Rhonda: Hello and welcome to Becoming Unapologetic. This is Rhonda and today I have my friend Lisa who we've worked in social services together for quite a while. She's coming to join us today. Say hi, Lisa.

lisa koller: excited to be here. Thank you for having me, Rhonda.

Rhonda: Not a problem, so give us a little background on you.

lisa koller: Okay, well, I'm a social worker. I've been in the field about 20 years. I started in drug and alcohol. Then I moved into residential for kids who had dual diagnoses, ⁓ which usually means mental health issue and some kind of substance abuse. Then I moved into the child support arena, working ⁓ on a grant with families, trying to get them back together. ⁓ with as much stability as possible, not really like getting them back together like married and into a family, but talking, mediation, jobs, stability, things of that nature. ⁓ Then I worked the other side of grants, the financial side, and then came into more social work, working with families on an everyday basis, teaching a parenting class.

Rhonda: That is so cool. Lisa's done kind of the gamut of everything. And she's bringing what I find to be a very interesting topic today. ⁓ Kind of hits home for her, but I see it out in the field all the time. so Lisa's gonna give us kind of an overview. And if you've listened before, you know that I always have a lot of questions. So we're gonna talk about. parenting children with ADHD and Lisa get us started please

lisa koller: Okay, I am a parent with ADHD, newly, I guess, diagnosed with the onset of menopause, but definitely have all the classic symptoms. And so it's been super interesting from the other side. I don't know if I masked well before I had the estrogen to support brain power, but I have a child who has very severe ADHD. is now, he's going to be 21. this August and it was a journey and then of course we work with many families with neurodivergent kids mainly ADHD and You see just the same patterns over and over again and so When you had asked me what we should talk about and what I wanted to talk about and what would be interesting I thought that this would be an interesting topic. And so during the week, I've just jotted down little things that came to mind like tips, tricks, things that I thought were interesting where I think where I see families go, not go wrong, but need a little extra help. And so I wanted to come up with what I thought the main main thing to help parents with. And I, I believe that when I was out teaching and counseling families over the last three years, you get a lot of parents that are like, fix my kid. And that isn't it. It's not fix the parent either. It's fix the system and it's fixed how you see parenting an ADHD child. So I think that so many parents get into this trap of

Rhonda: Right.

lisa koller: Parenting apples, per se. And you may have an orange or a pear or a kiwi. And we are all in this cage of parenting how society says, how society's done it forever, how your parents parent, how your neighbor parents, and we don't all have apples. So why are we killing ourselves and others and our kid trying to parent in a way that makes no sense? ⁓

Rhonda: ⁓ yeah, I agree. also, from what I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong, but ADHD is an adult is different in a lot of ways than ADHD for children because like, my husband has adult ADHD and he is super hyper focused, but forgets everything. Start a project and gets

lisa koller: Yes.

Rhonda: sidetracked by something shiny and forgets, or he totally ignores anything I have, but I'm trying to say to him because he's super hyper-focused on, and he's just hyper-focused on that, where kids with ADHD isn't up more kind of movement, they have trouble sitting still, they can't focus, and that type of thing.

lisa koller: just see the run of the gamut. ⁓ feel like when you talk about autistic kids and you say if you've met an autistic kid, you've met that one autistic kid that has autism that it's different for everybody. And I believe the same thing about ADHD. I think that our, not necessarily a trauma lens, but our lens in way that we see life and the things that have happened to us affects every part of our mental health. And so I think it's slightly different. mean, there's definitely the hallmarks of the hyper-focus, the...

Rhonda: Right.

lisa koller: you distracted by shiny, all those things. But I think it's slightly different for everybody. And you gotta just learn about your kid and about your family and how you work together best. And it might not be the way that your neighbor works. And that's okay. I think that's the biggest thing is forgiving ourselves for not doing the norm, for not parenting in the norm. And it's okay. It's like, you know, just wanna come out loving each other and doing the best.

Rhonda: Right.

lisa koller: for you and your family. And that's all that's important at end of the day.

Rhonda: I agree and I think that there's a lot of judgment sometimes from people with so-called children that fit within the norm when they see another child acting out or something and the way the parent is trying to handle it. don't, myself personally, I don't understand the judgment of it because like you said, it's apples to oranges. know, not everything fits into.

lisa koller: Mm-hmm.

Rhonda: the round hole and you have to make what works for your family work for your family. How did you handle those types of things, especially that you yourself have ADHD also that must have made it so much fun in your house.

lisa koller: Well, didn't, I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until later. So he was in much in his later teens. So I think I did a really good job of handling it, masking it, or not, not having to deal with that when I was in the thick of it with our family and when he was little ⁓ and or the teenage years. So it was just ⁓ in his latter years that I started to see so many similarities. And it was like almost like a blessing from God because, which I know it sounds kind of weird, but I. could see his brain from my point of view all of a sudden. And I became so much more empathetic and so much more patient and so much more forgiving because I could see it in me. And you realize that parents are trying to parent the ADHD out of their kids and you can't. It's how your brain is wired. You have to learn how it's wired. And moving backwards for a second when you were talking about judgment from your neighbors.

