ADHD Beyond the Label with Penn and Kim Holderness

1. 0:00 – 1:51

   A new ADHD diagnosis: fear, guilt, and the “gifts” in a different brain

   1. BEDr. Becky0:00

      So many parents come to me asking, "My kid was just diagnosed with ADHD. Where do I even start?" There's confusion, sometimes there's guilt, sometimes there's fear, and parents often feel like they're doing something wrong that their kid can't focus or follow through. Now, ADHD can be complicated, but what I want you to know right from the start is that while it can be challenging, ADHD also signifies that your kid has some amazing gifts. Their brain works in a way that other people's brains don't, which means that in other environments and situations, they thrive. Like most things in life, two things are true. Today, I'm talking with Penn and Kim Holderness. They're parents, they're creators. They are children's book authors, and they wrote this incredible children's book about ADHD. It's this beautiful story that helps empower kids, helps kids feel understood, and I think also gives parents a lens to better understand ADHD and what it does and doesn't mean. Today, we're gonna talk about ADHD. We're also gonna talk about the overlap with deeply feeling kids, and we're gonna talk about what works, learning strengths, and you're just gonna get so much out of it, maybe for your kid or maybe for yourself. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. We'll be back right after this. Hi, guys.

   2. KHKim Holderness1:28

      Hi.

   3. PHPenn Holderness1:29

      Good to see you again.

   4. BEDr. Becky1:30

      Good to see you. I am so excited for this conversation. We are gonna talk so many things. We're gonna focus on ADHD, the way you guys think about it, and a framework that I think is gonna empower so many people. So let's just start with the basics. What is your experience with ADHD kind of personally and in parenting?

2. 1:51 – 3:22

   Penn’s late diagnosis and the unseen emotional side of ADHD

   1. PHPenn Holderness1:51

      Uh, I'll start with personally. Uh, I, I was diagnosed when I was 20, so, uh, the first 20 years of my life were a bit confusing. Um, I definitely knew that I was a little bit different from everyone else, particularly on the playground. I don't... I didn't have as much trouble in school, uh, until later on when critical thinking came up. But as a kid, I cried a lot, and not, not just when I was a toddler, but when I was in middle school, um, I found myself getting, like, really emotionally overwhelmed at certain situations or just so happy, uh, that I couldn't control myself on that end as well. Um, you know, sitting still was not really a great option for me. Um, when I had to sit still, the way that I released my energy was by chewing on my T-shirt, uh, for several years to the point that I would have this, like, giant collar of saliva.

   2. BEDr. Becky2:46

      [laughs]

   3. PHPenn Holderness2:47

      And it grossed out all of my friends, all of my teachers, and my parents, and the response was, "Well, you just gotta stop doing that." And, uh, you know, I, I, just like every other ADHD kid, I got corrected a lot, you know, when, when I was doing something wrong. But the, the toughest part was, you know, in, in, on, in the playground. And it wasn't like I grew up in the mean streets, it was... I was in a suburban town, and things didn't go my way, and I could not stop from, from feeling deeply and tearing up. And so, uh, getting the explanation when I was 20, um, was at least a [laughs] good start in the right direction, but there were even more challenges after that.

3. 3:22 – 4:32

   Parenting insight: emotional dysregulation as the missing piece

   1. KHKim Holderness3:22

      And I think in parenting, so we wrote our first book, ADHD is Awesome, and we just honestly were deeply curious about w- how this was impacting our marriage-

   2. PHPenn Holderness3:34

      Mm-hmm

   3. KHKim Holderness3:34

      ... and how AD... And so something we learned in that process that I was unprepared for is the emotional dysregulation-

   4. PHPenn Holderness3:44

      Mm-hmm

   5. KHKim Holderness3:44

      ... part of ADHD that everybody talks about, you know, "Oh, you're squirmy, and you, you know, can't sit still and you lose focus," but the emotional component to me is such a big thing that people often don't talk about. And it... So my son, who's now 15, has ADHD, and when he was diagnosed, I'm like, "Oh my God, that explains so much." That explains him, you know, losing a basketball game that where there's nothing on the line. He s- could not be consoled, felt everything so deeply. And um, and I was like, "Oh, God, get it together. You're nine," you know? And but he could not. And it just explained, it explained so-

   6. PHPenn Holderness4:23

      Yeah

   7. KHKim Holderness4:23

      ... much.

   8. PHPenn Holderness4:23

      Thanks for letting us steal feeling deeply, like, twice in that conversation.

   9. KHKim Holderness4:27

      Oh, maybe Deeply Feeling Kids and-

   10. PHPenn Holderness4:28

       Uh, stealing that 'cause we learned that from you, Dr. Becky.

   11. KHKim Holderness4:30

       Yeah, we learn- we learned those words from you.

   12. PHPenn Holderness4:31

       Yeah.

   13. KHKim Holderness4:32

       Yes.

