ADHD: When I accept myself just as I am, then I can change...

The best things in life have a way of coming after many disappointments and false starts. This is also true for people with ADHD. The stories I hear from clients about how they eventually come to coaching are very similar: “Once I received the diagnosis, I then worked with someone to help me follow through, but they told me it wasn’t working because I couldn’t follow through.” Years of trial and error with various professionals to learn efficient self-management skills can feel tortuous. The words I hear most are: “despair, lack of effort, I failed because of me," and “I want to be in charge of my own life!"

The good news is that these experiences, while not immediately providing the change clients are seeking, form a rich body of learning about what does and does not work for them. This self-knowledge is key to any successful coaching work in which they will eventually engage.

When clients arrive at a coaching session with a diagnosis and a history of trying many different ways to change things for themselves, they are ready -- truly and fully ready -- to embark on a productive, life-changing experience. Their desire for change is at an all-time high, while their despair can be at an all-time low. Ironically, these are the conditions that sustain clients best when they might otherwise avoid sessions or tasks that feel challenging. This history forms the motivational foundation from which clients will take more risks, tolerate uncertainty, and experiment with how to BE differently in their lives.

The best news of all is that these experiences are merely one aspect of the whole person. And this is what sets coaching apart from other modalities. There is the assumption that all of us are whole, just the way we are. Coaching – even ADHD Coaching - is about growing, learning and becoming. The purpose is to empower, illuminate the essential health of the client, and embrace all parts of themselves.

As Carl R. Rogers said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

Lynda Hoffman

Certified Professional & Personal Coach

Medipsy Psychological Services

Your Teen is Entering CEGEP or College?

We are inclined to breathe a sigh of relief when our child graduates high school thinking that reaching this milestone means college will be somehow easier. Amid the celebration, it is important to remember that all transitions can be tricky to navigate for those with ADHD. Being prepared for this reality is the best way to set your child up for success.

What is it about transitioning to CEGEP or College that can be so challenging for teens? Like all transitions, the expectations placed on students are suddenly higher than those in high school. And they are higher precisely in the areas that our children may be having difficulties in, for example knowing how much studying is enough, anticipating what is expected when it is not explicitly said, getting around campus, resisting the temptation to go to the mall rather than classes they may not be interested in. These “executive” skills are mediated by the prefrontal cortex of the brain whose development, in individuals with ADHD, tends to lag behind those of their peers without ADHD. Executive function skills are those that support us in doing the things we know we should be doing, and when we should be doing them. As such, you may find yourself watching your teen choosing to prepare for tests at the last minute, handing in assignments late or not at all, performing poorly on tests, and avoiding asking their teachers for help.

What can parents do about this? Your role is now one of supporting your teen’s growing autonomy, while also expecting that there may be gaps in their ability to follow through, or doing what they should be doing. Start by finding out in advance what support services are available at the college your teen will be attending. Model the core belief in a “Growth Mindset” that learning is about honing abilities and skills, as much as it is about learning content. This creates a love of learning and builds resilience necessary for children to solve problems more flexibly and non-judgmentally. Be prepared to ask your teen questions when you see something they may not be seeing: “Is this a problem for you? How can you know? How are you planning to handle that? What will you do about this?”  Be curious about their experience. Listen. Your relationship with your teen is the best way to ensure you two work productively together if something goes awry.

How to communicate with your teen?  Be prepared that he/she may respond defensively to a question they do not have an answer for. Take this as a sign that they really don’t know and that they don’t like not knowing. Acknowledge their feelings. Let them know that you are there to break the problem down with them when they are ready. If they say, “No, I don’t need your help”, you can ask them, “Is there a person at the college who you would feel comfortable talking to about this?” Hold them accountable for finding a solution. Above all, praise all efforts to find a solution even if the solution is not one you agree with. For example, “I see that you are trying to get a handle on this. It is great you are taking responsibility for it. Is there something else that might also be helpful?”

