How To Effectively Support Your ADHD Teen
If you have an ADHD kid you understand the frustration, arguing, and misunderstanding this can cause for parents and their kids.
My special guest today is Dr. Norrine Russell, she is an Executive Functioning & ADHD Expert who founded Russell Coaching for Students in 2009. She is also the mother of two atypical children, Dr. Russell knows firsthand that being a parent of a struggling student is tough.
Scroll down to read the full episode transcribed.
What You Will Learn:
- How to work with, not against, your kids.
- The core symptoms of ADHD and what to do to form a deeper connection with your tween or teen.
- What most parents of kids with ADHD do not know that they need to know.
- She also shares some helpful responses and strategies to motivate and support your kid who is struggling.
- And much more!
Where To Find Dr. Norrine Russell:
Website: https://russellcoaching.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norrine-russell-820545184/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drnorrinerussell
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/russellcoachingllc/
Find more encouragement, wisdom, and resources:
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And here is the episode typed out!
Welcome to the Moms of Tweens and Teens Podcast. If some days you doubt yourself and you don’t know what you’re doing. If you’ve ugly cried alone in your bedroom because you felt like you’re failing. Well, I just want to let you know you are not alone and you have come to the right place.
Raising tweens and teens in today’s world is not easy. And I’m on a mission to equip you to love well, and to raise emotionally healthy, happy tweens and teens that thrive.
I believe that moms are heroes, and we have the power to transform our family and to impact future generations. If you are looking for answers, encouragement, and to become more of the mom and the woman that you want to be welcome. I am Sheryl Gould. And I am so glad that you’re here.
SHERYL: Welcome to the Moms of Tweens and Teens podcast, Dr. Russell. I’m so excited to have you here.
DR RUSSELL: I’m thrilled to be here. I can’t wait for our conversation.
SHERYL: Yeah, me neither. I was saying before we hit record that parents need you right now, more than ever, to hear what you have to share. So I just want to start with your personal story and what led you to do what you’re doing today?
DR RUSSELL: Sure. So, all of our stories, our life narratives, lead us in certain directions. So while my work today and for the last 13 years is really about kids who are neurologically atypical, an interesting part of my story is that I think that for me as a student, when I was 10, 11,12, 15, even 18, in college, the only way that I was atypical was that I was gifted.
I was a quirky kid who did not fit in the box. I loved learning, but I didn’t quite get to school. And so what’s been great about finding this place professionally, in the third stage of my career, is that I very much – even though I don’t have an ADHD diagnosis or an autism diagnosis, I very much relate to these kids in the sense of not feeling like you fit in or feeling different in some way, and yet wanting so much to be successful.
A huge part of my story is that I am the mom of two neurologically atypical children who are just amazing human beings and so full of love and potential and hard work and responsibility. But a very real part of my parenting journey, especially our older child, has been people, really even professionals, who are not that familiar with genuinely complex kids. Kids who have a multiplicity of diagnoses.
I felt alone. I was challenged. I looked for help. I’m a researcher by training. I felt so alone. And that’s not what I thought when I had a baby. You thought, oh, somewhere, there’s going to be some village, whether it’s the preschool village, the PTA village, whatever the village is going to be.
And that wasn’t my experience. I think in creating Russell Coaching, what I’ve tried to do is create a safe, warm, welcoming home for other parents of complex kids so that they feel understood and can become knowledgeable, so that’s, I think, my story in a nutshell.
SHERYL: Yeah. Now, how old is your oldest?
DR RUSSELL: He is almost 14, and my daughter is 12.
SHERYL: Okay. So I have to ask you because I’m relating to your story. After all, my oldest has an ADHD diagnosis. She’s 31 now, and she doesn’t need medication. She’s doing amazing.
But how I actually started on this journey that led to Moms of Tweens and Teens was because I didn’t understand her. I feel sad as I even say that because, at that time, ADHD was just coming to light. I remember standing at a bus stop and hearing a mom talk about her son’s diagnosis. And I was thinking it kind of sounds like my daughter.
All these light bulbs started going off. And it was a new thing. I am so grateful to have you on the show because I think when we don’t understand our kids when they’re neurologically atypical, it can create so much chaos in the home: misunderstanding, power struggles, fights, frustration on both sides, and this disconnection.
Which, at that time, was what I was experiencing because I didn’t get it. Because I didn’t get it, I wasn’t able to support her. I did end up learning how to do that. But at the time, I didn’t.
What are some of the things that you see working with parents? Do you see that gap and understanding and how it feeds into the struggle?
