is hard, which is, I don't know if any of you feel like you have a kid that is always like, needs attention.

Like that lens of like, oh, my kid is just constantly needs attention. They're always seeking attention. They're an attention seeking child. No, that's not real. That is not a thing that exists. And I don't want you to have that lens. They are seeking connection. They are not seeking attention. But the only way for me to get connection is to first get your attention.

So when we get aggravated with our kid, cuz we're like, oh, they're always attention, attention seeking. [00:08:00] Reframe that a little bit cuz attention feels frivolous. Attention feels like it's annoying and doesn't really matter that much connection is like a deep, meaningful need. And if we can make that reframe, we will have more patience with that kid who is, let's be honest, kind of annoying us.

That's why we, because if the kid's not annoying us, we're not gonna say their attention seeking, right? We're just gonna hang out with them. So make that little reframe and see what that does for how you feel about your kid and what you see your role in with regard to responding to their behavior. Is this making sense?

Am I like all over the place or am I doing okay? You, you're doing great. I just got done. Go ahead. You're doing amazing and I, I kind of wanted, I was, I should just about to raise my hand because it's something that you just said. Mm-hmm. My toddlers are four. They're about to be four. Yep. They are interested in really off the wall things, and like I, they're four, so they get to imagine all the [00:09:00] different things that they want to imagine.

And for a long time with my first two children, it was super awkward for me to be interested in what they were interested in. And I kind of found a, I kind of had to fake it, right? Mm-hmm. That's because I knew it was valuable. I knew it was valuable, and okay, then that's actually, I just, I just like, how do we get past that?

My kids are foreign. I don't give a shit about Bluey or whatever, right? The TV show that they're watching, but I know that they, my interaction with them is important. How do we get past that awkward, weird feeling? We recognize that, that they can't read our minds, right? Like if, if I can remember a time I was working with a kid, Pretty significant autism.

I was like 20 something. And he we're out in the field behind the school, like in the playground, and he's like, look. And [00:10:00] I'm like like what? It's just an empty field. Like I don't know where he is going. There's a T-Rex. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like what do I do with this? Right? And so I just go, yeah, yeah, it's right there.

What should we do? Right? And then he starts telling me what to do, and I let him lead. Right? And I follow. And that's one way to do it. Like just let your four year old or whate or however old the kid is, let them lead when they're doing that imaginative stuff. And they're really into bluey. And especially if they're talking about Bluey, but you're not watching the show.

You're just like in the living room with no bluey, and they're like, it's bluey. And you're like, ah. Like play, play with the kid and yes. And them as much as you possibly can. And also remember that if they're using their imagination, when they use their imagination with other kids, the other kid makes stuff up too, right?

So if they're like, look, it's a T-Rex, [00:11:00] and you're like, yeah, and there's a stack of sores going up behind it, your kid can roll with that, right? Like and we often think that we as adults, we can get paralyzed in that moment. We can be like, oh no, if I try to add anything to this story, I'm gonna ruin it and they're gonna get upset.

Or they're gonna know that I'm not, that it's not real and that I can't really see the T-Rex and stuff. They kind of know like the younger, the younger the kid, the more imagination feels real to them and the older that kind of fades and changes. But you, they still play with other kids. They can play with you too.

And it actually is useful and healthy for them to hear you say something a little bit different and for them to have to adjust to that. Because them having to adjust to that can help with flexible thinking as they get older. We don't want them to be so rigid that they can't manage it. Am I, is this going in a way that's useful, Shane?

Yeah. Yes, actually it is. , I fall into that [00:12:00] trap though. You said Yes, and, and I, my brain goes, I fall into that, that trap where I'm like, mm-hmm. Yeah. That's awesome. I appreciate it. And I just, and right now I just reminded myself of of Marc. But anyways where I am paying attention to what they're doing, but it's not important to me.

I feel a lot of shame and guilt there just now. Yeah. But that's okay. That's one of those things where it's just like, that's where this, like getting past that, cuz I remember my dad doing that kind of stuff. And that was really, really rough because I knew he didn't care because there was a lot of mm-hmm.

Other issues that were going on, physical and emotional stuff, , so I, , I just wanna kind of touch on that and kind of Yeah. But it is okay to fake it kind of, right. It's essentially what imagination is. It's faking it, but, right. I believe it. Okay. And, and dads especially like, I'm assuming the [00:13:00] dads in this group, you all have d h, adhd, cuz it's an H ADHD men support group.

Try to tap into the H part. Some of you might be inattentive and you don't have the H part, but odds are percentage wise, most of us have the H part. So try to tap into that if you can. Cuz hyperactivity and enthusiasm are not that far apart. And if you can use the hyperactivity to fake and then embody the enthusiasm that you need, you're golden.

Right? So, So that like, that it, because I've been there, like it's, there's times you're exhausted and you don't have, you don't have it in you to be like, yeah. Bluey like uhhuh. No. Yeah. I, you know what I mean? Like, I get that when you're there, when that's what's happening, you just gotta be like, yeah. Oh yeah, bluey.

Okay. Yeah. Wait, and then ask a question or, or like, try to get, try to do the enthusiasm part. Try to make your eyes sparkle. Like get down to their [00:14:00] level and just be like, tell me more about Bluey as opposed to, tell me more about Bluey, like that cadence matters body. Like, tell me more about Bluey. Tell me more about Bluey.

Tell me more about Bluey. Like if I wiggle my head, Like act, act like a puppy. Like just be a puppy and, and it'll help all, like, I know this sounds weird, but it's like it's ways to embody the kind of energy that a toddler has. Mm-hmm. Because part of communication is mirroring, and I'm gonna come over to you in a second.

Ariel Ariel, I'm saying your name wrong, I'm sure. Part of, part of communication is mirroring. Mirroring is matching and reflecting. Right? Hence mirroring the body language of the person we're talking to. The like, energy of the person we're talking to, the cadence of the person we're talking to.

The words the something. Right? Pick something and match that and use it as a way to [00:15:00] make them know you're connected. Cuz that's what it does. Mirroring shows connection, right? So that's, that's a way to help that person feel like they know what's going on. So at, at the moment I'm mirroring a few different people.

I'm kind of mirroring Marc cuz I got my hand on my chin. He's got his on the side of his face, sort of the same thing. I'm mirroring other Marc as well. He's doing this right? I'm here. So I'm kind of splitting the difference and playing with both of them. Just the fact that I have a graying beard means I'm mirroring Shane, right?

The fact that I am straight on with glasses and a headphones means that I'm mirroring Jeremy, right? Like so and notice Tom put is doing this. Now did you notice that Tom moved around and is now doing this? Because I called attention to it and he knows how to mirror instinctively cuz we all do And he started, right?

Like that's, that's mirroring. I hope I'm right about that cuz I, I might have timed that wrong, but that's all, all of that stuff is mirroring and we can, there's lots of ways to do [00:16:00] it, but when we talk to our kids or our spouse or our friend or whoever, Paying attention to the mirroring and what can I mirror or what's, what are they mirroring back to me?

All that stuff is useful. And it's especially fun when you observe groups of people. You can figure out who the leader is in a group by who is being mirrored and who is leading the mirroring. And it's, it's a fun and interesting little thing that I do every now and then. Yeah. So I wanna get a, I wanna get a, a Ariel was either say something or ask the question.

What do you got, Ariel? Hey. No, I just real quick, I I something you said when you were talking about the the four-year-old for a couple more days. I have a four-year-old and with the creativity and I hope that means they're turning five. Yes. On the 10th. On the 11th, my oldest turned 26 and I have eight in between.

But so when you said, I assume people hear of kids. I mean, just for context of the [00:17:00] ten four step. So, , , you could take that as a grain of salt, however, of the 10 eight are ADHD my little two, those seven and four are not diagnosed or medicated. And it's pretty much half and half in terms of medication and, and not, but, and it's been very interesting in terms of that too, just seeing the differences in how ADHD manifests itself in each one of them.

And, and also if you think about personality types and these books, I'd say they're four and it's like, well, every one of my kids are very, very, very different, but mm-hmm. But in terms of my four-year-old who is my goalie yeah, I mean he, he, his imagination's unbelievable. But at the same time, it's also It manifests in a really funny way.

