S08|17 - All Things ADHD with Kristen Carder

Are you parenting a child with ADHD, or struggling to parent as an adult with ADHD? Maybe you have been wanting to learn more about ADHD to further support yourself or those around you in a healthy way. You will love this conversation with Kristen Carder today, an ADHD expert, top podcast host, and internationally-recognized life coach for adults with ADHD. 

Kristen’s life’s purpose is to help adults with ADHD accept themselves and move from Point A to Point B. She does this through the I Have ADHD Podcast and her group coaching program, FOCUSED. 

Today you’ll hear: 

• Kristen’s background with ADHD and how it affected her life
• How Kristen noticed a huge gap missing in ADHD education and support years ago, and helped to fill in what was missing 
• The difference between “character flaws” and ADHD symptoms (this is a BIG one!)
• How to support ourselves and those we love (and what signs to look for when it comes to ADHD). 
• Parenting an ADHD child (both the struggles that come with it and how we can do better)

Kristen’s FOCUSED program HERE. 
Connect with Kristen on IG HERE. 

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Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hi, I'm Crystal The Parenting Coach. Parenting is the thing that some of us just expected to know how to do. It's not like other areas of your life where you go to school and get taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you, but now you can get that help here.

I believe that your relationship with your children is one of the most important aspects of your life, and the best way that you can make a positive impact on the world and on the future. I've made parental relationships my life study; and I use life coaching tools, emotional wellness tools, and connection-based parenting to build amazing relationships between parents and their children.

If you want an even better relationship with your child, this podcast will help you. Take my Parenting Quiz, the link is in the show notes. Once we know what your parenting style is, we will send some tips tailored to you and a roadmap to help you get the most out of my podcast.

 

Welcome to today's podcast episode, All Things ADHD with Kristen Carder.

Are you parenting a child with ADHD, or struggling to parent as an adult with ADHD? Maybe you have been wanting to learn more about ADHD to further support yourself or those around you in a healthy way. This episode is for you. Kristen’s life’s purpose is to help adults with ADHD accept themselves and move from Point A to Point B. She does this through the I Have ADHD Podcast and her group coaching program, FOCUSED.

 

Today, we are going to cover Kristen's background with ADHD and how it affected her life, how she noticed a huge gap missing in ADHD education and how that got her where she is right now, the difference between character flaws and ADHD symptoms – this was a big one for me – how to support ourselves and those we love, and what signs to look for when it comes to ADHD. And then we dig a lot into parenting an ADHD child, both the struggles that come with it and what we can do better. 

 

Okay. Hello everyone, and welcome to today's podcast episode. I am very excited to bring you this topic because I feel like this is a topic that is missing in the parenting sphere. I think that we talk a lot about how to support our kids with ADHD, but we don't often talk about how to support ourselves with ADHD – especially in parenting, which can be just a huge struggle. 

And I brought in the ADHD expert – the ADHD Queen to answer all these questions for us – who also is a life coach, school coach; that's how we connected. 

 

What Kristen Carder does

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I'm going to dig into that; and I would love for you to start with kind of just introducing yourself and what you do for us.

 

Kristen Carder: Sure. Thanks so much for having me. So, my name is Kristen Carder, and I coach adults with ADHD. So, I love to support adults who are just navigating life – either just learning that they have ADHD or maybe they've known for decades, but they've never really taken it seriously. And so, I do that with my free podcast; it's called the I have ADHD podcast. And then also I have a coaching membership for people with ADHD. 

And just a side note, we do absolutely welcome those who have self-diagnosed; I know not everybody has access to healthcare and a diagnosis process. But so that's where I spend most of my time – is either podcasting or supporting adults with ADHD in FOCUSED, which is my membership. And it is just the joy of my life; I love it so much.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I love that your membership's called FOCUSED, that is awesome. Okay. So, and I'm excited to listen to your podcast and also (slash) share it with all my friends and family because ADHD is something we know very well.

 

Kristen Carder's background with ADHD and how it affected her life

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I would love for you to tell me how did you even get into this? Like, what kind of is your own ADHD story?

 

Kristen Carder: So, I was diagnosed at the age of 21, after my dad received a diagnosis in his 40s – keep in mind, this is like the late 90s, or-- Hold on, I'm doing ADHD math right now. It's like the late 90s-ish. And so, very few adults were being diagnosed with ADHD at the time, so I consider myself so lucky to have received a diagnosis, especially as a woman. 

