When ADHD Affects the Whole Family: A Mindful Way Forward

Keywords

ADHD, parenting, executive functioning, mindfulness, neurodiversity, family dynamics, young adults, parenting strategies, support systems, personal obligations


Summary

In this episode of ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast, host James Moffitt speaks with ADHD coach Corie  Wightlin about the challenges and strategies for parenting young adults with ADHD. They discuss the importance of connection in parenting, the impact of executive dysfunction, and the role of mindfulness in managing ADHD. Corie shares her personal experiences as a parent of neurodiverse children and offers practical tools for creating supportive family dynamics. The conversation emphasizes the need for understanding, patience, and effective communication in navigating the complexities of ADHD within family settings.


Takeaways

Connection is the primary goal in parenting.
ADHD can create significant challenges in executive functioning.
Mindfulness practices can enhance awareness and emotional regulation.
Parents must set boundaries to maintain their well-being.
Neurodiversity impacts family dynamics and relationships.
Resources like CHADD can provide valuable support for parents.
Creating a visual calendar can help ADHD individuals stay organized.
Communication styles should be adapted for ADHD family members.
Flexible routines can reduce resistance in ADHD children.
Sticky notes are a practical tool for reminders and organization.


Titles

Navigating ADHD in Parenting
Mindfulness and ADHD: A Family Approach


Sound bites

"Connection before everything else."
"You can't pour from an empty cup."
"ADHD affects the entire family."


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Parenting Challenges
02:41 Understanding ADHD and Parenting Dynamics
05:38 Navigating Executive Functioning in Young Adults
08:30 Daily Life with ADHD
11:09 The Role of Mindfulness in Managing ADHD
14:15 Balancing Parenting with Personal Obligations
18:17 Navigating Parenting Challenges with ADHD
23:29 Understanding Neurodiversity in Family Dynamics
28:40 Resources and Support for ADHD Families
33:49 Creating Sustainable Family Systems for ADHD

Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

Hello, James here !

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.252)
Hello and welcome to ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I will be your host. Today we have a special guest, Corey Whiteland. Corey, how are you doing?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (00:11.906)
I'm great, thanks. James, how are you?

James Moffitt (00:13.722)
I'm great. Thanks for joining us today. Do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (00:21.056)
Yeah, my name is Cori Whiteland, like you just said, James. I am an ADHD coach, executive functioning coach. So I support folks in building executive functions, which are time management, organization, motivation, prioritization, and emotional regulation. So I have a background in education and I'm also an educational consultant. And I have three kids. The oldest one is an adult, officially.

and the middle one is on her way to soon being an adult. So I'm on both sides right now.

James Moffitt (00:58.682)
So as long as you survive the teenage years,

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (01:01.162)
Exactly. Exactly.

James Moffitt (01:03.93)
Yeah, we started our, we have a private Facebook support group for parents. We started it in 2015. We had like 10 members. And at that time we had two teenagers living at the house and I was desperately trying, trying to stay out of prison and uh,

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (01:19.662)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (01:22.81)
So I told my wife, said, you know, we, we ought to start a Facebook group and see if there's anybody else that have or having these issues. And so now 10 years later, we have like 1.6 thousand members or 1.3 thousand members. So, yeah. So apparently it's a, a, a topic or topics that resonate with a lot of parents. So, and then I did, I started the podcast in 2023 and I thought, Hey, let's, do a podcast that people can listen to and watch, you know, kind of supplement.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (01:34.072)
That's amazing. That's awesome.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (01:44.27)
for sure.

James Moffitt (01:52.568)
the Facebook messaging and all that. parenting is a, is, can be a, it can be a challenge, an adventure.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (02:05.496)
That is for sure. It is a new adventure every day and with every kid it's different. And just when you think you have it figured out, a curve ball gets thrown and you gotta figure it out all over again.

James Moffitt (02:07.287)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (02:11.303)
yeah.

James Moffitt (02:17.273)
All right, let me read this little blurb off your pod match profile and then we can go from there. It says your conversation with Corey could explore the intersection of ADHD and parenting, particularly focusing on how parents of young adults with ADHD can create supportive environments. This episode may delve into the practicalities of managing executive dysfunction in family settings and shed light on.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (02:22.999)
Okay.

