The ADHD MUMS Pod
Real talk from two ADHD mums in the thick of parenting, chaos, and clutter. Gen and Claire share honest highs and lows of neuro-divergent life. We are Mums, but you don't have to be to listen!
We share real, unfiltered stories about parenting, neurodivergence, and daily struggles like executive dysfunction, disorganisation, overstimulation, and Mum guilt. We also celebrate the wins—big or small—with honesty and laughter.
We're both AFAB and biological mums, but this space is for all parents, ADHDers, curious minds, and —even your pets. Everyone’s welcome.
We do swear though, so you probably need headphones if there's kids around!
The ADHD MUMS Pod
ADVENT CHAOS CALENDAR: Surviving School Holidays With Co-Parenting And Care Gaps
We map the real work of Christmas with school-age kids: booking leave in time, juggling co‑parenting calendars, and protecting the quiet “twixtmas” days that help everyone reset. We share simple tools and scripts to say no, plan rest, and find childcare gaps without guilt.
• booking annual leave early in small teams
• setting co‑parenting anchor dates and shared calendars
• limited childcare and holiday clubs in winter
• pressure to create constant festive experiences
• scheduling PJ days and betwixtness
• boundary scripts for multiple family invites
• playdate swaps and low‑prep home activities
• managing high‑energy kids alongside parent capacity
Raise a fist and say it with us.
HO HO HOOOO!
Further TW: This podcast references at times: alcohol abuse, depression, mood disorders, medical emergency, miscarriage, traffic accidents, grief and loss, teen pregnancy, anxiety, abuse, PDA, low self esteem, and anti-depressant medications, disordered eating, hoarding...
All music written and produced by Ash Doc Horror Lerczak.
Artwork by Gen
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See you next Wednesday! xxx
It's a roll up to Christmas and we're on to the Halal.
SPEAKER_02:Where the ADHD moms? I'm Clue. I'm Jen.
SPEAKER_00:Today we're talking about the school holiday chaos, the scheduling, what to do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh so we talked in our earlier episode about getting yourself big calendar. Yes. Um you need to think about how you're actually gonna cope with these kids on house.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um I have that thing where I'm part-time work from home um and my work is very flexible as to when I can do things. So I think you should lead in terms of when you're having to be a working mum in the Christmas holidays.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it doesn't apply this year. No, we'll get to I'm probably going to be in hospital this year.
SPEAKER_00:Being waited on hand and foot for all the wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um but yeah, getting your annual leave booked in when you're in a small team and everyone wants Christmas up.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. So we're gonna need somebody else to commit to coming at Christmas. And it'll be the person who asked last for their leave.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, which is the ADHD one.
SPEAKER_01:Which is the ADHD one, even if they ask on the 1st of January, which is supposed to be the first day you're allowed to ask, someone else will have already highlighted it or something. Oh god. And your boss likes them better.
SPEAKER_02:And apparently you can't play that. I've got children card, uh school age children, because they've got grandchildren or whatever, you know. Um, and then getting like if you for instance, like me and Jenna, single mums, your other parent, your co-parent to tell you when they're free at Christmas, that's a big job. So you can book those holidays is often hard to oh god, in time, yeah, enough as well.
SPEAKER_00:That's crazy. Yeah, it's really hard. The last time I worked Christmas Eve was a couple of years ago, and it was great because the kids were with their dad, so I was able to kind of be like up there amongst all the other like working mums, but be like, I'll take it, I'll do it. Yeah, and so it was lovely to be able to do that, and like it, you know, I was keeping busy because I wasn't with my kids. Yeah, I was really like it was really nice to be able to be like stepping up, yeah. Um, but that's just because it worked out like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but despite the fact I was in a small team and I was the only mum at school aged children, no one else felt like stepping up for some reason. Well, it was because he didn't like me, but that's another matter. But anyway, you can find yourself in a big team and or you know, for some reason DJs don't want you to have Christ everyone to have Christmas off. Yeah. It should be a goddamn right, I think.
unknown:That was weird, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Um anyway, so yeah, you need to book your annual leave. Probably a bit late for that now. But think about next year's, maybe book that when you go back to work after Christmas.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I defo would have never known that like you have to book it in January.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That was wild. But anyway, think about um in the reality of the situation now, you might not have the whole Christmas holidays off. So you need to start thinking about chocolate. Happily, there's usually um for me, like relatives who would want to step up at that time of year.
