Navigating Fatherhood with ADHD: Presence, Tools, and Connections

Ever found yourself zoning out during a crucial family moment or grappling with a whirlwind of tasks that seem to spiral out of control? You're not alone. On this episode of "15 Minutes with Dad," I'm sharing my journey as a father navigating the intricate maze of ADHD. We explore the subtle ways ADHD can disrupt family dynamics and relationships, from impulsivity to the constant challenge of staying organized. Through personal stories and practical insights, we shed light on how these often-overlooked symptoms manifest in fathers and impact their parenting journey.

Conflicts, overwhelming tasks, and the struggle to be truly present—these are battles I'm all too familiar with. Join me as we tackle these issues head-on, offering solutions to manage emotional regulation and improve communication with loved ones. I open up about how ADHD has affected my own relationships and share practical tools like time management apps and structured routines that have made a tangible difference. Discover how creating consistent habits not only benefits the fathers dealing with ADHD but also enhances emotional security and stability for their families.

But the journey doesn't stop at coping mechanisms. We delve into the importance of presence in fatherhood, emphasizing the power of engaging all five senses to forge meaningful connections with your family. Learn about the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique and the value of support networks, whether through therapy or connecting with other fathers facing similar challenges. By acknowledging ADHD and its impact, you can transform your parenting experience and create a nurturing environment for your children. Stay tuned for strategies and insights that empower fathers to manage ADHD effectively and build stronger family bonds.

Chapters

• 0:49 Understanding ADHD in Fathers and Parenting
• 15:11 Navigating Conflict and Overwhelming Tasks
• 20:44 Being Present With ADHD in Fatherhood
• 25:01 Empowering Fathers Through ADHD Management
• 34:38 Managing ADHD in Fatherhood
• 40:21 Navigating ADHD in Parenthood

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:50

Welcome back to another episode of 15 minutes with dad, the podcast where we dive into the realities of fatherhood, co parenting and everything in between. I'm your host, lyric Williams, and today we're tackling a topic that doesn't get nearly enough attention, but it impacts so many fathers and their families ADHD and fathers and how it affects parenting. Adhd in fathers and how it affects parenting Parenting is hard enough on its own, but when you add ADHD into the mix, it can present unique challenges both for you as a father and for the people around you. Adhd, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, isn't just something that affects kids. Many adults live with it, often without even realizing it. For fathers, undiagnosed or untreated ADHD can impact relationships, work and, most importantly, your role as a parent. In today's episode, we'll talk about how to recognize the signs of ADHD in fathers, common pitfalls men with ADHD face in parenting and marriage, how it can directly impact your family and, most importantly, the tools and systems you can use to navigate it successfully. Whether you've been diagnosed or you suspect this might apply to you or someone you know, this episode is packed with insights and actionable advice, and I'm going to give you guys a lot of anecdotes from my personal life, because I am a father navigating ADHD and I have challenges as well with all different parts of my life, and these tools that I'm going to talk to you today are things that I actually implement into my life on a daily basis. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Spotting signs of ADHD in fathers ADHD in men doesn't always look like the hyperactive kid who can't sit still. It's often more subtle. Here are some common signs to look out for. One difficulty staying organized. You might find it hard to keep track of schedules, appointments or even day-to-day responsibilities. Maybe you frequently forget things like picking up your kids or paying bills on time, and I can attest to this because I struggle with parts of this quite often. Especially when I was a single dad before I got into my relationship, I had hard time keeping up with my schedules and appointments and day-to-day responsibilities, even keeping up with my wallet, because I had to keep up with my phone, my wallet and my keys. That was probably one of the first signs that I was like yo, this is not easy. Something is like off, I'm missing something, because I would either forget one of those things, and so what I had to do is I had to take those pieces away. So now I don't have to think about my wallet because my wallet is my phone, and then I'm usually using my email quite often, so I never lose my phone and I never lose my wallet. Now the keys I keep the keys in the exact same spot every single solitary day. I do not move it from that spot. If it's moved from that spot, it disrupts my morning and I have to go find it. I have to backtrack my day, which takes a long time. But difficulty staying organized is a common trait of ADHD, and it's not about like, oh my God, I can't stay focused, but more so these tasks that require executive function to be done or executive function to be had makes it difficult for these tasks to be completed because there's no immediate dopamine behind it.

