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[00:00:08] Introduction and Guest Welcome

[00:00:08] Laurence Pratt: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the ADHD Goals podcast. Today’s guest is Leanne Tran, and she is a registered psychologist from Brisbane, Australia, and it is her mission to support parents of kids with developmental differences such as ADHD, autism and anxiety.

Through psychology education so that they can be their child’s best cheerleader and advocate. Welcome to the show, Leanne. How are you doing?

[00:00:40] Leanne Tran: Thank you. I’m doing really well. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:44] Laurence Pratt: I mentioned just before that you’re in Brisbane, so you must be in the evening time. Are you now?

[00:00:50] Leanne Tran: Yeah, that’s right. It’s evening here and rainy and it’s, um, autumn. So probably lots of opposites to you, I [00:01:00] imagine.

[00:01:00] Laurence Pratt: Yes. That’s melting my brain right now just thinking of that. But lovely. I’m really glad to have you on the show. I think that, that, it can be very challenging being, a parent, of a child that is going through, such things as ADHD and autism and, a lot of kids are, suffering from anxiety as well.

And so it can be very difficult for parents, knowing how to manage that. I mean, I suppose. Neurotypical parents, it’s very difficult because they perhaps haven’t experienced that themselves. but. Again, on the flip side of that with parents that maybe do also have ADHD or autism, it can, parenting in itself can be challenging because you are managing yourself and the child, as well.

So, I think it’s gonna be a really interesting conversation today.

[00:01:51] Leanne Tran’s Background and Journey

[00:01:51] Laurence Pratt: but before we get into, the topics, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, and your own, journey. Or experience with [00:02:00] ADHD.

[00:02:01] Leanne Tran: Yeah, sure. I think, I guess maybe part of it is, started out when I decided I wanted to be a psychologist, I think was around high school and I had this sense of wanting to be a teacher first off. But then for psychology, I saw the role in being able to be a teacher in a way, but about things about life and being a human.

And, I always had a difference growing up with a slight physical. Limitation or it’s like a medical condition, but it meant that I couldn’t do things other kids could do. And so for me, I think that’s where, I got the sense of wanting to help kids who didn’t quite feel like everybody else.

And I started out working with kids with, cerebral palsy, but then, that evolved when I joined private practice into working with lots of different kids with different or different differences. That sounds funny, but lots and lots of different experiences and, ADHD and [00:03:00] autism I think are just.

The most common things that I see in private practice, which is how I ended up there. But I do have ADHD in my family as well. And so then it became not just a, a professional job of working with families, but it also had a personal interest of learning more about it and how to be able to, support.

My children. And yeah, also understand other people in my family. So that, and that’s where the passion or interest for ADHD came through.

[00:03:35] Laurence Pratt: Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely resonate with that in terms of, that feeling of passion and purpose, especially, when you resonate with the people that you’re trying to help it, it’s very fulfilling.

[00:03:45] Laurence Pratt: great news. 

[00:03:46] Common Issues Faced by Parents of Children with ADHD and Autism

[00:03:47] Laurence Pratt: And so tell me, I. When you started working with parents, of children with ADHD and autism, what are kind of some of the most common issues that you are dealing with?[00:04:00] 

[00:04:01] Leanne Tran: I think it’s interesting because A, DHD and autism are, conditions or brain types that affect. Children so differently, that, it’s not really ADHD or autism itself that I’m usually working with. It’s the challenges that children experience. That don’t always relate to that diagnosis.

So for example, it’s still with having difficulty with managing emotions is the biggest one, regulating emotions. And so some kids with ADHD have trouble with that, some don’t. And same with autistic kids. So it’s not so much the. The fact of autism or ADHD, but there are, the most com Yeah, there are some common, things along the way.

Emotional regulation is one. The other thing is probably having difficulty at school for whatever reason, whether it’s being in the classroom that [00:05:00] doesn’t quite fit the needs of. A young kid with ADHD, or it can be with learning as well, which is tricky when attention is hard. So managing emotions, difficulty at school.