4. 4:32 – 6:10

   From “Stop that” to “What’s underneath?”: understanding before intervening

   1. BEDr. Becky4:32

      Oh. Well, it's true, though. Like, you see a kid, and I think, Penn, it goes to what you were saying, too. So many times when our kids have any type of inconvenient behavior, we think, "Stop that. Stop that," versus, "Well, like, what's going on underneath that?" And I think then we confuse that. People will then say to me, and I know you two would, and, "Oh, so then it's just okay?" Like, we're not talking about whether a behavior is okay or is not. We're just talking about whether we want to be effective in understanding it [laughs] and intervening, and how could you be effective in intervening with, I don't know, a kid's layup if you don't understand why they're missing the layup? Like, trying to understand why they're missing doesn't mean you think it's cool that they're missing.

   2. PHPenn Holderness5:10

      Mm-hmm.

   3. BEDr. Becky5:10

      It's just the only way you could coach them is to understand it, and I think there's something about behavior in kids, probably it's hundreds of years of being parented through [laughs] punishment and control. I don't know, it's, like, in our bones, where we forget, "Oh, of course I have to understand why a kid is crying about basketball at age nine or why a kid is squirmy or why a kid does this so I can actually figure out what they might need," right?

   4. KHKim Holderness5:35

      100%.

   5. PHPenn Holderness5:36

      Yeah, I mean, w- we're talking about, we're talking about corrections, and we've... That's really all we knew. It's probably all our parents knew. It's definitely all our parents' parents used to-

   6. KHKim Holderness5:46

      [laughs]

   7. PHPenn Holderness5:46

      ... used to do. I went to... I don't know if I should tell this story. I went to visit my grandfather one time when I was, like, three years old, and I got... My dad told me this story. He's like, I got, I got back, and my dad was like, "How was your trip?" And I just kept saying, "Pop Pop Pank."

   8. KHKim Holderness5:59

      [laughs]

   9. PHPenn Holderness5:59

      "Pop Pop Pank." Uh, [laughs] like, that was something I hadn't ex-

   10. KHKim Holderness6:03

       We-

   11. PHPenn Holderness6:03

       But, uh, the point is that the evolution

   12. BEDr. Becky6:06

       Yeah

   13. PHPenn Holderness6:07

       We're getting better, right?

   14. BEDr. Becky6:08

       We're, yeah.

   15. KHKim Holderness6:09

       Yeah.

   16. BEDr. Becky6:09

       Yes.

   17. PHPenn Holderness6:10

       Yeah.

   18. KHKim Holderness6:10

       Yeah.

5. 6:10 – 7:24

   The ADHD label problem: why the name feels heavy (and inaccurate)

   1. BEDr. Becky6:10

      And, and I wonder if it has to do with, like I always think, I, I think diagnosis, let me just be clear, can be so helpful, okay? And like many other things that are nuanced, so many times the words for a diagnosis feel so judgmental, where at least in adults, at any age, I'm like, "Well, everything we're doing is an adaptation. We're trying to adapt," and then we put these mean words like Oppositional Defiant Disorder, you know, ADHD is like a disorder. And so I'm curious h- how, how you think about that label, that word. Is there another way to reframe it, or is it useful to think of it as a disorder? How do you two see that?

   2. PHPenn Holderness6:51

      The biggest issue is that there's no mention of the emotional component. Um, uh, and, you know, it's, it's, it's a regulatory difference. Uh, the name's terrible.

   3. BEDr. Becky7:00

      Terrible

   4. PHPenn Holderness7:00

      ... worse- Like, uh, yeah, I'm sorry. It is. We don't have a deficit of attention. We have plenty of attention. We just focus it in the wrong place a lot of the time.

   5. BEDr. Becky7:09

      [laughs]

   6. PHPenn Holderness7:09

      Um, m- many of us, including most girls who are under-diagnosed, it's not hyperactive, it's inattentive.

   7. BEDr. Becky7:16

      Mm.

   8. PHPenn Holderness7:16

      So that's not in the name. Um, and, you know, you could call it a disorder if you want to. I think a more accurate term would be a brain difference, so.

6. 7:24 – 12:07

   Diagnosis as information, not destiny: shifting from dread to empowerment

   1. KHKim Holderness7:24

      Yeah, a, a, a difference, a delay. I, I don't... It is one of the worst names, and it's... We were e- we were doing active work researching for our, our book. We didn't know it was gonna be a book at that time, but we were, I was trying to learn a lot, honestly, for the sake of our marriage. And when my son was diagnosed, we had s- we assumed, but you know, when you're in school, you need the paperwork and the, like all the-

   2. PHPenn Holderness7:45

      Mm-hmm

   3. KHKim Holderness7:45

      ... all the stuff. Even get, hearing it when it was delivered to me, and in-

   4. BEDr. Becky7:51

      Yeah

   5. KHKim Holderness7:51

      ... a house where ADHD is, like we talk about it, we celebrate it, it felt so heavy.