James Moffitt (02:43.257)
personalized strategies for fostering understanding and communications. So tell me a little bit about your parenting story.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (02:54.026)
that's a great question. I had my first, well, I always wanted to be a parent. I knew that. I always wanted to be a parent. And I my first daughter, I'm fairly on the young side in my mid-twenties. And my husband and I felt like we were just kind of figuring it out. She had a ton of medical challenges when she was born. And it was a rough start, especially for two younger folks. And...

James Moffitt (03:21.144)
Right?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (03:22.198)
What we learned through that though is that, you know what, what really matters. And I've always kind of taken that with me that what really matters in parenting for me is connection before everything else. So whether it's connection before redirection, connection before conversation, connection before discipline, that my main goal as a parent has always been to be connected to my kids. And then four years later, I had a...

Another kiddo who came into this world with the biggest personality I've ever seen, 16 years later still has that big personality, which is amazing. And when she was younger, we always said, okay, we can use this. She can either use this for good or for evil. And our job as parents is to help her, you know, use it for good. And for the most part, she really has. And then my youngest is 13 and just comes with their own set of

unique challenges and unique strengths. And my pediatrician says that she's never had a family that has three kids that are as different as my three kids. So I take that as a badge of honor because I think that they've really been allowed to be themselves and show up authentically in this world. And that's hard as a parent. It'd be a lot easier. They were a little bit more similar, but it's also really fun to see them all kind of thrive in their own.

James Moffitt (04:34.039)
Right.

James Moffitt (04:50.049)
Right? So there's a lot of transitioning going on with you as a parent, right? While the kids are transitioning, you have to transition right along with them.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (04:55.074)
Yes, yes.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (04:59.928)
For sure, for sure. My 20 year old is a sophomore in college and she is about as far away as you can be and still be in the continental United States. And so that's been a big challenge. Yeah, she's in New York city and I'm in San Diego and just having that piece of our family so far away and having her navigate living in Manhattan.

James Moffitt (05:11.656)
really?

James Moffitt (05:15.153)
wow.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (05:26.934)
a whole different type of the world. And then also transitioning to being more of adult to adult with her and allowing her to have the more adult conversations with me, allowing her to make some adult decisions that might not be what I would have made, allow her to kind of figure out life on her own is hard as a parent. It's hard to transition from.

James Moffitt (05:27.326)
wow.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (05:55.01)
being that true parent to being more of like, okay, I'm just here if you need me. And that's been an interesting transition for me for sure.

James Moffitt (06:03.863)
I bet. So tell me about your, how did you get into, what's your job title or what do call yourself?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (06:13.294)
Yeah, I'm an ADHD executive functioning coach. So I, what I do is I work with individuals or groups and I work with families. work with college kids, high school kids, young adults, and my oldest client right now is in her seventies. So I have a wide range of ages, but yeah, but what every, every one of my clients needs is support in building those skills that

James Moffitt (06:16.569)
Okay.

James Moffitt (06:32.136)
wow.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (06:41.726)
often are challenged with ADHD. So skills that for people that don't have ADHD develop naturally. When you have ADHD, the parts of our brain, the prefrontal cortex is not, it's not built the same way as people that don't have ADHD. So we have to actually build those tools and build those strategies externally. Like if you think of like an external hard drive in order to navigate the world.

in a way that makes sense for the people around us, but also honors the way that our brains think and process. And so, yeah. Yeah, so I got into this because I myself am neurodiverse and have ADHD. All three of my kids have ADHD, but they all have ADHD in a very different way. And when I was a teacher, I was a teacher of kids that were neurodiverse. And I saw that.

James Moffitt (07:15.331)
So how did you get into that?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (07:35.694)
the kinds of support they needed were just not the same kinds of support that neurotypical kids needed in the classroom. And then I started to notice that the apple doesn't fall from the tree, which we know that biologically, we know that if you have ADHD, you have an 80 % chance that your child will also have ADHD. So I started to notice, okay, I can't just help the kids build these strategies because then if they go home and the family doesn't have the same kind of support, then it all kind of falls apart. So

When I left the classroom, went back and I got certified in ADHD coaching so that I could support the whole system. And I also noticed that once kids left the house, if their families were being that executive functioning for them, emailing the teacher, making sure their binders were all up to date, making sure that they've checked all their homework, making sure they get to practice on time, making sure their bags were packed, as parents do because we love our kids and we want them to succeed.

