ADHD: The Comprehensive Parent’s Guide

This is the book I wanted to be able to hand parents after an evaluation.

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For decades, I have sat across from parents who are relieved to finally have an explanation for their child's struggles—and then look at me and ask the question that really matters:

“Okay. Now what do we do?”

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That question is at the heart of this book.

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Parents don't just need to know that their child has ADHD. They want to understand their child.

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Why can she focus for hours on something she loves but can't seem to start her homework?

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Why does he know exactly what he's supposed to do and still not do it?

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Why do reminders, consequences, and strategies that work beautifully for one child seem to accomplish nothing with another?

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Those are the questions I've spent much of my career helping families answer.

 

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Why I Wrote This Book

 

There are many excellent books about ADHD. But I wanted to create something that brought the pieces together in a way that felt both comprehensive and usable.

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Parents need the science—but they also need to experience a better Tuesday morning before school. 

 

They need to understand executive functioning, attention, brain chemistry, and development. But they also need help when their child can't get started on homework, loses everything, has a huge emotional reaction, stays up too late on a device, or insists there is no homework when there absolutely is.

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So I wrote this book to move back and forth between those two worlds: understanding why something is happening and knowing what to do about it.

 

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Understanding Comes First

 

One of the ideas that runs throughout the book is simple:

When we understand what is driving a behavior, we can respond to it differently.

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That's why the book begins beneath the behavior—with the many ways ADHD presents, what ADHD actually is, different thinking styles, and executive functioning. It introduces Wagon Wheels and Ladders™ and The Control Tower Model™ as practical ways to make complicated concepts easier for parents and children to understand.

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From there, we move into everyday life: creating habits, getting started, strengthening attention, managing hyperactivity and impulsivity, understanding behavior, and navigating those BIG feelings that can affect an entire family.

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Because ADHD Doesn't Happen in a Vacuum

 

Children don't leave their ADHD at the kitchen door when they go to school—and ADHD doesn't look the same at every age or in every child.

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The book looks at ADHD in the larger context of a child's life: school, physical health, medication, diet and exercise, coexisting concerns, the ways ADHD can be missed in girls, and the particular challenges that emerge during adolescence.

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And then we get practical.

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Time.

Organization.

Study skills.

Screens.

Building a team.

 

And something I believe is especially important: how to talk with your child about ADHD.

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What I Hope This Book Changes

 

I don't want parents to finish this book with a longer list of things that are “wrong” with their child.

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I want them to see their child more clearly.

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I want the child who looks unmotivated to make more sense...

The child who can't get started to be understood...

The child who feels everything intensely to be felt...

The creative child whose ideas go in twelve directions at once to be celebrated...

The teenager who seems capable of so much more than their grades suggest to be heard.

 

And I want parents to come away with something equally important: practical strategies for what to do next.

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Because understanding ADHD isn't about making excuses for children. It's about understanding what is getting in the way so we can give them the support, structure, skills, and opportunities they need to become increasingly successful on their own.​