So, the median diagnosis-- The median age for diagnosis for women is 38 years old, so to have received a diagnosis at the age of 21 was just a miracle for me. And I went right on a stimulant medication; and it helped me so much, and it was amazing and wonderful. But pills do not teach skills; I did not know anything about ADHD, what it meant to have ADHD.

 

How Kristen noticed a huge gap missing in ADHD education and support years ago, and helped to fill in what was missing

Kristen Carder: And, really all I did to support myself was take medication, which again, was very, very helpful, but it wasn't enough. And when I was-- We're going to fast-forward now about 15 years…I'm like in my mid-30s, I have three little kids, I'm running a tutoring company and randomly attracting all of these ADHD kiddos for my tutoring business – and working with their families, hearing the parents' story, and ADHD is extremely heritable. 

So, it's as heritable as height, right? So, that is a wild thought; I don't think most people realize that. So, all of these kiddos that I was working with who had ADHD, their ADHD parents were coming to me and being like, 'I think I might also have ADHD, I need some resources.' 

And there just was not much for adults out there; and I kind of started to get mad about that. So, the way that I got into this was I got mad that there wasn't a resource that I really loved for adults with ADHD. And that led me to a lot of research and starting the podcast; and then, eventually, starting my coaching program as well. 

And so, in 2020, I transitioned out of working with students, and then just worked full-time with adults; and that has been a wild ride. It's just been absolutely amazing. And I will share that working with adults has been so transformative for me personally.

And learning how to help other adults has allowed me to help myself so much and support my own ADHD because I thought that everything that I hated about myself was just a character flaw. And when I really started to learn about the ADHD symptoms – time blindness, impulsivity, interrupting people, emotional dysregulation – all of these things that I just could not stand about myself are actually linked to my ADHD, it completely changed my life.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. So, I would love to ask you, where did you learn the skills? Because at first, you're like, 'Okay, yeah, the pills were supportive.' But how did you-- How did you teach yourself or how did you learn what those skills were in the first place?

 

Kristen Carder: So, I started reading books on ADHD, like the nerd that I am. And so, I read probably four or five books on the topic of ADHD by the experts. At the time, I think I was reading Dr. Barkley's book, Taking Charge of Adult ADHD. 

I read Ari Tuckman's book, More Attention, Less Deficit. 

Ramsey's book hadn't come out yet, but if anybody else is listening and a nerd as well, I absolutely love Russell Ramsay's book – hold on, I'm looking for it – Rethinking Adult ADHD. That one is amazing. 

And I started learning about it. So, this was when I had my tutoring company; so, I started learning about it and then implementing it for students. That's really how I first started, is; how can I help these students that I'm working with succeed? How can I help their families to understand their brains better? How can I make it so that these kiddos are not being shamed for ADHD symptoms?

And so, I built a coaching method for my ADHD students. And then when I started the podcast, kind of, in tandem – because I was learning all of these things, and I was like; do people know this? Does the world know? And so, I started the podcast; and people started reaching out to me for coaching, and I literally had the thought…while I'm doing this for students, I bet I could translate it for adults. 

And so, I literally just told these first couple coaching clients that I had, "Hey, I've never worked with adults before, but I have developed coaching methods for students, would you like me to try to adapt them for you, and we'll just see if they work?" 

And so, I charged a really low fee just because it was an experiment, you know? And I just-- We just tried to see if it would work, and it did; it was like such a lame--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Wow.

 

Kristen Carder: -ending to the story. But it's really been a beautiful thing.

 

The difference between "character flaws" and ADHD symptoms

Kristen Carder: And I think so much of it really stems from understanding the ADHD brain and building acceptance of the difference between a character flaw and an ADHD symptom. 

And I know we're going to be talking about parenting ADHD kiddos. And I think that is one of the fundamental things that we can do to help ourselves connect with our kids and make it like not such a punitive environment, is really fundamentally understanding the difference between character flaw and ADHD symptom because society mushes those two things together. 

And my work is really based in separating them so we can look at character over here and we can look at ADHD symptoms over here – but the ADHD symptoms do not mean that the person is bad, unreliable, lazy, et cetera.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: This is so good. Also, it is definitely resonating with my own self and my own life. So, I'm like, 'Oh, wow, this is going to be so fascinating.' 