What I noticed then is these kiddos were going out into the real world and they didn't have their toolbox because their tools had been external by other people. And so I started then working with young adults and college kids. And that became something that I really love to do because it's kind of like their baby deers. They're just figuring it out for the first time. Their legs are a little wobbly and they get to figure out what works for them.

James Moffitt (08:59.534)
Right?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (09:02.39)
Instead of just saying, okay, this is what my mom said I should do. They get to figure out exactly what works for them, particularly and individually. And I think that's a really cool time to build those systems.

James Moffitt (09:15.651)
So let's do something a little different here.

Tell us what it's like to be somebody that's neurodiverse, that has ADHD. What is a typical day like?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (09:32.588)
Well, for me, I have built a lot of tools. So I use a lot of systems and tools as someone that has ADHD. But some of my big challenges are time management. So I am very time blind, which means I think something will take five minutes when it really will take half an hour. Or I think I've only been on my phone for 10 minutes and I've really been on my phone for an hour. Or I think it'll only take me 20 minutes to drive somewhere, but I forget about.

walking to the car, getting in the car, parking at the place, walking into the appointment. And so what I've had to do is I've had to build systems such as alarms, adding 50 % more time, making sure that if I'm on my phone that I set a timer on my phone to remind me, hey, you've been on for a while.

And I also keep a log of how long things take. So if I am like, I think this project will only take 20 minutes, I can go back and look at a similar project and say, wait, no, it's going to take me an hour. It's not going to take 20 minutes. So I have a lot of extra things that I do. Another thing that I need is people with ADHD. We have really bad working memories. So we have a hard time remembering instructions. We have a hard time remembering what we need to do.

I live by lists. I have visual lists and visual reminders everywhere I go. And I have to write for me, for my brain, I have to write them down. They can't be lists on my phone. They can't be reminders or things on my phone like that. They have to be written lists. So I have to spend time every day making sure that those lists are up to date and making sure that I've planned for those.

I also am a really, like most ADHD people, I'm a really highly sensitive person. And so I've also spent a lot of energy on emotional regulation, a lot of them on mindset reframe, on building self-compassion. So I also have to build that into my day. So those are just some examples of someone like me who looks on the outside like I have it all together. I'm really on top of it.

James Moffitt (11:39.021)
Okay.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (11:45.12)
It's all of those systems that I've built that helped me just be on an even playing field.

James Moffitt (11:50.969)
Got you. What does ADHD stand for? I know what the first part is. I can't remember the second part.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (11:55.022)
It's, yeah, it's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So we used to have ADHD, which the hyperactive and ADD, which was without the hyperactive. But what we know now from more brain research and the ability to really look at what's happening inside the brain is that everybody that has ADHD has some hyperactive component. So people that are diagnosed hyperactive, ADHD hyperactive tendency,

they're physically hyperactive. So they move around a lot. They're kind of that classic six-year-old that can't sit in their seat, that's shaking their leg all the time. And then there's hyperactivity in attentive disorder. And in attentive are the kids that look really daydreamy, look kind of spacey, kind of like disorganized. And what we know about that is that their brains are hyperactive. So their thoughts are hyperactive. They can't control their attention. It's all over the place. And then there's a combination.

So there's people that have both. that ADD is no longer something we diagnose. It's an attentive disorder.

James Moffitt (13:01.625)
I'll catch you.

All right, so how can parents understand executive dysfunction's impact on young adults?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (13:10.478)
Yes. what the first thing to remember is that with ADHDers until about the time they're 30 is they are 30 % behind in executive functioning maturity than neurotypical people. So if you have an 18 year old that you're sending off to college that has ADHD, their executive functioning skills are probably about like a 14 year old.

If have a 25 year old with ADHD that's living on their own, they're probably about like a 20 year old. And so that's really important to remember because the expectations that we have for them need to match where they are biologically and neurologically. And that doesn't mean that they can't do it. It just means that we can't expect them to just have it. So an example is I have a lot of college kids I work with.