Rhonda: Right.

lisa koller: Before I decided to have kids and before ADHD was, you know, really studied as it is today, I think I might have fallen in that trap of a slight amount of judgment. ⁓ And until I, of course, had my own family and then you see all these things and you're in it, you're like, ⁓ okay, now I get it. And I would say a big piece of advice, which sounds a little strange is if you are a family looking for support from friends, you you're talking, you know, with your friends or whatnot. I suggest not sharing what's going on in your home or how to parent or the things that you're going with unless you're talking to another family with ADHD kids because of so much judgment. I think you come away judging yourself and feeling like you're doing it wrong and worried about what other people think of you. But if you're talking to another family who's going through the same thing, It's like you finally are like, ⁓ my God, I found my tribe. They under.

Rhonda: Right, someone understands I'm not alone.

lisa koller: Exactly, and they can give you the best tips and tricks of things that worked for them and they don't think it's crazy and you you don't think it's crazy. You're like, ⁓ my God, I needed that. just so many things. I remember like when my son ended up taking a stimulants and it really worked for us and we, the whole medication route is a, whew, a long road and we didn't start there. But at the end of the day, he was wired and he couldn't go to sleep and it produced fights and his body was worn out from the meds, et cetera. And so giving him a little bit of melatonin at night helped him sleep and it helped him get through the night and his body to repair. And I think I felt really guilty talking to other people like, you have to medicate your kid to wake up, you have to medicate him to go to bed. It was just so much judgment. And I'm like, wait a second.

Rhonda: Right.

lisa koller: you don't understand. You don't understand what the meds do, how his body reacts, what it's like in our house, what the vibe is at the end of the night, how hard we work. So ⁓ I got that tip from another ADHD parent and then I got the support to say, it's okay, try it out. And to try something doesn't mean forever. It may work for your family and it may not, and it's okay. Trying is okay.

Rhonda: Yeah, it definitely is because it gives you that opportunity to see what works and what doesn't work. because this is ADHD has come such a long way, you know, in being able to help kids and parents just the diagnosis itself, because I remember growing up, my brother was hyperactive, he probably had ADHD, you know, but he was a boy, and boys just have more energy.

lisa koller: Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.

Rhonda: And boys that couldn't sit still in class, just, they're a boy, they just had more energy. They didn't look at what the cause was, you know, how some of these kids are just brilliant, but they can't focus long enough to show you that they're brilliant, you know, or their brain processes things so much differently than someone else's brain that you can't even follow along and That's what saddens me, because out in the field, I'll see these kids and I'll spend time with them. And I realize, ⁓ my gosh, this kid is not dumb or doesn't know what's going on. This kid is super smart. Yeah, he just, just the way he processes or she processes is just, they're not going the straight line through the processing. They are looking at all these other factors and this and that.

lisa koller: Super smart.

Rhonda: they're taking the long road to get where they're going, but it's brilliant when you see it all put together. people don't take the time to really notice that. And I've heard that about teachers sometimes that some teachers just don't take the time to get to know this child and the child gets labeled. This child's a troublemaker and all, but really this is a brilliant child that is having some trouble focusing.

lisa koller: Right. Yes, absolutely. ⁓ I agree. it's like they've been, they're either naturally brilliant because different parts of their brain has opened up ⁓ just the way that they're wired and or society has forced them to be brilliant because they have to be, ⁓ you know, living in the same society and the same rules with a different brain. So they have to be able to survive. And so they've got to learn how to do everything differently. And it's fascinating to get inside of the ADHD brain and to hear what they have to say and the way that they solve problems. And it's so worthwhile the time. And I hope that every parent that has a child like that takes the time to realize that. I feel like the sooner they accept that things are different and they are going to be different for the entirety of the childhood experience, the better.

Rhonda: Right

lisa koller: the and the better the family and the better everything. When you realize that and you work with your child instead of against your child. I think that that took me a while and I fell into that trap of trying to make my son fit into a mold and then realizing like this isn't working. And as soon as I used better techniques, things got better. So, And I'd like to share some of those throughout our conversation.

Rhonda: ⁓ that would be great. And medication, I think that's a huge thing because some parents are very much against medication. And some parents don't want to the diagnosis either because they feel it labels their child and will set them back. ⁓ When I talk to parents, I try to approach it as, you know, it's not a label. It's the way your child is.

lisa koller: Right.