 

How to support ourselves and those we love

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. So, I would love to start with parents and kids, and then move on to like parents supporting themselves. Maybe they know that their child is diagnosed with ADHD, maybe they don't and they suspect – but I'm more interested in; how do we respond to them? How do we better care for them as parents knowing that their brains might work a little bit different, I guess, have different things within them?

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. I think the most important thing is to really learn about ADHD and what the symptoms are, and be able to, kind of-- The symptoms are very general and broad – so, impulsivity, for example…that's not specific to, 'Oh, my child is interrupting me constantly,' or 'My child is smacking their brother without even thinking about it first,' or 'We're jumping off of the couch without any forethought.' 

So, making a list of, take the symptom – impulsivity, for example – and make a list of the behaviors that you are seeing that are the outworking of the symptoms…because it's really important that we are connecting behavior to symptom, that were not connecting behavior to character. 

Now, is your child a little jerk? Sometimes, yes. Your child is a little jerk sometimes. I have three kids, they're a little jerks sometimes – but I have-- Two of mine are ADHD, one of them is also in an evaluation process for Autism Spectrum Disorder as well. And what I just keep doing is looking at the behavior, and connecting it to symptoms. 

Now, we still hold boundaries. We still have rules. We still make sure that we are educating our child in like, what's acceptable, what's not acceptable. But I'm approaching it from the lens of understanding, compassion, and acceptance. 

And I always, always, always, always, always recommend that people do, if you suspect that your child has ADHD, go talk to someone about it; get them diagnosed. You don't have to do anything about it necessarily, but talking to an expert and being able to actually receive that validation, will then give your brain the permission to connect the behavior to symptoms. 

It's wild, so I just shared that my son is being a valued for Autism Spectrum Disorder…and even just in the evaluation process, my brain has let go of so much drama because I'm able to connect his symptoms-- excuse me, his behavior to, 'Oh, this is probably an autism thing' – 'Oh, this probably makes sense because X, Y, Z,' not 'My kid's little jerk, and I need to help him not be a jerk.' 

It's like, no, no, this is-- this is a neurotype; this is a neurodivergence that we're working with, not a character defect.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. So, I feel like for me, when my child did get diagnosed with – which I thought was just going to be ADHD and ended up also being – Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and anxiety was really, like you said, that permission to understand so much more of them. 

And I feel like I immediately had the floodgates of compassion opened just because I was like, 'Oh, I thought I was just dealing with ADHD,' which I felt like I knew kind of a lot about. So, I kind of felt like I knew how to manage it. And then I was like, 'Oh, this is actually very different.' And there is some similarities, but it's also quite different. 

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And so, I started to notice those things more, and it did help me to be much more compassionate.

 

Signs to look for when it comes to ADHD

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I do feel like learning about it did help me to move to compassion, understanding, curiosity because I believe – and what I teach in the podcast is that – children are always doing their best. There is always, always, always a reason behind their behavior. 

And so, when you are seeing behaviors that you don't want to be seeing, it's asking yourself, 'Well, what's driving this?' Like, 'What's going on?' 

 

Kristen Carder: Yep.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I would love for you to share a few more of the things you look for. So, one you said was impulsivity, and you kind of mentioned what that might show up, how behavioral. 

 

Kristen Carder: Sure. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: What else is there?

 

Kristen Carder: Okay. Because I have ADHD, I struggle to remember these things off the top of my head, even though I have worked with ADHDers for 20 years. So, I'm pulling up my website right now where I have the list of symptoms, and I'm just going to go through a couple of them. So, absolutely, impulsivity is way up there. 

Distractibility is really like a fundamental component of ADHD, and it's not just a lack of attention; we have plenty of attention, we struggle to regulate attention. 

And so, what I want you to think about when it comes to ADHD is it's a disorder of self-regulation. Someone with ADHD struggles to regulate their behavior, their attention, and their emotions. So, that is huge, huge, huge. It is not a lack of attention; it is an inability to regulate attention. 