And I, I, I guess I had two, two things I wanted to say on the topic with the kids, because I also really struggled through my life. Like I get to the point, I literally said, if I have to play one more game of Candy Land, I will cut out my eyes. I mean that, I mean, think about it. That game has [00:18:00] no choices.

You pick up a card, you do what it does, even, sorry, which sucks, has one or two times you can make a decision, okay? Mm-hmm. I'm gonna this or that. Every but candy land is nothing. Now, with my, with my girls growing up, I taught them how to play poker because I basically, things that were both, , educational, the math and stuff I like to do and stuff that they could do.

I, when I taught them how to play crafts, I would only pay them if they could calculate what the right amount was on that, on the odds, right? They, , I had, I had four girls and I, , so that was a thing. But to find those interacting, intersecting things , I, my girls know what icing is or could do prepare a tailgate and they're of course, , they wanna please me and be doing things with me as well.

And so it works out great. With the four-year-old I started, went backwards, ? Yeah. He is a digit to that tablet and that TV and not having [00:19:00] him get into it is very difficult. I, two things I, I started doing, and it happened by mistake, is he started telling me one day about his dream the night before, and I flipped on the phone to, to, to to video it.

And he must have, and I, and I kept asking him prodding questions, but very carefully not to like lead him too much. And I don't think he was making it. Like, I think that was his dream and it was unbelievable. And I said, then, , then what happened? But then when I took from that the next time is that I would drive him to carpool every day, or I would drive him to school every day.

And it wasn't far. And I actually was doing this for other reasons too, to document for divorce purposes that I was taking him to school every day. But it was great. I called it to the JJ Dream report, and I would selfie with him as I drove. I'm sorry that No, you're good. Keep going. Selfie that called just but I would selfie and I would, I would call, called it the JJ Dream Report, and I would say, Hey, jj, do you have a [00:20:00] dream?

Last night, did you dream? What did you dream? Now if for some reason my ex-wife would've given him the tablet before we got in the car, it was almost impossible to get an answer from him. But other. , and there were lots of times where it was clearly, you could tell from his face, he was just making it up.

It was a story. He didn't dream it. But and, and if he was hesitant to get going, I would, , give him a lead or something like that. And then he would often run with that, not realizing I'm catching him, but but it was just, it was a way to sort of like, have time with him, with me and in something that he's interested in.

And, and you have to think that creativity is good too. One last thing that I've done with a lot of my kids, and I know this isn't for everyone, is my YouTube channel, which is, so my social media presence is based solely on my own self-care to do stupid things and for myself and to embarrass my adult children.

Yeah. I'm not kidding. And I actually didn't post something for like three, like two months [00:21:00] and my subscriber base went up 30%. And I don't have that many relatives, . But I have a series on there of instructional cooking for gifted children. And my one with my four-year-old, we did a video on how to make toast and he loved it and he watches it on YouTube, on the tv, , and it was so much fun.

It was fun for me. And and it's easy. We don't edit, , and we say that, and again, just examples, but I guess the, the theme is, , aligning your, because it's a struggle for both of us, right? Meaning you have to keep their attention and you have to find some way to not have it be a, a chore.

And, because that's the only way you'll do it often enough cause, right. Even reading the book takes time. Yeah. And a piece of that, right? Or, or a major component of what you're talking about is engaging with our kids in tasks and activities like I was talking about earlier. And let, it's, I haven't watched the videos, but from why you're, how you're describing it, letting them steer some of the ship and letting them, like, it's not [00:22:00] just me doing the thing and they're, and they happen to be there, right?

Like they're com they're contributing to it and allowing our kids to contribute to projects, videos, stuff around the house makes them feel connected to us, to the family as a group. Right. And, and it makes them feel like they're valued and like they have meaning and like they matter because they're contributing.

Right. So a, a small example of this from me is I'm teaching my kids how to lift weights, right? They're 14 years old. It's ti like, they're not that big. So I'm like, let's get you at least be strong, ? And Gavin one day was like, dad, can we just like have a day when we. Just try stuff like, I don't know, maybe each of us picks two exercise machines or something, and we just do that instead of our routine.

And I was like, yeah, dude, we'll do that once a month. We'll just, we'll take that week once a month and we'll do whatever random stuff we come up [00:23:00] with. And that he, they're much more engaged on those days. Right. But they're also more engaged on the boring days when we're doing our routine because of those other, because they've contributed in that other way.

And it's, it's just an important approach to take to make sure that the kids are, are being involved and contributing to what's going on. And feel like a, like an, an important, meaningful member of the family or the household or just the, like, just the three of us in that case. Can, can I ask you, I mean, one other thing, and this is more mostly with one of my children, I forget the term.

The, the official, , Jeremy term for it is like, , And, and one of my favorite influencers has a, a TikTok where he is like, vacuuming until someone says, oh, good job. And he is like, okay, hyper fixation gone. And it's not like a a defiance thing, but like, I have a daughter if that, if I give her one piece of advice, she will absolutely do like the opposite or get upset.

, I forget the, and [00:24:00] positionality a little bit. Yeah. Like, like I can't, like she'll take the advice and learn She's not being arrogant, but I can't be the one to give her. Mm-hmm. Yeah. , any of it. Yeah. And I find also with like with her and those types of things, I couldn't ever say, Hey, let's play this games.

I suggested the game. Like, no. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And, and it's frustrating because you just want to like shake 'em and be like, don't, , almost be like, don't be so arrogant. Like you would say to so many. That's not arrogant. It's not arrogant though, right? Like Right. How old is your daughter?

So neurotypical, like, don't have hubris, set it up. But that's not the point with them. Exactly. How, how old is your daughter? Well, that daughter is 26. Or how old was it when this was happening, or, oh my gosh. I mean, I have reports from her third grade thing. Okay. , calling her opposition.

Yeah, opposition of, yeah. That's, so one oppositional defiance disorder is a thing. And I don't know if your daughter is diagnosed with that or not, if that's what's going on, but, but like, it's not hubris that, like that's, [00:25:00] here's the thing. When our kids are, are opposing us for whatever reason,

our, our often our, our knee jerk reaction is to take it personally. And that's what le I don't know why she's got hubris or whatever. It's, it's, it's not about us, it's about them. We are not the main character. Our kid is the main character. And if we keep taken personally the way they operate, it's a recipe for disaster in that, in that relationship that we have with our kids.

And so, and it's, if we keep taking things personally and we push harder to get them to like, I don't know, eat a strawberry, and they're like, I don't wanna eat a strawberry. And we're like, we should have a strawberry, right? Because you need vitamin C or it's the only food in the house or whatever. Like, they're gonna push back harder and now we're off to the races, right?

Because the adult in the room didn't pivot. Like we, A lot of the, [00:26:00] and this is like I run parent groups, like that's a, a piece of this is I'm, I'm working on creating f. ADHD dad groups, like just for dads. Cuz there's unique stuff that goes on for dads and there's, dads are more likely to talk about what's real if they're only there.

And there's no moms to worry about, there's no women to look at us with judgment for not having the skills that they have because we were raised in a culture that didn't expect men to be good parents.

One of the things that does not get talked about is women have, the, I can't balance career and being a mom, right. Like that conversation about how women are being challenged. It's in newspapers, it's on the tv, it's on the Today Show. Like it's everywhere. Right. And I get it.

It's really hard to do Both. Women have a little bit of an advantage that men don't get. And the reason for that is  cultural expectations. Women, when their girls are taught how to be moms and how to parent, and they go to school and are taught how to be employed, cuz that's what school does.

It teaches you how to be employed,  men are taught how to be employed at school, but mostly we are not taught how to be a dad. We are not taught how to keep a house clean because this is how misogyny hurts men. Right? This is how the culture of the woman should be the one doing all the house stuff and the man should be the one going to work.

That version of life that was set up into the nineties, right? But culture is changed and is changing, which I'm all for. This is not coming from a place of resentment or anger at all. It's just coming from a, this is what's up, right?

Most men were not taught how to be a dad by their family or how to keep a house by their family. Because most of our dads either weren't home cuz they were working the whole time and we didn't see them  father us very often. Or if they were around. A lot of our dads didn't have the skills to be dads because they grew up with abusive dads because their dads fought in various Insundry wars, war ii, the Korean War, whatever.