Speaker 1: 4:33

And speaking of dopamine, this brings me to number two impulsivity. This might show up as saying things without thinking, making rash decisions or just struggling to control emotional reactions, especially in high stress situations. And this is something I specifically have a problem with is that when somebody's talking and they're taking a long time to finish what they're saying, I'm already finishing their sentence and I'm just trying to move the conversation along. So I would butt in and say the rest of their sentence and not letting them finish their thought. And it actually frustrates me when people do this to me, and so I can. I know that it frustrates me, so I know that it frustrates other people when I do that as well, and so I've worked really hard on trying to grab my hands or put my hands on my lap, to just listen and squint my eyes, even though I know what they're going to finish saying, allowing them to finish their choice. But impulsivity this thing can literally ruin a relationship. Impulsivity can be a good thing sometimes when you're being spontaneous, but impulsivity is like buying things without thinking about the budget or making a decision, just to get immediate feeling like, oh, I want to make this person feel happy, so I'm going to do this big kind gesture that they may not have wanted. Or reacting harshly in high-stress situations or freaking out or screaming because your stress is so high in that moment.

Speaker 1: 6:04

The most common one that people know about is the difficulty focusing. Many fathers with ADHD struggle to stay present during conversations, especially if they're distracted by work or other stressors. You might notice yourself zoning out during family time or struggling to finish tasks that you've started and for me, I tend to have like this really strong active dialogue in my head in certain situations, especially in conversations that don't necessarily interest me. But if I have things like work or other stressors, I might kind of be thinking about those or navigating those or thinking through those a couple of times on how I'm going to fix those problems, while I'm in a conversation with some other people about something else and then sometimes I lose the conversation because I'm so focused on what I need to solve and the things I'm trying to navigate in my other parts of my life that actually interest me. If I feel like I need to be somewhere better or doing something more interesting to me, my mind tends to zone out on those things and in most cases it's the most inconvenient time, and I'll tell you about how I navigate that later on in this podcast.

Speaker 1: 7:24

So let's go to number four restlessness and hyperactivity. Even if you're not bouncing off the walls, you might feel like you're always on, constantly fidgeting or struggling to relax, even during downtime. I know for a fact that I struggle with this because I tend I sometimes I can't go to sleep. It's like this moment as soon as I lay down, my brain just starts, even in this super fast thought process, about a bunch of random nothings, like it'll just be going from one thought to the next thought, to the next thought to the next thought, without an actual focus on any of those things, and that kind of creates this anxiety internally that I have to navigate. Sometimes, when I'm going to bed or if I'm being overwhelmed or overstimulated in an environment, I tend to start thinking about all these different things that I probably can't control and it becomes like it's so important all at once and it just completely mess me up mentally and so I have to kind of take a step back and for me something that usually works for me.

Speaker 1: 8:28

I like playing chess because it requires me to sit there and think, but it also gives me. If I put a timer on playing chess, then I actually can have that sense of urgency while I'm playing and thinking, but it's making me think about how to play the game, and so I get to use those thoughts and not think about things outside but actually think about the pieces and how I need to move those things. By the way, I just started learning chess about a couple of months ago, so I'm a little bit addicted. At this point I got bit by the chess book, so I play literally all the time and it works. I could play all the time, any time of the night. Probably I can play 15 to 20 games straight without a bump. I play on my phone, I play with my kids, I play with random people at different places if I can. But let's move on.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So this last one, I think, is extremely vital and probably the thing that causes a lot of misunderstanding with people, is when a father with ADHD might experience emotional regulation challenges, and this can be brought on from other factors in your childhood. But this is kind of like what stems and what wires your brain to have these symptoms is the fact that you don't know how to regulate your emotions, or you may have trouble regulating your emotions because of ADHD your emotions or you may have trouble regulating your emotions because of ADHD. So fatherless ADHD might experience quick shifts in mood, going from calm to frustrated or overwhelmed in literally seconds. This can impact how you communicate with your partner and your children and a lot of people tend to take these as like. This person is just crude and rude and in some cases most fathers, a lot of fathers, go undiagnosed and have no idea. And maybe some of them are diagnosed and still don't think that it impacts their fatherhood. Maybe they feel like, hey, I'm not a child anymore, so it doesn't really impact me. But I can tell you this is something that impacts me.