And then the other big one is probably behavior at home. That’s a really broad category, but it’s often parents are having trouble with kids not following instructions or doing what they’re being asked to do or, managing. Hyperactivity or kids who need a lot of sensory input. That’s another really big area.

[00:05:36] Laurence Pratt: I mean, just going back to what you were saying there, the first thing you were saying, about. Emotional regulation. I mean, childhood in itself is the time where all children are learning what are appropriate responses to certain things. And I think, the chemicals that are going through a child’s brain as they develop it, it the, a lot of them can be new, chemical [00:06:00] balances and that’s.

Challenging at any age in life. and so it, it can be, I suppose it’s very difficult to understand what is just sort of general childhood and what is related to maybe a condition as well.

[00:06:15] Leanne Tran: Yeah, that’s right. There’s, that’s the thing. Children are not mini adults. They’re actually still developing all of those skills and abilities and pathways in their brain, and so. There’s a normal part of development. Kids have different, they have different skills in managing emotions depending on their age.

And then for each age there’s still a wide range of what is typical as well. Some kids are just naturally more emotional than others. And then that often parents want to know, is this. Just an 8-year-old boy, for example, or is this also ADHD? And in some ways, I guess, [00:07:00] it doesn’t really matter too much because if we just look at what their challenges are, we can help kids with that.

It doesn’t really matter. So much where the difficulty is coming from, as long as you understand your child, as a parent and connect with and can connect with them, in some way and help them manage emotions. 

[00:07:22] Parenting Strategies and Empathy

[00:07:22] Leanne Tran: I.

[00:07:24] Laurence Pratt: And when thinking about the parents and, understanding or managing a parent’s empathy towards a child, and where I’m coming from with this question is that generational difference? From, what the classroom might have been like for the parent in their, and I’m thinking about, I’m nearly 43 and it was a very different classroom environment.

I believe in those days where there was probably a lot more. Stricter or, the threat of being told off to a degree where, you were sort of a bit more potentially you could be a bit more [00:08:00] obedient, to now where, perhaps teachers don’t have as much, leeway to, to sort of tell kids off or punish them in the ways that they did.

It’s, it can be very difficult for, sort of parents to, because there’s, there can be a frustration sometimes to say, well just do as you’re told, and not understand the challenges that, a child is going through. How do you manage that? Sort of, well, I suppose empathy or lack of empathy.

When they, say, we, in our day, we just had to get on and do it, otherwise we’d been told off. So how do you manage that?

[00:08:37] Leanne Tran: That’s such a good question. It’s ’cause I think it touches on a few things. And one is that we typically approach parenting in the way that we were parented as well. And the difference to that is if there was some particular thing we didn’t like and where we wanna be intentional about doing it differently.

But then I think I. [00:09:00] There are some things that parents did back in that day that still, that, that weren’t great either. And an example is talking about physical discipline and parents will often say, well, I was smacked and I turned out fine. And to some degree that could be true, but maybe it’s still.

A better thing that we don’t hit each other in, in trying to have relationships with each other. So there are still some things that we can do differently, even if we think there were no problems with that way before. And so part of it is mind, changing mindset. And so I’ll often talk with parents about the.

Thinking about the relationships that they would like to have with their children and using that as a guide to kind of choose what to do in terms of discipline.

[00:09:51] Laurence Pratt: Yeah.

[00:09:51] Leanne Tran: The other approach I take too is, I. Education about what’s different about, kids, for example, with [00:10:00] ADHD and how their brains are wired differently.

And so that means certain things that might work for typical kids like punishment, don’t work as well for ADHD brains because they’re just not wired to, make the connections in that way. And so I. Take it from the approach then for parents, like we’re all busy, we’re all tired, so do we wanna take the long and difficult path or do we wanna try and work a little bit better with our, the way our child’s brain is so that we can fast track making the changes that you wanna see?

Um, and most times parents are happy to opt for the faster way to see some changes.