And the trauma of that war. Those wars played out in how they parented our parents. And some of our parents were in Vietnam. And so they bring home their own trauma. Right? And maybe Korea, most of us, I don't think are quite that old, but they bring home their own trauma or that they either got from their dad or that their dad got from the war.

However many generations back this goes. Right? So this is all happening and that means we're not taught how to be a good like, Domestic person. Like a domestic man, right? And so when we are suddenly trying to do that same balance, because that's where things are now, we are doing it with a professional skillset but not a family skillset cuz it wasn't taught to us.

And that is not our fault and we don't like, need to feel bad about it, but it is our responsibility to fix that. And that's what you guys are doing, right? Like, you're here, you're taking steps to fix that. And this is not me saying you have to join my groups to fix that and prove anything. Like that's not what I'm saying right now.

I'm just, I wanna honor why this is hard. And it's, a lot of it is because we have not been taught those skills. I uniquely was, I had a billion and a half cousins who were all younger than me, almost all of them. And no, they're all younger than me. And so growing up I kept getting expo exposed to kids younger and younger and younger, right?

And I was like, go to my grandmother's house and it would be like, babysit your cousins. So I learned some of that stuff that [00:30:00] most guys don't learn. And then in school I pursued it. So I was a teacher and like that, all of that stuff. So I have these skills that most men don't have. But also my brown belt tempo so I can hand your ass if I need to in case anyone's wondering if I still have my man card.

Shane. It's all good. I had a question that came from an earlier post that Marced that I, when we're sitting here talking about, Honestly, this kind of ties into with what you were just saying, like, how do we work out how to communicate with our kids when we have such a hard time communicating with other people and mm-hmm.

Like social anxiety and things of that nature. Yeah. Yeah. How do we, how do we bridge those [00:31:00] gaps and not, not have that outlet for ourselves to have friends of our own, but also then teach our kids how to make friends? Like how does that mm-hmm. How do we bridge those different gaps of like, I don't know how to make friends.

How do I teach my kid how to make friends? Yeah. Yeah. Treat them. I teach that in the parenting groups too. Caroline McGuire wrote a book called, why Will No One Play With Me? It's phenomenal. Oh my God. Read it. Listen to it. Learn it. Right. I got another one for you. I'm, I'm working on bringing this guy on the podcast.

Caroline's been on the podcast like 2, 3, 4 times. I got another one for you as soon as I find it. I'm, I've, I'm working on bringing this guy in too, a book called the like switch by. I don't want my audible to start playing. I just want the know who the author is. Library, the like Switch by Jack Schaffer.

Jack is a former CIA agent and his book is based on working as a CIA agent and having to turn foreign nationals into [00:32:00] spies and double agents and how they fostered relationships with foreign nationals and made those friendships happen so that they could then turn them to be an asset for the United States.

So it's very much like an analytical, this is how friendships work, right? This is how friendships work. Friendships are based on a few different variables from the like switch. I'm hoping I got this correct. So it's, it's frequency of encounters like do I have a lot of encounters or only a few encounters, right?

Duration of encounters. Intensity of encounters. And then also like sort of availability of like, is that person around? So do I go or do I seem in school? That kind of stuff. The more often we are exposed to a person, the more we are inclined to like them, right? The longer that exposure is, the more we are inclined to like them and the more [00:33:00] intense that experience for us, that shared experience, the more likely we are to like them.

So in the cia, in that case, like they were like, we can't really. A lot of encounters most of the time. So when we do have encounters, we wanna like make sure it's long and intense. And, and China and other countries do this too, right? Like scientists go to China to like present at a conference and they're given a handler.

And that handler make sure they have significantly p potent experiences with them and that they spent, and some of those, sometimes that experience is just talking about their family, right? That can be an intense experience. It doesn't have to be like we climbed a mountain together, right? But I'm sure all of you can think of significantly intense experiences that you've had with people that bonded you to them in a meaningful way, right?

Like that, that's a piece of, of how friendship works. And then there's things like, are you sending friend signals or faux signals, right? So are you like smiling with open body language? Are you glowing [00:34:00] with closed body language? That stuff is also gonna. Gonna signal to people who are around you, whether or not you want to be friends, so that, that stuff's there.

And, and also like share the connection, right? Stuff I talked with about Marc and I talked about earlier, just to circle back and like go back to that, right? If Marc had seen my sticker on my computer, he would've been like, oh, that's the thing we have in common. Like you, like Tribe Call Quest. I like a tribe Call Quest.

Huh? I can maybe do something with that. When I was in ca grad school, when I was in grad school, one of the classes I took was on like anti-racist. It was basically an anti-racism class that wasn't called an anti-racism class cuz the term hadn't been coined yet. And one of my assignments for the class was that I had to go and be the only white guy somewhere, right?

So I went to a black barbers. And sat there and like there was a lot of like, what are you doing here, dude? Like you shouldn't be in here. Like I definitely got that vibe, which is fine, totally valid. But they were [00:35:00] playing music. They were playing like R and not even r b, they were playing swing music, like jazz stuff.

I happened to be a swing dancer, so I heard that music and I was like, yo, I know this band. Like I danced in this. And all of a sudden we're talking about like jazz and swing dancing. And that led to hip hop. And they're like, what is this white guy in here knowing about this like that? What is going on?

Right? So that's there too. And now what is different for our kids than for us is those signals are sent in school more readily. Guys, when I was a kid, I loved comic books, loved them. I spent $40 a week on comic books. Every week I had a paper route. I made $40 delivering PA papers. I spent $40 on comics.

That was how most of my weeks went until I got a girlfriend. And then I spent like 20 bucks at the movies and [00:36:00] 20 bucks on comics. But I lo like X-Men, ugh. And I had one little tiny pin that went in my hat that was like this big, that no one could see. Nowadays, you can be rocking a Spider-Man shirt. You can have wolverine on your sweatshirt, like you can have a lunchbox that's got magneto on it.

And people know what this stuff is. You can have a Mario pin on your backpack. You can have Pokemon cards sticking outta your pockets. There's a lot more signals being sent about what's acceptable now than there used to. So if your kids have passions and stuff, they're really interested in, even if they're autistic, they can see them and use that as a, as an indication that this might be a person I can talk to.

Right? I like Mario Brothers too. Hey, you just have to teach 'em how, Hey, I like your button, or I like your pin. I, I'm, I'm into Mario too. Have you played x in such a game or whatever, right. Are you gonna go see the movie that's out? Like [00:37:00] if we give our kids a couple of little beginning scripts for whatever they're into and they see a kid going around school or camp or whatever, it's a way to make friends.

And so too is those having, having connections and engagements. Right? I have basically forced by children to volunteer to help them help out at the musical school musical. They're not in the musical, they're doing backstage stuff, but that's an intense experience. That's like gonna connect them to some kids.

Right. My kids are not sports guys. They, they rock climb. Not, I don't rock climb. They do. That's their thing cuz they also need activities that are just for them that I don't like but my nose into. But, and, but this musical like is a place for them to get those connections cuz lack of sports means less social encounters.

Right. We did Boy Scouts for a little while. They didn't like it that much. We eventually stopped going to Boy Scouts and I was like, guys, I still need you to experience a group of people working together in some capacity. [00:38:00] Cuz Kempo is by itself, rock climbing is by itself, weightlifting is by itself. Like I need you to have a group that you're interacting with.

So I pushed them into the musical. But I also was very clear why I was like, this is why you're doing this. Like you have to find an, if you're gonna quit Boy Scouts, you have to find an activity that is a group activity that's gonna connect you to other kids. And then we also have to help our kids know how to talk to those people and go on with communication.

Right? It's not us to them, but giving them stuff. And it's us too. You can almost always say, Hey, how is your weekend? Or what do you doing this weekend? That can be a lame beginning to a conversation. It's easy. How is your weekend Works on Monday and Tuesday. What do you doing this weekend? Works on Thursday and Friday.

Wednesday can go either way. You can also say things like, how'd you do on that test? Did you see anybody over Easter? Since it's Easter or Passover, or I'm forgetting what the Indian holiday that's going on the Muslim holiday that's going on right now. Don't remember the name of it. I apologize for that.

