Supporting Teens with ADHD and RSD

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program, Geri South. Geri is a passionate advocate for teenagers, young adults, parent-child relationships, and individuals with ADHD. She empowers families, schools, and organizations to grow together, communicate effectively, and build healthier connections. Jerry is an ADHD specialist, teen and parent coach, and the founder of Headspace Hub. Jerry is the mom of seven neurodivergent kids and has worked as a corporate airline trainer with clients and in public school settings. And as the creator of ADHD Simplified, Jerry is helping individuals change their lives through one-on-one coaching, online learning, and in-person workshops.

[00:52] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:54] SPEAKER_00:

Jerry, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:56] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[00:57] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm excited to speak with you because I feel like you can really help us with something that is a perpetual mystery and challenge to us in schools. And that is how to work most effectively with kids and teens who have ADHD. So set that up for us a little bit. What is it like from the parent perspective and from the child perspective to have a kid with ADHD or to be a person with ADHD, especially when it comes to school?

[01:26] SPEAKER_01:

Well, this is a great question because I feel that school is usually a sore spot for somebody with ADHD. And there's lots of reasons for that, right? But kids with ADHD are obviously struggling in the school systems today. And I think that that's because the way that the ADHD brain learns is just completely different than the way a neurotypical brain learns. I think that in the school system, you know, most kids are required to sit still, listen, take notes, don't be disruptive, you know, turn things in on time. And they're usually required to sit for long periods of time.

[01:59]

And doing this and kids with ADHD actually learn best when they're able to stand up, walk around, touch things, use their entire body. talk to their peers, work in groups, ask as many questions as possible. So that's one aspect of this is that kids really don't enjoy going to school. They're comparing themselves to their peers. They're not usually very good test takers. They're struggling retaining information.

[02:24]

And so it's a place where all of their insecurities are out there on full display. And then on top of that, we have impulsivity. A lot of these kids are also struggling in social situations. I think the research showed that And most kids by the age of 10, 80% of them haven't ever been invited to a birthday party. I have clients in elementary school that are going to the playground, bringing money and chips, bribing kids to talk to them, to be their friend. So you have so much going on.

[02:49]

But I think one thing that maybe we don't talk about enough, and we're getting away from the stigma of ADHD being a hyperactive disorder, which is actually only one third of all ADHDers are hyperactive. it's really even more so a disorder of emotional dysregulation. And when we understand that ADHDers are constantly all day long having a very difficult time regulating themselves emotionally, very sensitive to the idea that they're disappointing others, constantly comparing all of the things that they can't do well to the things that everyone in school is doing well, it just really compounds this issue that we have of, you know, kids are there to learn and to try to become the best version of themselves. And instead they're there thinking about all the things that they can't do and experiencing a lot of shame in the school system. I was working as a coach already before I started specializing in ADHD and working with teenagers.

[03:44]

So I loved what I was doing. I walked away from a career that I love to help other women as a coach. I was a single mother of six children for a long time. And my kids, when they were younger, they were doing great. They just, I mean, I did not have hyperactive children. They never emptied out a single cupboard.

[03:59]

They never wrote on walls. I could take all of them with me everywhere I went. And then, you know, hormones, puberty, the teen years set in and it was like, everything just went haywire. All of my kids started to struggle and they were very close in age. My oldest son was suicidal. I really got to the point where I believed I was going to lose him.

[04:19]

I was taking him to therapist counselors and the best help for whatever reason, couldn't reach him. And at the same time I was coaching women and the women I was working with asked me to do a pilot program for teenagers. And to be honest, and I have so much respect for teachers because I remember thinking, no way, I do not want to work with teens. They're so hard. My son doesn't like me at all. Anyway, I did a pilot program and about 10 or 15 kids in that first program and bribed him to come.

[04:47]

And it was the first thing that helped him. It was shocking to me that it helped him the way that it did. And that's when I immediately shifted my niche. And around that same time, all of our family was being diagnosed with ADHD. I was eventually diagnosed with ADHD. Five of my seven children are on the autism spectrum.

