Collected Wisdom

Focus attention, plan activities, stay organized

Category: Launch Your Adult Child

• Three Promising Ways to Manage Meltdowns for More Calm with ADHD
  Although temper tantrums and meltdowns are common in childhood, when you live with ADHD and related challenges, screaming, yelling, hitting, and other challenging behaviors, can be depleting, exhausting, and frustrating for everyone. Here are three promising ways to manage meltdowns when you live with ADHD, so you can have more peace and calm in your family.

• ADHD and Impulsive Buying: How to Stop the Battle for More Peace with Your Money
  Most of us buy things we don’t plan on from time to time, but when you live with ADHD, it can be tough to give up the instant rush of pleasure from impulsive buying. Here are three ways to overcome battles with impulsive buying, so you can have more control over your finances and make choices that enhance your life.

• Six Powerful Ways to Regulate ADHD and Intense Emotions
  When you live with ADHD you may feel your emotions more strongly and react to them more immediately and more intensely. You could be experiencing challenges with emotional management that are wearing down your ability to concentrate and problem-solve. Here are six powerful ways to regulate intense emotions so you can problem-solve and have more peace when you live with ADHD.

• ADHD and Time Management: How to Conquer Time Chaos So Life is More Joyful

  If you or someone close to you struggles with time management, it doesn’t mean you’re damaged and broken. It means this is an opportunity for learning how to work with your unique brain so you’re not flooded by a tsunami of frustration, fear, and stress. Here are three ways to conquer time chaos so life is more effective, productive, and joyful.


• New Year Blast: Three Promising Ways to Fulfill Your Dreams with ADHD
  Goals help us plan and accomplish our dreams. But how do we manage the bumps in the road that we are all too familiar with living with ADHD and related conditions? That’s when intentions are helpful for managing the load. Here are three promising ways setting intentions can help you get back on track when you live with ADHD.

• Procrastination and ADHD: Four Exciting Ways to Stop Postponing Now!

  The fallouts of procrastination for individuals with ADHD can range from feelings of irritability, frustration, anger, and regret for not being able to accomplish what’s important.  There can also be academic, work, family, and financial setbacks for failing to follow through on deadlines and other meaningful responsibilities.  Here are four exciting ways to stop postponing what’s important to you so you can live a more fulfilling life with ADHD. 


• Four Informative Ways to Select and Really Benefit From Therapy or ADHD Coaching

  ADHD Coaching and therapy have a lot in common. Both disciplines help people create change and it can be confusing how to establish the best fit. To make the decision even more perplexing, when you live with ADHD it’s not unusual to live with other mental health conditions. Here are four informative ways to determine the optimal benefits of therapy or ADHD for you or someone you love.


• Three Proven Ways to Organize with Calm and Take Charge of Your ADHD Now!

  When you live with ADHD, it’s not uncommon to feel tense, burdened, and uncertain about how to get and stay organized. This doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. It means it’s time to start working with your unique brain, so you're not buried under a pile of chaos, stress, and overwhelm. Here are three proven ways to organize with calm and take charge of your ADHD now!


• Three Promising Ways to Accomplish Multiple Tasks Every Day with ADHD

  When you live with ADHD, multiple daily transitions are tough to accomplish, such as getting ready for work, moving from one situation or place to another, starting a project, or stopping an activity you love so you can do something you have to do. Here are three ways to accomplish multiple tasks, known as task switching, so that you can celebrate what’s most important to you when you live with ADHD.


• Boost Your Executive Functioning in Nine Exciting Ways with ADHD Now!

  We all have strengths and weaknesses in our executive functioning. We can be extremely intelligent and have challenges with executive functioning. Yet, when you live with ADHD and executive functioning challenges, difficulties in one or more executive functions can affect your performance and make it tough for your strengths to shine. Here are nine exciting ways to boost your performance and accomplish what's important to you.


• Sex Hormone Pitfalls and ADHD: Four Smart Ways to Empower Women with ADHD

  Sex hormones, from puberty to menopause, can aggravate ADHD over a woman’s lifespan. Here are four smart ways to empower women with ADHD so you and the women you love can live healthier, calmer, and more enjoyable lives.


• Four Powerful Ways to Embrace Life with Regret and ADHD

  Do you find yourself repeatedly going over the details of your previous interactions? Do you persistently search for anything you could have missed or said that was out of place? Individuals with ADHD tend to replay events, painstakingly reviewing the details of possible mishaps or situations that could have happened years ago. Here are four powerful ways to embrace life with regret and ADHD so you can find live a more meaningful life.