Speaker 1: 10:28

I am not a type of person that would react and curse someone out, call them out their name. I'm very conscious on what comes out of my mouth towards another person. However, there is this thing that my family notices when I am dysregulated emotionally and I tend to exert to my attachment style, which is anxiously avoided, and what I tend to do is become emotionless because of how I regulate my emotions, I just avoid them altogether or avoid the situation and I pull back and I don't really communicate. But everybody knows that something's wrong. And if you're in your life and people are noticing that something is wrong or asking you, hey, what's wrong? And you feel something and you're like yo, nothing, like nothing, nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong but in fact you're thinking about all these things inside of your head on why you dislike a situation, but you're not communicating it, you will understand this is something that you are navigating. So recognizing these signs is the first step toward understanding how ADHD might be affecting your life.

Speaker 1: 13:23

So let's talk about the common pitfalls for fathers with ADHD and how ADHD can impact your role as a husband and a father. And if you're a father with ADHD, you might face challenges like these. The first one struggling to meet parenting expectations. Adhd can make it difficult to follow through on plans like keeping promises to your kids or sticking to routines. This inconsistency can sometimes lead to guilt or frustration, both for you and your child. What most people don't understand is when you have ADHD, there's when you don't do anything, when you have something that you're supposed to do and you don't accomplish it. It creates this extreme sense of guilt that just makes you or flattens you or keeps you stuck in a way, and this is something that I feel this is the foundation of what I've been working on with parenting is trying to create the structure, because kids need structure, kids need routine, and sticking to those routines can be hard, especially when you're impulsive or you find that you're not getting rewarded, or maybe something not rewarded but let me not use the word reward, but that dopamine from a thing that you put in place, or maybe you're not seeing the results from your family or your kids that you want, and so you're changing it outright, without sticking to a routine. Yeah, this part meeting parenting expectations can be a huge reason why some families break apart, because the parent can't stick to something that they're supposed to do or something that they say that they're supposed to do, or they consistently disrupt something that was put in place for their family.

Speaker 1: 15:12

The next one is conflict in relationships. Impulsivity or difficulty regulating emotions might lead to arguments with your partner, especially if they feel like they're carrying more of the mental load at home. Husband, or you're a single parent or you're in a relationship, you might find that navigating conflict is difficult. It's been difficult for me, even in my relationship. It's literally been a task that I've been working on diligently because, one, I had to learn how to regulate emotions, which I never knew as a child, but two, I had to regulate my impulsivity and how I navigate disagreements in my relationship.

Speaker 1: 16:01

When you're closing off and you're shutting down and you're acting like you're not hurting or you're not feeling upset, or you're not teed off by something someone said or reacted, or you're not expressing how something made you feel in a situation, you're going to find yourself being or isolating or isolated, and it's important that you learn to regulate your emotions and you control your impulsivity. Sometimes what I used to do is, when I get upset or I have an argument, I'll shut down, but then I'll go into my phone and I'll like go shopping for something, go buy something random, something that I feel like man, I need this, when, in fact, I told myself before that I didn't need to buy it yet, because it's not a necessity. But I may tend to do that to make me feel better about how I'm feeling in that moment. For some people it may not be shopping. For some people it might be porn. For some people it might be just leaving the house and going to get a drink, it might be smoking. There's something that's tied to your dysregulated emotions. If you were a man and you were raised without learning how to regulate your emotions by your father learning how to regulate your emotions by your father then you may have something in place as a trigger that you do, as an impulse, in order to regulate your emotions or to help you regulate your emotions, and you sometime bottle it into this thing where you say, oh, this calms my nerves, oh, this calms my nerves, and so let's go to the next point being overwhelmed and being burned out.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Adhd can make it harder to prioritize tasks, leading to a constant sense of overwhelmingness. This might result in procrastination or avoiding responsibilities altogether, which can create tension in the household. Some of you may be playing games Y'all might be playing COD all day, or playing 2K or whatever game Skyrim, whatever. You're playing all day and negating your responsibilities, that is putting a crap ton of weight on the person that you're with your're a partner. If you're not prioritizing your tasks which this is probably the most difficult thing for me you may lead to a constant sense of overwhelm, and I will explain it in a little more detail.

