Meet Maria

late- diagnosed ADHD. Mom.

As a healthcare worker who managed multiple departments, Maria had spent years developing ways to work around her attention and organization challenges without realizing she had ADHD. As we know, ADHD presents itself completely differently in women, and there is a rise in women who are being diagnosed later in life.

But when her son needed ADHD support at home, too, with entirely different challenges, everything became overwhelming. Maria found herself trying to learn about ADHD strategies for her son while also figuring out her own newly discovered ADHD. She described it as "drowning in information but not being able to organize or use any of it."

The situation felt especially confusing because Maria was successful at work but struggled to manage things at home. She had trouble staying consistent with her son's behaviour plans, couldn't keep track of his school accommodations, and often felt frustrated when his ADHD behaviours triggered her own.

"It feels like the blind leading the blind."

How We Worked Together:

Our agreed approach focused on helping Maria manage both her own ADHD and her role as a parent to a child with ADHD. Research shows that parents with ADHD face more intense challenges when supporting their ADHD children since their own attention and organization difficulties can make it harder to be consistent with parenting strategies and maintain self-care.

Key Strategies:

Building External Support Systems: Visual organization systems helped Maria track both her work responsibilities and her son's needs. This included charts for his medication schedule, school accommodations, and sports schedules while also managing her daily tasks, delegating the rest, and learning how to say no.
Increasing Self-Awareness: Maria learned to recognize her own ADHD patterns and how they affected her parenting. This awareness helped her develop more effective emotional control and self-regulation strategies, preventing minor issues from escalating into family conflicts.
Working on Both Issues Together: Instead of treating Maria's ADHD and her parenting challenges as separate problems, we addressed them simultaneously.