• How to Stop Enabling: Three Promising Ways to Support ADHD

  When it comes to living with ADHD, it’s tough to know when you're enabling vs. supporting.  You strive to assist your child towards independence, but you can get frustrated when it comes to your child taking ownership. You try to help your partner stay organized, but can get depleted by a parenting role in your relationship. Here are three ways to support your loved ones so they can become more accountable, and you can have a healthier, more connected relationship.


• Four Ways to Stop Ruminating and Unlock Overwhelm with ADHD

  Do you feel overloaded with a tsunami of stuff to do but worry about getting it done? Do you consistently feel like you’re in a state of overwhelm but your racing thoughts shut you down? Here are four ways to stop ruminating and unlock overwhelm, so you can accomplish what’s important to you.


• Six Unique Ways ADHD Coaching Fulfills Your Life with Empowerment

  You want to make your life ADHD-friendly but it’s more complicated than you expected. Whether you’re a parent or adult, you decide to seek out a coach so you can better manage your ADHD and your ADHD doesn’t manage you. Here are six unique ways ADHD Coaching fulfills your life with ADHD with empowerment.


• Master Feeling Intense Emotions in Three Reliable Ways with ADHD

  Many adults and kids with ADHD feel their emotions more intensely than others and struggle with staying calm and being flexible. It’s common to react impulsively, feel overwhelmed and frustrated, give up quickly, and withdraw or avoid situations.
  Here are three reliable ways to master feeling intense emotions when you live with ADHD. 


• Overcome Time Blindness in Three Masterful Ways and Gain Calm with ADHD

  Do you feel like you’re at war with yourself when it comes to managing your time? Whether you post sticky notes in every nook and cranny, set reminders on all your devices, or ask Alexa for verbal reminders, productive use of time can be unsettling, daunting, and disorienting. Here are three strategies to overcome time blindness so you can have more peace and calm living with ADHD.


• Set Limits Clearly: How to Protect Your Time to Safeguard Your Needs with ADHD

  Many of us struggle with too much to do and too little time. When you live with ADHD, the concern for the loss of approval and the fear of not doing your best for others’ sake, makes speaking up to safeguard your time extremely difficult. Here are three ways to clearly set limits so you can protect yourself, your rights, and your well-being.


• Exercise Benefits Unique to ADHD: Four Powerful Ways To Stay Active and Boost Your Focus with ADHD

  Regular exercise strengthens the ADHD brain’s performance by promoting executive functioning, and regulating mood, appetite, and sleep. Here are four powerful ways to stay active, motivated, and focused when you live with ADHD.


• Sleep and ADHD: How to Overcome Exhaustion and Actually Revive Your ADHD Brain

  It’s tough for the ADHD brain to ditch all the fun it’s having and succumb to sleep.  Yet, losing sleep can result in comorbid sleep disorders, mood disorders, dementia, memory and learning problems, heart disease, depression, anxiety, weight gain, injuries, and depressed immune function to name a few.  Here are three strategies to overcome exhaustion so you can awaken refreshed and revived and keep your ADHD brain strong.  


• Beat Overwhelm Back to School: How to Help Your Child with ADHD
  It’s not surprising that last school year's reduced in-person classroom time and online learning may have you currently uneasy about providing adequate academic support for your child. Here are five strategies to get results for your child and some peace of mind for yourself now.

• Make Confident Decisions: How to be Bold and Really Commit with ADHD

  When living with ADHD there’s a tendency to get caught up in decision-making dilemmas. It’s not uncommon to get overwhelmed by mountains of information and details and get lost in the pros and cons. Here are four strategies for making decisions so you can make confident choices and commit to your decisions.   


• Strengthen Memory Abilities: Five Proven Ways to Really Boost Your Unique ADHD Brain

  Do you struggle with keeping up with important details in conversations? Does your mind ping with everything you need to do, so you "do it all" right away before you forget? Do you make a mental list for the grocery store, but then forget the list and what you need?  You may be struggling with working memory challenges. When you live with ADHD and other brain-based conditions, working memory can become chaotic and incomplete. Here are five strategies to build your working memory so you can follow through, stay accountable, and remember what’s most important to you.


• Empower Your Young Adult with ADHD in Three Inspiring Ways

  Discussions of young adults with ADHD who live with their parents often focus on whether these young adults will ever leave, but it's useful to address what young adults can gain from life at home as parents balance support and independence.  Here are four inspiring ways to empower your young adult with ADHD so they can take more ownership, develop resilience, and ultimately become independent.


• Fear of Failure: Strengthen Confidence in Three Powerful Ways Living with ADHD

  When live you with ADHD, it’s not uncommon to feel as if you can’t do anything right. If you experience Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), to give something your best shot and fail is a threat that’s so distressing that it feels unsafe. Here are three ways to confront the fear of failure so you can strengthen your confidence and achieve what’s most important to you.   