Is the CEGEP or College the best fit? Set your teen up for success. Find a program your child is truly interested in. High interest is the best way to ensure your teen will be engaged during the program. If they must go into a program they are not thrilled about, it is helpful for them to find some activity at the college, outside their studies, that they truly enjoy. This will support them in staying connected to the school community. Also, ask if the school provides accommodations for exams and/or has tutoring and coaching services available.

How do I know if my teen needs coaching? If your teen is underperforming, appears disorganized, and is not sharing with you, it may be that he/she would be more open to working with a coach. Coaching builds the inner skills necessary for academic success: effective problem solving for better decision making, breaking down tasks, learning to ask for help when needed, building accurate self-awareness, and acquiring resilience in the face of challenges.

Where can parents get answers to their questions? You may benefit from support too. Find a coach who is familiar with ADHD and how to build executive skills. Ask them your questions. Or, better still, find a coach for yourself. Have no doubt. You are a leader and your resilience and level of confidence will impact how you show up to support your child.

Lynda Hoffman, certified ADHD coach

Medipsy Psychological Services

Parenting Stress and Social Support

Are you the parent of an infant, toddler, child, tween, or teen?  If you are, then chances are good that you’re incredibly busy.  And of course, the more sweet and amazing children we have, the more hectic life seems to get.  But that’s okay right?  We don’t have to be a circus clown to learn to juggle.  You simply need to be a parent in a high-tech, fast-paced society, making it on your own or with a partner.  And hopefully everyone everyone remains healthy, assuming they are. 

It seems that back in the day when we were kids, we just went to school, maybe had one extra-curricular activity, and played outside with the other kids in the neighborhood, free from excessive parental supervision in the name of safety.  But in our modern times, there are so many more things for parents to worry about, such as our children accessing elicit online material, sexual predators, and even engaging activities with peers that were unheard of 15-20 years go.   Add to this that today’s parents have much longer working hours which makes finding the time to connect with friends and building new relationship more challenging.  Even stay-at-home moms are spending more time behind the wheel carting their kids between playdates, lessons, sports practices, and enrichment activities, with very little time to socialize with friends.  This is very true if you are the parent of young children.   All of this can be as stressful as it is isolating.  In fact, according to one study done on the relationship between social support, family wellbeing, the quality of parenting, and child resilience, attending to our need for supportive relationships is indispensable for parents ⁽¹⁾. 

Many researcher have noted the existence of different types of social support such as emotional, informational, tangible help (physical or financial), and positive social interactions with close ties, just to name a few.  An absence of these in our lives can affect our sense of wellbeing, the quality of our parenting, and even our children’s resilience⁽¹⁾.  Intuitively we know it’s important, but science tells us why.  Researchers suggests that social support acts as a buffer between the things that stress us such as the loss of a job or an accident, and the potential effects of stress, such as ill health, depression, and general distress⁽¹⁾. 

This is especially true for parents with a child with a disability.  One study showed that parental satisfaction with emotional support was the only one of a list of factors studied, that had a significant positive relationship to parental wellbeing and the level of satisfaction in family functioning⁽²⁾.  This type of support can come from family, friends, even from organizations set up to offer support services for parents and caregivers.  Local community health centres such as CLSCs are a good resource for this type of information.   

Many studies have also shown that a child’s resilience, or ability to cope with adversity as it arises, is learned as new challenges are faced and met with success.  When children have the opportunity to witness their parents nurture other close adult ties, they learn that good relationships are an important aspect of life and eventually adopt this as a way of meeting the ups and downs of life as they grow into adulthood.

Certainly, being a parent can bring many joys and also many challenges on ones life.  It is important to remind ourselves that we need the care, the good ear, and the kind heart of people we trust and admire in order to really be there for the most important people in our lives, our children.  When we place importance on taking the time to do so, all benefit.

