Living With ADHD in a Pandemic

Welcome to Voices of Compassion, CHC's podcast series providing courage, connection and compassion, highlighting topics that matter to our community, our parents, families, educators, and other professionals. My name is Cindy Lopez. Today we're talking about living with ADHD during this pandemic. ADHD is a common neurodevelopmental condition that affects about 9% of children ages 3 to 17 in the the U.S. so how is COVID 19 affecting people with ADHD? With working from home and remote learning, both students and adults can experience feelings of isolation, loneliness, and boredom. Living with ADHD has its challenges, and today we also will hear about some strengths, or as our guest likes to call them, superpowers. So today we're talking with Ross Loofborough, who's lived with ADHD his whole life and now uses it to his advantage as an adult. Welcome, Ross. Is there anything else about yourself that you'd like to share with our listeners before we get started?

Thanks for having me. I very much believe that ADHD is simply a difference. And, you know, unfortunately, ADHD has been viewed largely in a negative way, but it doesn't have to be that way. And when we really get into it, ADHD can absolutely be a superpower, which I'm definitely a believer of today and for most of my life was not. I just really believe in my bones that living with a certain boldness and a daring tenacity and fearlessly taking measures and getting back up after you fall down and trying again, even when everything seems stacked against you, that is heroic. That's people living heroically, in my opinion.

Thank you, Ross. So, Ross, so will you talk a little bit about your experience living with ADHD in this pandemic?

Yeah, absolutely, Cindy, because I work at Apple. In mid March last year, at the beginning of this pandemic, Apple sent all of their retail team members home, closed their stores for a long time, for months, and that was quite interesting. My wife immediately asked me, how does one do retail from home? And it was really exciting because I had always wanted to try working from home. There's a lot of, I think, glamour in working from home and this idea of freedom. And I found that was really great because it gave me a lot of space to be creative and take my time working through my thoughts and stringing different ideas together and really going about my work in just a different way because I had the space and time to do it in my more ADHD friendly way, so to speak. But I also found there were challenges with not having enough structure at times and not having enough time planned to dos or priorities. I could find myself getting distracted very easily and focusing on maybe not the best things at the time.

So in addition to that, have you started some things in the past year that have been really beneficial to you, like perhaps a new hobby or an interest that you've discovered?

Yes. So mountain biking has actually become something I've invested a ton of time in this past year. It was a great way to get outside. And I found that that has really been checking many boxes that my brain craves. My brain craves excitement. My brain loves risk. High risk, high reward. You know, an ADHD brain is known for kind of going into like a really calm state when we're experiencing more risky situations that for most people maybe would freak out their brain. So getting out in nature. Right. We know from science is so good for us. I'm exploring that novelty. Part of my brain is getting fed every time I mountain bike because I'm exploring new trails and I can see my skills develop. And that's part of the reason I love it.

As we think about our listeners, they probably have kids with adhd. So I'm wondering what advice would you give to your younger self if you were living through this pandemic with ADHD as a kid, like maybe a middle schooler or a high schooler? What do you think is important for parents to know about supporting their kids right now?

Yeah, it's a great question and I'm going to kind of hop down a rabbit trail and come back to it in true ADHD fashion here. So during this pandemic, what maybe parents are seeing and is maybe frustrating and they can't make sense of, and maybe their child is experiencing the frustration too, and so they're looking at it as a negative are in fact maybe some of their greatest assets and greatest gifts. So one is that laser hyper focus ability. So we know through science that hyper focus is something that really most humans are capable of doing, but actually ADHD brains are much more inclined and able to hyper focus more often. So, you know, that can be viewed as a negative thing because we often hyper focus on things that maybe are not the priority of someone else, or maybe we didn't even know it was the priority. But it is. An example of that is my wife has been asking me to clean the windows in our house and this has been going on for like five to seven years. Recently I spent like four hours cleaning every single window and every single screen in our house completely hyper focused on it. Was it the right timing? Was it maybe the best thing top my priority list for that day. No. But again, this is something I'm sure parents are seeing is their kids maybe really focusing on something. But they can probably miss the good or maybe, you know, the congrats or the encouragement their child maybe is hoping to get. Maybe is experiencing the opposite. Right? Just feeling shame and just feeling like they're broken. Like this hyper focus is a bad thing. So it's not. It's not always a negative. There's a couple things that I would say to my younger self. Number one, structure is your friend. My mom would always say that, and she'd always tell my teachers that he needs structure. The more structure, the better. I realize now because this pandemic structure is my friend, because if I'm working from home with no structure, I just don't end the day finishing the things I wanted to accomplish. I'm not as productive. So make a plan. And understand that our ability to make a plan probably needs refining. So it's good to go get some help from a trusted friend, from a mentor, from your mom or dad, because we often anticipate being able to accomplish way more than is actually possible in a given day.