Rhonda: and there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it at all, but if you know what's going on, you can understand your child better. And medication is a suggestion. Find out what the suggestion is. It doesn't mean that you have to medicate your child. Maybe you wanna go a holistic route, but you can find what that medication does in a holistic...

lisa koller: Hey!

Rhonda: Avenue or something but the more you understand about your child the better it is, right?

lisa koller: Absolutely. mean, I think we had that, my husband and I had that philosophy as well. We did not want to medicate. We were like, ⁓ my Lord. ⁓ Eventually we did, but it was a long time before we did that. We tried everything that we could first. did like mega vitamins. We did a brain gym. did, I mean, just anything and everything that we could do. did non-stimulants first. ⁓ And then eventually we went to the stimulants and they just helped him survive better. It got his brain to the point where it was at the same level as everybody else's and they were ready to work and they were less distracted. So he had less behavior problems in school, better friendships, and we just needed to try it. And the thing is, if you're not seeing what you want with the non-medical side, Parents can decide to stop it. They can just try it. There's no saying you have to be on that forever. There's no like, you have to tell the people at school, you have to tell your friends, you don't have to say anything. You can just see how it works for you, your kid, your family. It's not a forever thing.

Rhonda: Right. And what do you think of counseling? Is that a helpful avenue or?

lisa koller: ⁓ yeah, yeah, I think that it goes hand in hand. I don't think you should give one without the other. Personally, that's a personal feeling. How do you feel about that?

Rhonda: ⁓ I think counseling is great. I think that kids have to, I think you have to listen to kids and they have to be ready and accepting to do it for to do any good for them. But, you know, I think it's good. I think it's kind of a, in some situations more, let's do it as a family and let's kind of get our paths on the same, going the same way and how we can best, cause it's not.

lisa koller: Yes. Yes.

Rhonda: I think some people look at like family counseling and stuff as, you know, the blame session, but it's really not. It's a come together, let's figure out where we're held up and how we can make it work better. you know, but I think it's important to have a therapist that relates and understands to the child.

lisa koller: Absolutely. Yes, I agree. think therapy is how you approach it. Exactly like you're saying, we all could use that impartial person that's supportive and ⁓ that can listen to you and that you can have someone to talk to. think that's important for everybody, especially these types of families. And like you're saying, going into it with like, hey, we're here to get better. We're here to just be the best that we can be. We're not here to play the blame game. And if it's feeling like a blame game, you have the wrong therapist, in my opinion. ⁓ It's that person, the therapist's responsibility to make it better for you guys, not feeling yuck afterwards. And it's how they can point out things to you guys, to the family, to the kid. ⁓

Rhonda: Yeah, I agree.

lisa koller: to make things work better or try different things that work for you. And if, know, I think a lot of life is just like trial and error, like does this work or doesn't it work? And if it doesn't work, you didn't fail, you just realized something that didn't work. It's okay, move on, try something else. So.

Rhonda: Yeah, exactly. Some people get caught up in the failing and I like the way with our teenagers when they're not sure about counseling and we can talk to them and get them to see some benefits of it. One of the things we stress is, hey, not every therapist is a match for every person. have to be able to advocate for yourself. You have to be able, you have to have someone.

lisa koller: Yeah. ⁓ so true. guess.

Rhonda: you can speak to to say this is not working for me. And it's not, I said it doesn't mean the therapist is bad. It just, you don't click together and that's the way it is. And that's how it is with some things. But getting the kids to really understand that if you say, I don't think this is working for me, that it's not a bad reflection. Sometimes I think they think it's a bad reflection on the therapist when it's not.

lisa koller: Right. I agree with some. Right. There's so many different people in the world and personality types and therapists are the same, right? know, so either it sure it doesn't. I would say give it a few sessions because I think most kids, families, especially teens are going to go into it with a bit of apprehension like, I don't like this. I don't want to do it.

Rhonda: It's just a matter of whether you click or not.

lisa koller: But after a few sessions, you're gonna know, give it three to five and maybe that relationship has changed, maybe they feel more comfortable. ⁓ But I think it could be a really exciting and helpful way for your child or your family to move through life and to gain as much experience and momentum as possible.

Rhonda: Because like medication, therapy is not slated to be forever. But if you have therapy and you learn some coping skills and communication skills that work good for you now, maybe 10 years from now, you're in a different life situation and what you have been doing just isn't quite cutting anymore, then you jump back to therapy and say, hey, this is what I have been doing. This isn't working. What do I do now? And it's just one of those things you can jump in and out of. for the rest of your life. that's what I think is great about counseling because you pop in, get a tune up, pop out, you know?

lisa koller: Yes. going to use the exact same word. My husband and I had a marriage therapist and we went and repaired a lot of parts of our relationship that weren't working. And then she's like, come in for tuneups. And we did, you know, it would be maybe like a year would go by and we wouldn't need anything. And then it would be like, Ooh, we need a few sessions. Like we're struggling here. And then we'd repair. And then, you know, it was just awesome to have that opportunity to know that like, you know, it's like a car engine. You have to go and get your spark plugs, your oil changed. It's, you know, people.

