ADHD Coaching: Clarity, Connection & Collaboration
I do not have ADHD. I love and live with four people who do: three daughters and my husband.
Like 80% of people with ADHD, our three daughters have coinciding diagnoses. They are also adopted from three different countries and each experienced various kinds of traumatic events early in life including, but not limited to: malnutrition, severe illness, neglect and abuse.
The above factors, along with the fact that they are all girls, caused a tremendous delay in the diagnosis of ADHD. Girls are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD because they often do not fit the traditional ideas of what ADHD symptoms include.
I thought I knew what ADHD was. I was (and am) the kind of mom who loved to research and understand the “why” behind behaviors, events, etc. However, with so many obstacles to help my daughters overcome, confusion over what behaviors and emotions fell under what diagnosis, and the assumption I already knew what ADHD was, I basically did NO research on ADHD in the early days of diagnosis.
My girls were around the ages of 13, 11 and 8 at that time (maybe? It’s a blur!). All three presented ADHD in drastically different ways (and still do!). Some of the comorbid conditions we faced then, or that came to light later, included: anxiety, sensory processing disorder, reactive attachment disorder (RAD), trichotillomania, dyslexia, auditory processing disorder and epilepsy.
You can imagine the stress load in our family was considerable (what. an. understatement.).
My girls are now 19, 17 and almost 14 and doing very well considering all of their challenges. I would even say they are ahead of the curve in character and emotional intelligence: more humble, compassionate and learning to operate at their own individual paces instead of striving to be in lock step with the culture’s pace.
But before there was diagnosis, we were learning to live with what would eventually be identified as ADHD; developing strategies that worked for the family unit as well as each individual child. Likewise with/for my husband, Billy. We have now been dancing around ADHD deficits (and strengths!) for 23 years (yep, we’ve been married THAT long!).
Twenty-three years is a long time! The power of knowing what was contributing to so much stress, confusion and dismay all those years was tremendous relief.
BUT a name is just a name if that is as far as it goes. Want to know what we really needed?
We needed ADHD clarity (awareness, education, facts).
2. We needed ADHD-aware-connection (understanding community, support, safe space to cry/vent/grieve)
and, one of the biggest advantages we didn’t know how to find but desperately needed -
3. collaboration: an opportunity to work (consistently and cost effectively) with someone knowledgeable about both ADHD and trauma; an opportunity to be guided on this journey but still have ownership of the process because one child, in particular, was going to need a considerably creative, gentle approach.
Instead of finding that space for collaboration, we froze.
As a mom of three with ADHD and the wife of a man who was sinking in depression and disorganization, my state of frozen looked like this:
surviving on little sleep
waves of worry and overwhelm
fear for my children’s future
feelings of loneliness
massive amounts of determination to study and “fix” it all with little time and no healing in sight
and a whole lot of Jesus.
You may be thinking - “You were’t frozen. You kept going.”
And I would reply: “I was going in circles with an occasional push forward but losing my healthy sense of self along the way because I feared letting others in or didn’t know where to turn.”
Of course, we didn’t do nothing…
Let’s see… we did neurofeedback, the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), medications, 504s, testing, retesting, Integrated Learning Systems (iLs), lots and LOTS of reading, strategic executive functions work, reflex integration, drastic diet changes (no gluten, dairy, or eggs), vision therapy, webinars, auditory processing therapy, tons of life simplification strategies such as opting not to go on vacations or go to social events, and SO much more.
We just did it all alone… without reassurance, without collaborative creativity, without encouragement and without an outside perspective.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? I bet that is why you’re here.
Long story short - I could have minimized all of the feelings mentioned above if I had known about ADHD coaching.
And that is why I have become a success coach specializing in ADHD. Whether you have ADHD (diagnosed or not) or love someone who does, I want to couple my twenty-three years of experience and ongoing education/certification to serve you at your pain point: life with ADHD.
Through the ADHD coaching process, I offer my clients:
CLARITY: ADHD awareness, education, resources, strengths assessment, ability battery, emotional intelligence assessment
CONNECTION: Understanding, professional relationship, empathy, sounding board, safe space, consistency, outside perspective
COLLABORATION: Customized strategies, creative skill building, structure, accountability, evaluation, access to tools/resources, brainstorming - TOGETHER!
If you find yourself in need of one or more of these ADHD coaching components, what are you waiting for? You do NOT have to do this alone! Schedule a complimentary consultation over zoom with me here.