[00:10:39] Laurence Pratt: Yeah, I just want to say I wasn’t condoning

[00:10:43] Leanne Tran: Oh, no,

[00:10:43] Laurence Pratt: were

[00:10:44] Leanne Tran: know. No, I know.

[00:10:46] Laurence Pratt: I, I think, from my own, looking back at my own childhood,I, my. ADHD was not, it wasn’t, I wasn’t sort of physically restless and therefore sort of causing a nuisance in class. It was, it’s more [00:11:00] internal.

So I wasn’t getting sort of into trouble in any ways like that. But, I think I. For me, RSD plays a big role in my life now. And so the fear of being told off meant that I, would behave and I’d be, and that’s okay for, from a teacher’s point of view, that’s good.

It means you can teach a class of, 30 kids or whatever, and it’s easier. But, I think later on in life, if I look at some of the things that I. Haven’t done because I feel like I need permission to do them, rather than being a sort of slightly more risk taking or things like that.

And I think, I would say one of the downsides of, being strict parents or teachers is that you do sort of restrict, an individual’s, creativity, let’s say. but. But anyway, but on the flip side of that, I wonder, and I’m just thinking about this sometimes, what do you say towards, what, how do you work with a child in terms of helping them understand, the challenges that they’re facing?

And is there a [00:12:00] risk of sort of, this is gonna sound, I don’t know if this sounds very good, but if you give them too much choice, will they become overwhelmed by choice And like, if you’re trying to get your child to. Want to go into school that day, and it feels like they don’t want to because they’re overwhelmed by the choices that have been begin.

They’re being given rather than being told you’re going into school anyway. How do you balance that?

[00:12:26] Leanne Tran: Yeah, I think that is, a good point. Usually, I think lots of these things you can still do by understanding, your child and how they work. It’s not necessarily, it doesn’t really mean that you have to change the boundaries that you wanna keep and the values that you wanna follow as well.

And so for kids, it means you can still be really firm about the expectation that they go to school. but it might be more a matter of making sure that teachers are on board with how. Your child can [00:13:00] meet their movement needs or their fidgeting needs throughout the day and have brain breaks and all of that kind of stuff.

And a lot of the time it’s, I would probably say that it’s fairer, to put it, that on the adults rather than on the children, especially in primary school age. Because like you mentioned about not feeling comfortable to, maybe do the wrong thing. Lots of kids aren’t comfortable asking for help either, and so it’s.

Really more effective if teachers can be the ones who know that the kids need help and they offer the help and make sure it’s there throughout the day, rather than kids having to be in charge of advocating for their own needs. And I think as they grow up and head into high school, they can become better at that.

But it’s, ADHD too makes regulation in general difficult. And so that means it’s hard enough for kids to do it and putting that [00:14:00] extra demand of having them try and advocate for their own needs is a bit unfair, I think. Yeah. I dunno if that answered your question properly or if you

[00:14:09] Laurence Pratt: Well, it

[00:14:09] Leanne Tran: follow up.

[00:14:10] Laurence Pratt: yeah. It’s given me another avenue to go down in terms of, the advocating for your child.

[00:14:16] Advocating for Your Child at School

[00:14:16] Laurence Pratt: what, take me through how you. Sit down with some parents and advise them on how they should be advocating for their child at school. You mentioned, movement breaks and fidget breaks and things like that.

How do you coach, or advise parents on being able to do that with their school?

[00:14:36] Leanne Tran: Usually it’s about, first of all, understanding what works for your child. And parents need to. Some parents just intuitively know that. And it depends of course, how long they’ve been supporting their child with ADHD as well. In the beginning it’s new and there’s lots of learning, but some parents instinctively know that their children need [00:15:00] breaks or,

Movement and all of this kind of thing. If not, sometimes it comes from a child working with a psychologist or an occupational therapist who can make some recommendations for what a child needs. But then, so I would, then, talk through those recommendations or the strategies that parents know, work and talk to them about.