DR RUSSELL: I think, and I don’t know your story very well, so I don’t want to say too much here. But I think your story is not uncommon in the sense that we are now much more conscious of the possibility of an ADHD diagnosis. There’s a lot of discussion about it. People are much more open to the idea of “Oh, could that be ADHD.”
Where I think that the next decade needs to take us is so much better information about treatment for ADHD. So a lot of parents now can have a sense of, “maybe there’s something going on,” or “maybe that does seem a little different from her peers or his peers.”
But where I think that parents are struggling now today is that professionals in multiple communities really need to take up the banner of educating parents about ADHD treatment. This is what I see happening. A lot of times, a student gets a psychoeducational evaluation, or they get a neuro-psych eval, or they get a diagnosis from the neurologist, and there are all of these treatment options that are presented.
And it gets presented most of the time as if you’re ordering breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. Oh, “do you want to try some blueberry pancakes for your appetite this morning? Do you want to try some home fries? Do you want orange juice? Do you want coffee?”
We give the impression that there’s a menu of choices. And you as a parent are free to choose any of those things. But what science tells us is so different. And this is the gap that I see where I think parents struggle and where it definitely leads to kids struggling.
Most parents don’t know there are best practices in ADHD treatment, and there are logarithms for ADHD treatment. It’s not: try this, try that. What the science of it says (and this is in a 2019 paper from the American Academy of Pediatrics for best practices for diagnosing), identifying and treating ADHD is that multimodal therapy is what works.
The first aspect of that multimodal therapy is medication. Medication is the most powerful tool in your toolbox. And yet, what research tells us is there’s often a two-year delay between diagnosis and trying medication.
The second component of that multimodal approach is Parent Training and Education, which needs to go so much beyond your kid who has ADHD. It needs to get deep into the neurology of ADHD. How does the ADHD brain work? What else is affecting the student right now?
The third piece is that the school plan, which I think in the beginning people give far too much weight to the school, is going to take care of this problem. Then when we get to the adolescent years, what the American Academy of Pediatrics says is that specific skill training that is directly linked to school – that is concrete with specific feedback – will help with the building of those executive functioning skills.
But I’m sad to say I think if you asked parents, maybe one out of 10 would know that in order for their child to have the most effective outcome, they need to use multimodal therapy.
SHERYL: I didn’t realize medication was the number one. I know so many parents that are so resistant to that. That’s very interesting. I found out because my kids were diagnosed that I have ADHD, and it made so much sense.
Then I went on it like, “Oh my gosh. My life has changed.” It was a huge game-changer. Would you say that, oftentimes, I’ll put myself in this in this category? We may wait and hesitate. And it actually ends up hurting our kids because they aren’t able to be successful.
And that medication will actually help them to be more successful so that they can feel better about themselves. And so that down the road, because this is mostly tweens and teens on the podcast, we’re talking about that. They’re not looking to self-medicate.
DR RUSSELL: What I can say is so clear is that effective treatment makes a huge difference. And the strongest tool in the toolbox is medication. Is it easy? No. Do you often have to try a few different medications? Yes. Do you have to worry about dose and duration and work ever so carefully with your medical provider? Yes.
I don’t prescribe. That’s not my role. I’m a coach. What I can tell you, though, is that because there is not clear messaging from all of the fields that diagnose ADHD, parents wait. They want to be cautious because they love their children because they want to make sure they’ve done everything else.
Once a parent understands what the science of multimodal treatment means, I think that it destigmatizes medication in a way that’s really important.
But remember, we still in this country have a huge idea that ADHD is a question of, “you need to try harder, you need to focus. Well, you did it yesterday. Why can’t you do it today?” We still don’t approach ADHD from a brain first. And that’s why we don’t look at medication first. Whereas it’s so clear in everything else.
If I take my child to the eye doctor, and they need glasses, we don’t say, “Well, I’m going to sit them closer to the board at school, and I’m going to get them a computer and we’re going to up the zoom to 150%. And we’re going to get them wide lined paper. And we’re gonna see how they do with all those things. And then maybe in a year, let’s revisit glasses.”
We say, “let’s put the glasses on. And see what’s left. Do you still need to sit close to the board? Because maybe you need bifocals? Do you still need wide lined paper, because maybe your handwriting didn’t develop correctly.”
But I am hopeful and wishful for the day when parents walk out of that professional consultation when they get a diagnosis. And every single parent in this country understands why multimodal therapy is the goal and why it works.
