Dr KesselHost00:04

Music Yes ке Next Line Line. Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, i'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, i've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never talked to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, i will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade.

01:19

Welcome to the 30th episode of the Send Parenting Podcast. I can't quite believe it that we're on episode 30. And you may have noticed a trend if you've been listening to the other podcasts, that every 10 episodes I do a kind of personalized episode where I talk to you about things that are going on on my journey and hopefully help you on your journey. The great news is we've had 30 episodes and over 3,000 downloads, which is remarkable. So thank you to all of you listeners, part of the Send Parenting Drive, for listening and tuning in every week. In episode 20, i kind of shared a personal story with you in terms of how I had hit a wall with my daughter Really not understanding what was going on, why she was finding emotional regulation so difficult, why she was having these outbursts, or what I would almost call cantrums. She had so much anxiety, combined with her never being able to sit, still always fidgeting with something and really having zero organizational skills and always losing stuff. So, putting all of those things together and having had the insight from an educational psychologist in one of the reports I had got done for her EHCP, who'd queried ADDHD, which stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, i decided to look down the route of maybe getting her assessed. And in today's episode I would like to really share with you that journey and also the journey that I've been on in educating myself about ADDHD, and to share with you, if you're kind of wondering, with your children at home if they might have some of the signs that I described today or I have described in my daughter's story. And first of all and I know we've heard this from other people who've come on the podcast is that you know what, if you're their mom, you should really trust your gut if you have a suspicion, and I know it's easy to give advice and I had a suspicion.

03:13

So I went down the route and I was thinking, okay, i will get an assessment, and I realized that CAMHS wasn't an option because it's four to five years, and so I looked into my savings, which, as I'm a single mom and self-employed, i have a little rainy day fund in case I don't get the work that I need to meet my bills monthly. So I have a little buffer there. I'm going to blow my buffer on private assessments. So I reached out to educational psychologists for a reputable recommendation and she recommended the GI Roli Center, which is located in London, and I called them up and they actually had a cancellation. So within like a week and a half of actually making this decision, i had an appointment and it was kind of really fast And I paid the money and it was going to be over three different sessions that they would do a full profile looking at Alexandra.

04:03

Well then, actually, the panorama TV show came out about how there's all these fraudulent people in London, uh, diagnosing individuals with ADHD and taking their money, which really freaked me out, and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, am I doing the wrong thing by getting a private diagnosis? Am I wasting my money? And actually reached back out to the Georgette Center and I said I'm, i'm, i'm worried, like you know, is this just a tick box exercise? You know, do you just collect people's money for, for diagnosis? And you know, they came back with a really good email which was like you know, dr Kessel, if you feel that this isn't the right service for you, um, we can refund you your money. We don't just look at ADHD, we look at the full picture. We'll be asking questions about autism, we'll be asking questions about anxiety And you know, the doctor that's assigned to you will take this all into account when making your diagnosis, will be reaching out to the schools. Um, it's a full picture. So I was like you know what, let's go ahead with it, let's do it. And so I did, and you know I'm very lucky that I have been able to do that. I know a lot of other parents um might not have the funds as a hell of a lot of money um, to be able to get the assessment. And so today, i really believe that, with or without a diagnosis, if you see the signs in your child where they're struggling with these uh things that I'm going to describe today, that that kind of highlight what is ADHD, all of the solutions or tactics can be put into place before you have a diagnosis, or even if you don't get a diagnosis, if your child is struggling with these things, they will help your child. So, um, i'm going to give you tips for home and I'm going to give you tips for school as well, and also go into you know what is, uh, what is part of an ADHD diagnosis.

05:41

So ADHD, as I said, is called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and it's a common and well recognized behavior disorder. It actually affects millions of children, adolescents and adults across the world. If we look at the UK, there's 2.6 million people with ADHD and that's broken down into about 700,000 children and 1.9 million adults. So it's big. So what is it? Well, basically, it affects the parts of your brain that control attention, impulses and concentration, and it can occur with or without hyperactivity. It usually develops in early childhood and it's mostly noticed around the age five although in my case that was not true And research says that 80% of children diagnosed in childhood will continue to experience that in adulthood. Um, i think it's about 60%, 67% that continue to have symptoms in adulthood and 80% that are diagnosed in childhood.