Lyane Trepanier, Ph.D. Cand., McGill University

on behalf of Medipsy Psychological Services

References

1- Armstrong, I. M., Birnie-Lefcovitch, S., & Ungar, M. T.  (2005). Pathways between social support, family well-being, quality of parenting, and child resilience: What we know.  Journal of Child and Family Studies, 14, 2, 269-281.

http://facweb.northseattle.edu/cadler/Eng_102_S2009/Readings/Shipping%20News%20Readings/Pathways.pdf

2- Snowdon A.W., Cameron S., Dunham K. (1994). Relathionships between stress, coping resources, and satisfaction with family functioning in family with children with disabilities. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 26, 3, 63-76.

The Path to Coaching for ADHD

It is a truism that sometimes the best things in life come after many false starts on a long and winding path. This is often the case for someone with ADHD. The stories I hear from clients about how they eventually come to coaching are very similar. “I got the diagnosis and then worked with someone to help me follow through, but they told me it wasn’t working because I couldn’t follow through.”  It can be a torturous process of years of trial and error with various professionals to learn efficient self-management skills. The words I hear most are, “despair”, “lack of effort”, “I failed because of me”, “I want something more from my life”, “I want to be in charge of my own life”.

The good news is that these experiences, while not immediately providing the change clients are seeking, form a rich body of learning about what does and does not work for them. This self-knowledge is key to any successful coaching work they will eventually engage in.

When clients arrive at a coaching session already having a diagnosis and a history of trying many different ways to change things for themselves, they are ready, truly and fully ready, to embark on a productive life changing experience. Their desire for change is at an all-time high, while their despair can be at an all-time low. Paradoxically, these are the conditions that sustain clients when they might otherwise avoid sessions or tasks that feel challenging. These form the motivational foundation from which clients will take risks, tolerate uncertainty, and experiment with how to BE differently in their lives.  

The best news of all, of course, is that these experiences are merely one aspect of the whole person.  And this is what sets coaching apart from other modalities. There is the assumption that all of us are whole, just as we are. Coaching – even ADHD Coaching - is about growing, learning and becoming.  The purpose is to empower, illuminate the essential health of the client, and embrace all parts of ourselves. As Carl Rogers said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” 

Lynda Hoffman, certified coach

Medipsy Psychological Services

Top 10 Things I Want You to Know about Values

In my first post, I asked the question, "Whatever happened to values?"  Today I would like to distill some of the ideas from this month.  So I have I have created a Top 10 list (and the posts where you can find them).  And here they are.

1.      Find at least one important thing that you want to stand for.  It will bring you enormous  satisfaction.

  (February 3, 4, 5)

2.      Steer away from materialistic values. They won’t make you happy.

  (February 6, 7)

3.      Connect with the importance of your value.  It will make it easier to act.

  (February 11, 21)

4.      Dream big.  Rising above yourself is in your nature.

  (February 17, 28)

5.      Start today.  It won’t get easier if you put it off.

  (February 22, 27, 26, 28)

6.      Organize your life to make a place for values. Don’t expect it to just come naturally.

  (February 10, 16)

7.      Let your kids know what is meaningful to you by showing them not telling them. 

  (February 8)

8.      See life challenges as a chance to clarify what you value.

 (February 12, 25) 

9.      Be kind to yourself.  This is a long-term project.

 (February 26)

10.   Remember that everyone has values – even if they are different from yours.

 (February 15, 24)


Marilyn Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., psychologist

What about values and the long haul?

Picking up from yesterday, I suggested that it was a good idea to integrate values-related actions into everyday life so there is less strain on your self-control muscles.  The importance of organizing for the immediate future is further underlined by a series of experiments in which researchers investigated the relationships between values and behavioral intentions (Eyal, et al., 2009).  Across different situations, the researchers found that values predicted distant intentions better than near intentions.  In other words, if you ask me if I intend to act on my value, I will be more likely to say yes if the action is not coming up soon.  The researchers reasoned that this is because everyday realities do not impose themselves on distant plans.  For things that are far away, I don’t need to think of how to make time or negotiate with others.  But if it is close by, I need to organize daily opportunities to take values-related actions. 