James Moffitt (13:36.748)
Okay.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (14:01.39)
who they go off to college and all of a sudden they aren't going to class on time, they're forgetting to do all their papers, they're staying out too late. And the parents are like, but they're 18, they should just be able to do it. And so I think, okay, what if you would send a 14 year old to college? What would you expect? And then now where can we build the tools and the strategies to help bridge that gap for them? So we have to remember that it's not gonna be automatic for them necessarily.

The other thing to remember is that executive functioning builds, it just function builds upon itself. So what I mean by that is if you're chronically late, then you have chronic anxiety because you're always running late and that anxiety puts you into a fight, flight or freeze. So you're going to have a hard time being organized or paying attention or problem solving. so if you, without giving like the

proper tools and without really helping your kiddo figure out how to solve those root executive functioning challenges. It really is just like this big amorphous challenge that is hard to tackle. So those are some of the big things to remember.

James Moffitt (15:05.114)
well.

James Moffitt (15:09.987)
Okay. What role does mindfulness play in managing ADHD with families?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (15:17.494)
Okay, so I'm also a mindfulness facilitator and mindfulness is the paying attention to the here or now without judgment. it's meditation is part of mindfulness, but it's not all of mindfulness. And it's really about awareness. And ADHD is a deficit of awareness and attention because of the inattention, right? With ADHD our brains move so fast that we aren't aware of what we're thinking when we're thinking it.

We're not aware of what we're feeling when we're feeling it. ADHDers have impulse control issues. So we do things without thinking about the consequences. And then after we go, no, why did I do that? And they, feel really terrible about it because we're also highly sensitive. So building a mindfulness practice and starting to pay attention to what we're thinking when we're thinking it, what we're feeling when we're feeling it, how.

our actions, I call it the fast forward remote. So pausing and then thinking about how our actions are going to have consequences, which a neurotypical brain does, but ADHD brains don't really support, then being able to say, okay, now what do I do about it? But as you can imagine, if we don't even know what we're doing and we don't even know how we're feeling, and we don't even know what we're thinking, then making any sort of change is pretty much impossible.

So some of the mindfulness tools that we can use are, like I said, one is the fast forward remote. So we practice just being aware of when we're going to make an impulsive decision, just practicing that first. And then we practice pausing. So like taking deep breath, getting outside, getting a drink of water. And then we start practicing figuring out what the consequences of those actions are going to be. So without that awareness piece, the rest

doesn't really come. The rest is really hard. Also, mindfulness has been shown through MRI studies to build the gray matter in the areas of our brain that are responsible for attention and organization and motivation. And so a regular mindfulness practice actually is like going to the gym for your brain. And it strengthens the part of your brain that you really need in order to combat.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (17:42.882)
the challenges of ADHD. it biologically and neurologically changes and creates new connections. The last thing that mindfulness does that I think is really cool is we, our amygdala is responsible for, in our brain is responsible for our fight, flight or freeze. So it's that, it's, know, it's someone cuts you off in traffic. Your amygdala is responsible for slamming on the brakes and getting really tense and maybe yelling something that you wish you had in it somewhat.

James Moffitt (17:52.953)
Thank

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (18:11.264)
Right? And so our in ADHD years, we have a really overactive amygdala. Our amygdala, like it's like always looking for danger. It's always looking out for, you know, something that might be embarrassing or something that might be hard. And it puts us into fight, flight or freeze a lot. And studies have shown that a regular mindfulness practice actually strength the amygdala and makes it less reactive. So you can imagine if you aren't always

reacting these big reactions and getting put fight, flight or freeze, you're able to respond more patiently. You're able to pay attention more. You're able to motivate to do things because you're not constantly in that, you know, that survival mode. So mindfulness is really, really important. And I think it's sometimes overlooked skill when thinking about ADHD, especially in young adults.

James Moffitt (19:08.355)
That's a lot of stuff. That's good.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (19:10.062)
Yeah, I'm very passionate about mindfulness.