Communicating that with the school and the teachers. The way I put it to a lot is in terms of, those are things that a child with ADHD might need in order to access the curriculum that they’re being taught. So it’s not just a, a special treatment or favour, it’s that they actually can’t, access the learning they’re supposed to do without this support.

And that really conveys how important. It is that kids receive what they need

[00:15:52] Leanne Tran: and the system’s probably different country to country too. But here we have some documents that, our education [00:16:00] department have that kind of guide parents through some questions about what supports their child might need.

And that’s a really good place to, to start. And parents usually do that with their children. Even when they’re young, you can ask them questions about what makes it easier to be in class and that kind of thing. So, yeah, working on it with your child and the therapist who might be involved to come up with a list of suggestions that you can pass on to the teachers is how to do it.

[00:16:32] Laurence Pratt: And I mean, one of the, one of the challenges I. Sort of see when working with children, I don’t, I-A-D-H-D coach and I work with adults and one of my fears about working with children is. They, the seeming sort of lack of autonomy that they have within a classroom situation. So if you’re coaching an adult, you can say, oh, take a break when you [00:17:00] do this, et cetera.

Whenever this is happening and that, as an adult you’ve got a bit more autonomy to be able to do that and advocate for yourself. But it’s very challenging. I suspect for a child to be able to do that without the support of a teacher to, sort of under understanding that, is that, how challenging is that to overcome, for parents and teachers?

[00:17:26] Leanne Tran: I think, you’re right, but there is that difference. Children are. Not independent. They’re relying on, parents at home and then they’re relying on teachers at school to, support them and help them with those things. And so it’s more so the parents advocating for the support a child needs to the teachers.

And then that’s why I think they need to. It’s the adult responsibility. I think how hard it is really depends on the child, but also the teacher and the culture of the school as [00:18:00] well, some kids will be really good at advocating for themselves and they will stand up and say, I need a break, or I need to walk, or something like that.

Whereas some kids. Won’t they, because they might not recognize what they need or they don’t feel confident or, they’re nervous. Lots of different reasons. but. I think and the other thing that makes it challenging is how accepting the school is of differences and accommodating that into the classroom.

Which I think comes back to your earlier point about how classrooms could be really different today than they are, than they were in the past. I think one thing the school systems are getting better at is supporting, Kids to learn in a variety of different ways. And so they’re a bit more accommodating of kids doing it in, different ways.

But it, it still does depend on the culture and how open the school is to supporting kids. I.

[00:18:56] Laurence Pratt: No, I think, and I think it’s. I imagine being a [00:19:00] teacher in schools these days is very challenging from what we hear about, the pressures for teachers. Just by, merely trying to keep up with, exam results and things like that, that it can, I imagine, be very hard trying to also manage differing needs from differing pupils.

So yeah. It’s very challenging. Obviously if you’re a parent of a child with ADHD or autism, you want your child’s be being met and it can be very difficult to empathise with the struggle that the teachers are having trying to manage all of those different things.

But yeah, certainly a challenge.

[00:19:35] Managing Behavior at Home

[00:19:35] Laurence Pratt: I wonder if you mentioned earlier you about, behavior at home and I wonder, do you have any frameworks within which you work with parents about how they can approach understanding behavior at home? What, could you tell us a bit more about what you meant by that?

[00:19:54] Leanne Tran: Yeah, sure. I think, the. Problems that parents bring, I guess are just, [00:20:00] if they’re, that’s usually what they would identify as behaviors that are problem behaviors. And that can be really wide ranging, but it’s often, things like not doing what their kids are told, like getting ready for bed and things like that just make. The normal parenting experience really difficult. I use a positive behavior support approach. And that really is about trying to see the behavior rather than just as a, willful difficulty as an expression of either an unmet need or that kids are trying to communicate something through their behavior.

And usually it’s. There’s a purpose to behavior. We all do things for a reason. We don’t really, do things just randomly. So the behavior always communicate some kind of, usually an unmet need, which means something the child [00:21:00] needs that they’re not getting in that moment. or it. Communicates a skill that they don’t have yet.