I think it's, is it [00:39:00] Ramadan right now? Still? Is Ramadan still going on? Like how's it going for Ramadan's? I think Ramadan still going on. Like that, like teaching our kids beginnings of conversations and sentence starters is pretty powerful. Like give them a way to start something cuz that's often the hardest part of.

Like anything, right? The first step starting is hard. Let's come up with ways to make it easier. And, and by the way, do the same thing with aunts and uncles. Like at Easter is a good example and if any of you saw a family over the weekend, one of the things that happens to kids who have ADHD and you plant potatoes, you get potatoes.

So odds are your kids have ADHD is aunt, uncle. Grandparents see them and are like, so how's school going? I got that question all the time when I was a kid and I hated school and didn't want to talk about it. So when my first question from an aunt or uncle was, how's school going? I was like, fine. And then tried to get out of there because I, [00:40:00] school made me feel bad cuz I was not doing well and it was not fine.

Yep. And. I had one uncle Larry who was like, Hey, did you see the Celtics game? And I was like, yeah. And Larry and I had a great relationship because he didn't ask me about school. He asked me about something I was into that he could connect with. And so, and that just happened. Like that's just the luck, luck of the draw.

But that it doesn't have to be the luck of the draw. We can arm our kids aunts and uncles and grandparents with better questions to ask to start a conversation cuz all that person is trying to do is connect with your kid. But if the question they're asking is one that severs connection for the kid, they're not getting what they want.

Right? Yep. They don't really care how your kid's doing in school. That's not, it's just the only thing they know to ask about. So, and if they do care about how your kid is doing in school, then they're not doing it right. Cuz that's not about your kid, that's about you. They're trying to like judge you based on how, what your kid is doing in school that's not healthy.

So. Mm-hmm. Give 'em a better question. Love that. And, and. [00:41:00] And it could, it's whatever your kid is into, like, they're my guys, my sisters know my boys are rock climbing. They know about the D&D club that my kids are in. They know that they're doing some musical stuff. That's better stuff my, for my family to ask about.

So that's the direction they go in instead. Hmm. Love that is am I, I feel like I just 100 all over the place. Free forming a little bit with this, but it, it was, it was all over the place in the best way ever. I conduct it. No, like the whole time. The whole time. As you're speaking and by the way, and she knows is about me too.

If, if there's a diagnosis for extremely inattentive, d h adhd, that's me right there. So you, you had me 1000000%. So just wait. I was like, you're like, I'm getting bored. I was like, I'm over here now. And you were like, oh, good, I'm back. Yeah, no, you're, you're, you're great. Yeah, 100%. As far as the interest-based thing, I mean, I'm sure that's, that rule applies times 10 when we're talking about kids with ADHD.

I mean, that's how, that's how we function. We're interest-based individuals. I freaking hated getting asked. How school [00:42:00] today. Right. Nobody that, that, nobody. That's, that's, that's a good way to get a very vague answer from my child self. But if you ask me about what Pharrell beats have been most impactful for you , what song do you know about digging the greats, the YouTube channel that talks about various sampling Don on hop beats from the nineties.

Yeah. That's a way to get me fully ignited in the conversation. And, and that's what works for me. And, and it reminds me of what I, I, I recently had a, a video that, that went pretty viral talking about criticizing the school system a little bit. But it's, it's, it, it goes back to that rule that, , when it comes to navigating ADHD, we're talking about putting people with a d h, ADHD in environments that work for them, right?

Mm-hmm. As opposed to trying to make them quote unquote normal. And this is what, this is a conversation format of the, of that, right. Actually communicating with the kid. Who potentially has adhd, right? So let, let me play with, let me play with how to, what do we do to ask our kids about how school's going?

Right? Because [00:43:00] it's not just aunts and aunts and uncles to shut down, shut them down on that. Parents do too, right? So why do we wanna know how our kid is doing in school? Which often is, we don't, it's, I don't know, like if you wanna know how their grades are going, just look it up on eBackpack or Schoology or whatever the online grading platform is, right?

Like, that's easy, but like, don't at the same time kind of like, cuz that like if you come to the conversation armed, you're, and you're the type that's gonna push on that and like use it as a confrontation instead of a conversation. I need to coin that, man, that happened. I got it. I got it on recording.

We're good. T-shirt stickers. If that's where you're going, it's not useful, right? So we want to just have a conversation. What's going on? One of the things that happens for kids with a d h ADHD kids in general is we're like, so how'd your day go? Right? And they're like fine. Gavin says normal or regular, which is awesome [00:44:00] to me cuz it's like a different way to say it and it's entertaining.

That's awesome. And I like, did I, it doesn't get me anywhere, right? But if I say, Hey, what happened before lunch? All of a sudden I've compartmentalized and contracted what the question is about. And now he's got like landMarcs or time Marcs of like, well, what did happen before lunch? Oh, this, this and this.

All of a sudden I'm getting better answers. Right? And like, what happened after lunch? Oh, this, this, and this. And I do it that way on purpose. I go before lunch, then after lunch, and then I ask about lunch and recess. Cuz these are very different topics. Before lunch and after Lunch is heavily academic during lunch and recess is heavily social.

Right. So if what I really care about is the social stuff, I might say what happened before lunch? Okay, what happened at lunch? And then let that go where it goes and not bother asking about what happened after lunch. Cuz I don't really care anyway. I care about social stuff. But if I care about their day, I break them up into those pieces and then [00:45:00] go to lunch in the middle to try to find out some social stuff too.

And giving them those landMarcs is useful as they get older. You can ask about specific classes, like in elementary school that's not quite as useful cause all the classes happen in the same room. But in like middle school and high school, they go from English to math into history and it's the geography changes so it's easier for them to answer those questions and they're older.

So doing that is helpful. And also ask weird question. Right. Like Gavin, my kid is an introvert. He's not like, he's Nate's the extrovert and they don't talk to anybody. He's the mayor. Gavin's an introvert. And one of the questions that I get good mileage out of with Gavin, if I don't overdo it, if I overdo it, it breaks, breaks the whole plan.

So it's only like once a month at the most, I'll say like, what's the most middle school thing you saw someone else doing? So I ask him about what he observed, cuz that's what introverts do. Introverts look around and observe people doing stuff. They're not gonna have as many stories about what they did, but they got a [00:46:00] ton of stories about what other people did.

So I'll ask him about what he noticed instead of what happened to him or what he might have done. And I get a much more engaged answer from him a lot of the time when I do that. Mm-hmm. So that's another way. And otherwise you can do stuff like, Hey, if you were locked in the mall with one of your teachers overnight, which teacher would you wanna be trapped in the mall with?

Or a friend or on a desert island or something, right? Like, play with weird stuff too. Tom, go ahead.

Tom, you're on mute by, you're muted. Okay, cool. You're good. Yeah. This is I don't have a a place to put this cuz it's not really directly content oriented, but I listened to a lot of this stuff and I have no idea how to apply it. My, my daughter's 34 I had no idea had a d h ADHD or that she had ADHD until she was seven 17 or 16.

What this does is it reminds me of all the things I didn't know of all. [00:47:00] Experiences, like I had no engagement with my father, and I'm, I'm listening to this thinking, what the fuck do I do with this stuff? My daughter and I are in some kind of weird thing. She listened to something about estrangement between baby boomer TAs and millennial daughters or something.

Mm-hmm. And Glennon Doyle, and I don't really know what she's doing. I don't really have a thing. So I'm listening to all this. And by the way, it's, it's great stuff. I wish I had it 25 years ago. But I didn't know any of existed and, and I didn't. Yeah. So I'm, I, it, it leads me to, , it's like I don't take it personally, whatever, but I'm just seeing it thinking, it's like, here's a checklist of all the things you, you, , you could do, how many Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

They're like, zero. And it's like, fuck. Right. Well, think of it this way. Right? Think of it this way. Yeah. The, a few, a few different, like sort of, I don't know, flippant terms of phrases [00:48:00] that have some meat, meat on them. If you think about it, one of 'em is the, the best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago.