[05:04]

Six of my seven children have ADHD and I reached out to specialists. Dr. William Dodson is one of the most brilliant ADHD doctors in the United States. Took a camera crew, went to his home, asked him anything and everything I could and continued to do that so that I could really become, I call myself an expert. I really wanted to be able to help other parents and give them the help that I was looking for that I couldn't find. And so now This is what I do.

[05:29]

I go into schools. I educate administrators and teachers on ADHD and neurodivergence. I work one-on-one with my clients and I do things like this to have these wonderful conversations with you to bring awareness to what ADHD is and what it isn't and how we can really help these kids thrive.

[05:44] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for being here to do that. I appreciate your time. And I appreciate your bringing your story, your personal experience into this while also recognizing some of the things that are common experiences, yet that differ from kind of our popular portrayals. Back in the 90s, when large numbers of kids started to be diagnosed and medicated, there was a particular, I would say, type of ADHD that became kind of our mental model of what ADHD looks like. Can't sit still, gets put on Ritalin. That's kind of been the story for a couple of decades now.

[06:17]

But I'm hearing about more and more people who are diagnosed as adults who have kind of a different set of symptoms. Take us into some of what experts are realizing is the fuller picture of ADHD beyond just a hyperactive, especially a boy who is medicated. There's a lot more detail to that picture now.

[06:37] SPEAKER_01:

Right. And for anyone who doesn't know, because we'll still hear the term ADD a lot, you know, oh, I'm not hyperactive. I have ADD. They really don't use that term anymore. Everything falls under the umbrella of ADHD because that H doesn't just stand for hyperactivity. If you aren't hyperactive, which I mentioned earlier, the majority of ADHDers are not hyperactive.

[06:56]

The H stands for hyperarousal. And so this is why so often ADHD was being missed among girls because usually they weren't hypered. It also missed people that were willing to do twice as much work for half the reward, just a lot of masking going on or people that have just, they were very gifted or talented and were able to just kind of blend in and overcome. And that's the thing with ADHD is. All we see is what's going on on the outside, but ADHD really lives in here. It's like what's going on the inside.

[07:25]

So we weren't recognizing that girls were masking or somebody was doing well in school, but they were trying so hard, you know, and really the ADHD burnout is a thing. which then leads to more emotional dysregulation. So as you mentioned earlier, as far as diagnosis among adults, the average age of ADHD diagnosis is now over the age of 31. This is no longer a childhood disorder. And ADHD hyperactivity is just one component of ADHD. It's not usually present.

[07:58]

It may be there, it may not be. But now that we know that ADHD, if I was going to Break it down to two things. It would be distractibility and emotional dysregulation. And I don't know if you know much about rejection sensitivity dysphoria or RSD, but one third of all adults will say that is the main debilitating symptom of their ADHD is rejection sensitivity dysphoria. And so you think about, we have so many adults that are struggling to regulate themselves that are having these RSD episodes because of their RSD being triggered And then you look at children who are expected in the school system to be able to regulate themselves. They're three years behind when it comes to executive function deficits.

[08:42]

So if they're 13, they're really the age of a 10 year old. And we're trying to teach them to regulate themselves. Children, childhood. What's interesting is another reason we're missing a diagnosis so often is because the DSM still only has criteria for children. It's only up to age 16. So this will be why there's this common misconception that adults are growing out of ADHD because it's just manifesting into something else.

[09:09]

So maybe a child who has a hard time sitting still, who's fidgety, who's restless will turn into an adult who's constantly overworked, doesn't know how to settle down and has no peace in their life because they're always overscheduled, adding more to their plate. So it's not that ADHD goes away, it's that the symptoms change as one becomes older.

[09:28] SPEAKER_00:

not diagnosed as a child or teen, correct?

[09:31] SPEAKER_01:

That's right. Yeah. We know that ADHD is present from birth. That is the belief system. Of course, there are things that can make those symptoms worse and make them manifest. You know, trauma is one of those things, but we don't ever grow out of it.

[09:45]

If we work through trauma, if we engage in some kind of CBT or mindfulness practice, we can really learn to overcome these debilitating symptoms like RSD, for example, can be almost non-existent in your life. It can still be present at times, but it doesn't ever completely go away.

