By Leigh Anne Hulva, BSN, RN— Women’s Health Educator
Parenting with ADHD can make routines, working memory, emotional regulation, and staying present more difficult, leaving many parents feeling guilty or overwhelmed. It can also bring unexpected strengths, including empathy, creativity, and deep engagement with a child. Here is what can help -and when an adult ADHD evaluation or treatment in Nashville may be worth considering.
A Parent Discovers Her Own ADHD: Meet Julia *
Two years ago, Julia was sitting in a waiting room while her school-aged daughter was being evaluated for ADHD. It had been the school counselor’s idea. Julia hadn’t thought of her daughter as having signs of ADHD until the counselor had brought it up. Didn’t ADHD involve hyperactivity, disrupting the class, poor grades? Julia’s daughter was quiet, almost daydreamy. She had certainly never acted out in class, and she did well on tests, even if she often forgot to turn in her homework.
So when the counselor suggested this ADHD evaluation, Julia had done what most moms would do: She headed straight to the internet for a deep dive into ADHD symptoms. What she found there was eye-opening. Her daughter clearly had many symptoms of the inattentive subtype of ADHD, which is the more common type in girls and women. It’s underdiagnosed for the very reasons Julia had thought of when she thought of her daughter: The children with this type of ADHD aren’t acting out or causing trouble in class.
The thing was, Julia realized that she had the same symptoms. Every online quiz made it that much clearer. Julia scheduled an appointment for herself the next day and was given the same diagnosis that her daughter had gotten from the same evaluator: ADHD, inattentive type.
Looking back over her years as a mother of two, Julia has complicated feelings around her ADHD diagnosis. She feels guilty about not recognizing the symptoms (both in her daughter and in herself) earlier. But the diagnosis also helps to reframe some of her experiences. The permission slips found at the bottom of her purse long after they were due. The school forms submitted after a deadline. The times one of her children would be talking to her, and she felt mentally somewhere else entirely, completely unable to focus. She had felt guilty about all these things and so many more, but looking at these experiences through the lens of knowing she had ADHD helped clarify them somewhat.
She had thought she wasn’t trying hard enough. But there was a neurological component to these experiences. She is learning to separate the useful guilt from the useless shame. The things she has some control over, she is trying to change. And for those things that she can’t control— well, she’s learning to give herself some grace.
The thing Julia didn’t expect was a sense of gratitude for her ADHD. That same atypical brain function that makes it hard to concentrate on dull daily tasks? It also gave her moments of real joy, hours of hyperfocus in which she could sit with her children and build an elaborate LEGO creation while feeling truly engaged. This is the gift of parenting with ADHD.
It’s a mixed bag, but Julia’s learning how to carry it.
[* Case studies are fictionalized composites of the real experiences of women, drawn from both personal and professional encounters with women navigating ADHD.]
The Real Challenges of Parenting With ADHD
Parenting is one of the most executive-function-intense activities a person can undertake. It requires sustained attention across multiple domains simultaneously. It requires consistency and follow-through that are vitally important to the little people in their care. It requires emotional regulation even in the most trying of times, like times of illness and sleep deprivation and anxiety. Never mind the ability to hold the logistics of an entire family in working memory.
Executive function is exactly what ADHD disrupts. This means that the specific demands of parenting land on a specific set of vulnerabilities in the ADHD brain.
Working Memory and the Mental Load of Parenting
The mental load of parenting can feel crushing at times. Tracking appointments, dietary preferences, developmental milestones, friendship dramas, academic performance, and emotional needs are all part of this load. For a parent with ADHD, whose working memory is already not reliable, this is particularly difficult. Things fall through the cracks not from carelessness, but from insufficient working memory bandwidth. But the missed appointment, the forgotten costume day at school, the permission slip turned in too late— the shame of these things happening is real.
ADHD and Emotional Regulation
Emotional dysregulation is a recognized feature of ADHD. This generally refers to having trouble managing, controlling, and responding to emotional reactions in a typical way. Sharing a house with children generally involves a certain level of noise, interruptions, competing demands, and sleep deprivation. These things deplete the emotional resources that someone with ADHD already has in short supply.