The next best time to plant a tree is now, right. Like it, you didn't, it's okay, right? You and the other one is you. When you know better, you do better, right? And so now you know. Cool. There's stuff to repair there. There's things to, to address and fix and try to get outta the way. And that's not easy cuz there it's been 25 years and I don't want you to leave this session or this meeting or whatever thinking that you did it wrong and that you're a terrible dad or a terrible person or anything like that.

Cuz that's not, that's not what's going on. Right? You, you, we are all the product of the culture that we grew up in and the culture that you grew up in was vastly different from the culture that we are now in. You are the age of the dads that I talked about earlier when I was like, the dads bringing their trauma to their kid.

Right? Like, we don't know what we're doing cuz our dad's had drama [00:49:00] like that. You're that generation, you're even further back and I'm sure stuff hap if you think about what your dad was doing, you probably did a better job than him. And you might feel like it still wasn't good enough. And I that's for you to decide, but I'm, yeah, I'm gonna guess it was better than your dad.

And, and so when we have estranged stuff, estranged relationships with our kids, it's about trying to have those conversations. It's about when we have those conversations that are going to be hard, we circle back to that. What if you're not the main character stuff that I alluded to earlier? This is a one of my key things, right?

When you have that conversation with her, it's gonna be hard. And you're gonna be here and all the stuff you did wrong, and you gotta just listen to her and believe her. And you gotta let her be the main character, even though it's gonna be painful for you, and you're really gonna wanna be the main character.

You're gonna wanna defend yourself, but it's about her, [00:50:00] right? And that. That is hard. And I'm, I'm, I don't know. I, I, I, I'm about to say I don't know how to make it easier, but that's a lie. I don't know how to make it easy, right? Like how to make, I know how to make it easier. I don't know how to make it easy, right?

And, and one way to make it easier, by the way, this is for all of you, right? And I'm dropping my, a link to my website in the chat. For those of you who care about the podcast or if the parent groups or dad, the dad groups aren't the website yet, but they're coming. You're like my do people care beta group.

But I wanna, I wanna pivot to some really direct conversation about communication, cuz I've threatened to do that and I've sort of done it, but I don't know that I've done it as effectively as I maybe should be. And this will come up certainly in the parenting groups, in the dad groups probably several times.

When we communicate, we communicate on two levels, on two tiers. And this is not just communication, this is actually process. And when we process information, we do it on two tiers. Communication is just [00:51:00] processing information out loud to another person, right? So it's still processing just coming out of our face or our pen when we communicate.

The two levels are emotional and cognitive, and it's so, it's, and it like we kind of drift on a spectrum from like more emotional communication to more cognitive communication, right? Emotional communication is more likely to be defensive. It is more likely to be heated or angry, particularly when there's a problem, right?

We're gonna get defensive, we're gonna get angry, we're gonna, all that stuff. Emotional communication can also be excited. Right? When I was talking to Shane about like, he was like, what do I do with my four-year-old when they're all excited about bluey? Really what I was saying was, your kid is communicating emotionally because little kids can't communicate cognitively yet.

Their brains haven't developed well enough to consistently communicate cognitively. They feel like we don't [00:52:00] care. Cause we're communicating cognitively and they're communicating emotionally, and we just have to go and communicate emotionally. If they're excited about bluey, get excited, right? Com emotional communicators want their emotions to be validated, whether it's excitement or anger or sadness or shame.

They want that emotion valid. That's the main job of emotional communication is seeking and hopefully getting validation for how they're feeling. And that validation doesn't have to be, I understand that you feel angry. In fact, it probably shouldn't be. I understand that you feel angry cuz that doesn't feel real.

Right? That doesn't feel connected. That feels like I am like a Vulcan. And I understand that you feel angry, but I don't understand, right? Like I get it cognitively. I don't get it emotionally, right? But if I say I get it, I understand that you're really pissed with me right now. [00:53:00] Oh, that lands different, right?

Because I didn't say angry, I said pissed. And I gestured and I like leaned in and my eyes kind of flared like that stuff. Those emotional signals let me know that you're experiencing strong emotions too. And even if it's not the same strong emotion that I'm experiencing, the fact that you are experiencing or at least demonstrating strong emotions makes me feel connected.

Cuz you're coming to where I am. Is this making sense? Here's what's up. If we don't validate those emotions, the person who is feeling an emo, a strong emotion will get angry. Anger covers all of the other emotions as at least the negative ones and sometimes even the positive ones. Anger, like I can feel sad or sh ashamed and get and cover that up with mad.

And be mad instead. Right? And men do this all the time because men are not taught how to have strong emotions. And we are in fact taught that it's not okay to [00:54:00] have strong emotions because. It's not about the emotions guys. That's not why. It's because we are not allowed to be vulnerable and all of our strong negative emotions make us feel vulnerable.

And the only strong negative emotion that does not make us feel vulnerable is anger. It makes us feel powerful and it makes you feel vulnerable and you feeling vulnerable. I can see and then I feel less vulnerable cuz you're vulnerable. So I feel safer and better, and I also feel empowered at the same time.

And the next thing I know, I'm off to the races doing some stuff that I do not wanna do and then I feel bad about it. But me feeling bad about it makes me feel vulnerable. And the cycle repeats itself, right? Mm-hmm. So we have to get men and Marc and Shane know this, like this comes up in the groups for sure.

We gotta let men be okay being vulnerable. But here's the deal, if I do not feel like my [00:55:00] emotion is being validated, So, shame, sadness, guilt, whatever I'm trying to express to you. And you're not getting it. I'm getting frustrated. I'm getting angry. You're, you're not validating my frustration or anger. You know how I get you to validate it.

And I'm not doing this on purpose. This isn't intentional. It's just how people work. I'm gonna keep pushing you and you, I'm sure you've all been in a situation like this. I'm gonna keep, keep pushing you until you get pissed. Mm. And then I'm gonna deescalate because you getting mad. Validated my anger.

Because you get it. Cuz you're mad too. And now we can get somewhere cuz I got validated. And guys, that cycle is toxic and it doesn't go anywhere healthier or good. But no one teaches us about that cycle. So we have to see it and recognize it and go, oh, this person is gonna keep pushing me until I pop. Or I can just say, yeah, I see that you're pissed.

I get it. I fucked up. Right. And now they're like, yeah, you did. Okay, I'm [00:56:00] sorry. And all of a sudden we're getting somewhere without the huge escalation because I did a couple of things in that communication. One, I hit my words a little hard. I get it right, like boom, there's a little, I'm not being angry, but there's a little bit of something in there.

There's a little energy. And then I said, I fucked up. Cuz swears have a job in language. The job of swearing is to express emotions. Swearing is not disrespectful. We think it is, but it's not. It's not disrespectful. It might be uncomfortable because it's hinting towards vulnerability. It's hinting towards strong emotions cuz that's what they do.

But they're not, they're not like inherently disrespectful. I mean, if I call you a fucking asshole, that's disrespectful. But if I say I'm sorry I fucked up, or I'm wicked fucking mad at you. That's not me being disrespectful. I'm just using the word very. Only with more emotional weight or messed [00:57:00] up. I messed up.

I fucked up different emotional weight, right? So when you hear someone swearing, they are communicating emotionally. Full stop. It might be a brief strategic emotional communication, like quick in and out. That's fucking awesome. And then we're, that's it. It might be a very brief one or it might be in it like I'm deep in the emotions, right?

This is fucking bullshit. I fucking hate this job, blah, blah. Like now we're, you know what I mean? So swears are cluing us in that we're an emotional world. The way to help get out and emotions, emotional communication is valid. It's important, but it does not help solve problems. Okay? So in order to solve the problem, we have to help guide the person out of emotional communication, out of that emotional processing.

We do that by validating the emotion. If we do that by saying, I like owning what we did, saying, you seem really mad. You seem really frustrated. You seem are, are you angry? You seem kind of mad. Like, help me out. What's going on? Asking questions to elicit more information if we need it. And then once we help them get through the [00:58:00] emotional storm, and it's not like I say, you seem mad, and then they're like, I am.

And then they're not mad anymore. Like that's not how that works, right? Yeah. If someone seems mad here and I'm like, you seem mad, they might escalate, have you, I'm sure you've been around this at some point, right? You seem mad. I am mad, I'm fucking pissed. And all of a sudden they're more mad, right? They go up, but then they come back down, right?