So that what you are asking them to do is kind of beyond their capacity in the moment. And so if I use bedtime, for example, with a child with ADHD, it might mean that some. The prob problem might look like not going to bed and coming out of their, room a lot and not doing what they’re supposed to do, which is just go to sleep.

But the underlying difficulties might be trouble with. Regulating to, to try to calm down and change from an active afternoon into a quiet evening. And it could be that the skill the kids don’t have is being able to remember all of the steps that they’re meant to follow, like getting dressed and brushing their teeth and all of that kind of thing.

So it’s, the approach is really about trying to understand and empathize with your child in [00:22:00] that moment. If you can do that, then it gives you the key to what to do about the behavior because it’s teaching a certain skill or it’s, putting things in place that help the routine, like some visual charts for nighttime steps and that kind of thing, rather than being in a position of where that the child’s not doing what you want and then you’re left with kind of discipline as your options.

[00:22:24] Laurence Pratt: Let’s talk about that moment being in the moment, because I think that is, well, even for adults, that is the most challenging part, but especially in the moment of parenting as well, is how do you deal with the be, let’s say you’re saying problem behavior is happening, whatever it is.

How do you approach tackling it in the moment? Because I use an analogy of a lot of, the chimp brain taking over and it’s possibly that emotional dysregulation or the unmet need, as you were saying. [00:23:00] and. The child you want to connect with, or the part of the child that you wanna connect with the human brain, the logical brain, but that’s not there at that moment.

It’s, the chimps in charge. So, how do you deal, how do you approach dealing with that so that you can work through it in the moment? Women,

[00:23:18] Leanne Tran: I think as a parent, the first step is. Regulating yourself, which is sometimes hard, because it’s frustrating when things aren’t going to plan. So, and for me, that looks like taking a deep breath, like more than one a lot of the time, or taking a minute out to try and really center myself. And then I’ll go to.

Then go and connect with your child. And so whether that’s physically is a good way. Lots of times when that, I love your idea of the chimp brain. It’s because we know when kids too are emotional, their ability to problem solve and communicate is not great. it drops [00:24:00] down. So you connecting non-verbally a lot of the time.

So it might mean touching kids on the. Two shoulders or on one shoulder, not in a firm way, but just a connection way. Maybe getting, saying their name, looking at them, and then getting them to maybe do some deep breathing. A lot of the time, if you do it yourself, kids will mimic that. and then.

I use a lot less language than usual. And so it might mean that then you are redirecting the child to what you want them to do with maybe one or two words. Like it might be saying it pajama time and then, having your kid try and go and focus on that. so it’s regulating yourself, trying to regulate your child a little bit, and then giving short, simple instructions that they can follow one at a time.

[00:24:51] Laurence Pratt: Yeah, I like. I like that, perhaps just diffusing a situation with some connection. And then once maybe it’s, calmed [00:25:00] down a little bit, then give sort of simple instructions of what to do next.

[00:25:05] Leanne Tran: Sorry. I was just gonna say that as psychologists, in terms of the positive behavior support too, we’d see that what to do in the moment. There is like around 10% of the effort you’re going to manage behavior. And the other 90% is trying to put things in place to. To encourage the behavior and the regulation that you want to see.

So that might be like setting up the environment to be, to suit your child with some visual steps and information. It’s teaching them skills, it’s having things in place to reward, the positive things you want to see. So 90% of that. Yeah. 90% of your effort towards the behavior happens when you’re not actually seeing the behavior.

And so when things are going pear shaped, that’s when you just gotta work on calming down the situation, really. That’s your [00:26:00] primary focus.

[00:26:01] Laurence Pratt: And I wonder if, maybe this leads us on into another question. So we talked about in the moment, dealing with, behaviors in the moment, but what can parents do? In the buildup, like your preparation for bedtime, let’s say, or, in any part of life.

