Life Coaching for families raising ADHD Kids

As a life coach it is my personal labor of love to coach families raising kids with ADD, ADHD, and ODD. This passion stems from my personal connections with ADHD.

My Story

I grew up as a child with ADHD, this was before it was well diagnosed and understood like it is today. I had all the classic symptoms leaving my parents and the school searching for answers. In the 3rd grade I went for all sorts of testing and evaluations. The school eventually determined that I was smart, but that I was just bored in school and that I may have some problems focusing. Back then the corrective course of action taken was to promote me forward a grade (or two) in an effort to challenge me more. I am sure you can imagine the impacts of entering high school as a 12 year old freshman with ADHD. Socially I was a fish our of water. While it did take a little longer for me to sort things out, but life turned out pretty awesome in the end.

Fast forward a number of years to today. My wife and I are blessed with two wonderful boys, both of whom inherited my ADHD. They are creative, smart, loving, and energetic. They are a great source of joy in my life. For their young age they already seeing the impacts of growing up with ADHD. They struggle with understanding social queues and finding healthy peer groups. While they are both very intelligent, they struggle to thrive in traditional school settings. They have also seen first hand the emotional impacts on their parents as we tried to navigate getting help from the special education departments and through the IEP process. At an early age they were showing signs of low self-esteem and anxiety. Despite our best efforts they were aware that they were different and starting to internalizing it.

ADHD on the rise still

Trends show that today more Young Children are being diagnosed with ADHD\ADD. Over the last decade, the number of children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has increased by around 42 percent.

Today getting effective help for kids with ADHD is still very much a trial and error process where each child, apart from ADHD/ADD, often has some unique combination of secondary needs, such as Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Anxiety, Defiance, Sensory Issues, and Executive Functioning skills gaps. Parents often find themselves fighting a seemingly never ending battle on multiple fronts;

Dealing with the school special education department and IEP process

Getting the right special services

Evaluating therapy and medical treatment options

Lack of effective results

Helping their child with social acceptance and building relationships

Behavior issues at home

Spouse / Partner relationship strain and increased conflict

The weight and stress of all this can become all consuming and devastating. I have seen this wear down the strongest of families and tear apart the closest of relationships.

The need for something new

It is from the personal experience with my own family that I realized life coaching techniques can be applied as an effective supplemental family support structure when raising kids with ADHD. Our kids do better and achieve better outcomes when this family support structure is healthy and is equipped with the emotional and tactical resources needed.

The process of understanding the current reality, establishing a vision or future state, identifying key areas to improve, setting clear goals to support outcomes, dealing with blockers and limiting beliefs, resourcing and adding needed skills all translate exceptionally we to achieve more positive outcomes and happier families when applied to special needs parenting model.

I often will work with one or both parents in the following areas:

Learning to meet you child where he is now

Parenting and partner relationship health

Managing stress and parenting anxiety

Being the advocate your child needs

Having an effective family plan for achieving the outcome you want for child

Resources and Support for the IEP process

Practical coaching techniques that you can take and use with your kids

Getting the right outside resources when you need extra support

Building the emotionally safe environment you child needs

Working with a coach is a highly interpersonal relationship. That starts with really understanding where you are today and what outcomes you want for your family. We can start with scheduling a free consultation by clicking the link below. Just mention that you would like and ADHD consult. Request Free Consultation