Rhonda: Right? Yeah.

lisa koller: grow, they move, they run into trouble, they need help. So it's okay to go in and get help. It's okay.

Rhonda: Right, exactly. So ⁓ you had some great little treasures you were gonna share, but I kinda took a squirrel moment, so go ahead and.

lisa koller: ⁓ You didn't take a scroll mom. I thought we were right on it. ⁓

Rhonda: ⁓ okay, good. Whew.

lisa koller: The last few years I was teaching a evidence-based ⁓ parenting class and I wanted to say, I won't mention which one it is, but two things that came out of it that I thought were golden and I wish that I would have paid more attention to or known about or practiced as my son was younger and into his teenage years that would have worked really well. I did get to practice them towards the end and they were magical, but it is, ⁓ And there's a lot of different ways that you can say this. I've heard it, like, like my, okay, the one that we used was exit and wait. So when you're in the heat of it, instead of just having the full blown out fight, noticing, you know, you're regulating, you're noticing like, Hey, this is getting hot. And I have to come back and finish it later. So many people think they have to fight it out or talk it out or deal with it right then. And you don't, you don't, think.

Rhonda: I love that.

lisa koller: I think as a my mom I parented like that because my mom parented me like that where it was you know lecture time and we got to deal with this now and here's the consequence or the punishment and Etc and really you can take the time to think about it You can take the time to have your unified front take the time to Just take the time to talk to your kid about it. I think that on a little scroll note Giving your kids the opportunity to be part of the consequence and to talk about the behavior is huge because if they own the issue and they own the consequence, they are more into it and it's more likely to work. I think parents give this like, I'm in control type of mentality. It's never gonna go well because nobody likes to feel controlled. Right.

Rhonda: Now, I love that whole concept of exit and wait. I wish I would have known about that concept when I was raising my kids because I have heard that before and thought about it. And I do talk to families about it, because I'm like, you know, when you're in the heat of the moment, I think you stop listening to each other. You might hear what's happening, but you're not listening anymore. You're so focused on, I will win. I will win. So that if you step away, take time and think about what you were saying, try to remember what the other person was saying. You can probably see whether you were making too much out of it or maybe there's a compromise. Maybe there's, didn't, wasn't explaining my opinion very well. Let me try again now that I'm calm and everybody needs to be calm and rational because it's an exchange of ideas. And I always tell the kids, I'm like, hey, at the end of the day, it's gonna be what your parent says. That's just the way it goes. But if you're able to be respectful and rational with them, it might give your parents something to think about. So maybe next time, things go differently. But yeah, I love that exit and wait. I love that.

lisa koller: Yes. Because if you're not waiting, that's when all the crazy comes out, right? That's when you're saying things that you don't mean because you're angry. You're missing the point, like you said. You're not listening at point. And as a parent, you might throw out crazy consequences that you aren't going to be able to keep, and then your kids aren't gonna trust you. They're gonna know you're a fraud. And it's just crazy. And a lot of times, when I did use that,

Rhonda: Right.

lisa koller: and we would come back and talk about it. Had I gone on, I would have just made a mountain over a molehill when like, if I just took 10 minutes or maybe I took to the next day, maybe I didn't even need to talk about it at all. I mean, most of the time you wanna go back and address it, but I mean, it was like, wow, why was that such a big deal yesterday? And maybe that was because I was feeling yuck. Maybe that's because something happened within our family earlier. I mean, who knows what's going on? Maybe your kid was just making a mountain out of a molehill. ⁓

Rhonda: Right.

lisa koller: But that time is big. So I think that that's the number one thing that parents can use that really helps. The other thing is don't take it personal. I think my husband and I disagreed a lot ⁓ on that. And I think it would have helped us if he would have accepted that. And not to say that I didn't have lots of flaws parenting, but I didn't care if my kid liked me. I was a... And I thought like I'm going to parent the way that I think is right. I'm gonna always be open to new ideas, but I don't care if I'm not gonna parent to if my kid likes me or not. know, if I know that as a child and as most teens don't like their parents, right? They're like, ⁓ whatever, they're my parents. You know, they love them, but they might not like them.