[00:26:18] Dealing with Digital Dopamine and Screen Time

[00:26:18] Laurence Pratt: and I’m leaning towards a question about, ’cause I know you wrote recently about, or spoke recently about digital dopamine and that effect. And I was, witness to a conversation recently, about parents discussing. Phone regulation and social media and all that sort of thing.

I mean, it’s very difficult ’cause a phone, it is, gives you access to lots of different things, positive things and negative things. And so I wonder how does a parent manage that or navigate that minefield, of, digital dopamine.

[00:26:52] Leanne Tran: Yeah, it’s a tricky one, but I think, I guess to go back to your other question, which is about how do you set up these [00:27:00] things? I think it’s about for every family too, it’s based on what your values are and what is important or feels right to you as a family. But there’s lots of things that you can do to try to encourage your children to develop and have the life that you want them to have.

And so whether that’s. For example, if screen time as an example, if you know that’s a challenge for your child, you can either let them have full access to it and manage the problems every day, or you can try to put in place some limits and boundaries around it. And encourage things like other activities.

So there’s lots of other things to do in the environment and you’ve got ways to encourage good behavior and that kind of thing. And then you kind of have less problems overall that you’re dealing with. So my view about the screens is kind of, follows that [00:28:00] path as well. We, there is some evidence that shows that having a little bit each day is, can be helpful for kids, because. Particularly for games and that kind of thing, it’s a social experience for kids where they might play together. But then they’ve also got a bit of shared knowledge to talk about at school, um, and play games based, in the playground based on perhaps Minecraft or whatever they play online.

So. I think every child is different, every family is different, but trying to have really clear boundaries, about it in terms of how many hours a day they use it. What type of programs they use. Also, what time of the day they use programs. And this is screens in general, but then for mobile phones, I think it becomes a different beast really [00:29:00] because it’s, something kids can access a lot easier.

If they have a phone, it’s portable, they can take it with them all the time. So, We advocate for minimal use. So there’s still a little bit of that social connection, but it’s not enough to, interrupt other things that kids should be doing, like, playing with siblings or friends in real life and doing physical activity and all of that kind of stuff.

You can use lots of parental controls that limit the screen time that kids have, which is really useful. But I think, I guess my approach is that it’s far better to prevent challenges than have them there and then have to deal with them, all the time. Because if you’re fighting over screens.

With your kids each day, it kind of, then, everybody’s stress level raises, changes the interactions and relationships that you [00:30:00] have with your kids. So, in my view, it’s probably better to be that unpopular, strict parent than. The one who’s then dealing with repercussions of phone addiction or mental health difficulties, or in some extreme cases, I guess we see lots of kids who then, don’t wanna go to school because they’re playing games all day at home, otherwise.

And so, yeah, maybe I’m skewed by seeing lots of difficulties, so I’m a lot more wary in my own life.

[00:30:32] Laurence Pratt: No, I wonder, I suppose the challenge as well, and I wonder what your thoughts are on, on, establishing those boundaries before. Before, Acting on them, I suppose, because, I’ve definitely been in, in the situation where, you’re letting your child, whether it’s watching TV or playing on an iPad or something like that.

And then you suddenly, you look back on the day, you think, oh, this is too long now. And then you decide to say That’s enough. And [00:31:00] the reaction you get then it’s like, that’s unfair. This is out of the blue, whatever. Whereas as I suppose, if you establish boundaries in the first place, so they know and they know that they’re going into a period of, whatever the time period is to, it becomes easy to negotiate that coming out of, rather than just being inconsistent and saying, no, that’s enough.

Now I’ve had enough. I’ve just realized you’ve been on so long. And also the challenge is. Is our own hypocritical use of phones as well, because it’s so difficult to see, when you see a child on an iPad or a phone and you know you are on an iPad or a phone, they, they look identical. But, you might be doing something that you perceive as being, a dopamine.

Negative dopamine activity compared to something that might be like drawing something creative or playing a creative green. So it’s very difficult to say,voh, I was trying to do something really important, book something or pay some bills, we need this to help the house.