06:35

There's three types of ADHD. One is the predominantly hyperactive, impulsive type, which is the one that my daughter falls into. The second is the predominantly inattentive type And then the third one is a combination of the two, so a mixed picture. Now you might be thinking as I was thinking. Well, what causes ADHD? And you know it was really interesting when I looked into my family history. I would definitely say both my father and my brother have undiagnosed ADHD and I see characteristics in them And if I'm, if I'm honest, as I've been researching this more, i see some of the characteristics in me as well. So you can find them within family members in your family.

07:13

Neurodiversity usually is found within families. There is no one single cause, though. Research suggests that neurobiological factors if you don't know what neurobiological means basically the connection between your nervous system and how your brain works, and that plays a role due to changes in the brain that's involved in executive functioning. There's another word that you need to kind of unpack. What does it mean when we say executive functioning? Well, a good way to look at it is it's kind of the management skill of the brain that allows us to think ahead, to set goals, to plan, to get things done, to organize, to manage our time using our working memory, which is basically how we process and use information on a daily basis. So in ADHD there is a dysfunction in the way our executive function works. So genetic and environmental factors also play a role. And, as I've said to you, i suspect it runs in my family And I really want to dispel the myth that poor parenting causes ADHD, and there was a time a few decades ago where that was really the emphasis.

08:13

well, you're not a good parent. This is why this is happening And that is not true. It is not caused by poor parenting at all. So we kind of know that it's a there's no single cause to it. It is neurobiological and it affects our executive functioning, which is kind of important in society and what we do in life and in school.

08:32

So what are some of the signs that you could see with your child to say you know what? they might be struggling and they might have some of these characteristics. And I named a few with my daughter. You know her poor emotional regulation, her lack of organization, her forgetting things, her anxiety those are all kind of painting that picture her hyperactivity. So oftentimes there can be a significant difficulty with self care, and by self care I mean, like you know, getting ready, getting dressed, things that for their intelligence level and for their age they should be able to do, but they are still struggling to be able to do it. They might show difficulties in communicating and they might have difficulty socializing and in the activities of daily living, like I've just expressed. The degree with which they suffer with these has a direct correlation to the problems that they're having with their executive dysfunction. So they also may struggle with writing and drawing And that can be due to delays in fine motor motor coordination. A minority of people have a difficulty in language development and up to 45% of the kids may have some sort of learning difficulty like reading, spelling and math. They can also experience bouts of anger and anxiety. So that's kind of the umbrella of everything that is encompassed within ADHD. I don't want to just talk about the challenges of ADHD, because it's not just about challenges.

09:44

There are huge strengths as well to having ADHD, and you know this list includes but isn't exhaustive. They tend to be creative, very enthusiastic, huge amounts of energy and fun. They tend to be risk takers, they think outside of the box, they like to generate ideas And in fact that's part of the reason why some companies are really looking at people with ADHD to solve some of the bigger problems or to be an essential part of their work team. They're really good at thinking up of solutions to problems and great at brainstorming. They have a sense of seeing everything, a good sense of humor, easily excited about a new project and often able to connect the dots before others. They're highly empathetic And you know there are a lot of great examples of hugely successful ADHD individuals. The founder and CEO of IKEA has ADHD.

10:32

A lot of historical figures who were undiagnosed, i may add, including Beethoven, ernest Hemingway, salvador Dali, albert Einstein, thomas Edison had ADHD. But being undiagnosed can actually cause significant issues for children as they grow up. It can lead to struggles in their studies due to procrastination, hyper focusing, poor time management, organizational skills that just don't work, to the school environment for getting things, double booking things and always claiming to be really bored. And there's some really gruesome statistics compared to a neurotypical population, an untreated person with ADHD is seven times more likely to get into a car accident, two times more likely to be fired from a job and nine times more likely to end up in prison, with 40% of the UK prison population having undiagnosed ADHD, and to me this just screams out or highlights the importance of recognizing the signs in your child and taking the appropriate measures to support them. And I know CAMHS is a four to five year waiting list. You can't wait for the diagnosis if you can't afford the assessment, but you do have the power to put the structure in place because it can only benefit your child. These tools and techniques can be used to benefit all children who are struggling with these umbrella characteristics.