Rhonda: Right?

lisa koller: But as a 30 year old adult, I would turn around, ⁓ man, I get it now and I realize this. And you always come back and you love your parents and you're like, provided you had a stable environment, et cetera, I realize there's things that you might not love your parents about if there was some traumatic events. But on the most part, you as an adult understand and forgive your parents for the little things and you realize like, love them and they were good to me and I see what they were trying to do. So I never parented as. I want them to like me. It just wasn't an issue for me. And I think it was for my husband. And maybe that's just the difference between men and women, or maybe that was just the difference between him and I, or maybe that was just the difference in how we were raised. But ⁓ that used to frustrate me a lot. ⁓ What do you think about that?

Rhonda: Well, I think I'm a weak link. was a single parent for a very long time and my daughters just, I mean, if only I could have exited, walked away. But no, so it became just a total brutal reality show here and it was awful. And I did spiral into crazyville and The punishments were just, I wasn't gonna do those punishments. Why they came out of my mouth, I have no idea. So I was a total weak link, you know, because I could not be trusted to follow through on anything because my emotions got the better of me because I didn't know how to calm my situation down with my girls. You have all of us arguing and I don't want to argue, I don't like conflict and it just escalated, escalated, escalated. And then years later, my husband comes into the picture and he has this horrible thing. He's logical. And it's like, what? What do you mean logical? And he's like, you're way too emotionally involved in this. And it's like, what? And he's like, you're becoming a little off the charts. It's logical. This is what has to happen. Well, I didn't like that because now I think that he's telling me I'm not a good parent. And that's not what he was telling me. He's just able to look at it from a different point of view, but because I wasn't able to see it, you now all these years later that the kids don't live with us, I see it and I'm like, ⁓ yeah, I get it. I was a crazy person because I was single parent. I think that makes it hard to be in a single parent is a whole different ball game of

lisa koller: Right. Yeah.

Rhonda: how to handle your kids because you're tired. I mean, you're tired and you just don't wanna fight all the time. So you manage to give in a lot. And then the more you give in, the easier you are to manipulate. And then when you really need to be strong, the harder it is. So there's no easy side to parenting. There's no easy side. There's always something that's pop up and everything. But yes, I am the weak link.

lisa koller: Yeah. Yeah.

Rhonda: to this day.

lisa koller: I'm gonna say about a week link at all. mean, like you said, you were a single parent and you realized towards the end what worked and what didn't. And now you are a fabulous coach to many teens giving mental health help. And I think that you had to go through that and see it from that side and now get out of it, get out of the forest that's on fire and see it from a different point of view. And that's made you who you are today and able to have these conversations for people. because we've both learned a lot from being mothers and we've learned a lot from being in the field. And I think you're not complete to have this talk unless you've seen both sides of it. And I'm so thankful for both sides.

Rhonda: Yeah. I am too and it's hard going out to like some houses you go out to and you meet these families and you just, ⁓ your heart just goes to these families. Well, pretty much every family, I can't just say some, all of them, they go to and you just want to help because a lot of times you can see, like you're saying, you can see both sides because you're not directly involved in it and you can look and go, ⁓ yeah.

lisa koller: Yeah.

Rhonda: I used to do that. ⁓ yeah, my daughter used to do that. Yep, I see exactly what's going on here and it's not good for anybody. So let's try to communicate and fix it. But yeah, thank you for putting a nice positive spin on my craziness. ⁓ I appreciate it.

lisa koller: else. all the time. I really do think that it's important to see both sides and I know out of all the people that I've worked with that you are very valuable that you do see both sides and you do champion for the ADHD families and I think that that's super important. ⁓ You talk about going out and seeing the same mistakes, ⁓ my lord, and I tried to use that, not talking too much about myself with, you know, with trying to help other people, but recognizing those and being like, wow, let me, you know, let me... ⁓ educate you on this family, X, and Z, and just really letting them know that I'd felt it, it, and these are gonna likely be the results, and that you see the same patterns in so many families. And I felt like a lot of times, like if you had the parents still together, which is rare, ⁓ but if you do have the parents together, ⁓ the man, like you said, is often logical, and the mom often acts ⁓ emotionally. And I think it's... good to have both and it's bad to have both, ⁓ I think that women, like I realized to get the women to listen, you had to do so much validation about the job that they had done thus far. And it's not that you're doing anything wrong, just here's a way you can do it better.

Rhonda: Right?

lisa koller: is I think that the message that they need to hear, because it's not like anybody's setting out to be crazy and to like run out of energy and to pick fights and all of the above and to give crazy consequences that you can't uphold. It's just that you're trying, you're trying and the emotion is a lot of it, because that's how God made us. God made women emotional and men more logic. That's just kind of how it is. And when you have two parents that stay together, my husband and I stayed together, it is... So hard, so hard to have the unified front, but it is one of the most important things. That is something we never got right out of the 20 years of raising our son. We still to this day couldn't get that right. And had we gotten that right earlier on, we probably would have had an easier route. ⁓ And it's just really hard when you have two different people from two different backgrounds that were raised totally different ways. You think, well, I'm right because of this. and I'm right because of this. And oftentimes there were good aspects of both, but trying to parent on the same page is really hard and it's detrimental to your child when you can't do it.