James Moffitt (19:16.729)
How do you balance ADHD with parenting and personal obligations?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (19:21.846)
This is one of the hardest things that parents of young adults deal with. we can parent our ADHD kids 24 seven, right? We can support them in everything from getting up on time to doing homework, to making sure they're not staying up all night, to making sure they're eating, to making sure they're taking their meds. The list goes on and on and on. it's

exhausting. But what I tell parents is, you know, it's twofold. One, your personal obligations are essential for you to have boundaries around. They help you stay connected to yourself. They help you make sure that you're not falling behind on all the things that are going to help your family and help those around you. And it is so true that we can't pour from an empty cup. I know that saying is said a lot.

You have to put on your oxygen mask before you can put theirs on. But it's so true. So I've seen a lot of parents that just have devoted their whole lives to their young adults, ADHDers, and they feel like shells of themselves. They are resentful. They're frustrated. They're ready to give up on their kiddo. And I think that that doesn't serve anyone. So some of the more practical things that I suggest is

making sure that every single day you do something for yourself that is one of your personal obligations. This can be for work. This can be for your home. This can be for yourself. So for instance, you could make sure that you get on a work call uninterrupted and you put your phone on, not disturb. You make sure that you go to the grocery store and you don't take that call from your adult kiddo when they're calling and you say, sorry, I'm at the grocery store. I'll talk to you when I get home.

or you get in your workout, you go to your favorite workout class. Those are examples. So making sure that you are still keeping those boundaries and how we keep boundaries with ADHDers is we have to be really explicitly clear about them and we have to hold them tight because in an ADHD brain, it really is give a minute and chin will take a mile. We don't do a good job of

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (21:45.484)
discerning, this was a one-off, or, I can't really take advantage of this anymore. So if mom says, OK, every time I go to the grocery store, I'm not going to take your call. That's my time to listen to my podcast, do my grocery shopping, and you're not going to call. And then the kiddo calls three times, and mom says, OK, fine, I'll answer. And it's like, OK, yes, I'll come home and help you with your chemistry homework right now. I'm on my way.

then that kiddo every single time is going to be like, mom's just going to come to my rescue. That's great. And so instead, if you do feel the need to answer, making sure you hold that boundary, I'm so sorry you're struggling with your homework right now. That must feel really frustrating. I'll be home in an hour. I want you to see what you can do in that hour. And then we can check it when I get home. So really holding that boundary and being very clear about it, even when it's pushed, because it's going to be pushed.

because they're feeling like they need a lot of help. And the flip side of that is to be able to do that, you have to really help them have at least a couple strategies for what to do when you're not available. So, you know, in this instance, okay, you know that you have that study guide that you created that helps you organize your notes. Why don't you use that study guide and fill in all your notes and then I can help you check it when I

Or, hey, you know that you can make a Quizlet and that really helps you study. Why don't you make the Quizlet while I'm gone and then I'll check it when I get home. So that they feel they have something to fall back on and feel empowered to do something more individually than just kind of waiting on you.

James Moffitt (23:28.663)
Sounds like it can be exhausting.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (23:31.746)
It is exhausting.

And I think it's especially exhausting and scary for parents of adults because we all want our adult kids to thrive. We want them to fly. We want them to do their best. And it's really scary to watch your kid flounder. It's scary to watch your kid get really anxious or depressed because that's what often happens. There's some comorbidity with ADHD and...

It often happens in young adulthood, speaking to what I said before about all of a sudden I don't have all those people helping me and doing everything for me, and I don't know how to do it without. So they fail classes, they often drop out of college, they often get evicted because they're not paying their bills. And it's really hard as a parent to see that, especially because ADHDers tend to be really, really smart and really...

intellectually capable. So it's hard to know that as a parent, like I have this really smart kid who can do amazing physics problems, but can't pay their bills. It's hard to wrap your mind around that. So it is kind of an all encompassing thing. And I have parents that even their kids are in their 30s, and they're still helping them just kind of figure out how to be an adult.

James Moffitt (24:43.405)
Right. Right.

James Moffitt (25:01.07)
Well.