   6. BEDr. Becky7:56

      Yeah.

   7. KHKim Holderness7:56

      And my son, it, it felt like we got this really awful medical diagnosis. You know, some- some really, it was gonna be just like this really hard thing that he was gonna suffer with for the rest of his life, was-

   8. BEDr. Becky8:07

      Like you, you have cancer.

   9. PHPenn Holderness8:09

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BEDr. Becky8:09

       Kind of like-

   11. KHKim Holderness8:09

       Well, yeah

   12. BEDr. Becky8:10

       ... yeah.

   13. KHKim Holderness8:10

       And it felt so heavy. And we got in the car, and I was like, "Rewind, pause. We, we know th- this is gonna be okay. We know that this, this t- this is wrong. We know the amazing things your brain is gonna do." Called Penn. So when we, when by the time we got home, he had like, he was like, "Let's party. You have a brain like mine. Let's do it. Let's figure this out." Like, "What are you good at? What do we need help with?" Like-

   14. BEDr. Becky8:34

       Like-

   15. KHKim Holderness8:34

       ... the, the reframe.

   16. PHPenn Holderness8:35

       Yeah, the diagnosis point is, well, we talked about it in our kids book, and there's like a picture. We, uh, the biggest illustration we have in the book is the diagnosis. And okay, Becky's got it. It's like eight or nine pages in. Um, it's, it's the name, and then it, the name is literally causing the child to cower into the corner.

   17. BEDr. Becky8:53

       [laughs]

   18. PHPenn Holderness8:53

       Because yeah, so you see the girl, there she is. Um, it, you know-

   19. BEDr. Becky8:57

       [laughs]

   20. PHPenn Holderness8:57

       ... because it made me, it definitely, it definitely hits you with three negative hammers, deficit, hyperactivity, and disorder.

   21. BEDr. Becky9:05

       And, and you know, it's, so one of my friends whose husband coaches basketball, actually. I just keep going to basketball metaphors. But the kid was diagnosed with ADHD, and she was like, "Oh my goodness." And one of the things I said to her is, "First of all, I just want to remind you nothing has changed about your kid. Like, your kid before the label and after-

   22. PHPenn Holderness9:23

       Mm-hmm

   23. BEDr. Becky9:23

       ... it is no different, okay?"

   24. PHPenn Holderness9:24

       Mm-hmm.

   25. BEDr. Becky9:24

       "So let's just remember that." She's like, "That's helpful." And I said, "Let's think about it this way. Let's say," because I was talking to her and her husband, "there's a new player on the basketball team, and this kid tend to dribble a lot and, like, was often late to pass the ball, okay? And he came in and he said, you know, when someone told you, 'This kid has a passing disorder. They have a passing disorder,' right? Now, here's why that wouldn't be useful. 'Well, he's never gonna learn how to pass. Well, he's not gonna be a good player.' Here's why that could be useful. 'Oh, he's a little late to pass sometimes. He's also a really freaking good dribbler. Okay, that's really interesting. How might I coach him differently? What might he need in a different way? By the way, this kid still wants to play basketball. It, it, th- like, we have to help him, but this can actually help me think about how to coach him.'" And, and I, I feel like, I don't know if that resonates, right? And it kind of speaks to how a label can feel so heavy, or it can feel like this way of learning how to best empower your kid.

   26. PHPenn Holderness10:27

       Mm-hmm. Strengths-based-

   27. BEDr. Becky10:28

       Yeah

   28. PHPenn Holderness10:28

       ... teaching, yeah.

   29. KHKim Holderness10:29

       Yeah. I, absolutely. And, and it's so funny you go to athletics, because we use a lot of athletic metaphors in our house as well. But as, as a parent, something I have learned too is, and I learned this from professionals and I'm still working on it, is when the situation arises, like does the homework but doesn't turn it in, like the frustrating thing that seems so easy, we do go to, like, correction, or, I mean, I'm sorry, connection then correction. And it's like-

   30. PHPenn Holderness11:01

       Mm-hmm
7. 12:07 – 17:07

   Connection before correction: containment, emotions, and avoiding shame spirals

   1. BEDr. Becky12:07

      Yeah. And just to put a visual to that, okay? Because- I, I'm very logical, so when parents are like, "But why do I need to do that? My parents didn't do that," like-

   2. KHKim Holderness12:15

      That's my-

   3. BEDr. Becky12:16

      I don't want to explain it theoretically. Right. Like, sometimes it's actually helpful to be like, "Here's why it's actually efficient." When your kid is overwhelmed with homework, there's the emotions about the homework, and then there's the academic ability to do the homework. Okay? The truth is, if emotions are overpowering us, none of us can access whatever our, quote, "hard skills" are. This is why I always think it's so funny when people talk about emotion stuff as soft skills. I was like, "Those are the hard skills."

   4. KHKim Holderness12:39

      Those are the hardest ones.

   5. BEDr. Becky12:39

      Let's just get the order right.