So if they're at a seven, they might go up to an eight and then come down to a six or a five, and then we validate them again and they go up to a six, right? And then down to a four. And eventually we get to them to a place where we can start solving problems. And that's what we want to do. So we have to validate.

Up and down, up and down, up and down until we get to a place where we can have a communi conversation about the problem at hand and navigate it more effectively. And also we have to manage our emotions. Cuz if I'm getting defensive, it's no not useful. And that means I have to know that their emotions are gonna get my emotions going.

Right. Hmm. My, if unless I anchor myself, I'm gonna get anxious just like that person [00:59:00] is anxious and I'm gonna meet them at their level of anxiety. Yeah. So I have to anchor myself and know that's coming and be ready for it and learn how to do that if I don't know how, I can't teach you in 18 minutes. But no, I mean I can, but it's not the point of this conversation.

Go ahead. You're listing a skillset, Uhhuh, which I'm pretty familiar with in terms of just my sort of professional work, not necessarily doing it. It's a big skillset. Mm-hmm. You know, but a lot of people don't even know it exists. Empathetic validation. I know, but I'm sitting here going, when the fuck am I, you know, it's like, it's like, I'm like, oh man, I don't even, it's like, how do I, , I mean, I'm, I'm just sort of spinning.

I'm just thinking out loud. It just like, it just seems like a daunting task. It's like, I, I gotta get the person to have the conversation, right? And let's say they've got all this stuff and they feel traumatized by something, which I don't know, because I've always [01:00:00] been a present attentive dad, , as best as I could.

And all of a sudden I'm like, okay, so it's got, gotta have this sort of thing, gotta manage my emotions. I'm going through one of the biggest transitions in my life. Sort of a, basically a divorce and moving. And then my daughter's got this stuff. I'm feeling like, I'm on the edge of my, , between being the most dysregulated I've ever been in normal, whatever that was learning that I'm neuro divergent.

Yep. And I've been asked, and that's the way I communicated with, and I'm like, holy shit. It's like, can you add another 25 years to my life so I can learn this shit? Because it's like freaking overwhelming. Yeah. And, and I'm sitting and I What is it that you do? You said you, you said you knew some of this stuff, so I'm gonna, do you do mental health work somehow way, or, well, I mean, I've been personal development.

I've built build teams.[01:01:00] Study. Here's what you're gonna do. Here's, you're gonna, this is, this is my, my love letter to Tom. Yeah. You're going through some really hard stuff right now and that's, and you're allowed to go through that hard stuff and, and you do not have to fix everything at the same time.

Pace yourself. Go back. To Maslow's hierarchy of Needs and apply it in there and start at the bottom and get that nailed down as much as ca you can and only address the stuff above whatever tier of Maslow you're on when you have to. Right. So I, I I hear you. The, the, where I am, it's not too far away. It's very different challenges, but some significant challenges.

COVID was hard. I've got one kid with O C D, I've got two kids with O C d, one of whom was hospitalized for three months, came home October. And then the other kid crashed cuz like trauma, right? Like, he was like, oh, [01:02:00] everything's stable. As soon as stuff got stable, the other one went cuz it was stable and he could be traumatized and expressed that.

Now, right after that just when he started getting stable actually before then, my dad's health went south, right. So my dad's health when steal, Marc and Shane talked to me like we set this up. I was in a parking lot, five minutes away from the hospital that I was visiting my dad at. Like when Marc and Shane and I talk about this since then, Marc and Shane don't know this part.

Turns out my dad wasn't as sick as he seemed. He's just an alcoholic and he had been drinking so much that he had, it had affected his thymine levels. It you have to be a really significant drink a lot to mess up your thymine levels. Thymine affects musculature, like how strong your muscles are.

Couldn't stand up. He couldn't stand from a chair to a wheelchair cuz he had messed himself up so much. So the Monday after Shane and I, and Marc and I talked, I yelled at my dad for the first time in my life cuz he checked himself out of the hospital [01:03:00] cuz he wanted to go home and drink. He said he wanted to go home and shave, but that wasn't what was up.

Right? And so, I had a big rant and like that, all that stuff is hard, right? And it's not, it's different. Hard, but it's the same stuff. Thankfully, my dad has been sober for three weeks since my sisters and I had a little conversation with him, which is both good and bad cuz I do a lot of work with like this where I talk to people and I, there's a part of me that wants to believe I can just like, fix everything with my magic words.

And I watch a lot of like 80 sitcoms where

like yelling at my dad and wait to like, It doesn't mesh well with like the way I want to think. I am able to operate in the world. It's like, no, you really are. As magic as you think, Brendan, I'm not magic. That's not what happened. But like I, so I hear you. Stuff is hard and what I'm doing right now is contracting what I'm trying to do, right?

You don't have to fix your relationship with your daughter and manage a divorce and move all at the same time. [01:04:00] Like you can move and your, the divorce is gonna happen the way it's gonna happen. And when that stuff is nailed down and you're in a better place, then you can talk to your dau, your daughter.

And that's allowed, like, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're, in this case, you need to be the main character a little bit, right? Like you, you have to be the main character given where you are. And when you are ready, be the supporter.

Be the main cap, Shane, and then Marc. Yeah. Cause that's the order of the hands. I hope that I'm doing this in a way that is useful guys, you're being, you're amazing. Don't, don't tell your imposter syndrome to shut the fuck up. Yeah, you're fine dude. No, I kind wanted to tie in in a couple of different places.

You actually touched on one of one of 'em with focusing on yourself until you are in a healthy enough place to have those conversations mm-hmm. Is really important. Right. And, and this, and this goes across everybody because look, and we're gonna talk about, by the way, we're gonna be talking about emotional regulation next week with Brendan, which was but , [01:05:00] I'm really looking forward to that one.

Cause hey, shit. But, and we're playing with that here too. Yeah. Yeah. But you can't communicate effectively when your entire world is imploding upon itself. There's just no way to do it. Like you don't have the head space because they're gonna say something and it's going to hit one of your emotional regulation triggers.

Cause you're already stressed the fuck out, you're already frustrated, you're already angry, you're already dealing with all of this shit, and it's already too overwhelming. The second somebody says something really like, like, it's like slightly crooked off of what you're saying, or if it triggers a past trauma memory, you're just going to react.

And that's, that's how we yell at our kids. That's how we, , that's how we like harm relationships as they're, if they're older, is we are too stressed out, we're too frustrated. We're not dealing with our emotions in healthy ways. And somebody says something does something or is oppositional to what we want them to do [01:06:00] and we trigger and we have that ex explosion and we harm the relationship and we harm any chance for communication.

Yep. So I, I wanted to kind of make sure we touched on that. Like, and, and playing with that for a second, one of the things that, one of the traps that men fall into a lot is we prioritize our stuff in the opposite way that we should. And let me, let me explain what I mean by absolutely. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Like, we'll be like, well, I'm the dad, so what I say goes right. So like, I want a hamburger, so we're gonna go to the hamburger joint, except that I know my kids don't like hamburgers and they're not gonna eat anything at the hamburger joint. So we should probably go to a place that serves chicken fingers and also hamburgers.

But because I want this particular hamburger, we're going to that place, right? Like, that's a want. I want a ha not I need a hamburger. My kids need to eat. So we should go somewhere where we can all eat, right? And I can worry about teaching 'em how to eat a hamburger at home. I don't need to do that in a [01:07:00] restaurant, right?

So when it's not super intense, we tend to like prioritize our stuff and then when stuff falls apart, we don't prioritize our stuff. So we're not like s we're, because we're like, I can carry it. Right? Like I can support everybody else who is being affected by our family struggles. Right? And I'll just keep taking the hits and being the martyr.

But what we need to do is like, when it's a want, we need to do, be less dictatorial and drill Sergeant D and just be like, what does everybody want? And not every dad, but a lot of us. And when things are falling apart, we need to be able to let our family help us, at least our spouse support us and, and like, and make sure we're taking care of our needs and not just ignore all of our self-care because stuff is going bananas.