Rhonda: And because aren't children amazing, they can sniff out that discord in like seconds and know and they know that they can play one parent against the other. And before you know it, parents have forgotten why they were with a child because they're in the middle of their own little thing. And kids are brilliant. mean, I give them credit. They are brilliant. But yeah, I think I think that's hard.

lisa koller: seconds. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Rhonda: I know that when we're out with families, we'll tell them, look, you all have to be together. You have to appear united. Do not second guess the other person with the child standing right there. Go someplace quiet. If you think they're gonna be listening at the door, go for a drive. Whatever you gotta do, do not do it in front of the child. Look unified because they sniff that out so

lisa koller: Huh. Yes.

Rhonda: fast and they know what buttons to push because people forget that even though they're kids they're brilliant. They might not be emotionally mature but they're brilliant.

lisa koller: Yes. Thanks. I agree 100%. On to the next thing, ⁓ one of the most important things that I think that's captured the whole world and makes such a huge difference is technology, right? The video games, the phone. I just wanna say that it has destroyed our families. How often, Rhonda, have you gone out to a family and you walked in and you see each person on their phone completely siloed?

Rhonda: ⁓ yeah.

lisa koller: and you just go, you immediately know what's going on. You're like, there's no love, there's no, not no love, but there's no communication, there's no working together, there's no reality, it's just, you are so broken down as a family. And I would, I know this is radical, but if I had to do it again in this day and age, there would be no phone, iPad, video game, there just wouldn't. And we would choose television shows.

Rhonda: All

lisa koller: as a family and things would be done as a family. I would just have a very rich life of activity. And I would know as a parent, I have decided to be a parent. The next 20, I can get tired, but this next 20 years isn't me siloing and making myself happy on the phone. It's about how I'm gonna raise my children and what kind of life I want them to live and the ideals that I want them to be around because... when we allow our kids to be playing the video games and being on the phone, you are having society decide, you're letting your child ⁓ have this personality and choices and worldview that somebody else has decided for them. They didn't get the chance to develop it on their own from the activity and the experience and it is scary. I mean, it's really scary.

Rhonda: It is. then you see, you go in and parents are like, my child is not healthy. My child doesn't eat right. I can't get my child off the video game. And I look around, I'm like, you have a dog. You live in a nice neighborhood. Do you and your child walk the dog? No. I'm like, leave the house, walk the dog. Have a conversation. Those are my best conversations is when I'm

lisa koller: Come on, Yeah. Yeah.

Rhonda: outside of my home. Those are my best conversations, you know? But yeah, it's scary because people online, don't know you, but they're telling you stuff and that's your, a lot of kids have online friends, which I'm not for or against, but I think there needs to be a balance between online and face-to-face and...

lisa koller: Done!

Rhonda: I think there's a lot of things to be concerned about either way. And yeah, I agree. think technology has really done a turn. Yeah.

lisa koller: messed us up. It really has messed up families and it bothers me to my core. And so I would suggest for families is, you know, if you're beginning to have a family or you've got little ones is really rethinking how much technology you're going to allow. And if you're a family that's gotten into that trap now, it's extremely hard once you're there to backtrack because if you take a phone away from a kid or a video game, I mean, you are going to get violence like you've never seen it before in your life. I mean, probably they will try to hit you, et cetera. I mean, it's no joke. But slowly trying to back away from that. So yes, adding in the family walks, being the parent and taking control, like getting some kind of service or internet service where you can turn it off at a certain hour or saying, you can have this X amount of hours or you are turning it in at night, you are not taking it to school. ⁓ Things like that, starting to implement ⁓ restrictions ⁓ on a slow basis.

Rhonda: I know.

lisa koller: but a gradual basis and I guarantee that you will see a different child. Yeah.

Rhonda: I agree. I agree. And that family time, that spending more time with your child. mean, it is fun to get outside of the walls of your home and see nature and talk to them. And it can be so much fun. And then you could even try to be that parent that has their friends over. I mean, my

lisa koller: right

Rhonda: I loved that I would come home from work and especially when my kids got old enough that their friends were driving and stuff, I would come home from work and thankfully they all knew the rule, leave the driveway for me, but there would be like six or seven cars parked up and down and across my yard and I would come in and I never knew because they all drove white cars, I never knew who I was going to see, but they were all having a great time and they weren't on their phones, they weren't on a TV, they were laughing and joking together, eating out of house and home, but they were still having a great time together and having your kids in sports, you know, trying to find something to get them involved outside of the home is such a great thing and, you know.