11:48

So what can you do, whether your child is diagnosed or undiagnosed, at home to help them with some of these characteristics that I've explained are linked to executive functioning and can make it quite challenging. Well, first of all, set clear expectations and create a daily routine, because that really provides structure and it's the same every day. And, as they say, if you wire it, if you fire it sorry, you wire it. And you know I found morning routine is one of my most stressful times in the day And if we follow a routine it can go well not always, but if we alter from that routine it becomes definitely disjointed and it can cause my daughter to get really emotionally dysregulated. It helps to break directions that you give your child into smaller chunks And in fact I only give directions in one direction at a time. If I give two or three, it just gets lost in translation, and you can even try using picture prompts in terms of what's next. A visual timer can also help to signal when it's time to sue one thing to the next.

12:43

If you're going to be rewarding your child, do it instantaneously, not in a long term kind of effect, because They need that kind of instant gratification of what they're doing. It really helps if you can help your child to see how important checklist can be, whether that's a picture checklist or it's sticky notes. Or, in the example of my daughter, we use the Rooster app, which basically is an app that gives her a list and it's actually time dependent, of when it's time to do this and when it's time to do that. So now it's time to get dressed, now it's time to brush my hair, now it's time to brush my teeth, and she can take a picture of the fact that she's done it and then she sends it to me to get approved And what we do is we look at that at the end of the week and she gets pocket money from that.

13:24

I know for myself. I would be completely disorganized if it wasn't for outlook and the sticky notes that I use and the checklist I use. It helps to keep you organized. So teaching them how to use those tools so you don't have to rely on yourself to be organized, you can actually use external tools which do the exact same thing. And I think it's also really important to let family and friends know about what your child struggled with so that they can support you as well.

13:49

Now, what can be done at school? You might not have a diagnosis, or you may have a diagnosis, but you know what? When you're talking to the teacher or you're talking to your senko about some of the challenges that your child's having, that looks like an ADHD picture. They're going to know a lot about it. But you can also help to educate them on, maybe things that have worked at home that could be also replicated at school. So, again, instead of creating long, lengthy directions of what to do on a project, if they can just chunk that information and have it be quite simple and repeat it so that it can be absorbed and understood, allowing the use of technology in the classroom can also be a game changer. I mentioned the fine motor issues. So touch typing or dictation can really help with some of those and then strengthening their executive functioning, basically by having those clear and consistent structure and schedules to their day.

14:41

The to-do lists that you use at home are also so beneficial at school. So if they have a project that they're doing independent working in school, have the teacher help your child to write a to-do list of what they need to do but they can refer back to as they're doing their independent work. It's also really important to put them at the front of the class and not near any of the posters where they could just look at them and go off into an imaginary world or outside a window. Put them in the front where their attention is going to be focused on the teacher. And when you give a child worksheets, think about not making them busy or overcrowded. Make sure that there's enough room and space. It's also important, especially if they are exhibiting more of the hyperactivity, to allow them short and frequent breaks for physical outlets and also allowing sensory stimulation. So that could be a wobble cushion, playing with a squishy or rubber band or Blu-Tec, which is my daughter's favorite and it's a nightmare because she gets it in her hair she gets on her skirt. It gets everywhere, but she can concentrate when she is exerting some of her energy into that. The ability at school to practice a task over and over then will breed familiarity and then they'll get faster at it. And also it's really important for the adults at school to check in and make sure the child is understanding and to help them and facilitate them if they're not. So all of those things can be done in your school and in your home and you can see what's working and what's not working.