Additionally, we have fewer dopamine receptors in our brain, which is not great because it means that our reward system is broken. This is why ADHDers struggle so much with the mundane tasks. This is why laundry makes me feel like I want to die, and dishes are just like--  

I can run a very successful company, but please do not ask me to do laundry dishes. Like those very easy, simple tasks because my reward system isn't there, and my brain and body are doing a cost benefit analysis constantly. The benefit does not outweigh the cost for doing dishes for me; I'm not going to get enough of a reward, so, no, thank you. I'm not into it. 

And I think one of the common misunderstandings with ADHDers in general, but specifically if I'm speaking to parents of ADHD kiddos would be like…why is my child able to do this amazingly difficult thing or amazingly creative thing, but they can't even [fill in the blank] – make their bed, or they can't even remember to turn their homework in, or they can't even do the simple task?

There's so much misunderstanding here, and frustration; and rightfully so, if you don't really understand ADHD. But the need for novelty, the need for something new…something fun, something exciting, that's going to hook in an ADHDer – and the cost benefit analysis then, it is worth it to the ADHDer. 

It's like, 'Oh, there's so much benefit that I can see to doing this thing.' So, for example, video games, hello, the amount of dopamine that a child gets from video game is off the charts. So, of course, they can "focus" on video games for hours and hours, but they can't make their bed. Right? Because the cost benefit analysis in the brain, it's just not a typical reward system that we have. And so, yeah, dopamine is a whole thing; I could go on and on, but I'll move on--

 

Hyperactivity in ADHD

Crystal The Parenting Coach: That is so true. And I feel like, looking at my kiddos…they would sit and read for 10 hours, they would sit and create a project for six hours straight. Like my one ADHD kiddo loves drawing; and he'll wake up first thing in the morning before he even leaves his bed – he leaves his sketchpad besides bed – he'll be drawing, and he might draw for four hours straight and…not go to the bathroom, not eat. Like, he'll just draw. 

And so, I think a lot of times people have this misconception about ADHD; like, I'll mention it, and they're like, 'Oh, no, no, no, I don't have that…No, no, no. My kids don't have that,' because they have to be hyperactive. 

 

Kristen Carder: Yep. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, let's speak to that point, 

 

Kristen Carder: Sure.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Like, where does hyperactivity come in here?

 

Kristen Carder: Sure. So, of course, some people with ADHD are hyperactive, but not all of us are. 

So, there's three presentations of ADHD; there's hyperactive presentation, inattentive presentation, which is we're going to be staring off into space more…maybe we're not talking, maybe we're doing a lot of self-isolating – but what's happening is internal hyperactivity, everything is internal. We're not really able to express, but there's so much happening internally; and I'm getting lost in my thoughts and I'm creating fantasies in my brain and I'm wandering off so far away from you not able to focus because everything's happening internally. 

And then there's the most common presentation, which is combined type. So, it's like a little flavor of hyperactivity and a little flavor of inattentive in a sweet little combination type that most ADHDers have. 

So, no, you do not need to be hyperactive. And especially if you're a woman, girls are socialized to be quiet and gentle and calm…so, hyperactivity might look like excessive talking. It might look like not being able to keep your mouth shut in class. It might look like creating drama in relationships just for the dopamine of it. 

Hello, anyone parenting girls?

 

Parenting an ADHD child (both the struggles that come with it and how we can do better)

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I feel like everything you're saying, I'm like, 'Yes, yeah, that's my whole life.'

 

Kristen Carder: I love it. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I love the inattentive thing you mentioned. because this is something that comes up in Parenting Coaching and also with me, is that we think our kids don't listen. That's one of the thoughts that I had often. It was like, 'My kid never listens, they never listened to me.' Right? 

And so, knowing this whole inattentive piece, which I've known for a while about this one specific child, I can understand that when I try to get his attention, he's completely in another world. I'll say something three times, the same thing very slowly; and he will not have even heard that I've started speaking yet. And so, if I didn't know that, I might be like, 'Oh, he's disobedient, he's rude, he doesn't want to spend time with me, he doesn't care about me, we don't have a good relationship.' Right? 

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I have made it mean all of those things in the past about other children, which is why I know all those so well. But now it's so obvious to me, like, 'Oh, I don't have his attention'…like, I need to find a way to get his attention first and then tell him the thing that he needs to hear. 

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I was blown away that the first thing that they did for all of my kids' diagnosis so far was test their hearing. And because I have a little brother also has ADHD, but he has hearing problems – he's deaf in one ear – I really did think they were just deaf. I was like, 'Oh, they have the same thing he had.' It started at seven or eight and he, eventually, lost his hearing. 

