Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

This week we’re tabulating lessons learned from our recent series on overcoming obstacles. Over the last month, we met Mallory Band dug into imposter syndrome, RSD, and ADHD. Aron Croft shared his experience through higher education when his expectations ran straight into undiagnosed inattentive ADHD. And Christina Avallone shared her perspective on thriving in a digital world and building healthy relationships with your tech.

If you haven’t listened to these episodes yet, check them out in your podcast app or listen on the web right here:

• Imposter Syndrome, RSD & ADHD with Mallory Band
• When expectations meet your ADHD with Aron Croft
• Thriving in a digital world with Christina Avallone

With our own emotions taxed during this time of pandemic, it's easy to misunderstand how our children are living through this same experience. These emotions of fear and uncertainty are amplified for them, and figuring out how to talk about both the disease and the isolation as unique events is becoming more critical in helping them to understand why we are living the way we are right now.

This week on the show, coach and author Caroline Maguire is back to help us through these thorny issues. Her book, Why Will No One Play With Me? has already helped so many in our own community addressing social challenges for our kids. Today, we're turning the tools she outlines in the book toward living through the pandemic together.

Links & Notes

Thank you for supporting The ADHD Podcast on Patreon!

• Why Will No One Play With Me?: The Play Better Plan to Help Children of All Ages Make Friends and Thrive by Caroline Maguire
• "5 Ways to Maintain Your Child's Social Skills Right Now" by Caroline Maguire
• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast
• (00:40) - Support the Show • Become a Patron!
• (02:20) - Introducing Caroline Maguire
• (03:08) - How do we talk to kids about COVID-19?
• (07:33) - Splitting the Fear
• (21:32) - Tackling School Alternatives
• (25:34) - Addressing College Stress The ADHD Way
• (33:23) - Swap Stations
• (36:07) - Transitions
• (41:06) - Getting the book

Parents are faced with an extraordinary set of new responsibilities under at-home directives around the country. Being able to work at home, if possible, and take on the additional roles of schedule-keepers, quarantine teachers, and more can be an incredible strain on the parent-child relationship.

This week on the show, Dr. Marcy Caldwell joins Nikki and Pete to talk about the pillars of successful parenting, and how to maintain your reserves when you're feeling tested. She introduces us to the STOPP model, which is a comforting acronym for your own emotional regulation (S: Separate, T: Take a Breath, O: Observe yourself first, then observe what just happened, P: Perspective, P: Proceed).

Links & Notes

• Calm: Meditation and mindfulness
• Freedom
• ADDept.org: Thriving with ADHD
• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast
• (01:10) - Support the show • Become a Patron!
• (02:36) - Introducing Marcy Caldwell
• (17:25) - Emotional Regulation
• (22:01) - Habits and Routines
• (27:50) - The self-care boost: STOPP Method
• (34:38) - Quarantine Schooling

There aren’t many practitioners writing about today’s topic. Unless, that is, you look up the collected works of Dr. Bill Dodson. Dr. Dodson is an award-winning board-certified psychiatrist and specialist in adult ADHD and his contributions to the study of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria bring him to the show today. According to Dr. Dodson, nearly all those living with ADHD live with some level of rejection sensitivity, and thanks to the poor training on the ADHD connections to the condition, patients are going misdiagnosed and mistreated as a result.

Today on the show, Dr. Dodson joins Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright to discuss Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and provide new language to frame a state those living with ADHD know all too well.

About Dr. William Dodson
Dr. Bill Dodson is a award-winning board-certified psychiatrist and specialist in adult ADHD. While Dr. Dodson has been on the faculties of Georgetown University and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center he is primarily a clinical practitioner who tries to combine evidence-based practice techniques with practice-based evidence. In addition to being named a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and recipient of the national Maxwell J. Schleifer Award for Distinguished Service to Persons with Disabilities, Dr. Dodson is one of two experts from the US to the World Anti-Doping program for the development of guidelines for the use of ADHD stimulant medications in the world’s athletes.

Links & Notes

• Dr. William Dodson at Additudemag.com
• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast
• (01:38) - Become a Member of The ADHD Community
• (03:40) - Introducing Dr. William Dodson
• (05:06) - What is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria?
• (10:12) - Defining Characteristics of RSD?
• (12:50) - Mental health trends
• (16:36) - RSD and Imposter Syndrome
• (19:28) - RSD and Gender
• (24:58) - Treatment paths for RSD
• (33:27) - RSD and ADHD Coaching
• (42:57) - Finding Dr. Dodson

Looking for focus? Like music? Have trouble focusing WITH music? We might just be able to help you out this week.

Focus@Will is a service offering focus music to help you tune in to what you’re doing so that you can get it done. Will Henshall is the musician and inventor behind the service and joins us today to talk about the tool, the technology, and how it just might be your next secret weapon in your war on distraction.

What’s different about the music? What makes it so good for focus? Will tells all this week with examples from channels across the site that help a wide range of brains to raise the noise floor and get working. We talk about entrainment, and why it can be both a useful tool for some people, and an even bigger distraction for others. Plus, we dive into a bit of 90’s music history to hear about Will’s past life as a founding musician behind Londonbeat.

About Will Henshall

Will Henshall is a Los Angeles based tech entrepreneur, inventor and music producer. He was the founding member and main writer in the UK pop soul band Londonbeat. Their massive early 90s hit ‘I’ve Been Thinking About You’ reached #1 in the Billboard chart and was the top selling single in all major territories and won him BMI/PRS songwriter of the year. In the mid 90s, he founded San Francisco-based audio tech company Rocket Network. The “DigiDelivery” media transfer system, now part of ProTools 12 Cloud collaboration, is a standard tool used everyday in pro audio production for TV, movies and music. He sold the company to Avid in 2003. His most recent start up is focus@will, a science driven instrumental music streaming service (2m users) that helps people at work and study reduce distractions and be more productive. He holds five patents, and has a new one in on the way.

Links & Notes

• Focus@Will
• Find Will on Facebook
• Connect with Will on LinkedIn