SHERYL: Wow. Can you explain why they need medication so badly? Why can’t they just try harder? Learn better executive functioning skills? What’s going on in the brain that they can’t?
DR RUSSELL: On the level that we need to talk about it today, I think I can. I’m going to try. There are parts of the brain that are underactive in the ADHD brain. And they are the parts of the brain that control those executive functioning skills. These include things like working memory, prioritizing, planning, and self-reflection.
So an interesting paradox here is that we often think of the ADHD kid as “Ah, they’re hyperactive, they’re constantly in motion.” What we don’t realize is there are parts of their brain that are hypoactive that are underactive, and there really isn’t a way to use willpower to force the brain to become more active.
Now, having said that, some people are going to say, “well, when my kid is under a deadline, or if I offer my kid that $1,000 surfboard, or if I scream and I lose my temper, then they get it. Together.” Yes, because we have temper rarely raise the emotional valence so high that we have created an emergency in the ADHD brain.
But there is no way on an ongoing basis for one to regulate one’s brain in the areas where it is affected by ADHD. And basically, that’s that frontal lobe part. It’s also some of the deeper, more primitive parts of the brain that relate to motivation, which is one of the topics that’ll get sent to me. That puzzles parents and infuriates us so much. Like, “just get it done.”
But that, too, relates to the neurological wiring of ADHD. But here’s the thing, because it sometimes is there, and it’s sometimes not there. Adults tend to think this is voluntary behavior on the part of the student, as opposed to their brain working better one day than the other.
Let’s take our allergy metaphor. Some days, you might be able to walk out into the spring, and the pollen just hits you like a Mack truck, and you’re sneezing, and your eyes are running and all of that. The next day, you might go into the office, and someone else has been hit by the Mack truck of allergies, and you’re a little itchy, but not so bad. That’s also what ADHD is like – it varies from day to today.
SHERYL: Wow. Everything that you’re saying is resonating. I’ve been there, “you did it yesterday. But now today, you’re telling me you have no homework. But then I found out you’ve got like three missing assignments.” I get that whole thing.
But we don’t realize that it’s just a different day today. Especially when you’re a tween or teen, you have all the other stressors going on at the same time. And those hormones and the brain development. They’re individuating – that is a huge thing that I want you to speak to as well because you were referencing. I have so many questions for this interview. But they all sounded so similar.
This is what one mom had said. She said she tries to get her son’s help and support. (So I’m going to. I’m going to tell her about you.) And they say, “don’t tell me what to do.” And then she says, “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just suggesting something that would support you and make it easier for you.” “Well, you don’t have to tell me what to do; I know what to do.” “Okay, then go ahead and do it.” He says, “Okay, I will.” And he gets sidetracked, runs out of time, and doesn’t get the task done when he needs to. And then she says again, and again, and again. I know there are so many moms that are listening right now, and they’re like, “that’s me.” What would you say to this mom?
DR RUSSELL: This is every parent who comes into coaching students. “I have told him, I have told her, I know how he or she could do this.” And I’ll say, “You know what? You are absolutely right. You do know, here’s the interesting thing. Your son or daughter also knows that they need to do that. What they don’t know is how to self-regulate in order to get it done.”
So when they say, this is the conversation at my house (and it’s oversimplified when we’re talking about school.), “Please remember to brush your teeth.” I know, it’s the end of the day, I’m possibly a little tired. “Darling, I know that you know that you’re supposed to brush your teeth. What I’m worried about is will you actually brush your teeth? When you say I know to me, I know, you know. What I’m concerned about is will you remember to do it.”
So we as parents, I’m sorry to say we kind of have to up our game a little bit when it comes to how do we help students with ADHD. Especially complex ADHD, which means they have another diagnosis on top of the ADHD because they want to. They just can’t quite figure out the self-regulation piece of it. And then we also know that developmentally it’s possible that they could be delayed up to 30%.
So take the perfect storm of the tween years. We head off to sixth grade. We’re doing so great, we’re feeling on top of the world, sixth grade comes, we’re changing for all six classes, our hormones are all over the place, parts of our brain are resting because some of the more primitive parts are so very active.
And all of a sudden, they can’t remember how to do it. Then, as parents, sometimes we’ll jump in and tell them what to do or how to do it. But at that point, they’re engaged in that process of individuating. And they feel vulnerable and scared. And they want to feel loved and accepted.
All of this excellent advice that if your coworker took you to lunch and said, “Hey, I’m really having trouble meeting deadlines for our boss, what do you do?” And you’d be like, “Oh, these are my suggestions.” And your coworker would be like, “That’s awesome. I’m going to implement your second suggestion.”