• How to Empower Your Unique Child and Find More Peace Parenting ADHD

  As parents, we tend to find fault with ourselves for our kids’ challenges. We dedicate ourselves to our children, yet doubting ourselves as parents, we may overcompensate.  We want our kids to have agency, but when we take on their challenges we can disempower them. Here are three ways to empower your unique child, and find more peace parenting ADHD.


• Emotional Flare-Ups with ADHD Getting the Best of You? Four Ways to Pull Through

  Individuals with ADHD can act without thinking with regular temper flare-ups and impulsive outbursts. This is difficult to tolerate and can lead to embarrassment and shame for the person with ADHD. Here are four ways to pull through so emotional flare-ups don't get the best of you. 


• Build Strong Connection with Loved Ones in Three Genuine Ways Living with ADHD

  Living with ADHD can be intense, and life with those we love can sometimes feel strained. When we take a moment to connect, this adds warmth and closeness to the relationships that are most precious to us. Here are three genuine ways to build a strong connection with those you love when you live with ADHD. 


• Unlock Meaningful Change in Three Proven Ways Living with ADHD

  When living with ADHD and related challenges, there can be a history of failures and missed opportunities, making it difficult to move forward with meaningful change. Here are three proven ways to help yourself and your loved ones unlock resistance to change and stay on track.   


• Discouraged Over Technology Use with ADHD? Take these Steps!

  When living with ADHD, impulsivity, distractibility, difficulty focusing, and restlessness are common symptoms that can impact the over-use of technology. With consistent interruptions and bouncing between devices, each media-related task gets partial attention. In a world where we crave human connection, we feel drained, cheated, and frustrated.  Here are three strategies to help you address technology overuse when living with ADHD. 


• ADHD and Delegating: How to Stop the Panic

  Whether you run your own business, have a crazy-busy home life, or want to involve the kids more, delegating helps you focus your time and energy on the activities that are meaningful. Delegating requires planning and organization that doesn't always come naturally to the ADHD brain, and as a result, can be stressful to take on. Here are three ways to get the ball rolling with delegating when you live with ADHD.  


• Overcome the Burdens of High Achievement and ADHD

  You’re the accomplished, go-to person whom people count on, and just about everyone does. But the piled-up projects, numerous spinning plates, and mounting stress have gotten to be too much. Here are three strategies to assist you in overcoming the burdens of living with high achievement and ADHD.


• How to Conquer the Misery of Getting Started with ADHD

  Procrastination isn’t unique to people with ADHD, but it’s experienced more extremely and more consistently. For the ADHD'er, consistent feelings of “I’m not good enough,” “what will people think of me,” “this is hard,” or “what if I do a bad job,” are negative associations with doing certain tasks that tend to worsen putting them off. 


• How to Prioritize When You Live with ADHD

  Prioritizing is tough for everyone these days. But it can be especially stressful to prioritize for individuals and families living with ADHD, when there’s so much that needs to get done and just about everything wins out as equally important. 


• Racism: How to Talk About it with Your ADHD'er

  How parents choose to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement, anti-racism and systemic racism is influenced by each family's experience. Our kids will benefit from the opportunity to talk about what’s happening which can reassure them and help promote change. 


• How to Beat the Boredom Nightmare with ADHD

  Whether camp has already been canceled or you’re uneasy about sending your kids to a modified version, it's troubling to plan for this summer of 2020.  Whatever your choices are, the threat of boredom can feel like a nightmare for individuals and families living with ADHD. 


• ADHD and Vulnerability: How to Reboot Under Stress

  As the world’s shifted over the past month, it’s logical to tell ourselves to crank it up and knock off the projects looming on our to-do list.  But when the ADHD brain senses danger or stress it powers down to survival mode causing less effective problem-solving and vulnerability to perceived failure.


• ADHD and Uncertain Times: How to Get Things Done Now!

  In these uncertain times, it’s tough to manage our work, our families, and ourselves. Add the extra layer of living with ADHD and related challenges, and it can be overwhelming to problem-solve, make decisions, communicate and follow-through. 


• How to Stop the Tug of War with Routines and ADHD

  When you live with ADHD, you face the ongoing tug-of-war between your need for structure and order and your craving to appeal to the creative, spontaneous side of who you are. 


• ADHD in Relationships: How to Overcome Frustration Now!

  Living with ADHD can contribute to misunderstandings, frustration, and resentment in relationships. It's important to understand that the symptoms of ADHD aren’t what’s causing challenges, but rather how each person responds to the symptoms. The first step to transforming your relationships, whether it be with a partner, child, or colleague, is to understand how ADHD is showing up. 