Cuz we lo we rapidly lose our capacity to manage things going bananas if we're not doing the things that we need to [01:08:00] do to be healthy. And that might be as simple as going for a walk and like eating the occasional head of kale. Like, I don't know what it what you need, but like, we need to be doing that stuff and we often, we don't, right?

We're like, I'm just gonna have a milkshake and that'll be the only thing I eat all day. Like at least make it a protein smoothie. You know what I mean? Like that's, and it, it just, we do it backwards. Marc, go ahead. So I, I know we're in the wrap things up stage, so I'm almost internally debating as to whether I should ask this question or not, because we can go almost another hour on this. Can we talk about that?

It's cool. It's cool if we go over a little bit. I'm not gonna be upset. Can we, can we talk about boundaries? What does communicating boundaries look like from the perspective of a dad with a d h adhd?

Like what, what is, I think some of it is knowing what they are like often we don't.

Let me play with that cuz I don't want to talk about boundaries, but I'm gonna talk about boundaries. [01:09:00] Mm-hmm. Just isn't gonna seem like I'm talking about boundaries. Figure out what your values are guys. Your values lead to your boundaries and your boundaries lead to your values. Values are easier to find.

Boundaries are hard to find. So figure out what your values are and probably there's boundaries hiding in there somewhere. Right? Like when I had to yell at my dad, my dad stepped on a lot of my values, which means he stepped on a lot of my boundaries. He stepped over them, right? One of my values is helping other people.

Another value of mine is consideration, like being considerate of the people in your care, being the considerate of the people who are taking care of you, being considerate of the people around you. My dad checked his ass out of the hospital without a plan when he couldn't walk up his front stairs cuz he wasn't healthy enough cuz he didn't want to go to rehab and he wanted to come home and drink.

And that meant that he was throwing a wrench in the, to the lives of his children [01:10:00] who are his caretakers because he can't walk. Right. I was understandably angry because he did not communicate with any of us about this plan. If he had communicated with us and checked himself out anyway, I would've been less pissed cuz we would've had a conversation about it.

But I didn't have a conversation with him and that's lack of consideration. My value of cons of being considerate towards others got stepped on. Right? So there's that boundary. We know, here's how, you know what If your value is being stepped on, if your boundary is being stepped on or overstepped, if it like ranks you kind of frustrates you.

It kind of aggravates you. Someone does something and those are the things that, how you feel about it. That's a boundary. That's a boundary. Getting stepped on, maybe lightly, maybe harder, right? Light is it kind of, you're kind of like, eh, I don't like that. Hard as you're like, right? If you get mad about it, [01:11:00] they're overstepping a boundary.

Now I wanna, I want to throw one piece out on this. Trauma will cause emotional responses like anger and frustration and stuff like that when it's not necessarily a boundary. Like trauma will mess with our boundaries, both where they are and what they are. Cuz one day it might not be a big deal that my kid takes a roll off my plate and eats it.

Because things are going smoothly and the next day things are hard. And I just had to talk to my dad, which reminds me about how I grew up poor and never had enough food. And then my kid takes my roll off my plate and all of a sudden I'm reacting really strongly to that because the trauma of me growing up not having enough, even though now I do, is playing out in this moment.

Does that make sense? And, and also, sometimes our values are not real or, or sometimes our boundaries [01:12:00] are not real, right? Like I can't tell you how many parents yell at their kids over resources, like a loss of a resource or a something. When that was true for 12 year old them and 10 year old them, but 48 year old them has more than enough money to go buy another role.

Like, fix the vase, get a new window. And it's not the big deal that it was when they were a kid, but because their parents went bananas when they broke something. This now 48 year old multimillionaire is also going bananas. Even though their parents were going bananas cuz they couldn't afford to replace that thing.

It was a resource and a loss of a resource. And now they're just trained that you get mad when your kids cost you a resource, even if that resource is not as significant as it was back then. Does that make sense? So to some of this emotional stuff, you gotta, you gotta think about it a little bit. I wouldn't say that just because someone makes you mad or frustrates you, [01:13:00] I wouldn't right away go to them and be like, you stepped up my boundary or something.

Like, it doesn't have to be a boundary, but it's a, it's a like a wonder about that. Like, what's going on? Why is that a thing that's bothering me? And don't assume that it's necessarily the boundary that you pick the first time, cuz sometimes it's a value or a boundary. That seems the same but isn't. Right?

Like my wife once yelled at me in the driveway and like, I did not react well to that. I was like, mm-hmm. Nope. That's not a thing. And that could have been because I'm a misogynist and how dare my wife yell at me? That could have been because I'm a control freak and how dare my wife yell at me. Could have been lots of things, right?

Could have been trauma for me growing up, wasn't it? Wasn't any of that stuff. What it was, was that consideration piece, right? Like it's inconsiderate, it's rude to just yell at each other in the par in the driveway like that, let's bring this in the house, right? Like this, this kind of an interaction belongs in the house.[01:14:00] 

Other people don't need to see it. Right? And also, Art, I'm a people pleaser, right? Like that's also kind, it's not a value exactly, but it's like a motivator. And I don't want people to look at me and be like, that's the guy who has it out with his wife in the pa in the driveway all the time, right? Like, oh, that only happened one time.

Cuz I then was like, don't fight with me like that. And that tro on my wife's boundary cuz my wife was like, it, it doesn't, like you're not hearing me, you're not listening to me and listening to what I just said. If you're correcting how I got mad at you, then you're, you know what I mean? That, that logic of like, if you're correcting how I got mad at you, then you're doing it wrong.

And, and it wasn't a gaslighting thing. I was like, no, I totally understood what I did wrong. I knew why you were mad. I knew you were mad before I got home. None of this was about me not accepting what I did wrong. I accepted it before she yelled. And that's why I was able to make the pivot. Like I was able to be like, no, I get it.

And, and please don't do that again. Right. But also, I'm, at [01:15:00] the time, I wasn't as skilled as I am now, so I was defensive and I was a little bit like, don't be yelling at me in the driveway. Right. So yeah. Boundaries. And I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you I'm kind of lying about next week, a little bit.

Next week is about emotional regulation, but it's really about self. 

You know what I mean? Like the way you regulate your emotions is by practicing good self-care. So it starts with, we're gonna start by talking about self-care. And actually that's how the parenting groups start too, is like, I'm like self-care, let's start there cuz you can't do the rest of the parenting, my parenting stuff if you don't practice self-care in a way that's effective.

So we're actually gonna, that's gonna be a core component of, of next week is we're gonna talk about at least my approach to self-care and the, no, it's not as specific as like make yourself an egg, cuz like that's a varies person to person. And the nature of what I do when I'm talking to a big group is like I, I kind of have to go broad to make sure stuff lands and then as people ask questions I get specific.

But we're gonna talk about some [01:16:00] of the ways that some of the lenses that I take on self-care and how to approach it, why it matters, and then what that does with regard to emotional regulation. And we're also gonna circle back on that emotional and, and cognitive communication stuff too, cuz that's a piece of emotional regulation as well.

Is. Recognizing where you are. So that, that's coming. 

So here's what, what I will say, and, and I'm obviously a little bit biased here, but I, I'd love the subject of self-care and how it impacts. When I think about self-care for us men with ADHD, I think about our tendency to neglect it big time.

I love, love, love working with Shane because Shane will regularly check in saying things like, Marc, are you getting the sleep that you need? Right.

Marc, you're an extrovert. Are you getting your time socially for your mental health and everything like that? Because it turns out when I'm [01:17:00] overworking myself, which I tend to do, I'm not the best leader for this organization. I'm not the best host that I can be. I'm not doing myself any favors.

I'm not doing any of y'all any favors. And I'm sure dads with ADHD are not doing their kids any favors. Mm-hmm. When they are not taking the time to do deep things like D&D, like reading an Xmen comic.

And, and I just, I just before kind of stuff wraps up, I just wanna say thank you to you guys for letting me come on for letting this be a little more freeform and, and flowy. I like it better. I get bored when I'm doing slides. I do slides to the parenting groups cuz it's structured.

But I, I appreciate you guys kind of letting things go where they went. And, and also like, like kind of going back to what Tom was saying, like, this stuff is hard. Mm-hmm. And it feels like this mon skillset set to learn. But, but it's, it's a skillset set. It's a skillset that is not a new skillset set for anybody.