   6. KHKim Holderness12:41

      Yeah.

   7. BEDr. Becky12:41

      Okay? And so let's say emotions and your son are overpowering him in his room, and you can actually visualize that. This is true for kids with ADHD. This is definitely true for deeply feeling kids. They have intense feelings. It's a big bubble, okay? What kids need with their big emotions more than anything else is containment.

   8. KHKim Holderness13:01

      Mm-hmm.

   9. BEDr. Becky13:01

      Because when a feeling has overpowered them, we can't make it go to zero-

   10. KHKim Holderness13:05

       Mm

   11. BEDr. Becky13:05

       ... but if someone can give us a little bit of a container, then we're not alone in it, which means someone's almost giving us a shell to put it in. They're like, "I will help hold this for you." And if someone does that for you, now instead of an emotion being 10 out of 10, maybe it's an eight out of 10. Right? And as soon as something's at an eight out of 10, we can work with that. We can literally work with that. When something's at a 10 out of 10, whether you think it's right, whether you think, "I wouldn't feel that way," whether you think it's ridiculous, the emotion is the truth. It's already here, people. We can't fight it. It's already happened. And so offering connection is a form of containment. When you say to someone, "I, I, I used to feel like that when I started my homework, too. Ugh, this problem feels too big to solve. Ugh," you'd probably rather be doing 197 other things except for homework, and you're still trying to figure it out. I get it. That stinks. You're kind of not just connecting. I think you're giving a container-

   12. KHKim Holderness13:59

       Mm

   13. BEDr. Becky13:59

       ... for someone, and they're like, "Great, I can put some of my feelings in, and maybe I'm left with 80%." And I think when you think about it that way, it not only becomes nice and relationship-building, it, it, it, you understand that it's actually also the most efficient, logical thing to do.

   14. KHKim Holderness14:15

       I, I d- I mean, you explained that so perfectly. I didn't, I never knew why it worked, but I even think within our marriage, you know, like the stove gets left on-

   15. BEDr. Becky14:26

       Mm-hmm

   16. KHKim Holderness14:26

       ... or s- or something like that, um, if I come at him screaming about how dangerous this is for our family, it, it, it's not gonna ... It's gonna make him feel great shame, um, and, like, this is based on a true story. But if I say, "Hey, this, obviously not cool. There must have been a lot going on when you were trying to cook dinner."

   17. BEDr. Becky14:48

       Right.

   18. KHKim Holderness14:49

       "What, like, what are we gonna do?" Like, I'm, that is a lot to manage-

   19. BEDr. Becky14:53

       It-

   20. KHKim Holderness14:53

       ... what you just did.

   21. BEDr. Becky14:53

       Yeah.

   22. PHPenn Holderness14:53

       It's the difference between a shame spiral and a support staircase.

   23. BEDr. Becky14:58

       [laughs]

   24. KHKim Holderness14:58

       We're, we're workshopping this. We're-

   25. PHPenn Holderness14:59

       I'm workshopping the... I'm trying to, I'm trying to get my license.

   26. KHKim Holderness15:02

       [laughs]

   27. PHPenn Holderness15:03

       My coaching license.

   28. KHKim Holderness15:04

       No, he's not. He's not.

   29. PHPenn Holderness15:05

       No, but so think about it. No, no, no, but think about it. So the spiral, the shame spiral everybody knows about. The support staircase is something goes wrong, and Kim says to me, "Man, I'm sorry. That must be hard," and instead of me spiraling downward, I feel the love, I feel the connection, and it actually causes me, and I think it causes some other people to say, "Man, thank you for feeling this way. I'm gonna work my butt off to try to keep this from happening again."

   30. BEDr. Becky15:27

       I always tell people when you do something that you're not proud of, there's always a part of you that wants to feel defensive, and there's a part of you that wants to own it. That's any, true with any conflict. Like, there's a part of us that's like, "Man, I wish I put the stove off," and there's a part of us that's like, "There's nothing I could have done. It's not my fault." Right? Whatever the conflict is. Here's the interesting thing about internal conflict. As soon as anyone in your life owns one part of the conflict, you have to own the other, meaning-
8. 17:07 – 19:42

   Deeply Feeling Kids: a non-shaming framework that changed Penn’s self-understanding

   1. BEDr. Becky17:07

      You know what, Kim, I, I, truly, this is the best learning experience. I learn so much from you guys and the way that you approach things. So okay, so Penn, the last time we were together, you said something to me that I, I want to, 'cause I think it's related to this conversation. You said th- the term deeply feeling kid or that framework was another layer to you understanding yourself. So h- how did, can, can you say more about that?

   2. PHPenn Holderness17:29

      Yeah. I mean, it, it was, so it was the best explanation to the emotional dysregulation component of ADHD. Um, it was three really simple words, and, um, I heard it on TikTok, uh-

   3. KHKim Holderness17:43

      I forwarded him one of your videos.

   4. PHPenn Holderness17:44

      Yeah.

