Walking the ADHD Path: Our Journey into the Adventure of being ADHD Parents

Hey all you mommas out there!

We recently took on a new descriptor in our household. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are the proud parents of an ADHD’er. Subsequently, with this discovery a lot of things are starting to make sense when it comes to the interactions our little man has had over the years. I’ve also come to realize that a lot of the behaviors I exhibit myself are probably linked to being neurologically different myself – as we say in the black community, he get it from his momma!

Our journey into ADHD parenting started out like any roller coaster ride that you can imagine. When our son was about 2.5 years old another kiddo at his daycare showed him a really neat trick. He discovered that if he used his teeth to bite someone when he was upset or crowded or frustrated, that person immediately backed off. While the adults didn’t seem to like this method for coping (obviously we were horrified) my son – who had loved to put every toy he could find in his mouth – took to this action like a moth to a flame.

Now I won’t go into all the gory details, though there are a lot of fun stories to be told from that time in our lives – if you want to know more on how we dealt with (and sometimes still deal with) a toddler who bites check out these posts – but after multiple daycares and lots of back and forth, we finally found ourselves grounded. My son had hit the tender age of 4, had been at his daycare almost 2 years (a record folks!) and while we still had moments of difficulty that needed correction, for the most part we were sailing along.

Then the ‘Rona struck...and our lives – like many of those around us – were turned upside down.

I’m sure one day there will be a plethora of research done on the impact of this pandemic on our children, but I can tell you from personal experience that it has been monumental. Over a period of months, the outburst that used to cycle every few months at school for our little man (because he NEVER acts that way at home) became a weekly occurrence. My precious boy, who is often very loving and caring and protective of his family and little ones – particularly his little sister – was throwing toys and chairs at school. He was hitting and kicking and biting. And we were appalled.

Being the kind of mom I am, I went into research overdrive. My goggle search engine during that time was an absolute disorganized mess, but when I’m stressed, I'm like a dog with a bone. I would not stop until I had figured out what in the hell was happening to our son.

We tried everything, from adjusting his eating habits, to changing his school schedule, and it felt like nothing was working. Then, one day, I saw an article on aggression in young children with ADHD...and everything just fit.

As a training and development professional, I’m used to giving others their lightbulb moments of clarity, but I don’t get to experience them as often as I’d like. Reading that article, I felt like a bolt of lightning had raged through me, shining a light on everything. In that moment, I knew I had found it. And the more I researched, the more I KNEW in my soul that I was right.

After a long and drawn-out testing process, our son had a confirmed diagnosis of ADHD – Combined Type...and the floor dropped out from underneath me.

There are few things scarier than learning that something, anything, might make life harder in any way for your babies. This is doubly the case when it comes to raising a little black or brown boy, who you know is going to have more obstacles that others. My first response was a flood of relief. We had been searching for an answer for so long, and it felt really great to put a name to what was going on.

Almost immediately, though, that relief was burned away by a wave of fear. There was no way that we could manage this. We were bound to fail at our biggest challenge so far as parents. Raising a neurodivergent child would be a big adventure to say the least, and if that wasn’t enough, our precious boy is also gifted and talented...so he thinks circles around a lot of people when it comes to his mischief.

While in the midst of this fear, I received the best piece of advice from a fellow mom who has raised 2 ADHD kids: “Raising your son may look a little different, but the foundations are still the same. You are the perfect parent for your child. You can absolutely do this!”

Once I shook off the initial fear, I attacked the prospect of raising my little ADHD’er like I had with every other new item in my life – with passion and purpose. I pored over every site and resource I could find for information on ADHD and how best to approach raising my little man, given the tried-and-true methods that are common within the black community would NOT cut it. Like most new things, it was like drinking from a fire hose at first, and still is some times. The more I learned, the more I was determined to not only raise my child, but to raise him well. And I’d like to think so far I’m doing pretty good.

Any other mammas raising kiddos with different learning or other abilities? How are you managing? What did you wish you knew before starting on this parenting journey?