Because what I'm really [01:18:00] talking about in to this week and next week is a lot of essential stuff about being a human and being a person. And we're doing this stuff sort of instinctively and based on the, the environment we grew up in. And we don't know how to do it different until someone pulls at that string and then weaves it back together in a new way.

And that's kind of what I think of at my job as is like, like this is the stuff you kind of know, but what about taking this angle on it and looking at it this way? Or what about this skill that we mix into that and how does that change things and make it better? And and I I, I know we, we didn't hear from Marc part two, the silence.

But, but I, I, I hope that you guy and didn't really hear much from Jeremy either, but, but I hope that this has been something useful and I love to see you guys again next week. And it's not easy and there's unique components to this that are, it's, it's a, it's different for dads. I don't wanna say it's harder for men.

I don't, cuz that's not true. It's just different [01:19:00] and, and. One of the things I talk about is, is that the fisher is at the water. Right? Like what? Because I work a lot with parents working with their kids, and I'm like, I can't do anything with your kid. I'm not working with your kid. I'm working with you, mom and dad.

So my job is to change the water, right? Like I'm gonna help the fish by fixing the water. Connected to that is like fish don't know they're in water. Like a fish doesn't know that it's wet. Right? And as men, because men have been the dominant social power structure forever, I think I'm pretty sure it's forever.

We don't know that we are in water. Like we don't know that the water that we're in is toxic. And we didn't know that until women started going, Hey, this water is toxic. Right? And they wanted to change stuff. And as that stuff started changing things, we as men got to go, oh. You mean I don't have to be like an emotionless monster all the time.

And like I'm allowed to sit, own up to the fact that I have trauma and that like, all of this really hard [01:20:00] stuff that happened to me was hard. And not just, I'm tough and I can take it cuz I'm a dude. Like I can actually have this have been hard and make the connection to like, that's why I'm angry and I don't wanna be angry anymore, even though it's power makes me feel powerful.

And even though it makes me like paradoxically kind of feel good sometimes, like, like we are starting to see and understand the water that we're swimming in. And, and which, I mean Marc and, and Shane, that's the job of this group as I understand it, is to help us understand the water that we're in and also treat that water and treat ourselves as the fish.

So I I, that's kind of what I'm trying to do and I, I am a man who has spent most of his professional life in female dominated careers, so I. Have a different lens on stuff in case you can't tell. But also I know how to man, if that makes sense. Awesome. Yeah. Your man card is there, cuz I know, I know Kim [01:21:00] Po and I know how hard that shit is.

And so man card there and like, I'm, I'm five foot six and people listen to me, which like, that's like man stuff. Like, man, you listen, you don't listen to the short guy, you follow the, like, you follow Shane who is big and you're like, that guy, he's, he's big and must know what's going on, right? I'm the little firecracker who's like, no, no, no, this and, and then people follow me.

So I, that's, that is a piece of it. Like, so I, I really love that we're ending it on this point too, because that is really a big part of what this group is about. Is changing that perception of what it means to be a man. Right? Redefining masculinity is one of the big things, right? That we're we're actually going to be talking on the panel on at the added Chad conference at end of the year, literally on restructuring that whole dynamic and what that means across different cultures.

Mm-hmm. Right. And I, I [01:22:00] think it, one of the biggest parts of this has been like, what does that look like? Because as people with a d h adhd, we need to know like, okay, I'm not supposed to be this. What am I supposed to be? What is it supposed to look like? And so part of it, the biggest things I've loved working with Marc is the journey of, of defining that.

What are the healthy ways to be strong for the people around us who need us to be strong, but at the same time understand that vulnerability is okay, right. And is a form of strength. Right? Mm-hmm. How, how vulnerable, how strong do we have to be to be able to ask for help? Yep. And, , across different cultures, across different like the ways that we've lived, like for me being from the, , Southern United States Marc, being in the, , New York Marc being Hispanic, John Hazelwood, being African American, like, we have all these different perspectives that we really are working together to kind of make sure that we have a, a really firm grasp of how to [01:23:00] provide that peer-to-peer support.

Yeah. And it's not easy, right? And, and no, and one I, I'll shut up after this cuz I do have to go be a dad. One of the things that, that we don't look at often enough is we talk about how being neurodiverse, right? Mm-hmm. We don't talk about the intersectionality of neurodiversity and masculinity often enough.

And you guys do like, and you might even already play with this, but, but one of the things that I was, I was actually talking to. An ADHD person about this the other day when cuz she, she was trying to understand like her, her partner, her male, male partner. And I was like, here's the thing, like he grew up in a culture that told him he could never do it wrong.

Like, you gotta just, you gotta be able to handle anything that comes at you. That's the job of a man, right? Like Sylvester Sloan and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis taught me that. And when you're neurodiverse like stuff happens and you can't handle it [01:24:00] cuz you don't have the executive functions to do it.

And that lands differently for men than it does for women because women don't have the same cultural expectations and it's just a thing that needs to get a light shined on it more often. So that's, that's in here too. Yeah. And that, and that includes, and now that includes parenting cuz once upon a time I could.

Suck at parenting and it was okay cuz I was expected to suck at parenting. Right? Not me specifically, but like generation behind me, right? But my generation, I'm not allowed to suck at parenting except that no one ever taught me how to parent and I'm no diverse, but my man stuff tells me that I, I should be capable of everything.

I should know how to do that cuz I should just know guys, I can't start my lawnmower. You know how like unmanly that is like, I'm like I don't remember how to start my lawnmower, which is a machine and I should just magically like my [01:25:00] testosterone should communicate to the oil in the lawnmower and the gas of the lawnmower and it should just start.

Cuz I am a man and it doesn't start so clearly. I don't have enough testosterone. Like that is dumb. But there's a part of me that fully believes that that is true, that like some more manly man, Is gonna like, like that. If Sylvester Stallone walked up to my lawnmower, it would just start cuz his testosterone would talk to its oil and, and gas, which is idiotic.

But like, that's the culture I grew up in and I have to re readdress those, that source code for me. And then that's cuz I'm 46 right from Marc has, Marc has different source code and didn't grow up in New England. But yeah. So all right, cool. So I, I'll see you guys in a week. Yep. We're going to have you on next week for emotional regulation and apparently self care.

Just to do some maintenance real quick for the, everyone, the video on this is all wonky. We're about, we're gonna have to figure out what's going on this. [01:26:00] We will mail it or we will email it out, at least whatever we. As far as that's concerned we are going to be talking with Brenda Mahan next week on six on the 16th.

Same time, same place. We are also still doing our financial Fridays. That's gonna be every first Friday of the month. So starting on we started it on April 7th, we're going to May 5th with Rick request of refi. So that's just kind of essentially all things financial, and he's been, he's been working with us for a couple months now and it's been amazing working with him.

Cool. Yeah, he's great. And so then we're also , this is what we're going to be doing. We're gonna be providing more of this kind of content on a more regular basis as we keep moving forward. But the only way that we can do that as a nonprofit is if y'all help us and support us with this kind of stuff.

So your donations, your volunteer efforts, the work that you do with us, the, , when you sign up for these things, , Brendan is doing this stuff out of the kindness of his heart to begin. Believe truth. We're not paying him for this stuff. No, it's cause I love you guys. I'm not like, [01:27:00] so my team, yeah, definitely.

And that's why we love doing this kind of stuff is because having people like, like, Brendan and Jeremy and other organizers within h ADHD movement, that's what I love about it, is it's not about money. It's about working together to get awareness about ADHD out there.

And especially for us masculinity and getting that redefined and getting some more , More, more people to understand that there is a struggle for us, right? We had to find, we had to walk that fine line of making sure that we aren't we are still recognizing privilege where it is, but at the same time recognizing the struggle that we have as well.

Mm-hmm. And really shining the light out there so that, we're just being cognizant of those kind of issues that we all face. So again, thank you so much, Brendan. We really appreciate having you on. Thank you to everybody with everything y'all said and all the different questions that we had and we're able to do really awesome. Thank you so much for the amazing work that y'all did, and we [01:28:00] really appreciate y'all. Peace out. Love all y'all.

Take care y'all. Bye-bye. Bye.