   5. BEDr. Becky17:44

      [laughs]

   6. PHPenn Holderness17:44

      She sent me the video, and I don't even know if she was doing it for me. I think it's possible she was trying to help explain our own child, who is also a deeply feeling kid. But, um, I, like, I was deeply feeling after hearing your thing about deeply feeling kid. I, I had to kind of sit back and let it wash over me that this is, not only is this, like, the perfect explanation, but it's also non-negative.

   7. BEDr. Becky18:08

      Mm.

   8. PHPenn Holderness18:09

      Um, it's not crybaby. It's not easily upset. Cry b- I was called a crybaby by everyone who I knew, including some teachers.

   9. BEDr. Becky18:18

      Oh, Penn, I'm so- I am, I, I, that, I... It's a term, I haven't actually heard that term in so long. I don't know why I think about drama queen, dramatic, disproportionate, overreacting, but you're right. Crybaby.

   10. PHPenn Holderness18:31

       It's a tough one.

   11. BEDr. Becky18:33

       Yeah. So, ugh, I'm sorry.

   12. PHPenn Holderness18:34

       And I was a teenager when I got called that, because I was still feeling those feelings. I was, so I, I was late to, um, to the emotional regulation 'cause of ADHD. I went through puberty when I was, like, 32.

   13. BEDr. Becky18:47

       [laughs]

   14. PHPenn Holderness18:47

       I was, like, a really l- no, that's not true. I was, but I was, like, in high school, mid high school when I finally hit my growth spurt. So, like, all of those things at the same time made life difficult for me. That delay made it tough. If I had heard deeply feeling kid as a child, it, it, I think it acknowledges that, yeah, I get overwhelmed sometimes, but also, like, that's a skill to be able to feel deeply.

   15. BEDr. Becky19:11

       Mm-hmm. Yes. And you know, two things. Number one, I think a kid's deepest fear is actually being un-understandable.

   16. PHPenn Holderness19:18

       Mm-hmm.

   17. BEDr. Becky19:19

       It's the worst feeling. You almost have this existential crisis as a kid. Like, "These sensations in my body that feel so intense, if no one believes me, they think I'm overreacting," like, there's almost like, "Do I exist? Am I real? Are these things real?" Like, it's an awful feeling. So sometimes terms or questions, it's like, oh, like, the idea that someone or a term could understand me is so relieving, right?

   18. PHPenn Holderness19:42

       Mm-hmm.

9. 19:42 – 21:03

   Harnessing strengths: creativity, theater/improv, and finding the right environment

   1. BEDr. Becky19:42

      And so that's number one. And number two, I'm asked all the time, and what you said, Penn, really struck a nerve, "Dr. Becky, your Deeply Feeling Kid framework, that, that course, whatever it is, is that gonna help my kid grow out of this?" And I'm like, "Oh, my goodness, I hope not." That will help your kid harness-

   2. PHPenn Holderness19:58

      Yeah

   3. BEDr. Becky19:58

      ... everything. That grow out, I, I don't wish that for any child. Harness, let's, let's do that. And, and knowing you, like, and I think about what you're able to do and what you can notice, and I think so many of the best comedians, the situational comedians, are all deeply feeling kids. They notice things no one else has ever put words to or noticed, but when they name them you're like, "Oh, my goodness." You can have music around it and song and play around with things. I, I don't know anyone who could do that who probably wasn't, isn't a deeply feeling person.

   4. PHPenn Holderness20:28

      Yeah, I mean, like, think about the, the sort of building blocks of entertainment. It's, um, yes, and. Yes and, and, and when you get excited about something, yes and also this and also this, and, and you let your brain kind of receive it because you're, you're caught in this euphoria of creativity. It's the opposite of no but, which is where we live a fair amount of our lives as well. But, um, yeah, I, I think, like, I definitely, um, I found solace in middle school and high school in theater arts and in creativity because I think it was a lot of other people that were similar to me and probably all had similar brains.

10. 21:03 – 27:20

    Home systems that work: upstream routines, external supports, and “tomorrow self”

    1. BEDr. Becky21:03

       Yes. So let's, let's move from this to the practical and concrete. Like, what are some of the things you've done in your home and your relationships, whether your marriage or with your kid, knowing, again, this framework, ADHD, deeply feeling kid, all of it together, what are some of the things that have, that have helped? Like, what are some of the things that you've tried? I'm curious, like, some of the rhythms you guys have. It's interesting because we, we have two children, and my, my daughter's now a freshman in college and very, like, oldest daughter stereotype. Like, high achieving-

    2. PHPenn Holderness21:33

       Right

    3. BEDr. Becky21:33

       ... straight A, type A, did everything herself, um, met every milestone early. Like, you know. So then when we had just, like, a very giggly, happy, normal child-

    4. PHPenn Holderness21:46

       [laughs]

    5. BEDr. Becky21:46

       ... who did, [laughs] who was just, you know, normal, it, it sort of rocked, like, what expectations were. So I think holistically, very early we had to say, "There are a lot of different paths to this." So we removed, like, what right looks like. Does that make sense?