[10:04] SPEAKER_00:

Do you mind if I ask, what was it for you that helped you kind of realize that that might be going on for you that led you to a diagnosis?

[10:11] SPEAKER_01:

Oh, of course. Yes. I talk about these things all the time. You know, I did not know much about ADHD when shortly before I was diagnosed. And so actually the reason I was diagnosed was because my sister, had been struggling with a binge eating disorder and found out that it was related to ADHD. And once, because it does run in families and it is genetic, we all started getting evaluated and were eventually diagnosed.

[10:35]

And it's interesting because even within my own family, my sister's ADHD looks so different than mine. I wouldn't say I was hyper in school, but I'm more of the hyper type. I'm a go-getter. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm always on the go. And sometimes ADHDers will not present that way at all.

[10:50]

They'll struggle. They'll struggle to be motivated to do things. They'll just like, it's okay. I don't care. I'll just let that thing go. And so even within families, it can look completely different from one person to the next.

[11:02]

But another thing to mention is that ADHD has a very high comorbidity rate. You're 60% likely to have a comorbid condition if you have ADHD and you're 40% likely to have a third condition. So in the school systems, many times you're not just dealing with ADHD, you're dealing with ADHD and autism, ADHD and OCD, ADHD and ODD, things of that nature. So a lot of those things will overlap and it can be very confusing.

[11:31] SPEAKER_00:

And if those overlaps are with different things, if different students with ADHD differ because of their individual situations, but also because of the comorbidities that are different, it can manifest in a lot of different ways, it sounds like.

[11:45] SPEAKER_01:

And environmental factors too. When it comes to RSD, for example, RSD is triggered by teasing, constructive criticism, the idea that you failed to meet someone else's expectations or your own. However, what I've noticed in my own life with my children and my clients over the years is that when a child, real quickly, when it comes to trauma, a lot of times we think of trauma as big things, abuse, neglect, violence, but when Let's talk about little T traumas, right? It can be constantly being called out in the classroom or public shaming, you know, things like that, feeling rejected, being isolated. And so that can have the same kind of effect on the nervous system as big trauma at times. And so when we can help a child feel safe, help them calm their nervous system, work through the things that aren't working for them, when they're feeling more confident, people with ADHD carry such a large amount of shame.

[12:39]

the healthier they become, the less frequent you'll see these RSD episodes and they won't last as long either. So regardless of whether or not RSD is a huge issue for them or hyperactivity, we know that the healthier the environment and the healthier and safer the child feels, so that means consistency, predictability, the better they'll be able to show up and have control over these impulses and the things that are causing them some debilitation.

[13:08] SPEAKER_00:

about RSD, and you said that's rejection sensitivity. Is that what that stands for?

[13:13] SPEAKER_01:

Rejection sensitivity dysphoria.

[13:15] SPEAKER_00:

Dysphoria. And it sounds like that could potentially be something that is on students' minds 24-7, or at least the entire time they're in school or interacting with other people. Is that right?

[13:28] SPEAKER_01:

That's absolutely true. And in itself, it's very unpredictable. So for example, one of my youngest daughter, and some of my kids have struggled in school. One of them didn't graduate. This daughter that I'm referencing, she actually has been in all honors classes, straight A's. School just becomes very easy for her.

[13:45]

She really never presented with any symptoms that I could see of ADHD, but she does have RSD. So it might look like this. She comes to me a lot. She's in speech and debate. She likes me to look over her papers. She takes feedback well.

[13:59]

She asks me for feedback. I don't give it to her unless she asks. But one day she comes in and asks just like she always has before. And when I politely tell her what I think, she grabs the paper. Forget it. I don't need your help.

[14:10]

You don't think I'm good at this. So you don't know when it's going to be triggered. And that makes it difficult in the school systems as well. So being aware, though, of what RSD is and what does trigger it can help us in our language and the way that we talk to these children. Because You know, I was working with a boy who was hyper and he was struggling. He was struggling with self-esteem.