James Moffitt (25:05.091)
Can you explain the concept of neurodiversity in family context?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (25:10.582)
Yes, so neurodiversity is an umbrella. what it means is that it means that the brain is wired or structured in a different way than what we consider neurotypical. So under that umbrella is autism spectrum, dyslexia, ADHD, different kinds of auditory processing disorder. So it's considered a medical diagnosis.

and a mental health diagnosis, but it's considered a medical diagnosis. what happens often is if one person in the family is neurodiverse, it really affects the whole context and the whole relationship or microcosm of the family because that person, by definition, doesn't process the world in the same way as everybody else. So if you have

you know, two adult kids, let's say, since we're speaking about parenting adults here, and one is neurodiverse and one is not, the one that's not tends to feel like the one that is gets more attention or gets more support or takes all of the attention or takes all the support. And that can be really challenging to navigate as a parent, because obviously the one doesn't need it.

And so you're like, hey, great, go do your thing. Awesome. So proud of you. And here your sibling needs a lot of my attention, needs a lot of support, needs financial support. And so what I have talked about with families is figuring out, again, those boundaries and figuring out how you can give the same kind of attention and support to the not neurodiverse.

child of yours so that they still feel your love and attention because there's a lot of psychological things that we know happen growing up in a family with a neurodiverse child. And one of the big ones is feeling neglected, feeling resentful. And then the parents feeling really, really bad because they look back and they're like, I didn't give that kind of love and attention that I wish I had to.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (27:29.39)
to my neurotypical kid. So it goes back to that intentionality and really thinking about, how am I showing up for this kid that doesn't really, on the surface, need me as much? And how am I making sure that this child feels the same kind of attention that I do? Because, neurodiverse kids need a lot more support and help. And it can be on a

all encompassing if we don't really step back and make sure that we're trying to balance it.

James Moffitt (28:05.539)
So are there resources for parents that have like a child that's ADHD? there, are there resources or training that those parents can dig into to provide them with the having to transition from one child to the next, you know, and one's neurodiverse, the other one's not. And I can imagine that's a huge challenge.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (28:28.244)
It is a huge challenge. So the first thing that I would say is there's an organization called Chad, C-H-A-D-D. And Chad is an international ADHD organization that has so many resources that you couldn't even use them all if you wanted to. So that would be the first place that I would go. They have on-demand trainings. They have readings. They have a huge conference every year that many, many, parents of adult kids attend to get

support and go to the sessions. So that would be the first place that I would start. The second place that I would go to is finding either a family therapist or a coach like myself who can support you in building family systems because ADHD affects the entire family. We can't just build a system for this one person and say like, okay,

Well, I'll just go along our way and hopefully you've got it. Really has to be about systems that the whole family kind of buys into so that everyone can be on the same page. And finding a professional that can help you build those can be really, really helpful. The third I would say is, you you mentioned Facebook groups. There's many, many online Facebook group groups for parents of ADHD kids, whether they are five or 55.

So I would highly recommend finding a group that you can ask questions to, you can bounce ideas off of so that you don't feel quite so isolated and alone because it really can feel very isolating, especially if you live in a community or somewhere where all the kids kind of seem like they have it together and you go to book club and all your friends, adult kids are like thriving and doing great and don't need help. can feel really shameful.

and isolating. So finding a group where other people are going through it with you and understand what it feels like can be really helpful.

James Moffitt (30:30.819)
right

Right, that's good.

So last question, what practical tools help create sustainable systems for family dynamics?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (30:44.746)
Yes, I have this a great question. So the first thing that I would do is I would figure out a calendaring system for your family. Now what we need to know about ADHD is if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. So you might have your Google calendar, your family Google calendar that you've shared with everyone. And you might notice that your adults or young adult child never adds to it, never looks at it. And it's really frustrating. So you're like, I put your appointment on there.

So what you need to do is sit down as a family and figure out, and by family, mean anyone who would be affected by their dysfunction, right? And figure out, okay, what is going to work for you to see it? But it's also going to work for us to be able to easily update it and easily, easily figure it out. So for my family, for instance, I ordered a custom, a custom whiteboard that go, that's very large and in our kitchen. And

Each person has a box for each day. And that's where everybody knows to write. If you have an appointment, if you have a practice, if you have an extra thing you need to go to, and it is the hub. And we've just become in the habit that you put it up there. And that's great for us as parents with our older kids, because we can look at it and say like, oh, hey, don't forget you have this dentist appointment on Friday.