So, Ross, follow up question. What would be helpful for a child with ADHD to hear from his or her parents right now?

Yeah. Yeah. Your child may let you know that they're about to start working on something and you come back an hour later or two hours later and they've not made any progress on that thing that they deeply wanted to make progress on. But instead of jumping to assume that that was intentional and that they were trying to sneak one past, you, just really like taking a moment to understand, to ask questions, to help them identify what transpired that maybe got them to this point where they didn't accomplish what they set out to do and maybe even showing some curiosity. And what was it that took their attention away that they were so focused on? Because I can almost bet it wasn't just nothing. And they probably were interested in something that is maybe a passion of theirs, something they would get excited sharing more with you about.

Thank you for tuning in. Just a note before we continue on with today's episode, we hope you're following us on social media so you don't need to wait a whole week between episodes to get engaging, inspiring and educational content from chc. Our social handles are linked on our podcast webpage@podcasts.chconline.org Ross I'm also wondering, especially right now, all of us are doing the zoom thing all day long, every Day. And kids are on screens all the time right now, right?

Yeah.

Do you have any advice about screen use?

Yes. I'm continuing to learn and this is a struggle for all of us. And as a parent now, I'm continuing more every day to like look at my actions and recognize that soon enough my year and a half year old daughter is gonna look at me and say, well, you do this and if I'm doing something too much of, say screen use that I don't want my daughter to be doing too much of, you know, I need to need to walk the talk, so to speak. So one way that you can help yourself and also your child with this is turning off notifications for all of your apps or for 98% of your apps. You know, for an ADHD mind, technology is one of the greatest things that could ever happen to us. And it's also one of the easiest ways that it can just veer us way off course and keep us endlessly distracted. So I would say only keep notifications on for maybe your reminders app or your to do list app. You know, just a couple of the things that help your own productivity or a child's productivity with ADHD. We've been using the screen time feature in iOS and I think this is something a lot of folks have overlooked because I know when I first tried using screen time myself, it didn't work at all because I knew the passcode that I had created for my own screen time. So as soon as I hit my limit of say an hour of the news app, I look at the Apple news app far too much. I would just hit ignore, ignore for the rest of the day, type my passcode and just keep going. I never stopped myself. I never had the self control. But my wife and I decided, hey, let's create the passcode for each other's device for the screen time limits we want to have.

Bold.

Yes, I know, and risky. We've been doing it for about a month now and it's been great because I have to move on to the next thing. I can't just feed that novelty seeking part of my brain with endless scrolling on my screen.

Yeah. So parents, just a note of caution if you want to do that. That's something you should talk with your child about before you set that up. But really great advice about turning off the notifications. Ross, are there some specific tools you use now that you would recommend? What advice do you have for parents.