lisa koller: So, yeah. that. Yeah, it's imperative, Rhonda. I mean, like you were saying, it's like trying to really be creative and ⁓ producing those activities. And they can be of no cost. I mean, it could be the walks, it could be playing basketball, it could be doing art in the mountains or in like, you know, the forest. could be, ⁓ it's just really anything that you can do, just having quiet time. It's doing anything together, reading. And you can reward your kids for these in the smallest. ways that mean a lot to them and you know on the reward thing and the reward subject and spending time with parents what fascinated me was when I was you teaching this parenting program we had contracts and the kids came up with rewards and it always broke my heart when their top reward wasn't like money which you'd think it would be or like you know a new video game or a new this or that It was like, just want to hang out with my parent. I want to play a board game. I want to go on a walk with my parent. It stabs you in the heart because you knew they weren't getting that time with their parent and that's all they wanted. And it was shocking. And ⁓ I think when the parents saw that, you know, it bled their hearts, you know, and it opens you up to your parent. Your kids want that interaction with you. I mean, they may not act like it, like they may put this tough facade, but they want it, they crave it and they need it desperately.

Rhonda: Yeah.

lisa koller: ⁓ It's like sharing those ideas. It's like just like, hey, let's go sit in the car for a minute where there's air conditioning and you play me your favorite song and tell me why you like it and play me your first three favorite songs or like anything like that. I that's like a half an hour right there, 45 minutes. Like how much time do you have after school every day? Not that much. So if you're taking 45 minutes of their time, that's 45 minutes where somebody else wasn't telling your kid who to be, right? You were allowing your kid to be who they are and you're talking about those ideas and sharing your ideas and.

Rhonda: Yeah, absolutely.

lisa koller: ⁓ I just think that that's golden. So it's parents just putting a lot of thought into what they want their child, what they want their kid's childhood to look like and who they want their kid to be as a, as a person.

Rhonda: I think that is absolutely true and acceptance because children with ADHD, are different.

lisa koller: They're different. That is right. Different. Yep.

Rhonda: not different bad, not different good, they're just different. But, you know, I think it's important for parents especially to look at them and be like, I accept you for who you are. You know?

lisa koller: Exactly. And it's breaking down what society is telling you your kid should be. Sorry to interrupt you. I feel like that's huge. Like I think I got into that trap. Like I have to have my kid, you know, be into this sport. I have to have him ⁓ go to school at like, just go to school, like get a diploma, go to college. Well, my kid wasn't that kid, you know, he got a GED. He's probably not the...

Rhonda: right.

lisa koller: the college kid. mean, there's still that option, but there's, you know, trades are big these days. And it's not because he wasn't smart enough or this or that. It's just that's not who he was. That's not how his brain works. That's not where he's on fire. You know, he's going to be more of a business owner and he will be on fire then. It's just different. And it's okay to accept that it's going to be different. And you have to take out what you want your kid to be or what you thought you wanted or what society told you is important because it's just not the same anymore.

Rhonda: Yeah, I mean, I hear stories from my mom how, you know, her choices were graduate high school and go to college. She could be a nurse or a secretary, you know, and, you know, that type of thing. So there was just certain things and how the expectations were. But even me growing up, it was expected that I would go to college. I am really not that kind of person. I don't like school. But I didn't get a choice in the matter and so I went to college and it took me a long time to get through college, lots of starts and stops and everything. And I think that's the thing too is there's so many opportunities out there that kids are kids. Just because they're brilliant doesn't mean school is their thing.

lisa koller: Thanks. Yeah. Right, I think it's hard for them to pay attention. It's hard to be in a room with 20 or 30 different personalities competing. It's hard to understand the directions when your brain is having like eight things go on at once in there. It's difficult and it's not, classrooms are not made up to cater towards those brains, you know, unless you've got, you know, a lot of money that you're going to a specialized school or whatnot, a private school.

Rhonda: No, they're not.

lisa koller: that's made just for ADHD kids, it's very hard to fit into that. And you're stigmatized and it's not fun for them, you And then you have kids acting out because of that. It's like, I don't fit in, so I'm feeling my, I'm unregulated. I didn't catch the directions. I'm too embarrassed to ask. So when the teacher calls on me, instead of being embarrassed and not know the answer, I'm gonna act like a jester and disrupt class to get the attention, because I also want people to like me.

Rhonda: Right. Right. And it's not a good scenario either way. that's what I, if I could change anything, I would change that. I would change where people were more accepting of who people are. Like they just look at, you don't look at someone and make a decision. You get to know them and you're like, hey, this is a great person. This is a great person, you know? And I...

lisa koller: So yeah, it's tough.

Rhonda: It bothers me that a lot of people don't take the time to get to know somebody, you know.

lisa koller: Yeah, I agree. And it was always shocking to me that with ADHD and neurodivergence being such a big deal over the last 20 years, I was shocked about how many teachers were coming into the teaching environment that hadn't been trained on how to deal with that. It was shocking to me.