[14:32]

He had been kicked out already of an elementary school. He struggled with friends and he's doing the summer program. So usually I'm in communication with administration and the teachers, but he had just started the summer program. The teacher didn't know him. And, you know, she's doing a great job in there. She's doing what teachers do.

[14:48]

She's trying to maintain control of the classroom. Well, there was a student who was sitting next to him that was daring him to break the teacher's pencil. And she could see something going on in the back of the room. And she warned him, that's my pencil. Put it back on my desk. You're not allowed to touch that.

[15:05]

But this boy is constantly trying to fit in. And his friend or the boy next to him says, you're a chicken if you don't break the pencil, something like that. So he told me later, I had to break it. All he's thinking about is I'm going to make a friend. So he breaks the pencil. The teacher then, you know, I'm sure she's frustrated.

[15:24]

I do not blame her for this, but she's calling him out in front of the class. Why did you do that? I told you not to do that. His RSD is triggered immediately. He is cussing. He's yelling.

[15:34]

He loses control. He ends up getting kicked out of the summer program. His parents, you know, ground him. It's a, it's a huge issue. He ends up in my office that evening and he's crying. And he says to me, it was just a pencil.

[15:47]

I'm in all of this trouble because of a pencil. I think he was in fifth grade. He really didn't understand what he thought was so extreme. He wasn't taking complete responsibility, obviously, for his behavior. But what he said was, if she would have just pulled me aside and talked to me, I would have apologized. These kids, especially the ones with the behavior problems, they're actually usually very sweet.

[16:08]

They just are struggling so much internally. And he said, but instead, she apologized. purposely humiliated me in front of all of those kids. She was targeting me. That's RSD on full display. It was triggered.

[16:22]

And many kids will say that when RSD is triggered, it's so intense. They can't even remember what they said. That's not as common, but it can be that intense. That was probably my most debilitating symptom in my twenties. And again, my parents were divorced. I went through a lot of different things.

[16:39]

So there's things that come up, abandonment issues. It makes all of that so much worse. I used to explain I felt like I was being clawed from the inside out. It's such an intense pain. It can feel like an internal wound. So these kids, what they're experiencing, even though many times it's just perceived rejection, it's still very real for them.

[16:57]

And once an episode starts, we cannot get them out of that. They have to get it out. They have to work through it on their own. We have to let it run its course. So trying to negotiate with that child, reason with them, explain yourself, none of that is helpful. As educators, we just want to be aware of what RSD is, what the triggers are, so that we can try our best to avoid those triggers.

[17:20] SPEAKER_00:

One thing that occurred to me as you were telling that story, Geri, was that often to us, we don't feel like we're calling out or embarrassing the student because everybody can already see what the student is doing. The whole class knows if the student is breaking a pencil or whatever the behavior is. So to us, there's no way to handle that confidentially because everybody saw it. But you're saying the feeling of being called out in front of everybody There are some things we can do to make that a little bit more confidential, a little bit more private to avoid putting the student further on the spot, even though, you know, to our minds, the student already has the spotlight on them because of the behavior. The conversation needs to be more private. Is that what you're saying?

[18:03] SPEAKER_01:

Right. Absolutely. Because until the students called out this young man, for example, he thinks it's kind of funny because the boy next to him is laughing. He's thinking like, wow, you know, I'm making a friend. This friend that's laughing at him is also, you know, congratulating him for being so brave and taking this risk. Kids with ADHD are incredibly impulsive and they do not think about the future.

[18:26]

I was working with a young man recently who lit a rocket. I mean, he's 16. He lit a rocket under his friend's bed. He was at someone else's house. They have wood floors, burned a hole in the floor. He's a really good kid.

[18:38]

And he said, I was going to blow it out before it went off. And he's telling the truth. He said, I didn't know it was going to do that. I mean, they're not thinking clearly. They're not looking into the future. There's two concepts of time, now and not now.

[18:50]

And in the present moment, all he cares about is making a friend, impressing this friend, getting an ooh or an ah or a laugh. And so when the teacher calls him out, she's now taken him out of that moment that he's having. And now everyone's turning around. Some people are laughing. Some people are scowling. It's just embarrassing.