It’s not what our middle schoolers and our high schoolers need from us as parents, and they need to be loved and accepted and understood. So we simultaneously with our kids who are atypical, get in these dual roles of, I’m going to teach you executive functioning, at the same time, I’m going to try to love you unconditionally, and it to be overly colloquial, it blows their mind. “Well, you don’t love me unconditionally if you’re telling me I have to do all these things.”
SHERYL: So what does that look like? Can you give the parents some tools? How do you talk without constantly nagging and reminding and telling them what they say they already know that they need to do?
DR RUSSELL: It starts in our hearts. It starts with an understanding that my tween or teen with ADHD is likely to be a little bit delayed in their development. And there is no way you can rush development.
Let’s take my 12-year-old who’s in sixth grade, and they might be more like a nine-year-old. You could remind them all day long. It’s not going to help. So we have to come back to what we know is the most important part of that parent-child relationship throughout all of eternity. It’s love. You have to love that child.
So one of the things I want to say so clearly to your listeners is,” it’s not about finding the right strategies. There are 1000 times a million times a billion strategies out there. It’s about meeting that child where they’re at and offering support and understanding of what’s the end game.
It is okay if your kid gets to that end game a little bit later. They don’t need to be that sixth-grade girl with the September birthday who’s got 15 color-coded folders and never misses a deadline. That’s okay, great for her. We couldn’t be happier for her. For our kid whose folders are falling apart by the third week of school and whose papers are crumpled in the bottom of the backpack with the crushed up Fritos. That kid is going to get there too.
Some of what I want to say is to let go of the idea that if you just found the perfect strategy, you’d solve the problem. So it’s on the part that makes a difference. Love your kid, accept your kid, be their advocate be on their team.
Now, what does that look like when we have very real school concerns? First of all, it means saying to ourselves, “Nobody’s life was decided in middle school or high school.” I get caught up in this. I had great grades. As a kid, I want my kids to have all A’s. I really do. I am ashamed and embarrassed to say this and know that 1000s of people are going to hear it. But I do. It’s important to me because I also know they have intellectual potential.
I have to stop and think, yes, but they also have some other things going on. We have to say it to ourselves, and then we have to say it to them. “Sixth grade is just really hard. It’s just really hard. And I see you trying your best.” Once we’ve given that message enough that it rings true in that child’s heart, we can introduce other messages. Like, “what’s one thing that’s super frustrating about the sixth grade? If you could change one thing about eighth grade, what would it be?” And then we listen, and we listen more, and we listen more.
The process of listening helps that tween or teen to figure out, “I could probably do this, or I could probably do that.” Or we can gently say, “let me know, if you’d like a suggestion about that. I know, I don’t have the answers, I know you’re going to figure it out different than I would. I know other people whose brains are wired like yours have to figure this out. I know the two of us together can figure out answers that are going to work for you.”
It’s more about building this loving, collaborative partnership with your child than about you as the mom. Getting on that achievement wheel of how many strategies can I have? How many posted notes can I have? How many different colored pens can I buy? How many different planners can I buy to make this thing happen? You can’t make it happen. It will unfold over time in the way that it’s intended to in your child. And you will be there to support it.
The safer your child feels, the more loved your tween or teen feels, and the more they’re going to feel like they can help. Because so often what happens, and I think you could speak to this, too, is all this resentment builds up and all this anger and like, “you never think I study. I did my best.” “Well, I didn’t see you study?” “Well, you didn’t see me because I was in my room. Well, I didn’t see you study. And I know you didn’t study for the last test.”
We need to move all of that aside and say, “I know what my kids strengths are, I know what my teenagers gifts are. I am going to nurture those. I am going to wait patiently by their side while these executive functioning skills develop. And if I need a professional to provide us with some support, because school really is challenging, or they want to do very well. If they’re in a very rigorous school, and they need more help than I can give them.” Knowing how you would solve this problem as an adult doesn’t mean you know how to teach them to solve the problem.
SHERYL: Gosh, there were so many good things. I wrote down some notes. I want to encourage moms to really take to heart what you said because so often, having a kid that has ADHD, and I know what this is like because I’ve experienced it, we are parenting out of fear.
We think that somehow like you said, we have to make this happen in order for our kid to be successful. And if we don’t make it happen, it’s going to be our fault. Or our kids are never going to go to that college that we want them to go to, or they’re never going to be able to be successful. They’re never going to make anything of their life, and they’re going to be totally disorganized. Their homes are going to be a pigsty for the rest of their life. They’re never going to have a relationship, and they’ll never be able to hold a job.