Still, one of the questions I would have if I were reading is "What about the importance of my values? Shouldn’t importance be a factor? Eyal’s research also speaks to this question. In one experiment, some of the participants were asked to think and write about concrete details of values consistent events - the things they would see and hear and feel and do during the events.  Other participants were asked to think and write about the importance and meaning of values-consistent events-  the implications for their goals, their identity, and the bigger picture.  Those who thought about the big picture - the meaning and consequences – were more likely to form an intention to act.  Thinking about the big picture even cancelled out the effect of distance.  So people who were able to imagine the meaning of their choices were more likely to intend to act - even if the event was coming up soon.  This suggests that if I want to act more in line with my values, first I need first to connect my actions to a bigger picture – one that reminds me of what it means to me to take this action.  The researchers concluded (and I tend to agree) that a second good strategy would be to pre-commit myself to irreversible choices for the future in line with my values.  Once I am committed then as the time gets closer, what I intend to do can become what I actually do.

Reference

Eyal, T., Sagristano, M.D., Trope, Y., Liberman, N., & Chaiken, S. (2009). When values matter: Expressing values in behavioral intentions for the near vs. distant future. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, 35–43

To act on my values do I need to work my self-control muscles?

Roy Baumeister (2014) has done a lot of research on self-control.   Self-control can be compared it to a muscle.  Like a muscle, it can be depleted.  When I am working in the gym, at a certain point some muscles will just give up and I will have to stop.  When this happens while I am trying to control actions, psychologists call it ego depletion. Baumeister has calculated that the average person spends 3 to 4 hour a days working their self-control muscles to inhibit desires.  If I am awake for about 16 hours a day that means that close to a quarter of my waking hours are spent inhibiting myself.  So what does this research on self-control have to teach us about taking action on values?  Do I need to be building my self-control muscles?

I would say “not necessarily”.  I have nothing against self-control but I think it is smart to limit the need for it.  I have two suggestions.  The first is fit value-based actions into day-to-day life.  For example, if I value creativity and I want to become a better portrait painter, I will probably make more progress if I start to sketch people on the bus than if I try to set up a proper studio to do portraits.  Both studio and bus-sketching will move me towards my goal, but the first demands relatively little self-control – just put a drawing pad and pencil in my backpack.  The second may require a lot of will power to save money to rent a studio and buy art supplies or arrange for a model to sit for me.  Big actions will be more susceptible to ego depletion so I will make more progress if small value-related actions are part of my routine.   

The second suggestion is frame your value in an inspiring way.  In research carried out in our lab with people working on articulating and acting on their values (Fitzpatrick et al., 2016), we found that values that lead to change often had an inspirational quality.  People who changed were “touched” or “lifted up” by their values.  Perhaps the inspiration meant that they needed less self-control.  The inspirational quality of a value is personal for me.   When I think about my most important value, I say to myself, “I want to leave the world a better place than I found it.”  That phrase moves me.  I could say “I want to make a contribution.”  It means about the same thing.  But only the first one moves me.  When I have to do something that is difficult and I can think of that phrase, it seems to take self-control off the table.  If you have identified a value that you think is important, ask yourself, “Does it inspire me?”  If not, you may need to use more of your self-control muscles to turn it into action.

Reference

Baumeister, R.F. (2014). Self-regulation, ego depletion and inhibition.  Neuropsychologia, 65, 313-319. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.08.012

Fitzpatrick, M., Henson, A., Grumet, R., Poolokasingham, G., Foa, C., Comeau, T., & Predergast, C.  (2016). Challenge, focus, inspiration and support: Processes of values clarification and congruence. Journal of Contextual and Behavioral Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2016.02.001