16:09

In terms of what Alexandra and I are doing in terms of next steps, i always in my medical practice believe that you need to have a holistic approach. Now there is a drug that has been very life changing in ADHD which is prescribed by a doctor only, but it doesn't work for everybody and some kids have a lot of side effects with it. So it's one avenue me and my daughter will be looking into, but we're also going to look into her holistic health. So we are going to be looking into therapy and what's been recommended is some family therapy And, in particular, we're going to be looking. We're working with a family therapist who supports NVR, which stands for nonviolent resistance, and I will probably do another podcast on this to describe what's involved in that, and I've read a book on it and I'm learning it, but it's basically how do you meet the emotional dysregulation and how can you facilitate your child getting through it and decreasing the frequency of those episodes, and for me, that's one of the key things that I'm really struggling with right now. So that's something that we no medicine in the world's gonna fix. We need to work on it together, and a lot of it is gonna be what I need to learn as a parent and then implementing it in the home. So I've got my homework there.

17:25

I've then also looked into nutrition, because with ADHD, there are often they produce a lot of dopamine, and dopamine is one of your happy hormones, actually, or your happy neurotransmitters that you have, and because it's depleted, you need to make sure that there's not any deficiencies in the precursors or the building blocks that make dopamine. So which is basically protein, zinc, omega-3s all are used to build that dopamine. So does she have enough of that in her diet? How can I improve her diet? And we'll be having Lucinda Miller on the show in September to talk us through some of those things that you can do to A see what might be causing your child to be deficient. And I thought it was super interesting My daughter chews on her shirt. She chews on everything And that can actually be indicative of a zinc deficiency. So we've just now started zinc drops and it'll be interesting to see if that actually helps the chewing issue.

18:20

And then sleep. So I have mentioned before, sleep is an issue of my daughter. It's a struggle Struggle to get her to sleep. She often wakes up during the night and she wakes up like a cockerel at five am in the morning. So I'm gonna be looking into melatonin, which is something that is also prescribed in this country It's not in the US and Europe to see if that can help her. And we're also gonna be getting an ADHD coach from Connected Mind. So I do have a philosophy You throw enough stuff on the wall and some of it's gonna stick. So we will be looking at all of these things to kind of see how it's helping her, to make sure that she ends up being able to fly with her superpowers and that I've created the scaffolding and the support to help her with some of the challenges of ADHD.

19:04

Now one of the challenges for me as a parent was how do I tell my daughter this? And she already has a lot going on. So I wanted it to be a positive experience for her And I waited until not after school, waited till the weekend, when we were in a good quiet space and I bought some books to read with her about how ADHD is a superpower, and the one that she loved the most was all dogs have ADHD, and she took it to school to show people. So how you present it to your child and how you bring them on board, i think is really important, and I will share some of those books with you on the website. In all of this, i also have to remind the moms and dads out there that your self-care is important because it is challenging, and how you respond is really important, and how you model your behavior is really important.

19:57

So if you lose it and if you're unable to keep calm, you're not helping your child as much as you would like to, and unfortunately, we are all human and it all happens. So it's really important to make sure you're looking after yourself as well. I have started running again, which has been amazing. It just decreases that pressure cooker for me And I feel like I have so much more that I can give and be calm and be the mom I want to be Now.

20:24

It's not for everybody. It could be yoga, It could be reading a good book, eating well as a parent, and also, i find alcohol. It never helps a situation if you're hungover, so I generally don't drink, but there's a time and place for everything. But you must find what works for you and what empties your bucket. If I could end today's show and thank you for listening to me on my journey and hopefully some of the tips that I've given you can be used if you're suspecting that your child might have some of these ADHD characteristics.

20:56

So the first thing is trust your gut. I would say close to 100% of the time parents are right. It's only when we start doubting ourselves. So trust your gut, empower yourself with knowledge. So hopefully this podcast has been knowledgeable for you, but I'm also going to include on our website, which is wwwsen-parentingcom, a whole bunch of resources which you can access to get further information, to educate yourself. And then, finally, if your child is struggling, there's no reason why not to put some of these strategies in place before a diagnosis And then see if they work and see what impact they have.

21:33

A diagnosis isn't the end all It's just a label. Really, what we want to do is help our child with any of the challenges that they're having, and a lot of these tools and techniques you can use in your home and in your schools today. Thank you so much for listening SEND Parenting Tribe. I can't wait to speak to you again on our 40th episode And I look forward to you tuning in every Tuesday for new episodes with the experts that we've had. Come and join us on the show, wishing you and your family a wonderful week ahead.