It’s this whole unraveling versus having three kids that are all thriving now. We found their strengths and their gifts. We end up focusing on the wrong things. Because we love them so much, but it’s like you have to think of it differently. And so I love listening, getting them to talk about what they hate. About sixth grade, though, they’ll have a whole long list. But we don’t usually even ask because we don’t want to hear because we’re afraid. Yes.
DR RUSSELL: Yeah, even being able to validate that: things are so overwhelming. One of the things that we frequently do in practice is taking a look at what is the worst-case scenario. So my kid has three A’s and three Fs. Today we’re going to have a team conference, and me, the coach, the parent, if the kids are in high school and it’s appropriate, we’re going to include them – but this is really for the parents, and so often the kid isn’t there. “Let’s take a look. Okay, we’re on April 25 right now. What if your kid gets three F’s in junior year of high school? What does that look like? What are the next steps? What’s going to need to happen? How do you make credit recovery? Where will he go from here? When he graduates from high school? Will he be able to graduate?”
There is an astonishing lack of information about what happens when a kid is unsuccessful in school. We’re just all in this rat race where we have got to make them successful. You got to make them successful, and you got to add more accommodations. You got to add more services.
Well, you know what? We can also pause for a moment and recognize what we are so afraid of. What happens when the F comes? What happens? I have a family right now who’s dealing with this. What happens if that child gets asked to leave their private school? What happens when my first-year college student doesn’t succeed? Which is what happens about half the time for kids with ADHD?
Let’s have a real conversation. Let’s have a difficult conversation. Let’s look at it because once we look at it, it gets much less scary because we become empowered with what are the options. “Okay, he has three Fs, if he fails three classes, he’s going to have to make credit recovery. He can probably do two this summer, he might be able to squeeze one in during the school year and graduate on time. He might get one done this summer, during the school year, and have to do one the next summer and get his diploma late. He might be able to take a class online and use that as a substitution.”
We just don’t know. But we love them so ferociously because we see all the good. And we don’t. We don’t want those stories. You know, moms who have complex or simple ADHD kids are the same as every other mom. We really don’t mind doing a little snow blowing or helicoptering, and ultimately, they’re going to find their path.
SHERYL: I bet you’ve seen a lot of success stories. And that makes you love what you do. It’s trying to stick a round peg into a square hole or the square peg into the round hole, and it doesn’t fit. And that’s okay. When parents come to that realization, do you find that it really helps them to, for lack of a better word, feel calmer and like, “Okay, this is going to be okay.” Have you witnessed that happening when you just say, “okay, there’s other options?”
DR RUSSELL: I am experiencing the most beautiful coaching relationship right now. I don’t really take on new students now. Because of my role and what I want to be doing, I’m committed to mentoring and supporting the other coaches. But I have people I know who happened to be in town here in Tampa, where we work with kids across the United States. So, this is a fluke that I’m still in Tampa, and this kid is in Tampa, and the parents needed me.
She’s a junior in high school and has always struggled with reading. She’s had just a disastrous public school experience, and they pulled her out. In Florida, you can enroll in something called Florida Virtual School Flex, where you can take all of your classes online. So the parents were considering this over the winter break. “What do we do?”
We have a lot of long conversations, and that’s the direction they ended up going. And their daughter now comes into my office three times a week. Within a couple of weeks, we came to the team and decided also to have her evaluated for ADHD. Turns out she does very much have ADHD, which is just being diagnosed now as a junior in high school. She is now getting treatment for that.
I just want to share these words with you because they’re so powerful. The mom said, “I feel like I am giving birth all over again to my real daughter.” And honestly, it’s that powerful because ADHD is that complex.
It so often comes with other things. And it’s so infuriating and maddening that when you can put the right treatment pieces in place, very little of which has to do with coaching. But what we can do is educate and advocate and help parents ask the right questions, which is the title of my upcoming book, “Asking Questions about ADHD.”
It’s beautiful. It’s magical. The child can self regulate, the teenager can achieve at the level of their potential without feeling so anxious and stressed out and depressed and like it’s not worth it, or nothing they do is ever going to make a difference. I’m passionate about it, as you can see.
SHERYL: Yeah. Oh, that’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. It makes me think of my oldest one. She was diagnosed, and she actually got mad. She’s brilliant. She said, “I’m so mad because everybody my whole life has been telling me that I’m an underachiever. And I’m not living up to my potential. And now I found find out there’s a reason.” And then she did go on medication and in college, and it was a bumpy ride because she didn’t make it through that freshman year.
