Episode 128: Practical Ways to Parent Your Child with ADHD

A few weeks ago, we were sitting around the dinner table, enjoying a simple family meal together. But it felt like our son with ADHD spent less time in his chair and more time moving around the house. During the course of the meal, he got up for water, then the bathroom, then a spoon, then to grab something from his room…the list kept going! By the end, we had lost count of how many times he’d been in and out of his seat.

Moments like that remind us how often our expectations as parents don’t quite match the day-to-day reality of parenting a child who has ADHD. Getting out the door can feel like a challenge. Jackets and homework seem to disappear at the worst times. And some days, his room looks like a tornado passed through.

There are days when it feels like so much of our energy is spent trying to manage behavior that we don’t always get to slow down and simply enjoy who our son is.

If you’ve felt this too, please know you’re not alone. So many families are walking this same road, trying to better understand, support, and truly appreciate their child’s unique way of moving through the world.

Our guest today, Kirk Martin, has walked this journey himself as a parent to his son, Casey. Kirk is the founder of CelebrateCalm, where he equips parents and teachers with strategies that help decrease power struggles with children who are diagnosed with ADHD or autism.

In this episode, Kirk shares:

Some of the benchmark behaviors of an ADHD child
Creative ways to work with your child’s preferences
Helpful strategies to support our children in the classroom
And more!

We hope you enjoy this conversation!

Links:

Episode 39: How to End the Power Struggles and Connect with your Challenging Child–with Kirk Martin
Connect with Kirk on his website, Instagram, or Facebook

Our Takeaways:

1) Our kids have different strengths. Children with ADHD or who are on the autism spectrum have different strengths from neurotypical children. These strengths are sometimes harder to recognize because they don’t fit into the “typical childhood” box. But if you take some time to step back and recognize what skills these children have, you’ll be surprised at what you will find. These children often excel at helping adults. Often, they may even behave better when they are given a job to do.

2) Neurodivergent children have a need for novelty and ownership of choice. We can help our children navigate new spaces, classrooms, and even routines at home by offering them what their brains crave in order to engage. While homework may be boring, making a fort out of your kitchen table and handing them a flashlight they can use to do their homework underneath is exciting and fun! If they are struggling at school, ask their teacher to give them a task they are responsible for. Just remember that if you give them a task to complete, relinquish control of how the task is done. Children with ADHD will often find creative ways of doing a task that may not match your expectations of how something “should” be done.

3) Create your own report card. It’s easy to get the report card from school and see all the ways our child isn’t measuring up. They were disruptive in class, they couldn’t sit still, and they lost their homework on the way home. But here’s something life-changing: life skills are not the same as school skills. The skills your child is going to need to be a successful adult are not the same ones needed to be a good student. If your child can’t sit still, they may one day find great fulfillment in a job that requires them to move around a lot. In that context, your child’s ADHD behaviors are an asset! Take some time this week to write up a report card that highlights all the good behaviors and skills your child has. Our goal is to help our children learn how they are uniquely made by God, not how they perform in a classroom.

Meet Our Guest

Kirk Martin is the founder of CelebrateCalm, where he equips parents and teachers with strategies that help remove power struggles with their ADHD child and those on the spectrum. He also offers weekly conversations through the Calm Parenting Podcast. Each episode is full of encouragement and advice for how to raise these unique little ones. Kirk is known for his practical strategies and scripts delivered with humor and compassion.