Do you have a ride there? Do you know how you're going to get there? So it's an easier way for us to kind of have those conversations. So having some sort of hub or some sort of system. There's a calendar, a digital calendar called Skylight that a lot of my clients like to use because it does just connect to your digital calendar, but it's a big screen that you put up in your house and it's color coded. So that can be really helpful.

James Moffitt (32:34.326)
Okay.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (32:37.174)
The next is to just be really understanding and figure out the communication style of your ADHD-er. So some ADHD-ers, actually a lot of ADHD-ers have verbal processing disorder as well, which means you might say something like, hey, I need you to go get your book out of your room. And all they hear is book. They physically hear it, but their brain only processed the word book. So they might say something like, or huh? What about a book?

and you have to repeat yourself and then you might have to repeat yourself again. And so that can get really frustrating. So if you know, okay, my kiddo has verbal processing challenges, you can pause, you can have them look you in the eye and you can say, I need you to get your book out of your room. What do you need to go get out of your room and have them say, I need to get my book out of my room. So making that little adjustment, even though that sounds like, I have to do that every time I asked them to do something.

James Moffitt (33:09.25)
Right.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (33:33.802)
It actually in the long run is a lot less frustrating than repeating yourself, repeating yourself, repeating yourself. Or we have memory, working memory issues. So you might say even to your adult child, like, need you to go to your car, get the cups out of your car, get that blanket out of your car and come in and wash them and put the blanket in the washer. That's a lot of steps. They might only get to the get to your car and get the cups. And then they might put the cups on the counter and then you'll say, wait,

Where's the blanket? Wait, why aren't the cups washed? So if you know that they have working memory challenges, just writing it down on a sticky note. If you're an ADHD family and you don't have sticky notes all over everywhere, you're doing it wrong. I always say, I wish I had like invested in Post-its 30 years ago, because my family goes through them so, so much. I'm so sorry, planet earth. But, um, you know, I do that all the time. Just write it on a sticky and be like here.

So then my kid goes out to her car. She looks at this, I need to get the car. wait, what else do I need to do? And it's, it's so much better than me going, where's the cups? Where's the blanket? Wait, I thought you were going to do that. And then me getting frustrated and me getting mad. So figuring out their communication. So the calibrating system, a communication system, and then also something that I call flexible routines. something else that happens in an ADHD brain is we tend to be defiant. So ADHD or Z-U-Stub

be diagnosed often as also having oppositional defiant disorder. But now we know it's a very rigid thinking, much like kids with autism. And so it can be really hard if you give a kid with ADHD a really strict routine. Like at 7.15, you have to do this. At 7.25, you have to do this. And that's kind of counterproductive because we're like, no, they need to have that.

So instead, call, think we have what I call may do, must do and may do menus. So you can even do this if your kid doesn't live with you, right? So every day, what are the things you must do? I must brush my teeth. I must eat breakfast. I must take my medicine. I must get dressed. Then what can you do? then I can get on my phone or then I can play that video game or then I can watch that YouTube or then I can maybe go get coffee if I have time.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (35:58.422)
And having those must-dos and those may-dos helps you see, okay, these are the things I have to do. I don't have to do them in that order. It doesn't have like a timestamp on it so I can have that flexibility. But I know these are the things I have to do before I can go to these other things. So it provides that structure without that super rigidity. So those are the three, my three top tips for supporting families that have an ADHD or in them.

James Moffitt (36:28.067)
That's a lot of good information. A lot of practical information. do you your Post-it notes are all, are they all different colors?

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (36:36.898)
I used to like to have them all different colors and then it just became too much with too many people. So now it's just whatever we have around us.

James Moffitt (36:45.401)
I how many I wonder how many colors they actually have. I never thought about that. I know they got, they got, they got the bright yellow, they got pink, we got blue. I don't think I've ever never seen a red one. We got green. Do you have? Okay.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (36:49.826)
I think a lot.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (36:56.098)
The green.

No, I have seen a red one. I have. Yeah, I used to have like a rainbow block like that was like really tall and it was like, and they definitely had red. Yeah.