Consistency and Follow-Through
We always hear about how children need consistency: consistent boundaries, consistent routines, consistent follow-through on promises and consequences. ADHD’s characteristic inconsistency can make this genuinely difficult. This can produce a parenting style that is both confusing to children and guilt-inducing to the parent.
Staying Present with Your Children
Genuine, attentive presence is one of the things children need most from their parents. It’s also one of the things that ADHD interferes with the most. The parent who is physically in the room but mentally somewhere else, or who emerges from a doomscroll to find that her child has been trying to get her attention for several minutes, understands how much guilt this can create.
The Unexpected Gifts of Parenting with ADHD
A complete and honest picture of parenting with ADHD can’t just include its challenges. It has to include the unexpected gifts that someone with ADHD can glean from parenthood, the unseen joys that can be experienced by both the parent and the child.
Hyperfocus as Connection
The same hyperfocus that can cause problems when it locks an ADHD brain into the wrong thing at the wrong time can be a remarkable gift when that hyperfocus locks onto a child. A parent with ADHD who becomes absorbed in their child’s world— their interests, their games, their favorite shows— can sometimes do so with a genuine engagement that isn’t performative.
Empathy When Parent and Child Have ADHD
For the parent of a child with ADHD to also have ADHD, a deeper understanding of what the child is going through is a priceless gift to them. Where a neurotypical parent might see daydreaming or laziness in a child that isn’t performing well in school, a parent with ADHD might recognize what is going on in that child’s brain. Julia sees how her daughter struggles, and she can help her daughter as someone who has experienced the same frustrations and inability to concentrate.
H3: Creativity and Play
Many parents with ADHD describe experiencing a genuine enjoyment of playing with their children. There is often an enjoyment of spontaneous, creative play between a child with ADHD and a parent with ADHD that takes on a different flavor than neurotypical play. The ADHD ability to hyperfocus can be a real benefit here. Where so many parents just sort of tolerate some of the time spent in play, the ADHD parent can feel a similar time-blindness that their child is experiencing.
When Your Child Also Has ADHD
ADHD is highly heritable. It has an estimated heritability of 70% to 80%, making it one of the most strongly genetic neurodevelopmental conditions. What this means is that if there’s one person in the family diagnosed with ADHD, it’s pretty likely there’s more than one.
Many parents who were diagnosed in adulthood, like Julia, are raising children with ADHD whether they know it yet or not. This, as one might imagine, adds a layer of complexity to the parenting experience. The parent who recognizes her own symptoms in her child might feel a mix of guilt, grief, or protectiveness. She might also feel uniquely equipped to advocate for her child and to understand her child’s experience from the inside.
And perhaps most importantly, she might be able to model the self-compassion and self-understanding that she is trying to grow in herself, to make her child’s emotional journey through ADHD that much smoother.
What Actually Helps Parents with ADHD
ADHD Evaluation and Treatment
The most important thing a parent with ADHD can probably do is manage their own ADHD. This might mean taking medication, finding support groups or an ADHD counselor, behavioral strategies, and externalizing support structures. Really, anything that can improve executive function and emotional regulation is likely to have positive downstream effects on the children in the house.
Externalizing Family Logistics
External structure measures that work for individuals with ADHD can also work for managing family logistics. Move things from your working memory to an actual physical place: a shared family calendar, a whiteboard with reminders written on it, a designated spot for forms that need attention.
Having clear routines for high-friction transition times (like bedtimes and mornings) that will hopefully decrease the friction is vital. Use multiple alarms, simple routines, and stay consistent.
Repairing Rather Than Ruminating
Every parent loses their temper, fails to follow through, zones out when they should be present. Parents with ADHD might do these things more often than they’d like. The research on child development suggests that what matters more than the “ruptures” (the lost temper, the forgotten permission slip) in the “repair.” A parent who provides a genuine apology after a rupture is teaching an important lesson about accountability. Ruminating on the failure, kicking yourself repeatedly, doesn’t do anyone any good.
Practical Strategies for Parenting With ADHD
- Treat your own ADHD as a priority— managing it well is important to the people around you.