On that front if your child is finding that they're having more time where they're having to do more at home. One thing that's been hugely beneficial for me is creating a zone for myself. You know, how do you help yourself or help your student get into that hyper focused state? On the right things. Because if it's on the right things, it's incredibly powerful. So for me, with my daughter running around, her name's Georgia and she's often creating a lot of noise in the house. Headphones, noise canceling headphones have been a game changer. Getting an app that gives you music or your child music without lyrics is very powerful. So one that's incredibly popular this past year. It's won a lot of awards. It's worth checking out. It's called Endel E N D e L. Fantastic app for that. Definitely recommend. No lyrics, Just audible sounds designed to help the brain in different ways. Whether it's focusing, whether it's relaxing. That's one. And then the other one that many have heard of is the time timer clock. And it, it actually shows us ADHD brains. It's a very visual of the time that we have. So the Pomodoro method, it's incredibly powerful because it's 25 minutes. So 25 minutes of being focused on a task, whether that's doing the dishes or doing your homework or cleaning up your room. Just 25 minutes of engaged activity. And then when it's up, you get a five minute break. Five minutes to check something on your phone, play a game, walk around, move your body, and then 25 more minutes in focus on an activity. So I found that small enough amount of time, I'm able to accomplish a whole lot more than I realize I'm capable of. And it helps me not get too distracted.

Yeah. And that can be motivating to see.

Oh, absolutely.

Like I have, I've used up about half of my time. Am I about halfway done with what I set out to accomplish? Things like that are helpful. So, Ross, do you have any specific advice for parents?

So a couple things. Number one, something I did this past year, I've wanted to do for years. I finally got a huge whiteboard on my wall here in my master bedroom. It took some convincing of my wife to put this up. And parents, I would encourage you to get something similar or try something like this because with your child, you can help them get what's in their brain out of their brain in front of their eyeballs. It helps us organize. It helps us make sense of, okay, this is what I need to focus on. It helps us prioritize. And if you do that with your child, I think you're going to see a lot of gains from that. The other thing is the power of coaching. There were so many things my parents would say to me. My mom would say to me as my biggest advocate growing up and my strongest believer, my dad as well. They would encourage me and they'd say a lot of the right things I needed to hear. But it never, never hit the same way as when someone like a teacher or a mentor or a close friend or a coach, as I've come to have as an adult, when they say things to those with adhd, that's either encouraging a different way of looking at yourself, maybe giving advice on something new to try. It hits different, it feels different, and it's really powerful and meaningful. So whether it's finding a coach for your son or daughter, whether it's allowing them to spend more time with someone that's a mentor or good influence on them, they're positive. Words and communication towards your child will make the world of difference. It completely changed my life and my outlook on myself was going to my first ADHD coach. I can't recommend it more highly.

And that's interesting. Just another nuance on that is if parents could kind of change their framework a little bit to see themselves as coach versus parent, it might change some of the things they say or how they say some of the things. So, Ross, I'm wondering if there's one thing that you hope our listeners take away from this episode, what would that be?

It would have to be the fact that ADHD is not a disability. It's not a disorder, and it's not a disease. And in fact, in the right context and right environment, you or your child or anyone you love with an ADHD brain, they can thrive and do things most other people simply can't even fathom. So there's five things that if you could remember this and find ways to really, like, make this a part of your mental psyche, you're going to live a more meaningful and just happy life. It's knowing that ADHD is a superpower, right? But you have to start believing that first. So beginning to do that knowledge and that work yourself to make sure it's something you believe. Number two, it's a positive. It's a gift. And a bonus, number three, there are a lot of people with an ADHD brain. Not the majority, but there's a lot. And a lot of the top performers on the planet have adhd. And number four, working hard to remain your own biggest fan and finding others to help you remember the value that you have to offer.

Right.

That coach, that mentor, that encouragement. We need that. And then the last is just thinking differently is not only okay, but it's incredibly valuable. And it's something that when the world discovers it, they want more of it.

Yeah, I know. Every brain is wired differently. And this concept of different, it applies to everyone. And it's good. Different is good. So thank you for joining us today, Ross.

Thank you, Cindy.

And thank you to our listeners and to our listeners. We hope you'll join us again next week for our next Voices of Compassion podcast episode. Find us online@podcasts.chconline.org also please follow us on our socials. Find us on Facebook, HC Paloalto and Twitter and Instagram. You can Also visit our YouTube channel at CHConline Palo Alto and we are on LinkedIn. Subscribe to Voices of Compassion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast apps and sign up for our Virtual Village email list so you never miss an update or an episode. I always love to hear from you, so send me an email or voice memoir at Podcasts at chconline. Org or leave us a rating and review. We look forward to you tuning in each week. After all, we are in this together. See you next week.