    6. PHPenn Holderness22:03

       Mm-hmm.

    7. BEDr. Becky22:03

       Like, we, it, there's no one right way to get through school. There's no one, like, you're, let's find out where you're awesome. So that's the next thing we do-

    8. PHPenn Holderness22:12

       Yeah

    9. BEDr. Becky22:12

       ... is for both my husband and, and I think we make this a family practice, is that when we see, especially my son, doing something that's just amazing that only his brain can do, because he has, he has the same brain he does. He started a sports blog, and so he has a Substack where he's writing all about... And he is so fast, and the things he notices about his favorite team, and he's so prolific. And I have to say, you know, no, there's not a lot of 15-year-olds who can do that-

    10. PHPenn Holderness22:39

        No

    11. BEDr. Becky22:39

        ... and do that that quickly. And so we, we work to, like, find out where he's killing it, to the point where, yes, he's in basketball, but he is a little late to grow just like his dad. So he's now, like, in improv comedy, and he has found h- so all that spontaneity that, that ADHD has given him, like, it is rewarded in improv, right? Like, you are supposed to be spontaneous. Yes. So we're, we just have had to really work. But it, but it's hard 'cause we live in a community that worships basketball. We live in the Raleigh area.

    12. PHPenn Holderness23:11

        She knows.

    13. BEDr. Becky23:11

        This is, like, this is where, you, you know.

    14. PHPenn Holderness23:14

        Yeah.

    15. BEDr. Becky23:14

        Right. So this is, like- Go Blue Devils, you know? [laughs] Oh, come on.

    16. PHPenn Holderness23:16

        You know, we were getting along just fine.

    17. BEDr. Becky23:18

        You know, but it is-

    18. PHPenn Holderness23:19

        This was, we were off to a really good start here

    19. BEDr. Becky23:21

        ... I've never pretended to be someone I'm not.

    20. PHPenn Holderness23:23

        All right. Same here.

    21. BEDr. Becky23:23

        So I'm not gonna start today.

    22. PHPenn Holderness23:25

        Same here. Same here. Sorry.

    23. BEDr. Becky23:26

        But it's, it, it is strange to, like, deprioritize basketball. It, it, you are, and, and I say this to people who live in New York or California. I'm like, "You don't understand." The town shuts down when, like, colle- it, it is-

    24. PHPenn Holderness23:39

        Yeah.

    25. BEDr. Becky23:39

        Yeah. So we've just had to set an example and say, like, "No, there's more than one way to do this. There's more than one way to do this." Um, and internal systems, like, we have a hamper at the bottom of the stairs-

    26. PHPenn Holderness23:51

        Mm-hmm

    27. BEDr. Becky23:51

        ... where all the crap goes that I can't deal with because I cannot deal with the crap, and that, you know, you look for your crap in one spot. Um, we have a pretty strict, like, we just have to be very strict about, like, cleaning things, setting ala- we have a thousand alarms. We have a big, uh, massive calen- digital calendar-

    28. PHPenn Holderness24:06

        Mm-hmm

    29. BEDr. Becky24:06

        ... on our countertop where every morning it's your first stop.

    30. PHPenn Holderness24:09

        Yeah.
11. 27:20 – 28:46

    School and coaching supports: specific asks, seating, scheduling, and advocacy

    1. PHPenn Holderness27:20

       There, there are some stereotypical environments inside of environments that are, that are good ideas for ADHD, for most ADHD kids and adults. Remember now, it's all different, right? There's ADHD gets along well with OCD, anxiety, autism, all that stuff. It's, so not every ADHD is the same. In fact, you could argue each one is different. O- overwhelmingly, if you're, uh, in college or when you're in a high school in a big class and you're an ADHD student, if you sit in the front it makes a difference, uh, uh, for, for the better most of the time. Sometimes there's, there's, there's people who the anxiety takes over, but, um, like that's one of the things that I say to, to PC and that I said to myself when I was going through high school. So there, there are like, there are s- there are such specific strong, like places that'll set you up for success if you have ADHD, and a really great thing to do is for a parent to reach out to a teacher with this specific question when it comes to a day, right? Um, even if there's a really tough class. If you're an ADHD kid that's on medication who gets really tired and zonked out by the time that school is over, is there a way that you can, uh, you know, shift that class to the morning? Um, there are a lot of ways to do it. I would say that for the most part, if you are a parent who asks a teacher a direct question like that instead of, "What do we do?" Um, the, the, the path to a solution is a lot easier.