[19:11]

So RSD is not necessarily always logical. It's not even usually the reality, but it's just constant rejection. It's that child experiencing the rejection. I'm not good enough. You think I'm bad. You want to embarrass me.

[19:27]

And so always with someone with ADHD, I mean, there's a difference between tapping the desk and giving a little reminder, saying their name. But if we are going to have a conversation about their behavior, Whenever we can, we want to not have that in front of the class.

[19:44] SPEAKER_00:

Jerry, I wonder if we could talk about some of the other kind of environmental supports that we put in place. You mentioned executive function earlier, and I've had other guests talk about executive function and some of the kind of organizational strategies and supports that we can put in place to maximally set students up for success rather than just kind of throw them to the wolves in the school environment and say, what do you mean you don't have a pencil? You know, all of the... And yet I feel like there's a tension between providing supports and the accountability that we know ultimately is necessary for students to develop independence.

[20:17]

So rather than kind of, as I said, throw students to the wolves and just say, hey, what's wrong with you? Why don't you have a pencil? In your mind, what is the best way for schools to think about that issue of responsibility versus scaffolding and support? Because at the end of the day, we want our students to succeed, even if they need a little bit extra from us in terms of support.

[20:41] SPEAKER_01:

It's a great question because we definitely don't want to lower the bar, right? We want to think about it as like we're building a ramp to help them get there. So we expect growth, But we want to do that. We want to give students a flexible pathway to get there. So that might mean alternative assignments. It might mean more time, taking more breaks, breaking things into chunks.

[21:05]

I think that what I see, which is usually the biggest problem for kids with ADHD, is just inflexibility. When we can be more flexible with these children, then we're really creating an environment for growth. And the other thing we want to remember is that kids are with ADHD are in constant panic mode internally. You know, we hear of fight, flight, freeze, and we say fawn a lot, but I actually say fib because these kids they'll lie for self-preservation. They are panicking when they're getting called on. There's a lot of stress in learning environment because they You know, I think to have self-confidence, we really have to show up consistently all the time.

[21:48]

We have to trust ourselves to be able to follow through, get things done. People can count on us. And people with ADHD don't know that about themselves. They don't know why sometimes they can turn their brain on and get engaged and other times they cannot. And if they don't trust themselves to show up that way, it's very difficult when they know that their teachers do. And I think that this might be helpful for you.

[22:09]

We'll get back to finishing the answer to this question, but We really want to understand the difference between what engages a neurotypical brain versus what engages a neurodivergent brain. So for someone who's neurotypical, they can get their brain engaged just because something's important or there will be a reward at the end. That is utterly useless for someone with ADHD. So we actually have an acronym to help us remember the five things that get the ADHD brain engaged. And that's novelty, interest, challenge or competition, urgency or passion. One of those five things has to be engaged for their brain to, to be able to become motivated.

[22:49]

And usually if they can get engaged and stay engaged, they can hyper-focus and get things done twice as fast. So it's not that there's an intelligence problem. There's not a creativity problem. It's a problem of being able to get the brain started. So when we understand that, so for example, when we talk about like maybe rigidity in the schools. This is the assignment.

[23:10]

It has to be done this way. I see that a lot. You might have a child who you've given them a writing assignment and they aren't interested at all in the topic. They just can't get themselves started. They start writing it at like 10 o'clock the night before it's due, probably don't get a very good grade. If there's flexibility, if there's an idea of what you want to accomplish, but the child is allowed to bring you a couple suggestions of things they would like to write on, as long as it falls under that umbrella.

[23:37]

That's going to be the difference between an A plus paper and a D minus paper. So just understanding the way that children with ADHD learn. Another thing that I think would be helpful. I know I haven't given you specifics that you can do in the classroom yet, but I think that this is going to be helpful for teachers to understand is that ADHDers often know the what, you know, but they're not sure the why or the how. So they, if they're learning about something, they can tell you the facts, but they don't understand the big picture. So for example, let's say you're learning about the solar system.