Rhonda: ⁓ my gosh, me too. Absolutely. It's especially after I go out and spend half an hour, just 30 minutes with a child. I've listened to mom and everything and their frustrations and a lot of times it's frustrations of how the child's acting at school and how they're getting treated as a parent at school. And I talked to this child for half an hour and I'm thinking, Okay, in a half an hour, I've already figured out that this child processes differently. How can the teacher, and I'm not belittling teachers by any means because they have a hard job and they're understaffed, big classrooms, but you're with this child all the time, know, day in, day out. How have you not picked up on anything that this child just

lisa koller: Yes! Yeah.

Rhonda: processes differently, not trying to make your life harder, but they're not processing the same way. And, you know, it's not a negative thing. It's just the way it is. don't, it's different. It always reminds me of Sheldon and the Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite shows. You know, he processed everything so differently, you know, and he didn't communicate well and stuff like that. But the people

lisa koller: S. ⁓

Rhonda: who were his friends, they just kinda knew that about him and it was just a thing. It was just who he was. And so I look at a lot of these kids and I think, yeah, they just process stuff different. Just takes a little longer or, you know.

lisa koller: Thanks. Right, right. Yeah, for teachers, mean, boy, do they have the hardest jobs. Like, just can't imagine having to, like, I had a hard time just parenting my one ADHD child. And, you know, a lot of times you've got, you know, maybe 20 % of your classroom like that. Plus you've got to, you know, you're changing subjects, you're, you know, teaching all these other kids and.

Rhonda: Absolutely.

lisa koller: And so maybe my statement before was a little rough. Surprisingly, I said, I was surprised that they didn't have the ADHD education, but you'd think because it probably gets so hard, they would want to invest or their school would want to support them, an investment of learning how to deal with that slightly better. But the way that I helped my son's teachers and helped my son, I think through middle school, well it depends, in middle schools you have the same teachers and sometimes you don't, sometimes you switch around. But I would meet them early. I would make sure they had all the information. I would say, I'm 100 % on your side here to help you, here to help serve you, to teach them ⁓ whatever you need from me, I'm there. So I would say, this is my child's personality, these are the things that you might see. If you get this kind of behavior, this is probably typically behind it. ⁓ he's not understanding this or he's gonna need this. And so it was my way of trying to clue them in on what was gonna happen and the best way to deal with it in case they were a new teacher or they didn't have any ADHD training. And I felt like that set up a really good relationship. And so I would encourage parents with smaller kids to be able to do that and just really get in there good with your teacher. But ⁓ did you have any experience like that?

Rhonda: I wholeheartedly agree with you because I have worked with some parents that they have been like that, they have been on it, saying to the teachers, this is what you could expect, know, keep in touch with me and everything else and... ⁓ you know, kind of go from there. And they just seem to, they seem to do really well, you know, and it's not a, it's not a competition. The idea is to make sure that the child has what the child needs and the teacher needs to have an environment to be able to reach all the kids. And they have, I don't know, 25, 30 some kids in their class usually, I think. And, you know, that's a lot of different personalities. playing in the same sandbox and a teacher needs any help they can have to try to keep everything balanced so they can actually do their job. And I think it is a very difficult job and the more parents that can help, the better. I mean, we grew up because my mom was a teacher, my brother and I, it didn't matter what we said ever. Your teacher said this. didn't matter what excuses we had, we were wrong. The teacher was always right and we got dealt with accordingly. You know, as my mom, before my mom retired from teaching, she said that, you know, parenting had changed. They now blame the teachers for what's going on with their children. They're not looking at, I'm having to deal with this in the classroom. You're not doing anything to help me at home and you're blaming me for everything. You know, and I think there's too much of that. think if everyone, like you said, could work well together, then it would benefit teachers who do have a very difficult job and the children who should be there to learn because that is their job, you know. I think we already need to do a part two to this because I'm having a great time. This has been wonderful. We're definitely gonna have to do a part two, because we have a lot to talk about. But I wanna thank everyone for listening to Lisa and I today. And I wanna say that Becoming Unapologetic is part of my Life Coach business. And that is U2.0, Y-O-U 2.0. And on the website, it's you-u.com. the letter or letter, number2-0.net. And so any comments or anything you have about the podcast, you could go ahead and put, there's an email on the website, you could send it to us. If you wanna be part of our discussion, we would entertain that, that would be so much fun, because this is all a judgment free zone and we're just trying to make things a little bit more. ⁓ normalized in some areas for things and get some ideas out there. And Lisa, I loved your ideas today. the whole structure of my podcast is just let's swing it, let's have a good time, let's see what we come up with. Thank you so much, Lisa. ⁓ Bye.