12. 28:46 – 29:55

    Building confidence: creating an “ADHD is Awesome” evidence trail

    1. KHKim Holderness28:46

       I will also say, like to your question about like finding community with, within community-

    2. PHPenn Holderness28:51

       Mm-hmm

    3. KHKim Holderness28:52

       ... um, we got a suggestion this week. We were doing, you know, all these like book signings and everything, and a parent actually had the most brilliant idea that I loved because also something I didn't realize is that the self-con, the shame that the ADHDers will feel, that really does damage self-confidence, especially teens. And so they, you know, this book, ADHD is Awesome!, so they have started their own sort of ADHD is Awesome for their particular kid, and like when they see their kid doing something ama- or that they enjoy, that they love, that they, they have a lot of interest in, like they kind of write about that and they post it in a, in a family, and where that the, the kids see it. I'm totally gonna steal that too, because I think throughout the day, a lot of ADHD kids hear-

    4. PHPenn Holderness29:36

       Mm

    5. KHKim Holderness29:36

       ... over and over again how not awesome they are-

    6. PHPenn Holderness29:38

       Yeah

    7. KHKim Holderness29:39

       ... throughout in the school. So I just think that when we find that, that thing that lights 'em up, like we just have to follow it, even if... Like I don't understand anything about improv comedy. I just like got on the Google machine and, and figured that out.

    8. PHPenn Holderness29:53

       [laughs]

    9. KHKim Holderness29:53

       So, um, yeah.

13. 29:55 – 35:07

    Messages to parents and kids + why they wrote the children’s book

    1. BEDr. Becky29:55

       Th- thinking about the parent who has kids younger than yours, who's maybe going through an evaluation process, who was or just got, you know, that ADHD label, w- what is something like you would tell them? What is something you'd want them to know?

    2. PHPenn Holderness30:08

       The parent or the kid?

    3. BEDr. Becky30:09

       Let's start with the parent-

    4. PHPenn Holderness30:10

       Okay

    5. BEDr. Becky30:10

       ... and then maybe the kid. Let's do both.

    6. PHPenn Holderness30:11

       Yeah. Um, don't be scared of this. Um, in fact, opposite. This is gonna take a lot of your fears away, your fears of the unknown. Um, when you- W- when you approach this with your kid, make sure and know that all of the issues that your child may be having, w- whether it's, like, the traditional kind of lack of focus, hyperactivity, behavioral issues, that same brain is capable of doing things that a neurotypical person cannot do. There are studies. We are more creative. We are more-

    7. BEDr. Becky30:52

       Yeah

    8. PHPenn Holderness30:52

       ... spontaneous. We come up with creative solutions to problems in an efficient way that others cannot. But we live in a world that was mostly made for a neurotypical human being, and so this is a... The understanding is a path to adapting and excelling.

    9. BEDr. Becky31:08

       Mm. Beautiful. What about to a kid?

    10. PHPenn Holderness31:11

        You're not alone. You are not alone, and there is nothing inherently wrong with you. You, you have a really cool brain. Um, I think, like, if, if you'll let us try to unders- like, explain some of it to you, and you understand it, um, there's, there's some work that you can do, that can sometimes even be fun, to make the most of this brain.

    11. BEDr. Becky31:31

        So let's use that as a, a bridge to your book, All You Can Be With ADHD. What, what, what happened in your house between the two of you that, like, "Let's do this?" Was there a moment?

    12. KHKim Holderness31:39

        [laughs] Um, so we... Our, our first book, ADHD Is Awesome, we, we tried to write it for the ADHD brain, so there's a, you know, a lot of graphics and a lot of call-outs and all that stuff. And we had the opportunity to go to a lot of, you know, book signings. You have to promote a book, so we went to all these book signings, and there would be so many kids there, and they had their highlighters, and they had their, uh, Post-It Notes, and they were trying, God bless them, to read it. But really it wasn't, it wasn't meant for an eight-year-old to read, right? It was meant for their parents to read. So the, it, it came because they literally said, like, "You have to make a book for us." So it was just the biggest no-brainer, and I would love to do, you know, a teen, like, a tween ad- adaptation as well. Um, but yeah, it was, it was just, it was so much fun. And it's so much... And a children's book, I, I still have all of my kids' children's books.

    13. PHPenn Holderness32:29

        Mm-hmm.

    14. KHKim Holderness32:29

        I love a book. I love that time. Yeah, so it was so much fun.

    15. BEDr. Becky32:33

        What page, what line... Was there something in it that, like, you each have a favorite part? That you're like, "Oh, I just love that," when we get there.

    16. KHKim Holderness32:40

        There's... Uh, you, you know, you have it all memorized 'cause you've read it out loud so many times, but there is, there's a moment where, you know, you have to acknowledge the hard stuff-

    17. PHPenn Holderness32:49

        Yeah

    18. KHKim Holderness32:49

        ... that comes with, with this. And so there's a moment where, you know, the-

    19. PHPenn Holderness32:54

        Yeah

    20. KHKim Holderness32:54

        ... the narrator's sort of calling out-

    21. PHPenn Holderness32:56

        Yeah, I, uh, it, um, it can be normal, I've said to myself, or it can be, uh, tough, I've said to myself, "Why can't I be normal like everyone else?" Um, uh, sometimes we're forgetful. We interrupt friends. It makes us forgetful. Uh, and you know, bits and pieces about how you can get sad and even frustrated and sometimes mad. And then right after that, there's a page that says, "Does this sound familiar?" The examples I gave. If you answer yes, you are so very brave.