James Moffitt (37:09.539)
There's a, I can't remember what the commercial was, excuse me, but they, there's a, has to do with the pods. know, you'd like, can order a pod and you, you like if you're moving, moving pods or whatever. And there was a person sitting outside on a chair that was just covered in sticky notes. And I can't remember what that was all about, but I was like, it looks retarded, but I mean, they are literally covered in them from head to toe. And then, and then somebody walked up and stuck another one on them.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (37:24.631)
Yeah.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (37:29.326)
You

James Moffitt (37:39.223)
You know, and I don't know what the purpose of that was, but it's, it's, it's really funny looking on TV.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (37:44.108)
Was it like the person had so much they had to do? Was it like a physical representation of their ever never ending to do list that we all feel when we're moving?

James Moffitt (37:48.671)
could be.

James Moffitt (37:54.318)
The next time I see the commercial, I'll unmute it and listen to it. I think I would.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (37:58.572)
Okay. I haven't seen that one.

James Moffitt (38:03.897)
I think people would make millions if you, if you had a TV, uh, that can mute, uh, advertisements automatically. I mean, I'd pay extra for that. If my, if my cable company said, okay, for another $25 a month, we can mute all those commercials for you. And I'll be like, sold. Where's my wallet? Where's my wallet? I'm just so tired of it.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (38:21.644)
Right?

And I feel like we have, we use like YouTube TV for our live TV and the commercials are 10 times louder than the shows. So you'll be watching and then, yeah. And then we're like, turn it down, turn it down. And then the show comes on and you can't hear it and you're, it up, turn it up.

James Moffitt (38:34.147)
I know, I hate that. I hate that.

James Moffitt (38:40.535)
Right. I think that, I think they do that because they know it's irritating and people will pay attention, you know, cause we're always, we're always multitasking, looking at our tablets, looking at our laptops, looking at our phones, having conversations. And, and so I think they jack up the volume just to get our attention, you know, and it makes me, it gets my attention. So I hit the mute button. I'm like mute. Then my wife's always telling me, honey shows back on. I'm like, cause I'm looking at my laptop working on something. Right. And she's like,

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (38:46.883)
I think you're probably right.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (39:09.289)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (39:10.531)
The show's back on. like, okay. I'll turn it back on. It's crazy.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (39:12.718)
It is. It is. That's funny. Well, you'll have to look at the Post-It, whatever the man in the Post-Its next time and figure out what it's for.

James Moffitt (39:17.165)
Yes.

James Moffitt (39:25.505)
I All right. Corey, I really appreciate you being on the podcast today. You've absolutely given us a lot of wonderful, practical solutions for everyday use that we can use with our ADHD kids. And, I appreciate how you talked about the family dynamics and how it affects everybody in the family. And, so that's all wonderful stuff. And, I look forward to, this,

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (39:48.654)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (39:54.635)
episode coming out and I absolutely believe that the listening audience will get a lot out of this. So thank you for being here.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (40:02.36)
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate it.

James Moffitt (40:04.289)
Yeah. So to my listening audience, I want to say, thank you for the privilege of your time. And I'm changing my podcast up in that I don't do the outro that I normally do because I've, I have found out through analytics that a lot of people don't even listen all the way through. So I'm going through this huge spiel at the end of the podcast episode of where you can listen, what you can do. go to my website, all of this information I spent.

You know, three minutes at the end of the podcast episode, giving the people that information to come to find out. Most people are not even getting that. So now what I've done is I've done a call to action, a little short video at the very beginning, after the intro, then I put that little call to action video in there and gives people the information that they need. Then I say, and now onto our regularly scheduled program. Right. So now to get to the episode, they got to listen to the call call to action. Now that doesn't.

That doesn't mean that they don't mute me or it doesn't mean that they don't fast forward through it, but hopefully a certain percentage of people will listen to that and go, wow. He's got a website or, wow. I can leave a review or, wow. This is their information. The website will give me, know? And, so anyway, I'm, I'm trying that now. So instead of doing the outro, I can just sit here and babble about silly stuff.

Corie Wightlin (she/her) (41:25.431)
Awesome. I love it. Make it easier for everyone.

James Moffitt (41:27.063)
Yeah. All right, everybody. Yes. All right. Bye bye everybody.