Parenting with ADHD and How to Stay Energized
If you’re parenting with ADHD and your energy tank is registering low on a day-to-day basis, you are not alone.
While living with ADHD symptoms and their impacts, finding ways to replenish your energy levels can feel utterly impossible. It can feel like one more thing to do… increasing overwhelm and further exhaustion.
While juggling your individual and household responsibilities, it may not be possible to get real time to yourself. But creative tweaks can make a subtle, yet meaningful difference in how you feel at the end of the day.
We’re sharing our ideas of how to create mini self-care moments, build in strategic recovery time and give permission to go back and repair with family members when things have been tough.
Parenting with ADHD
Parenting with ADHD Idea 1: Discover personalized ways to care for yourself in small (tiny) gestures:
Everyone gets energy from different places and you know yourself best. Let’s start by taking a few moments to look inward.
What activity/time/space/relationship gives you energy and replenishes your soul?
Maybe it’s listening to music that you love while you cook, waking up early to have a solo coffee, watching a funny YouTube skit after a tough car ride, walking around the block even when it feels like a push, laying outside and watching the clouds, booking a phone conversation with a friend or family member or having cuddle time with a loved human or pet.
Parenting with ADHD
Parenting with ADHD Idea 2: Mini recovery moments planned for the times you’ll need them most:
Brainstorm challenging patterns that tend to happen in your home. You could probably list the times when your energy tank gets tapped the most. Maybe it’s certain times of day, or types of behaviour that can leave you feeling at the end of your rope. Are there a few examples when parenting with ADHD has felt extra hard? Reflect on what you were doing pre or post these high depletion times. Can you build in a few minutes of recovery time before or after these draining experiences? By mindfully placing moments to recuperate, take a few breaths, and work to strategically replenish a few drops of energy, it can impact the way you are able to show up for the rest of your day.
Parenting with ADHD
Parenting with ADHD Idea 3: Giving yourself permission to go back and repair:
Parenting with ADHD comes with a giant mental load, especially these days. We are expecting a lot of ourselves and that means we end up carrying emotional stress even when we are not with our children.
You may find yourself internally asking questions like…
“Did I deal with that appropriately? Should I have done something differently? Why can’t I be more patient? Why can’t they listen just once? Why is it feeling so hard?”
Carrying this ambient pressure can lead to further feelings of exhaustion and parenting burn out.
Knowing you can go back and re-engage with your loved ones to reconnect and repair is a powerful tool and opportunity to consider. While it may sound like another “energy-out” activity, it might actually fill your tank in a way you hadn’t predicted. It also may be the most powerful work we can do as parents. We’re not supposed to be perfect, and neither are our kids- we’re just humans trying our best.
When we show our vulnerability to our children, they learn that it’s okay to make mistakes. By giving yourself permission to be imperfect (aka. completely normal), and allowing yourself the chance to revisit challenging situations, you can take a load off yourself and your family members. You might find it fuels you in a deeper, grounding way.
With the above ideas in mind, take a few moments to reflect on what you could spend 7 minutes a day doing for yourself. Anything come to mind that might have you breathing a little easier?