[24:10]

They might be able to name every planet in the solar system. They might even be able to give you some cool trivia about each one. But then when you ask them a deeper question, like maybe how does the solar system work or how far away is the sun, something like that, they'll completely freeze. And they do this because, first of all, ADHD affects working memory, but also the integration of concepts. And so what that means is that the brain is stores the facts but struggles to connect them to a meaningful whole. And this is why allowing children to have notes for a test is incredibly helpful because they really could study for several hours the night before or even an hour the night before.

[24:48]

And then the next day, they don't have access to the information. So just really understanding that I think things that could be helpful is teaching concepts first, not just using facts. using a lot of visuals. Kids with ADHD are very emotional, so their memories are attached to the way that they were feeling. If there's not a heavy emotion attached to something, they usually won't remember it. So stories, visuals, analogies, something that gets their brain and they're feeling something when they're learning is incredibly helpful for them to be able to reference that.

[25:21]

Asking students to explain things in their own words so you can see where they're not being able to connect the dots. And I also I think it's important to know that because ADHDers are such visual learners, if you're asking them to do something, show them. This was an A-plus project last year. Once they see it, they can do it. And ADHDers start at the end and they move their way backwards to the beginning. That's how they approach any project or assignment.

[25:49]

So when you really understand the way that they learn and what they need, of course, having timers, as much visual graphs, checklists as you can, But keeping them engaged because kids with ADHD, it's so difficult for them already. I think in the school system, trying to learn by sitting still, writing notes, already they're having a hard time putting concepts together. They're terrified that they're going to be called on. Their brain is so burnt out. And then on top of that, you know, then trying to process what they're learning. It is a stressful environment for ADHDers, unless it just happens to be a subject that they are very interested in or just naturally do well.

[26:27] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. One, Jerry, one thing I wanted to circle back to that's come up several times is the idea of emotional regulation. And you've mentioned just how difficult going through the school day can be emotionally for students with ADHD. Thinking about, you know, the schedule and things like recess and just the pacing of the school day and the social environment. What are some of your recommendations or thoughts for schools to help students navigate those emotional demands and knowing that's an additional load that many of our students are carrying?

[26:58] SPEAKER_01:

Right. Well, I think, you know, ADHDers, you know, I know out here anyway in Arizona, we've really reduced the amount of physical education time that students are getting in schools. And that's so important for ADHDers. In fact, they've done research that shows that 30 to 45 minutes of strenuous exercise can stimulate the brain, the ADHD brain, the same way that a stimulant medication can. So it's actually necessary for these kids to be active, to be getting out they need more breaks, especially boys. And so with almost all of the kids that I coach that are in junior high or high school, we immediately put in their 504 or IEP that, you know, as soon as they start to get restless in class, they're allowed to get up, take a walk, walk around the school, get a drink.

[27:44]

For younger kids in elementary school, usually there's somebody that they can go talk to. There's a counselor, someone so that they're not being We don't want to isolate kids. We don't want to, you're being a problem. So you're going to sit in the back by yourself. That's so damaging. And it triggers the RSD because they're constantly feeling rejection.

[28:02]

I've had teachers do things like they can't have a laptop for the rest of the year because they damaged theirs and they feel that they're getting triggered every day. You're standing over here and holding my hand while the rest of the class is standing in that line. But all day, you know, not just for a couple of minutes, anytime a child is being isolated. You risk that the RSD is going to be triggered. And so I think that one thing that I see. Quite often, and this comes from lack of training.

[28:28]

I really don't blame our teachers. You know, our teachers are doing the best that they can here in Arizona. It's not required by law that there's any kind of neurodivergent training at all. And this really presents a problem because teachers are getting frustrated. They don't know how to manage these kids. And so they're doing all the wrong things, you know, but these kids really benefit from an environment where they're not worried.

[28:49]

about making their teacher angry or upset with them or rejecting them because of impulsive behavior that many times they cannot control. So when we have processes in place, you know, kids a little bit hyper, they can be your errand person, put a note in an envelope and have them take it to the office. In junior high and high school, there's usually somebody, a different classroom that they can go visit, but just more breaks at all possible. If we can have more creative learning opportunities where they're able to get up We're passing things around the classroom. They can touch and feel. They can work in groups.

