Episode 7: When ADHD Feels Hard: Finding Hope Beyond the Struggle

Holding On to Hope: Navigating ADHD with Perspective, Strength, and Support

When your child is struggling with ADHD or is newly diagnosed, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and lose sight of what’s possible. In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor devotes time to one essential message: there is always hope.

Dr. Tish shares four practical, empowering strategies to help parents:

✔ Recognize and reset negative thinking

✔ Focus on meaningful short-term progress while holding long-term goals

✔ Build on your child’s unique strengths

✔ Create a personalized support team that evolves with your child’s needs

If this episode resonated with you, explore the practical tools, guides, and resources available in The ADHD Store—created specifically for parents, educators, and caregivers navigating ADHD with intention and heart.

Whether you’re looking for daily strategies, printable tools, or in-depth guides, you’ll find resources that are evidence-based, easy to use, and built to support real life.

Because hope is powerful, but having the right tools makes all the difference.

👉 Visit The ADHD Store and take the next step in your journey.

Episode 7 Transcript:

Hello, this is Dr. Tish Taylor, and welcome to this episode of ADHD Connect, the podcast where we discuss all things children and adolescents with ADHD. So today’s topic I am devoting to hope. So I am bringing this up because on some occasions, when a child is newly diagnosed, or when the family and the child are struggling because of the results and effects of ADHD.

And you know, things have not been going well for them. It’s easy to lose hope, and it’s easy to see what, what kind of future will this be, and to project forward and to say, you know what’s, what’s going to happen if this doesn’t get corrected, or if this doesn’t, you know, something doesn’t work, or if they, you know, have a school year like they did this last school year. I mean, you know what’s going to happen.

So I’m going to talk about hope and ADHD. First, I would like to start with a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” So I know he had other visions of what he was talking about, but I think this is applicable. It is applicable to raising a child, but I think it can also be applicable to raising a child with ADHD. So we must accept in our finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

So I have four points I’d like to make about this, and the first one is, just be aware of your own thinking, right? It is. It’s easy to get, you know, bogged down in worry and negative thinking and projecting forward and thinking about what if, and so catch yourself right. Catch yourself if it’s I’m projecting forward. I’m thinking a lot about the future, and I’m thinking, What could go wrong? What a disaster it might be. What if this is not corrected? If you’re doing that, that’s not helping your child in this moment, and what the only thing we can control, as you know, is in this moment.

So, try to bring yourself back down to the present. If you’re projecting forward into the future and thinking ahead, and you say, you might say, Yeah, but Tish, all these things have happened. I have all these, you know, these circumstances that you know are pointing in this direction, maybe so. But if you lose hope, or if we lose hope, then we don’t have a lot to work with. So there’s always hope, and we just have to hold on to it if we feel like it’s slipping away.

So, try not to fall into negative thinking. And what is it you need to do for your own self or self-care, or to kind of readjust, or to look for the positives, because there are some positives, and maybe that’s one thing to really focus on. But, but think about, how can I get myself in a mindset, even if you’re going through something really hard with your child, there’s, there’s certainly a path forward somehow. So, you know, try and not overwhelm yourself by how you’re thinking.

The second thing is, we have sites on the long term, right in the back of our minds. As parents, we think about what is going to happen with our child. What does it look like they’re going to do? What does it look like they’re going to be? What skills and talents will serve them? You know? How are they going to be independent? We have all of those thoughts as a parent, and so you will have, of course, you have those thoughts at the same time, though, focusing on the short term, what can I do right now and and when I think about those longer term goals, you know, I want my child to be independent, for example, or I want them to have some kind of training or education. What skills do we need to work on now to encourage those longer-term skills and abilities that we’re striving for?

So again, staying a little more laser-focused, a little more short-term focus, understanding where we’re headed. You know, in this journey with parenting and with ADHD, really focusing on those things like, Okay, I realize that these are weaknesses. So, how do I focus on helping my child if they’re old enough to understand what those are and develop skills over time and awareness over time? So when they’re older, they know how to manage it. They know what they need in order to, you know, help themselves function as best as possible. And so that can be in terms of education. It could be in terms of independence, independent living, and how they manage their emotions. You know, the best you can do is give them as much tools and skills and support and love as you can so understanding with you have a mind on the long term, also focus on the short term and what you can do now, keeping your mindset in hopeful as way as possible, because that does get communicated to your child.

The third thought I have on this is build on build on. On and develop their strengths. So a lot of times, and in my world, you know, it’s like we’re focusing on those things that are hard, those things that are weaknesses, those things that are not developed well, but we but it’s important to focus on the strengths, because that’s where the child’s going to find more confidence. You’re going to feel some confidence. And you know, that may be ultimately, where they go in life.

So, be sure and focus on and develop those and provide them support around those things, too. So I know you have to find balance within all of that and how you run your life and the schedules and everything, but even encouraging words about you know what they do well and what they like and what they tend to excel in. So that’s the third thing. The fourth is to build your team. And so that may be a variety of people. It may be a couple of people. It really depends on your child’s needs and maybe their needs at the time. So think about, when we think about interventions for ADHD, there are different areas.

So it could be that, you know, medical, it could be medication, or it could be, there could be other things about their medical needs that that are, you know, that person or persons are part of the team. It could be mental health. So it could be, you know, counselors, psychologists, mental health folks who assist with, you know, emotional regulation or executive functioning skills, something of the sort. You know, helping, you know, the child to gain more agency and skills within themselves. It might be ADHD coaching.

So, you know, somebody who is really looking at, you know, how can we help develop some of those executive functions, like organization, task, initiation, prioritization. It could be that it could also be in the educational piece, right? How can the school, their education, or their training program support, or at least provide some accommodation for them? You may also consider family support, right? So, so do I need respite at times? You know, does it help to have my extended family around?

Can you know, the parents work and tag team in some ways, you know, how can I build home support around my child, and what those needs are, and it varies. So, you know, as I talked about in my first podcast, you know, a child with a diagnosis of ADHD, one child is not the same as the other child, and so in some areas, needs are greater. In some presentations, they’re more severe than mild, and some specific traits might be more moderate or severe, and others might be milder.

So it really does depend on the child, and sometimes it depends on their developmental level or developmental stage. So, I think the other thing would be education, psycho education for the parent or parents. That is another. Can be another piece of the intervention team or the support team, making sure you have the information you need, as you know, do I have the right knowledge? Do I have the right skills, or the skills that are most helpful for my child?

So seeking that education out and Chad, don’t chat Chad, so sorry, chad.org, is a as an excellent place, C, H, A, D, d.org, or your local Chad chapter can be an excellent place to start there as well as any professional providers, or there might be some school professionals who could help as well. So hopefully this gives you some ideas and thoughts and boosts your hopefulness, because there’s absolutely always hope. Signing off for this episode, I’m Dr Tish Taylor.