• Overcome Hidden Obstacles Living With ADHD

  For people with ADHD, motivation for satisfying intentions, goals and commitments can become muddied by self-judgment, self-criticism, and underlying messages that “I’m not good enough.”  


• Stop Burnout: How to Find Your Joy with ADHD

  For individuals and families living with ADHD, this time of year can be a spell of more chaos, burnout, and stress. Here are three ways to bring in the season with lasting joy so we can practice resilience in even the toughest of times. 


• Stuck in the Dependency Trap? Launch Your Adult with ADHD

  As parents we know all too well how living with our complex kids have shaped our lives. We are used to fiercely advocating and navigating our lives around our kids’ needs. But over time, our well-meaning, painstaking and often enervating accommodation routines can unintentionally strengthen dependency. 


• How to Crush Screen Overuse with ADHD

  Many adults and parents living with ADHD are anxious and concerned about their experience with a magnetic attraction to the internet, mobile technology, and videogames. Here are four strategies you can put into place to monitor and curb screen time when living with ADHD. 


• ADHD Stressing You Out? How to Gain Control Now!

  Stress has a way of finding a constant place in our lives. Tack on living with challenges such as hyperactivity, trouble focusing, and poor organizational skills, stress comes with the territory. Living with ADHD can lead to feelings of overwhelm, hopelessness and loss of control as well as co-existing mental health conditions. However, no matter how stressful things get, you can regain control.


• How To Be School-Ready With ADHD

  We do our best as parents and teachers to vigilantly support our students throughout their school years. The challenge is that by the time our kids reach high school, our well-intended support can backfire when our students do not learn skills for themselves. As well-meaning parents, we tend to shield our kids from experiencing failure because it’s painful to watch, as their self-esteem plunges. Our task is to figure out how to best pass the baton onto our kids when the ADHD brain may need more experiences than what is perceived as typical for learning to take place. 


• Help for Outbursts and Frustration in ADHD Now

  Summer’s in full swing and for families living with ADHD that means freedom from homework headaches and school stress. The hope is a more relaxed, less structured summer. That said, we know all too well that small setbacks can blow up into frustration, outbursts and meltdowns. With summer finally here, how do we manage these long sunny days, so “the livin’ is easy?” 


• The Best Chicago Summer Fun & How to Calm the ADHD Chaos

  Summer. Sunshine. Play. Chicago summers mean sandy beaches, troll hunts and fireworks all season long. Chicago has a lot to offer families, whether you live here, or are visiting for a Chicago adventure. We need to hold in mind that transitions are tough when we live with ADHD so we can prepare for and enjoy our summer bucket list. 


• Why ADHD and Mindfulness are a Promising Twosome
  When it comes to ADHD, mindfulness develops awareness and attention. Mindfulness meditation is learning to step back and observe one's thoughts and feelings, without judgment. What results is a resilient, positive self-image. Learn more about the mindfulness-ADHD connection and how to get started with mindfulness meditation when you live with ADHD.

• Three Laws to Support ADHD Students

  School can be tough for learners with ADHD. It can be challenging to keep track of assignments and follow through on projects. On top of that, it's tough to keep track of the various services available to our students with ADHD. 


• Four Tips to Reduce Clutter and Stress with ADHD

  If you or a loved one has ADHD, you know all too well that managing things and stuff can be overwhelming. Unless those things involve your personal interests, your mind may focus on other things that interest you.


• Four Ways to Make the Most of Family Time

  Our three kids loved the Chicago Museum of Science of Industry, with so many fascinating exhibits you could barely cover it all in a day! Plenty of preparation went into planning this day-long trip to the south side of Chicago.


• Go To Bed, Stay In Bed

  “I just want to tell you one more thing before I go to bed!” “Can I have a banana? I’m hungry!” “I need to cuddle the dog one more time.” “I barely got any screen time!” Settling down to bed, staying there, and surrendering to sleep can be challenging for our kids with ADHD.  


• Three Ways to Talk to Siblings About ADHD

  To this day I don’t know what it was that upset my son with ADHD; it all happened so fast. Finally off with our three kids on our cross country driving trip, we stopped for lunch in a small country town. Angry and upset, our son disappeared at a brisk pace across the street and out of sight. 


• Are You Having Fun With Your ADHD Kids?

  I swore I would never turn into The Taskmaster. But here I was, about to lose it over yet another of my son's missed homework assignments.


• Let Go of Judgment - Parenting a Child with ADHD

  There we were, in the front foyer of the restaurant, my ADHD son screaming, barely catching his breath in frustration. Do I cave and let him have his way or do I hold my ground? Mortified and exasperated, I felt I had failed my child and failed as a parent. 


• Three Ways to Make a Decision and Get Things Done

  If you are a person living with ADHD, chances are decision-making can at times be overwhelming and can delay getting things done.