So, I'm like, 'That's what it is,' because I was so-- I really believed that it was so physical because it was so extreme. And so, when they came back and they were like, not only was their hearing good, it was like excellent. They were like, they have some of the best hearing that I've ever tested. 

 

Kristen Carder: Shoot!

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I was like, 'No way, there is no way that's possible.' And so, then I start learning more about ADHD, and I'm like, 'Oh, it's not-- doesn't have to do with the physical hearing.' 

So, anyways, fascinating that they run those tests simultaneously to ADHD because it totally makes sense.

 

Kristen Carder: Absolutely.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: What other tips would you give as far as parenting before we move on to parents with ADHD that kind of help them be able to move to understanding, compassion, empathy? 

Because I think we all know that's the energy we want to parent from; those are the best decisions, those are the best responses that we have when we're able to get there. But it can sometimes be hard for us to get there when we don't know a lot about their brains or how they work.

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. I think that, first of all, I love this question because it's coming from such a place of compassion and love for the child. And I just think that's so important because I know that it is hard to be the parent of a neurodivergent kid…I know very personally that that is so, so hard. 

But what I really want to put forward is it's actually really, really hard to be the neurodivergent kid, to feel like you're not measuring up, to know that there are standards that you're constantly not meeting. 

And so, I think that what I really want people to understand is how debilitating ADHD can be. I want you to understand that this is actually classified as a disorder, that people with ADHD can receive-- people with ADHD can receive services under the Americans with Disabilities Act – like this is not a small, cute little thing. 

And I think that ADHD really does have often this toxic positivity flavor that comes with it. Like, 'Yeah, but it's a superpower,' or 'It's awesome,' as the Holderness family likes to say. And like, no, it's not; it's not. It's hard. It makes life very difficult. It is a true disorder. 

And if we're going to really understand our kids, I think we need to understand the severity of ADHD. Because when I look at someone and I'm like, 'Wow, they are super struggling,' it's much easier for me to serve them…it's much easier for me to love them, it's much easier for me to sacrifice myself in order to help them. But when I look at someone and I'm like, 'What's the big deal? What do you complaining about? Like, why can't you just do X, Y, Z?'

'I know you're smart, why can't you just do it?'

That's coming from a place of like, we're starting from the same starting line and we're just not; we are just not. Now, of course, we can support them with medication, therapy, coaching, executive functioning, coaching, tutoring, all of that…that would be amazing. 

But for you as a parent to have empathy and to really understand how severe this disorder can be, I think that that in itself is enough to kind of make that switch in your mama brain or your or your daddy brain – and just really be able to see your child through a lens of compassion and care. 

And now that I have-- I mean, I had ADHD when I had my babies, obviously…but the more that I accept my own ADHD, the more that I'm able to accept and serve my kids with ADHD – the more I'm able to give them compassion, the more I'm able to support them in their weaknesses and not be annoyed by their weaknesses. You know? 

And not that they're not annoying; I have three boys, they're annoying. But to really be like, 'Okay, I'm going to serve them, I'm going to--' 

My husband and I cleaned our oldest's room this weekend; it was just a disaster. He is 15 years old, he's old enough to clean his room. Like we cleaned it for him. We did his laundry. We kind of rearranged his furniture a little bit better. 

And he came home and he was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is the best surprise.' To be able to serve your kid when you just know they're struggling, I think that makes the biggest difference to be able to connect in that way and really give them that support. 

So, I would just really encourage any parent listening who has a kiddo with ADHD to research and learn about the severity of it so that you really do have an understanding of how difficult it is to be the person with ADHD.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I think also going into it with the intention of I want to help myself feel more compassion for them, feel more empathy for them, because I see the toxic positivity side, but I also see the toxic negativity side where we're like, 'Well, now this means X, Y, Z about them…Now they will always struggle in relationships…Now they'll always struggle at school, now it's going to be really hard for them to succeed in getting a job,' or whatever that is, that we move to because we only see the deficits. 

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I see that there is also this beautiful, like, my child can sit down and draw for six hours without taking a break. Right? Like, how amazing is that? 