- Create external structures for family logistics, like a whiteboard for chores, a shared calendar, and a designated spot for important papers.
- Establish consistent routines for high-friction transitions like mornings and bedtimes.
- Practice repair rather than rumination— apologizing after slip-ups rather than beating yourself up about them.
- Recognize the gifts that parenting with ADHD brings and lean into them.
- Find support, like a parenting group, rather than trying to manage alone.
Parenting with ADHD: Moving Forward
Julia still sometimes turns a permission slip in late. She still sometimes snaps at her kids when her emotional regulation fails before she’s had her morning coffee. She still feels that specific kind of guilt a parent feels when they know exactly what went wrong and wishes it hadn’t. But the conversation she has with herself about that guilt has changed. She does not conclude that she is basically inadequate as a mother; instead, she recognizes that parenting with ADHD brings specific challenges, and that repair matters more than rupture. She has gotten comfortable with apologizing.
You can be diagnosed with ADHD and seek treatment for it at any point; it’s never too late. If ADHD is holding you back, now is the time to find a healthcare provider with experience diagnosing and treating adults with ADHD. If this article resonates with you, find a provider who helps you figure out how to move forward into your best life!
Frequently Asked Questions about Parenting with ADHD
How do I explain my ADHD to my children?
Honestly, warmly, and age-appropriately. Young children might want to hear something like: “My brain sometimes has trouble keeping track of things, and sometimes I get frustrated more quickly than I want to. But it has nothing to do with how much I love you.” Older children might appreciate a more complete explanation of ADHD, especially if you think they might be experiencing it as well. The goal is to demystify behavior that might otherwise be confusing or hurtful, and to model the self-awareness and self-compassion that we should all be trying to teach our children.
My child was just diagnosed with ADHD, and I think I might have it too. What should I do next?
It looks like it might be time to pursue your own evaluation! You owe it to yourself and those around you to understand what is going on and get treatment for ADHD if that is indeed what you have. One of the most common pathways for adults to receive an ADHD diagnosis is this type of scenario— taking a child in to get evaluated and seeing themselves described in the very lists and questionnaires they see their child filling out.
How can I be a better parent when I have ADHD?
The most important first step is ensuring your ADHD is managed effectively. Medication, behavioral strategies, and support structures can improve executive function and emotional regulation in ways that positively impact the people you live with.
Beyond that, build external systems for family logistics to help ease up on your working memory. This looks like whiteboards for lists and reminders, and a shared family calendar that everyone can easily see and add to. Establish and maintain consistent routines for bedtimes and mornings. Practice repair after difficult moments with your child, such as when you lose your temper or disappoint them with a permission slip turned in too late: Apologize to them genuinely. And remember to acknowledge and appreciate the gifts of parenting with ADHD: your presence in play, your empathy, your personal understanding of invisible struggle. Show yourself and your children some grace!
About Leigh Anne Hulva, BSN, RN
I’m Leigh Anne Hulva, BSN, RN- a registered nurse, women’s health educator, mother of teenage daughters, and passionate advocate for women navigating perimenopause and menopause. I recently completed the Harvard Medical School course on Women’s Health and in these pages I relish sharing what I learned there alongside what I know from lived experience. I bring to this work not only my training, but also the personal experience of navigating the very transition I write about. It is my privilege to share both, because this work is personal to me. I hope it feels that way to you, too.
I have been on the other side of this conversation, and I understand how much it matters to feel truly heard. At Nashville Concierge Medicines, my work is supervised by Dr. William Conway, MD, and I work directly under his licensure as a nurse educator.
About Leigh Anne Hulva by William Conway, M.D
Leigh Ann is an exceptionally gifted writer in the tradition of American Humanism. To fully learn from Leigh Ann, it is best to read all of her blogs. In her extensive portfolio, Leigh Ann moves past the rather dry medical literature to capture the lived experience of living with both ADHD and perimenopause. Leigh Ann captures the complicated, subtle ways that ADHD can dominate life and make life much more difficult
All of Leigh Ann’s case studies capture the lived reality of life with ADHD. None of the case studies are drawn from an actual patient.