But then, once she got on medication, she ended up enrolling herself, went and ended up tutoring ADHD kids at college, and thrived. But it didn’t look like I thought it was supposed to look. So yeah, you’re giving so much hope to so many parents, which leads me to the next question. Talk about your book, coming out this summer.”
DR RUSSELL: I didn’t think I was ever going to write a book because I didn’t think I had a book to write. But the book that I have written is being finalized and is asking the right questions about ADHD before, during, and after the diagnosis. It’s what we 100% stand for at my practice Russell Coaching.
It’s how do you empower yourself? How do you know what the practical things to do next are? And so the book is really a compilation of, “Oh, does my kid maybe have ADHD? Is the teacher hinting at that? Is the teacher hinting, but I don’t really know how to read that hints? I don’t know what she’s saying.”
There’s a whole section, the first third of the book is on before the diagnosis, the thoughts that go through our heads: “Well, should I get an evaluation? Is that just a cop out? Will people think differently?”
All of those questions, then, during the diagnosis, many of us don’t understand the diagnostic process. Unless you’re a licensed psychologist or you’re a practicing neurologist, or a child psychiatrist. Of course, you don’t know that. Did you know anything when your kid broke his leg? No, you didn’t know anything about that either.
SHERYL: Yeah. It’s like a different language.
DR RUSSELL: Completely. What questions do you need to ask during the diagnosis process? Which I think is one of the most vital ones? What else does my child have, in addition to ADHD? And what does that look like? When you put those pieces together when you combine anxiety with ADHD? When do you combine autism with ADHD? What does that look like? It’s not two separate things. It’s not a shirt and pants.
And then after is all about treatment and advocacy. Figuring out how do you ask the questions of the doctor? And what information do you take to your medical provider?
One of the pieces of advice that we commonly give at the practice is to map out your middle school or high schooler’s schedule. What time do they wake up? What time does school start? What time to school? What did the hours between the end of school and going to bed look like? And when do they need good symptom control? They need it during school, and they need it later in the evening. Take that specific, concrete numerical data to the doctor and say this is my kid’s schedule, and this is the medication you’re pursuing. You are helping them have good symptom control during those times. We’re not giving any medical advice, but what we’re trying to do is bridge the gap between what goes on and what the child needs. Does that make sense?
SHERYL: Oh, yes. So much. I don’t think anybody’s written a book like that. We need that book so badly. This is what you do, and this is if you’re asking those questions, and then how do you go about getting the diagnosis? Then what do you do after it’s so needed? Tell them how to find your book and your coaches?
DR RUSSELL: The website for the practice (we work with kids across the United States) is Russellcoaching.com. We are pretty easy to find also on Facebook at Russell Coaching and Consulting. We do have an Instagram page, Russell Coaching LLC. And each week, we post tips. Right now, we’re teasing questions from the book. We started doing that a few weeks ago, and we’ll keep doing that until the book is out, which is really fun, so people can get a little preview on our Instagram account of the right questions to ask about ADHD.
The number for our office is 212-716-1161. And my personal email for your listeners is [email protected]. They are welcome to reach out to me there, and on the website, there are a number of podcasts that I’ve done and a number of blogs that we’ve written.
We really try to make information accessible to parents. Right now, with the practice, we are enrolling students in spring survival. So if you have that kid who you’re like, “how are they ever going to get from here to passing classes?” We have a program for that right now. It’s six sessions. What we do is just get it in order to pass as many classes as possible and relieve stress at home.
We’re also enrolling for our summer programs, most of which are preparing for middle school, preparing for high school, and then preparing for college. So what are the things we need in terms of social and emotional skills, executive functioning skills, study, and learning strategies? So both things are happening right now. And all the information and the registration forms are at Russellcoaching.com, for spring survival, for your kid who you’re losing sleep over right now. And then summer programs to be in the best shape possible for fall.
SHERYL: Wow, great. And I will put the links in the show notes, too, so they can just click on it and find you as well. So thank you so much for coming on and for writing your book I’m looking forward to it when it comes out. And just for being a light to parents and helping them with their kids because it’s so needed what you’re doing.
DR RUSSELL: Thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure to be with you and to have this conversation, and I truly hope that it provides some peace of mind and solace to parents who are maybe spinning their wheels looking for strategies, and instead, they can exhale and take their kid to lunch and listen.
SHERYL: Wonderful. Thank you so much.