Or, but they’re like, well, you’re on the phone chatting to your friends. Like, I want [00:32:00] to

[00:32:00] Leanne Tran: that’s right.

[00:32:02] Laurence Pratt: yeah.

[00:32:02] Leanne Tran: Yep. You can be adding things to the shopping list and they will not see it as different to what they wanna do. So I talk about trying to make family agreement as well, about, screen use because I think then it’s not, it’s not just parents telling kids what to do and doing different.

Using phones differently ourselves, which is a bit hypocritical. Kids don’t like that. They don’t wanna follow rules that we don’t ourselves follow. And the family agreement too means that then kids can bring us, into line if we do the wrong thing. Like, use our phone at the dinner table for example, if that’s against.

Your guidelines as a family. And so it encourages a bit more of like an open communication about it and it’s a bit more of an even playing field. But I think too, the boundaries really do let kids know what to [00:33:00] expect. And your example about spending too long on screens for a day, I think every single parent everywhere has experienced that, particularly in school holidays.

But then you can say, well, we really. Lost track of that. We did not stick to our boundary today, but we can tomorrow, we’ll try again. Whereas if you’ve never had that boundary in the first place, it is a lot more difficult to claw it back and it becomes an argument then. But if you decide together on, on things in the beginning, I think it’s a good way to go.

And you can explain to kids too, that. Some of you know some of the good things about using a phone and a screen, but there are also some negative things as well.

[00:33:43] Courses and Resources for Parents

[00:33:43] Laurence Pratt: I just in the time that we’ve got left, I wonder if we can talk a little bit about how you work, with parents or anybody listening who wants to reach out to you. I noticed you’ve got some, courses on your website, so, can you tell us a little bit about what to expect from those and then what to expect from working directly with [00:34:00] you as well?

[00:34:02] Leanne Tran: I think, I. I guess it’s my courses are for, to provide information for parents on things like how brains are different when, kids have ADHD, and then some of the parenting strategies that I. Work a lot better for kids with ADHD rather than the typical parenting advice we might, have been, we are given all the time by everybody, but also how our parents raised, raised us.

And so it’s. It’s based on things that I noticed were common difficulties for parents, and it’s things like, how to give instruction so that your kids will understand and do what they’re asked to do. But also in terms of how you can. Structure things at home to work a bit better with the ADHD brain and things like, so your kid doesn’t have to [00:35:00] remember all the things you want them to do, which is really hard.

And so they’re ones that you can access, any time. There’s one for primary schoolers with, for, with ADHD, and there’s also one for teenagers with ADHD because teens are a little bit different, in terms of what they need, but it’s designed to be. Really easy for parents to access as well. So the videos are quite short so that you can watch them in the, waiting for the, picking the kids up for school or, I had a parent the other day say that she did a couple at the gym while she was on the treadmill, which is great ’cause it’s trying to make it easy for parents to access this information.

And then when you, when parents work with me individually, we meet initially to go through in, I have a Chaos to Calm program, which is a bit more intensive, and we meet initially to talk about,. Your own child and then your own family and set [00:36:00] some ideas of what might be the priorities to look at.

Then there’s the program to go through with lots of that easy to access information. And then we have a session again to review it at the end to see, how things are going now and whether there’s more things in the future to work on or whether you’ve got things covered and are feeling really confident.

[00:36:22] Laurence Pratt: Fantastic. well that and your website is learn dot lean tran.com.au and

[00:36:31] Leanne Tran: over in Australia?

[00:36:33] Laurence Pratt: I’ll put a link to that in, the show notes. So have you got anything else coming up this year that you’d like to talk about? Any plans for the future?

[00:36:44] Leanne Tran: I don’t think so. I not, oh, actually I do. with, I was thinking about whether it’s re related to ADHD. I do have a program I’m working on now, which is specifically around sleep. For with ADHD ’cause that’s quite a [00:37:00] common challenge as well. And if kids aren’t sleeping, then the parents aren’t either.