Speaker 1: 18:32

First off, when I have a lot of things to do, a lot of tasks to do. First off, when I have a lot of things to do, a lot of tasks to do, I may never start on the first one, simply because I'm thinking or feeling overwhelmed about all the things that I need to do to accomplish that task. So, for me, holidays sometimes stresses me out because it requires, if I'm putting on a party or something and I'm inviting people, I'm thinking of all the things I got to do to prep to make sure these people are good and comfortable. I'm trying to anticipate everything that could go wrong and before I ever start I'm already burnt out, just based on thinking about all the things that I got to do.

Speaker 1: 19:07

And if you have a task like, oh you got to do laundry, man, I got to do laundry. I got to make sure I separate the clothes. I got to put the clothes in there, put it on the setting laundry I got to make sure I separate the clothes. I got to put the clothes in there, put it on the setting, put the wash pot in there and then, after I put the wash pot, I got to make sure that I get it in time, because I got more loads than this one load. But then I got to take this load out the washer, put it in the dryer, put it on whatever setting I got to put it on. And after I put that setting on, then I got to make sure I put another setting on to do the same thing for the other load. And then, once that load is done, I got to go and fold these clothes and then I got to separate them from whose they belong to. Then I got to put them up, and it makes doing those tasks completely unbearable. Just me saying that out loud makes me feel a sense of burnout before I even started the task, and I'm going to tell you ways that you can navigate through that. And at the same time, if that dopamine from completing that task means that there's so many steps in between starting it and getting that reward, it tends to be left off to the edge of all tasks that you do during your day. If you got those tasks around your house that you need to complete, some projects around the house you need to complete, you're going to want to hear me out at the end of this episode to learn about how to overcome this, because I know for a fact right now. I got a list of things that I need to do. But guess what I'm doing? I'm recording this podcast because doing this podcast is way more fun and I get a dopamine reaction from completing it and uploading it. So I'm doing this and knowing that I have tasks.

Speaker 1: 20:45

I stopped in the middle of this podcast to go get my son together because he had just woken up. He wanted to eat. I needed to change his diaper, so I had to go make him some food. But while I'm making his food. I seen that it's trash day so I had to put the trash out. And then my other little ones woke up so I had to make sure they had cereals, some something to eat, some honey, bunches of oat. I had to make food for my little baby and just kind of get everybody ready. My toddler woke up first, so I had to go and make sure he's good.

Speaker 1: 21:16

But I say all that to say I'm doing this podcast rather than doing those doing tasks. I took care of the kids. They're good to go. I put the trash out, but I didn't put it outside. I took the trash out of the house to put in a dumpster, but not the dumpster to the curb. So I still got to do that task. But I say that to say all the more things that you have to do between starting and completing, the more overwhelmed and the more burnout you will be.

Speaker 1: 21:43

So let's talk about number four, and this is when I actually made a recent episode about when I made a note to dads and this is difficult being fully present and when I tell you it's been the bane of my existence. Adhd can cause distractions that make it hard to focus on quality time with your family, leaving your partner or kids feeling unseen or unheard. It is a challenge for me to do this, and I've put specific focus on this to the point where I'm like talking about it out loud to my partner and I'm saying, every day, every holiday like especially in holidays, it's so much more difficult for me to be present. Or when we go to something, I'm trying to make sure everybody is good, everybody's enjoying, and I'm saying to myself that if they're enjoying, then I'm enjoying. Make sure everybody is good, everybody's enjoying, and I'm saying to myself that if they're enjoying, then I'm enjoying, and that's not the truth. If I'm not actually present and I'm not creating this experience with them, then it's not really going to be a memory of mine.