 

Kristen Carder: Right. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And that he's so good at what he does, and he's so creative. And like, my kids are very creative; each one of them is very creative. And so, I see that side of it being like, that really is a huge, amazing thing that they're able to do. But also, there's some huge difficulties that come with that. 

So, I just allow myself to take on beliefs that help me to get to-- I think the fuel of Connection-based Parenting is compassion…it's curiosity, it's empathy.

So, how can I think about this in a way that helps me get there? And so, if for you it's not supportive to think about all of the positives, then don't go there. If it's not supportive for you to think about all of the negatives, how can you think about it in a way that breaks open your heart to compassion? 

And I think the other point that you really hit on was, accepting yourself is what helped you accept them more.

 

Parents with ADHD: How to parent when struggling with Adult ADHD yourself

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I think this is not personal to ADHD, I think this is like-- Everyone across the board, if you're listening to this, is the more-- the depth that I can accept myself is the depth that I can accept other people around me, especially my children. 

So, if you want to get there for your children, you have to figure out a way to get there for yourself, which I think is a perfect segue into chatting about adults that have ADHD because this is the thing that I feel like people don't talk about. I see it on TikTok, I see it on Instagram, I see it on Facebook, but not necessarily parenting with it. Right?

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: It's like, how do I, as the parent, if I have ADHD and maybe I have a hard time with self-regulation or impulsivity or follow through or time blindness or whatever…how can I-- how can I-- how can I parent? Like, where do people even start?

 

Kristen Carder: That's such a good question. And I think the answer really comes down to understanding-- Again, it's like understanding the severity of ADHD for yourself and being willing to receive support for it truly, truly. 

Like the better supported your own ADHD is, the more that you are taking responsibility for your own mental health condition…the more you will be regulated, able to prioritize, able to pay attention, able to organize, able to like a function as a human parent. 

Parenting puts on so many demands for us in our lives, and ADHDers struggle to be adults. So, our executive functions are deficient. And the executive functions are those helpful little guys in our brain that allow us to be an adult. So, things like time management, emotional self-control, working memory. 

I mean, if we only take working memory, which is the executive function that allows us to keep something in mind long enough for us to accomplish the goal. So, it's kind of like a bulletin board in our brain that we can post like a sticky note to just for long enough to like complete the task; we don't have one of those. 

And of course, it's on a spectrum, so we're deficient to varying degrees. But for most adults with ADHD, our working memory is horrible. So, if I don't understand that my working memory is complete trash, then I'm not going to put in support for myself. 

But when I do begin to realize like, 'Oh, this is a whole thing, so I'm going to be able-- like if you tell me something, child, I'm not going to be able to remember it. If I have a meeting, I'm not going to be able to remember it. If we have a different soccer practice time pickup, I'm not going to be able to remember it.' 

So, when I know that about myself, that it's not just like, 'Oh, I need to work harder at it,' but it's like, oh, no, no, this is actually a deficiency that I have, then I can say, "Okay, how do I need to support this? I need to make sure everything's on my calendar. I need to set the reminders. I need to check in with my spouse every day about the calendar and make sure we're on the same page." Those kinds of things can be so, so helpful.

 

Symptoms of ADHD in adults

Crystal The Parenting Coach: What do you think if somebody's listening and they're like, I think this like sort of sounds like me, but I don't really know, what are kind of the top three to five symptoms that you would say that maybe you could go in and get diagnosed or self-diagnosed if that's not accessible to you? Because you've worked with so many people, you probably have seen the same things.

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah, for sure. I mean, absolutely, working memory…absolutely, impulsivity and distractibility…time blindness is an executive function like cluster that really impacts us. So, it's not just like not being able to manage time, but just, I don't even have a sense of time, I don't even understand the passage of time.

Emotional dysregulation is a massive issue for us. I know you talk about that all the time. And really just even the ability to identify our emotions, allow them to be in our body…the ability to self-soothe, usually all of that is deficient. I'm giving you too many, but there's just a lot. 

I think that if somebody is suspecting a really good-- Especially if you're a parent, you might be holding everything together, but I'm curious; at what cost? What's the behind-the-scenes like? What's your self-care like? Are you feeling like you're able to manage the "normal tasks" of parenting in a way that's not detrimental to your own self-care? 