    22. KHKim Holderness33:23

        Yeah.

    23. PHPenn Holderness33:23

        And that's my favorite.

    24. KHKim Holderness33:24

        And I have to say-

    25. PHPenn Holderness33:25

        Yeah

    26. KHKim Holderness33:25

        ... when he read that out loud to the kids and they were all jumping, like, "Does this sound like me?" And they were jumping up and down. Like, there was not pride, but there was-

    27. PHPenn Holderness33:33

        Mm-hmm

    28. KHKim Holderness33:33

        ... like, an acknowledgement of, like, "Oh my God, you, you know that? Like, you know that, too? You know what that feels like?" So seeing that read out loud and then just being able to tell them how brave they are for acknowledging it, like, my, my mom heart just, like, melted into pieces.

    29. BEDr. Becky33:47

        And that goes back to, like, the pain isn't the thing. It's feeling like nobody understands the thing, or you're alone in the thing. Like, I... You know? We can't, we can't change the hard, but we can change the alone, and I think in the book you change the alone, right? And you... And obviously there's strengths, too, but like anything, there's hard parts. And, like, if, if we're afraid to name what's hard to our kids, they get really freaked out because they're like, "Oh, forget me feeling like that's hard. I guess this is just bad because my parents only avoid what's bad and dangerous." Right?

    30. PHPenn Holderness34:16

        Yeah.
14. 35:07 – 40:56

    Rapid-fire takeaways and closing: what ADHD is (and isn’t)

    1. BEDr. Becky35:07

       All right, we're gonna do a little rapid fire to end. You ready?

    2. PHPenn Holderness35:11

       [laughs]

    3. BEDr. Becky35:11

       Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right. Have a sip of water. Okay. Finish the sentence: ADHD has taught me...

    4. KHKim Holderness35:18

       ADHD has taught me patience.

    5. PHPenn Holderness35:20

       Mm.

    6. BEDr. Becky35:21

       Ooh.

    7. PHPenn Holderness35:23

       Yeah, let's see what's next.

    8. BEDr. Becky35:24

       I've, I've heard it's a virtue.

    9. KHKim Holderness35:25

       [laughs]

    10. BEDr. Becky35:25

        I'm, I'm working on finding it, but people say that.

    11. KHKim Holderness35:28

        I don't currently possess it. It's a muscle I'm trying to build.

    12. BEDr. Becky35:30

        Yeah, yeah. 100%.

    13. KHKim Holderness35:31

        Yeah.

    14. BEDr. Becky35:31

        That's the best it gets. Something around ADHD or deeply feeling-ness that I've stopped apologizing for is...

    15. PHPenn Holderness35:42

        Uh, fidgeting. Uh, it's, it's, it's what your body needs. You burn calories a day. Like, you can try as hard as you want to, but it's... The other option for me, fidgeting, is much worse.

    16. BEDr. Becky35:53

        Mm.

    17. PHPenn Holderness35:53

        Like, I, I probably would blow a gasket.

    18. BEDr. Becky35:56

        Yeah.

    19. PHPenn Holderness35:56

        So yeah, I've just stopped. It, it's just what, it's what I do.

    20. BEDr. Becky36:00

        Okay. Now for Kim, and then I'm gonna ask a version, Penn, to you. Kim, an ADHD strength I see in my son is...

    21. KHKim Holderness36:07

        His creativity. The... And it, it, and his ability to make it comedy.

    22. PHPenn Holderness36:15

        Mm.

    23. KHKim Holderness36:15

        He s- he spots things in this world and makes them so funny, and I don't know another brain that could do that.

    24. BEDr. Becky36:24

        And Penn, an ADHD strength that shows up in my parenting is...

    25. PHPenn Holderness36:29

        Uh, I think making things fun. I think it's important to, for, for things to be fun for especially younger children. Um, and sometimes that's disguised in gamification and in, you know, y- taking a chore and making it more enjoyable, and I think that my ADHD creativity has helped with that.

    26. BEDr. Becky36:49

        Amazing. Okay, last one. The thing most people misunderstand about ADHD is...

    27. PHPenn Holderness36:57

        That it's just a, an executive functioning disorder and that, that it has nothing to do with your emotions. Um, I think most parents are not ready for that when they take their kid in.

    28. KHKim Holderness37:06

        I would also say most parents don't know it has nothing to do with your academic ability.

    29. PHPenn Holderness37:10

        Yeah.

    30. KHKim Holderness37:10

        It is separate from that. It... They are, they are not, they're not behind or slow. They have been... Th- there's just a delay in how this is, like how they're actually-

Episode duration: 40:59