SPEAKER_00:But that's not the case for everyone. Definitely not me. Um if I was, you know, working Monday to Friday. Um and there tends to be less childcare stuff available, doesn't there? There's not so many like, oh, holiday clubs for Christmas time, is there? Um yeah, that's a tricky one. Even for mums who are not um out at work, yeah, there's a whole other thing then of like you're there with your kids and you're kind of feeling the pressure to like provide experiences for them, maybe, because that's become a big part of our culture at Christmas time, is like grottos, trips, this and that, you know, the normal thing in holidays of like play dates or day trips out or just what to do at home, you know, as opposed to just allow the TV to stay on all day.
SPEAKER_02:Like and also though, there's the thing of like there's lots of family and get-togethers as well, like in my in my son's life with two split-up pairs of grandparents, there's four sets of grandparents, with all two sets of parents, aunts and uncles and all this. It's it's like fitting it all in.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and he wants some downtime.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you've got to schedule in the pajama days and downtime, I think. Big time. Because he loves that's like I look I remember loving that as a kid, like when it was finally over. Getting to play with your toys, watch movies, eat left over.
SPEAKER_00:Just like days left of being off school, but there's nothing to do.
SPEAKER_02:The thing is, they call it like the betwixtness. Betwixtness, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You have to remember how important that is to kids, days of not having to do anything. I think a lot of parents get like deep into the mum guilt of like, my kid has to have like activity and like you know, s lots of exercise and fresh air every day, but actually remember just being able to have like a lounge day.
SPEAKER_02:But that can mean you have to be brave and say no to some family invitations and stuff as well. You know, like you can't possibly fit it all in.
SPEAKER_00:Defo.
SPEAKER_02:So prioritising some of that and explaining gently, like we just got so many people were overwhelmed, and maybe we can come and see during in the new year, let's like just see each other more often generally, and all that type of thing, rather than try and fit it all into like that tiny space.
SPEAKER_00:That's a nice way to approach it, and also like we're talking about again, like kind of leading with like giving your child the chance of this and that, but we need to remember ourselves put on your own oxygen mask, all that that we've talked about is like sometimes you're gonna have to be talking to your child like that. You might have a child who's sensory-seeking, who's like hype, who wants to be doing like loads and loads and loads of stuff every day. You might have to reset their expectations as to what you have capacity for, and I know you struggle with that more than me, maybe because you kind of are like very selfless and you have mum guilt around like ability, physical ability, ability, yeah. But I'm picturing people maybe doing that for themselves and for their own long-term energy levels and capacity, letting their kids know that some days we won't be doing anything, babe. Like you've got you've got new Christmas stuff you can look at, you can, you know, it ch like most people will have some sort of setup where the child can play outdoors, even if it's literally on the front doorstep or whatever, like mine. Um, if there's no like backyard or anything, or if they're in flats, they might play on the stairs. I don't know. Most people will have a place where they can go to play. No, but I'm saying even in flat blocks of flats, they might play in the corridor or the stairs or something.
SPEAKER_02:And then their parent would have to go with them. Like we just gotta recognise that not everyone has got an outdoor space to play in in UK, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I didn't even really mean outdoors, I just mean a space where they tend to go to.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like they might just be doing that thing or whatever, or you know, doing the normal little things that are just part of daily life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, as opposed to something that feels super Christmassy all the time or that is laid on an activity or that is like high energy.
SPEAKER_02:And if they are high energy, sorry, my phone went then. Um if they are high energy that you can't keep up with does playdates and that you can do swaps if they've got their friends, because not everyone's always around at Christmas, there's a lot of travelling and that, but usually there's some other kid from class somewhere who wants a bit of a swap out.
SPEAKER_00:True, so don't forget to put the feelers out. Yeah, on like your class group or whatever. Well, this little mini chat has given me the fear. I need to get a cal I need to get a calendar on the go because I've got to do the thing that we talked about of like scheduling, like I've got to do the um, which we'll discuss on a later episode properly. I think the co-parenting thing of like working out which days I have done, which day, blah blah. I think I'm gonna do a pre-Christmas, Christmas and stuff like that, and then a post-Christmas family Christmas. I've really gotta, I've gotta go, babe.
SPEAKER_02:We're both looking at we're both looking at a pre-Christmas Christmas this year, aren't we? So just to pile all the pressure on, we're probably both doing Christmas like at least a week, maybe two weeks. I'm doing two weeks early.
SPEAKER_00:I think you're doing yeah, and we're obviously pre-recording these, but as we uh come to nearer to Christmas, you'll be listening to things while we're actually in the thick of it. Jen's gone white in the face. I'm going, I'm going, I'm going to get the drywight markers out. Help.
SPEAKER_02:Raise your fist and say it with us.