[29:19]

They can work with partners. Or maybe we're breaking up the way that we're teaching so they're not just asked to sit still the entire time. And then more physical education, for sure. More time that they're out doing things. I mean, as an ADHD-er, I just loved specials. And it wasn't, sometimes I didn't like the special when I got there, but I loved that I was able to just get up and move.

[29:40]

I think it would be good to highlight that being bored is one of the most overwhelming, heavy emotions for an ADHD-er. When I'm talking to ADHD teenagers who are expressing, you know, maybe they're bored with their life. They don't have many activities. They don't have a lot to do after school. I mean, it's really heavy. My life has no meaning.

[30:00]

Sometimes I feel like I don't want to live, but there's nothing really going on. They're just bored.

[30:05] SPEAKER_00:

Boredom as an overwhelming emotion. Wow. That's really interesting.

[30:10] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I just think when we don't have enough education for our educators, then it's many times just labeled as laziness, hyperactivity, unwillingness to get work done, disrespect, but behavior is communication. These kids are looking for something. They don't want to be disruptive, but they are looking for attention. I have a boy that I work with that has a lot of impulse control issues and he was blurting things out in class and getting constant yellow cards, and he was about to get expelled. And so that helped him to control his behavior.

[30:48]

He's used to being the class clown in class. And he came to me and just said, you know, he's really down. And I asked him what's wrong. And he said, it's just like, you know, I'm not getting any attention. It's not the same school is so boring. And he said, I really feel like my personality has changed.

[31:05]

And what he expressed that day was that he felt that his friend's Weren't going to, you know, respect him. I don't know if you fully even comprehend that word, but those are the words he used. Nobody really wants to talk to me anymore. School's so boring. People are going to look at me differently. I'm not going to be popular anymore.

[31:20]

So his self identity was really attached to being the class clown. And it's really frustrating for teachers, of course, but ADHD years are dopamine chasers and he is bored out of his mind. He is very funny. He is popular. And so that was the only thing he was getting out of school. He doesn't get good grades.

[31:37]

He's constantly in trouble. You know, the only thing that school is providing for him right now, really, in his mind is that people laugh at him. And that helps him with his self-esteem because he's always in trouble. He's very impulsive. He's grounded a lot at home. He's often making choices that are.

[31:57]

creating a lot of disappointment from the people in his life. And so school has been an outlet with his friends where he can get the attention he's looking for to feel good about himself. And that is a completely different way of looking at a hyperactive boy that's constantly making sounds and being disruptive. So I think that when we have a better understanding of, I think that teachers would be very surprised. You know, I work with a lot of hyperactive boys They're in my office in eighth and ninth grade crying sometimes, not all the time, not all the boys are crying, but experiencing a large amount of shame, saying things like, I wish I could control myself when I get mad, but I just can't. What you're seeing, again, ADHD lives in the brain.

[32:36]

What you're seeing on the outside is not a full picture of what's debilitating about ADHD.

[32:44] SPEAKER_00:

There's a lot here that we're getting into, and I wish we could keep talking for hours because I think there's so much here that's valuable, but I know you have a lot on your website. You do speaking and training and courses and coaching. Jerry, if people want to learn more about your work and find the various places that you publish content online, where's the best place for them to start?

[33:01] SPEAKER_01:

Well, if you go to my website, jerrysouth.com, I have free materials there. There's actually an ADHD test. If you think you might have ADHD or someone you know, you can take the test for free. I have a free webinar on RSD to understand how it works and how to overcome it, the symptoms of RSD. And then I do offer a very affordable ADHD course.

[33:23]

And in that course, I sit down with Dr. Dodson. There's a four hour interview that's broken up in there. So it talks about whether your medication or anti-medication, it talks about those things. It talks about RSD. It talks about estrogen.

[33:35]

I even included the modules in there. That I use when I go into the classrooms and I work with teachers and administrators on ADHD with kids and also the my management courses in there as well, which is the tools that I use with my kids who have ADHD. So it's all there. And then also you can contact me from the website and set up a consult if you're interested in any kind of coaching.

[33:59] SPEAKER_00:

Jerry South, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[34:02] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

[34:03] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.