Speaker 1: 22:50

What you will find and I learned this from my therapist is that when we remember things, we create memories on senses, and if you don't add a sense, one of your five senses, to an event that you're experiencing, you won't remember it well, and so a big part of our lives is about providing, but our family needs us to be present as well. Working is null and void, like you have to do that, whether you had a family or not. You have to work right, you have to find ways to make money so that you can survive and live. That's the economy that we live in, so that's not an excuse on why you can't be present. So if that's not an excuse to not be present, then it means that there's this other additive part that we have to put work in to be present, and I'm going to talk about that later on in this podcast.

Speaker 1: 23:46

But this is something that my girlfriend has came to me and told me a hundred times like you're not present, we're not spending quality time, but I'm like, bro, we're here, I took you out, we went out, we went to go do this, but I'm usually thinking about all the things I gotta do when I leave there. I'm usually thinking about all the things I didn't do when I get there or everything that I need to do when I get there, and not truly experiencing the environment, putting a sense on it, maybe a taste, food, maybe a smell, thinking about you know what you're seeing in those environments and talking about them with the people that you love, like, hey, I see, look at that, look at that thing, that's so cool, oh, that's so funny. You literally create an experience by using your five senses with your family. And if any of this sounds familiar, don't worry. There are steps you can take to address these challenges and improve both your own well-being and your family dynamics. So let's go to our next part, on how ADHD impacts those in your life. Our next part on how ADHD impacts those in your life.

Speaker 1: 25:02

When ADHD goes unaddressed, it doesn't just affect you, it affects everyone around you. For your children, it might mean inconsistent discipline, missed commitments, moments when you seem distracted Over time. This can leave kids feeling unsure of what to expect, which can impact their emotional security. For your partner, it can feel like they're carrying the mental and emotional load alone. They might interpret forgetfulness or impulsivity as a lack of care or effort, leading to resentment and conflict. But there's the good news Understanding how ADHD impacts your loved ones opens the door to creating positive change. With the right tools and systems in place, you can navigate these challenges and strengthen your relationships.

Speaker 1: 25:51

I'm going to go a step farther with you fathers, with you listeners. Check me out. A lot of our relationships that's gone to crap and we don't know what happened. A lot of these are stemming from the fact that we have not addressed our adhd. We have not addressed how we navigate these functions of our life with adhd. When our partner completely checks out on our relationship is because you're just reacting and going through the motion and expecting them to say to be okay with how you are. But it becomes a burden, and most fathers, when you're feeling this sense of guilt that you're not good enough, that's your ADHD kicking in. And so I would say that and this is something I'm doing myself when I took a moment to say, okay, I struggle with these things, but why do I struggle with these things, these things, but why do I struggle with these things? And I started looking at different ways and attacking each of those different parts of me that I struggle with and putting things in place to make it easier. I started empowering myself to try and do other things in my life working on my relationships, making it a point to create quality time, no matter how difficult, and then, when it is difficult, actually voicing that it is difficult or that you're struggling at the time would allow your partner and allow your kids to be there for you and be supportive, know, supportive in that moment when you're struggling. But to say you're okay, you're fine and you're just, you know, struggling in silence. No one's going to know they're going to believe what you said.

Speaker 1: 27:50

Now let's talk about systems and tools for navigating ADHD as a father. So how do you manage ADHD in a way that allows you to show up fully for your family? Here are some practical tools and systems to consider. First things, time management tools. You can use apps, planners or digital calendars to keep track of appointments, schedules and tasks. Set reminders for important events like school pickups, parent-teacher meetings or family activities. When I tell you that this is my game changer, I made everybody in my family put things on the calendar. In my family put things on the calendar and I said specifically this if you want me to show attention to it, it needs to be in the calendar. I live, I eat and I breathe, I sleep on my calendar. I wake up. The first thing I look at is my calendar Things I have to do today. This is how I do at work. This is also how I do at home.

Speaker 1: 28:58

I need to see it in my calendar when my daughter has extracurricular activities or my sons have extracurricular activities. The first thing we do when we have a schedule is we put it into the calendar because it is important, and if it's important, I only look at my calendar. So, instead of keeping up all these different papers, of everything that everybody's doing whether it's my girlfriend whether it's you know, she puts everything in the calendar. We literally have date night in the calendar we have. Every time an event pops up, we put it in the calendar. Every time my daughter has something, we put it in the calendar. My girlfriend has her menstrual it in the calendar. Every time my daughter has something, we put it in the calendar. She has her. My girlfriend has her menstrual cycle in the calendar, just in case, so I can understand when her emotional regulation may change. We put everything in the calendar and that is my life.