So, that’s a big complaint I hear, and that will be just a mini course. Trying to just look at that one particular area.

[00:37:13] Laurence Pratt: And I wonder, not to give too much away, but, I wonder what is going on with that challenge, how is, first of all, why are children with ADHD having challenges with sleep?

[00:37:27] Leanne Tran: The reasons why there are a couple, but what it kind of comes down to the regulation difficulties with ADHD and how that affects the, the kind of. Brain systems as well. So for example, melatonin is the chemical produced at nighttime to tell us it’s nighttime and time to go to bed. And that the regulation of that cycle is different in kids with ADHD.

So it means they’re not getting the same signal to wind down for bed that other kids are getting. But then [00:38:00] some of it’s about behavior as well, and that it’s. It’s more difficult for ADHD as who are maybe hyperactive to, to stop that hyperactivity as well to calm down for bed. So there’s a few different things going on because of the way ADHD brains are made that make sleep, challenging.

And so some of the answers to that are things like having really strong sleep hygiene. So you have really strict times where you transition into, lower lights for the environment and calmer activities to try to really. Bring on that natural melatonin release for kids. And then we also talk about some of the things you can do to, amp up the relaxation for your kids.

So kind of visualization and muscle relaxation and all of that kind of stuff that can help as well.

[00:38:55] Laurence Pratt: I’m just thinking, I get told off a lot for winding the kids up [00:39:00] just before bed

[00:39:02] Leanne Tran: Yep.

[00:39:03] Laurence Pratt: I think they know that I get quite excited about. Like just if they ask me questions about things that I like talking about,

[00:39:11] Laurence Pratt: I think they do it on purpose, then they know they’ve got me and then they can stay up for longer.

’cause I’m chatting away

[00:39:17] Leanne Tran: Yep. Maybe.

[00:39:18] Laurence Pratt: exciting. So, I mean, I tho I suppose that drifts into the challenges of when, a parent with ADHD is, parenting a child with ADHD.

[00:39:27] Leanne Tran: Exactly, because we’re talking about all of these routines and things that, that need to happen that can help an ADHD child. But if you have ADHD yourself or just, and that’s, I experienced that in our family as well, but, don’t have that. Routines are boring as well, and often ADHD brains don’t like boring stuff.

And so it’s trying to keep that routine yourself and not be bored by it. And being easily tricked into things like that are,impulsivity [00:40:00] is part of it too, isn’t it? They ask you a question, you’ve got an interesting answer, and you’re like, yes, let’s do that instead.

[00:40:08] Laurence Pratt: Yeah. Yeah. well, yes. No, I mean. Yeah, it’s always happening. 

[00:40:12] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:40:12] Laurence Pratt: But, anyway, thank you so much for, coming on the show and, yeah, I advise anybody who is, listening who’s a parent, with children with ADHD or autism to go on over to Leanne’s website and take a look at those courses and get in touch.

So thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a pleasure to chat with you.

[00:40:32] Leanne Tran: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It’s been great to, yeah, talk through a lot of the, ins and outs of parenting a child with ADHD and I’m sure it will, have helped some parents listening out there.

[00:40:45] Laurence Pratt: I hope so too. Yeah. Okay. Well enjoy the rest of your day or the evening as it were

[00:40:51] Leanne Tran: Yes. Yeah. Thank you.[00:40:54] Laurence: Well there, we have it. Thank you so much for listening this far. If you want to hear more [00:41:00] episodes, then please subscribe on YouTube or whatever podcast platform you use. It really helps us spread the word. So if you know anyone, this episode could help, then please share it with your friends. If you want to follow me on social media, I am on Instagram at ADHD underscore goals. And you can find me on Facebook too. If you want to get into touch with the show, then you can email me at hello@adhdgoals.co And finally, if you’re struggling to manage your ADHD and you would like me to be your coach, then please head over to my website and get in touch. Until next time. Bye for now.