There are a lot of really hyper-functioning adults with ADHD out there, I think, undiagnosed. There's so many adults walking around undiagnosed right now. And I think that they're comparing like, 'Oh, I can be just as productive as the next person.' But usually, the behind the scenes of that is really chaotic, really messy, really like an emotional rollercoaster, and really disorganized and haphazard.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Okay. This has been so good. I feel like not only good for, what if this is something I'm going through and how can I support myself but also how can I support my kids? And I also love what you brought out of like, the severity of it because I think it's easy-- I feel like ADHD support voices are getting to be loud; there's a lot of information, there's a lot of people out there talking about it. 

And so, I get this idea of like, so many people are like, 'Oh, everybody just has it now.' And like, almost like it's not a big deal at all because so many people are now figuring out as adults that they have it. And I love what you're nailing down of like…but also, there is ways where it actually affects you. 

And I think so much of that we think is a character flaw. And I had a friend who just tried ADHD medication one time; and she called me crying at the end of the day because she was like, 'This has been life-changing…I had no idea I had this and I always thought there was just something wrong with me my entire life, and I've been--' Do you know what I mean?

 

Kristen Carder: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I think that so many of us can get to that space where we're like, 'I'm just lazy.' Like you said in the beginning, 'I'm just lazy, I'm just-- I have poor Time Management skills…Oh, I just can't figure this out.' 

And so, I think it doesn't matter how many people have been diagnosed, it doesn't matter how prevalent it seems right now, because it might just seem that way because of Instagram algorithm or whatever. Right? We have no idea. 

And even if it is getting to be more common, that doesn't mean that it's less severe for you individually just because there's more people that are diagnosed with it.

 

Kristen Carder: Can I just speak to that, just for a very quick second? 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Kristen Carder: So, I'm really glad you brought that up. I completely agree with you. And listen, if your Instagram algorithm has adjusted itself to feed you a ton of ADHD content, it doesn't mean that there's an over-diagnosis of ADHD; I have a whole podcast episode on this topic because I get so fired up by it. 

But the research does not show that ADHD is over-diagnosed; it shows that it's underdiagnosed. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, wow. 

 

Kristen Carder: Just so that you know what the research shows. So, I don't care what your algorithm is telling you; the research tells us that it's underdiagnosed, not over-diagnosed.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, that is so good to know because I do feel like-- It's like when I get into the connection-based parenting sphere and I'm just like, 'Man, everybody parents this way, everybody cares about this.' 

 

Kristen Carder: No, if only.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Then I go into the literal real world on the playground and I'm like, 'I'm the only one at the playground that--' 

I just told a friend the other day that we don't use rewards or punishments or consequences at all in our parenting; and they just about died. They were just like, 'You don't actually mean what you just said you meant,' right? 

And I was like, 'No, we really don't. I mean, it's been a process to get here, but we don't.' 

And they were like, 'Wait, what? What is even happening?' 

And I'm like, oh yeah. Like I get so used to what my norm is, right? 

 

Kristen Carder: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And so, if you're getting used to the norm of like, this is what's around you all the time, that does not mean that you should not think that it's severe or impacts you. 

And again, I don't think we have to go to the negativity of like, now I'll never succeed in life because of ADHD. Right? 

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: We don't have to swing there either.

 

Kristen Carder: Yeah. And we know that's not true based on so many successful people that we've seen, right? That's not-- That's not it at all. But the ability to say, "If I'm supported properly, if I take this seriously…if I really, really work at channeling my strengths and really focus on my strengths and supporting my weaknesses…you can do whatever you want. You can be whatever you want."

 

How to connect with Kristen Carder

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Oh, I agree with that. That is such a good note to end on; and I think everybody's going to want to connect with you, so just like tell us all the places that you are and how we can get more of this.

 

Kristen Carder: Sure, of course. That's so nice. So, I highly recommend if you're resonating with this and if you suspect you might have ADHD, that you check out my podcast; it's called the I Have ADHD Podcast. And I'm on socials @i.have.adhd and my website is IHaveADHD.com.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. I love that branding; it's just so simple. Like even people with ADHD will remember that you said that.

 

Kristen Carder: Exactly.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. Thank you for being here and can't wait to connect more.

 

Kristen Carder: Thank you so much for having me.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Thanks for listening. If you'd like to help spread this work to the world, share this episode on social media and tag me, send it to a friend, or leave a quick rating and review below so more people can find me. If you'd like more guidance on your own parenting journey, reach out.