Speaker 1: 29:48

On top of that, I add alarms throughout that day. If it's something that I need to make sure that I stop, if I need a stopping point in my day so that I can make sure that I go to something important, I will put an alarm. I will put an alert. It has to be alerting for me to stop, because I cannot regulate myself to stop once I start and if I'm having a hard time starting, I'm going to be in this wheel, turning and turning and turning, trying to start, so much so that I cannot stop turning in order to go and do another task that I need to do. So this time management tool, this is your key. Birthdays, school pickups, meetings, activities everything goes into the calendar and everyone sees it and we talk throughout the week about the calendar. And we talk throughout the week about the calendar. At the beginning of the week I'm like, okay, what do I have to do this week? And then I go back and I say, hey, if I don't know what it is, I make sure I ask them, hey, what is this thing, that? What is this about? Uh, what is that supposed to? You know what, like? What is the importance of that? Just in case there's some like oh, that's just something I threw in the calendar just in case we needed it, or as placeholder, or something like that, you can know that, that that's time that could either, that needs to be planned out, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 31:03

The second thing is creating predictable routines. Routines can help reduce decision fatigue and create consistency for your kids. For example, set specific times for bedtime, meals, family activities, and the structure will benefit both you and your children. I can't stress this enough Routines, routines, routines, and I, for one, growing up hated routines. I felt like routines was for mundane and boring people, but I appreciate routines so much now I couldn't possibly do it without my routines.

Speaker 1: 31:40

I have I use Alexa. My whole house is automated with Alexa. There's things I don't have to think about because it's automated. On a time I don't have to go and tell people hey, do your homework. I have timers to remind my kids to finish their homework, to make sure that they locked in. I have reminders for the boys whenever I need them to go take a shower because I need, like. If I'm doing something I don't have like at a certain time and I need to take a shower, the entire house, every device in the house, goes off and say hey, it's your dish turn. Hey, this is your chore, go take care of it every day that it is theirs so that I don't have to do that. Secondly, when there's a routine, the decision fatigue is crazy. Like if you don't have a routine, decision fatigue is crazy To have to make so many decisions and stop things to decide, especially as a father. The family's relying on you to make decisions and it's important that you can minimize how many decisions you have to make in a day and leave yourself bandwidth to take decisions for everybody else.

Speaker 1: 32:44

The third thing is break tasks into smaller steps. This is something that really helps me out from feeling overwhelmed. But if big tasks feel overwhelming big tasks feel overwhelming break them into smaller, manageable steps. For instance, instead of saying I need to organize the garage, start with I'll spend 15 minutes cleaning one shelf, I'll spend a couple minutes doing this thing. You put a timer on and you do that specific task. You'll be done like that. It's a beautiful superpower. That's how you activate the superpower of ADHD. When you get the lock in for 15 minutes strong, you get so much more than 15 minutes worth of work done. But if it gets overwhelming, break your task down into small steps, like that laundry task that I talked about earlier. Okay, I'm going to spend 15 minutes separating clothes. Then go do something else. Okay, I'm going to do this for 15 minutes, but then I'm going to come back and spend this amount of time doing this specific task and just do it. Break it into small tasks. No one said you had to complete it right now. If you have a project at work, break it down into small tasks.

Speaker 1: 34:00

The next thing I will talk about is practicing mindfulness and emotional regulation. Me and my therapist talk about this quite a bit, because I talk to her about my experience in situations and how it's overwhelming sometimes, but techniques like meditation, deep breathing or journaling can help you manage impulsivity and emotional swings. Taking a moment to pause before reacting can make a big difference in your interaction with your partner and your kids. And for something, this is something that I do out of the blue, no matter what situation I'm in. Sometimes I just randomly feel not good and I have to be mindful of that and I'll tell you what I do.

Speaker 1: 34:39

And my therapist gave this to me and it's a 5-4-3-2-1. I know there's a name for it, I just can't remember, but it's a 5-4-3-2-1 method. It's not counting, but instead you're using your five senses and for every number you're going to do that amount of that sense. So, like you can mix it up as much as you want. I thought I had to keep it the same way, but she was like you can use the five senses. You know five like locate, seeing five things, smelling four things, hearing three things, touching two things, tasting one thing and using your five senses can help you relax and calm down. It's almost like how I talked about earlier. When you get overwhelmed by all these different thoughts and you feel anxious, or you feel like you got so much that you need to do, stop by honing in outside of your mind, honing in on piece by piece by piece by piece, and it's like breaking your task down in one, but now breaking your emotions down into smaller, bite-sized chunks so that you can address those moments.

Speaker 1: 35:58

The next thing is leveraging support networks. As dads, it's difficult for us to do this. To leverage support networks, connect with other fathers your friends, your buddies from your past, your cousins, your uncle, your men in your life. Connect with them. There's a lot of fathers out here who have ADHD and you can find them through support groups or online communities. There's Facebook groups with dads of all sorts single dads. There's co-parenting dads, there's black fathers, there's fatherhood dad groups all on Facebook. I'm a part of a lot of them almost 20, something of them.

Speaker 1: 36:39

Your therapist or ADHD coaches can offer strategies for managing symptoms and improving communication, but sharing experiences and strategies can provide valuable insights and reduce feelings of isolation. It's when you're isolated and you're in your own thoughts that it's hard to navigate that. As men, we tend to hang out by ourselves and be lonesomes and deal with our problems by ourselves without really being supportive. You could save your marriage if you had support and open up to people and open up about how you're feeling and your struggles and you can get those insights to solve those problems that your partner is complaining about or that your kids is complaining about. You can actually solve those problems by, if you can't solve them yourself with all the information you have in your head, you can go to somebody else and get another third party view by sharing your thoughts and feelings with the support network. But work. My last one is work with a therapist or a coach. You can get professional guidance that can help you develop tools tailored to your specific challenges.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Everything changed for me when I got my therapist and sometimes you're going to find a therapist that isn't right for you, that doesn't really click, it doesn't really make sense. I got a therapist that's like a religious therapist. I'm not fully religious and I'm spiritual but I'm not super into religion. But I got someone that's in the religious part religious part and I feel like it gives me the opportunity to challenge how I feel but tailor to the foundation of where I grew up, which is I grew up very religious, and I think that by talking to a therapist that has that foundation, it can talk to my younger, my inner self, my inner child. That is probably founded upon those principles, where I am not in my adult stage. That's my theory behind it. It works for me. It may not work for you, but find yourself a therapist or a coach that can help you manage your symptoms, because managing your symptoms will allow you to experience the world so much more, so much more fulfilling.

Speaker 1: 38:57

A lot of fathers, we can complain and be like you know, the world's like this and people like this and women are just like this, but in reality, they're just reacting. Our kids are just reacting to who we are and how we are. You have the opportunity to really indulge life in a way that makes your experience so much more pleasant simply because you're being present, and so ADHD can really affect how you parent and how you partner with someone, and by implementing these tools, you can not only manage your ADHD more effectively, but also create a more stable, positive environment for your family. Why might this be the case for you? Now, if you're listening to this and thinking this sounds a lot like me, you're not alone.

Speaker 1: 39:48

Many fathers are navigating ADHD without even realizing it. Maybe you already struggle with staying organized, managing emotions and keeping up with responsibilities, but you didn't know why. Or maybe the demands of parenting have amplified these challenges. If this resonates with you, it's worth exploring further, whether it's through a conversation with your doctor or simply trying some of the tools we've discussed today. Taking steps to address ADHD can improve not just your life, but the lives of everyone around you.

Speaker 1: 40:22

Adhd doesn't have to define your parenting journey. It's just one part of who you are. By recognizing the signs, addressing the challenges and using these right tools, you can navigate ADHD in a way that strengthens your relationship with your kids and your partner. Next week, we'll explore how to build a deeper emotional connection with your kids a crucial topic for every father, whether or not ADHD is a part of the equation. Until next time, make sure you subscribe to 15 minutes with dad on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on social media 15 Minutes with Dad for daily insights. Remember understanding yourself is the first step to being the best parent you can be.