Some days it can feel like your child with ADHD has a vendetta against you. You tell them to go out…they go in. You say stop…they go. You tell them to start their homework, and they look at you and turn on the television. When our kids show defiance and go against our warnings or directions, it can feel downright infuriating. And it can make you question whether you are even a good parent.

First, let’s normalize this: you are not alone! Defiance is one of the most common challenges faced by parents and teachers of children with ADHD. As a psychologist, whenever a parent tells me that their child is defiant, I always try to dig a little deeper to find out why?

The truth is that defiance is often a symptom of a larger problem for the child or with their environment.

Today, I am sharing four possible reasons for defiance in children with ADHD.

1) Executive functioning differences

I remember testing a young girl and asking her to complete some math facts quickly for 1 minute. Af...

Does your child struggle with writing? If so, you are not alone! When kids come to my (Katie's) office for testing, they are usually happy to play with toys and look at pictures... until I get out a pencil and tell them we are going to write! Writing can be challenging for so many reasons.

I constantly talk with parents who are stressed and overwhelmed every time their child brings home a writing assignment. Don’t worry, we are here to help you understand why this is happening and how you can support your child! 

Writing and language are connected

There is a strong link between writing and language. In many ways, writing is the academic form of speaking, so children who have a language disorder are much more likely to struggle with writing. One longitudinal research study revealed that “among children with speech and language impairment, the cumulative incidence of a writing disorder was 61.4% for boys and 55.1% for girls at age 19 years” (Katusic et al., 2009).

If you are worrie...

Over the past few months, we have been sharing lots of tools we can use to raise confident children. Let’s face it: we all want to raise amazing kids who KNOW they are amazing! 

The truth is, when you’re raising a child with ADHD, or anxiety, or learning differences… it can feel absolutely defeating when they speak negatively about themselves. Research has shown that children who learn differently often have lower self-esteem than their peers. They also receive more negative feedback than their peers, and it quickly becomes a cycle. 

The good news: there are ways we can help!

You don’t have to be a psychologist or a speech language pathologist to promote your child’s confidence! Keep these simple tips in mind to help grow your child’s self-esteem:  

1. Set reasonable expectations.

A child cannot (consistently) do something well that is outside of their developmental skill level. When children are presented with tasks day after day that are outside their skill level, they are left...

As a parent, the stress of facing repeated mornings of your child crying and refusing to go to school can be incredibly overwhelming. Some days you may feel empathy and want to keep your child safe at home. But other days you totally lose your cool and desperately want to pick them up and force them in the car in their pajamas. It can be hard to know what to do when your child refuses to go to school and how best to handle the situation.

Last week, we covered several reasons why your child might be refusing to go to school. If you missed it, check it out here. This week, we are diving into our top 10 strategies to consider if your child is refusing school.

Top 10 Strategies for School Refusal

1) Validate Emotions

Always start with validating your child’s emotions. Let them know that it’s ok to be worried or afraid. It happens to everyone, including you. Anxiety thrives and grows when it is hidden. Talking about it gives it less power in your child’s life. Your child nee...

If any of you have had your child refuse to go to school, either now or in the past, you know how frustrating and challenging this can be. And what can simply begin with your child not wanting to go to school or not feeling well once a week, can rapidly deteriorate into weeks, months, or even years of school refusal. Over the past few years, I (Lori) have worked with a number of families facing school refusal, and I can tell you that the situation is hard on everyone – the child, the parents, and the school staff. And once in a pattern of refusal, it can be very hard to work your way out. But I want to encourage you that it is possible! So, let’s first jump into finding out why it is happening.

Why is My Child Refusing School?

This is a difficult question and varies from child to child. There can be a number of reasons for your child not wanting to go to school, so we will discuss some of the most common:

1) Anxiety

If your child is refusing to go to school, there is a ver...

"There are no right answers to wrong questions.” – Urusla K. Le Guin

Hi there! Katie here. Today, I am making the case for why I have the best job. OK, I'm kidding. Sort of. What I should actually say is, I'm a speech language pathologist who gets to work directly with a team of psychologists. On most of our diagnostic evaluations, we are able to collaborate and do both psych and speech/language testing, and I love having both disciplines work together. 

One of the first things we tell families who come to our practice is: If your child has a diagnosis of ADHD (or autism, developmental delay, or a learning disorder), a speech language evaluation is an important part of understanding the whole picture of your child's strengths and needs. In this blog, I will address the primary questions that parents have about speech language evaluations for children with ADHD. 

Why does my child with ADHD need a speech language evaluation? 

Most people understand how important language testing is for  autistic children. Since social communication is part of autism, ...

How’s school going for your child? In Arizona, we just finished up the school year – which is a welcome break for all of us parents who have been homeschooling our kids for the past two months! How did distance learning go in your family? Each of us at The Childhood Collective have had different experiences.

Mallory’s oldest is in preschool, so they didn’t have any specific homework. She has been doing all kinds of creative activities to keep her little ones busy and engaged. Lori and I (Katie) each have daughters in kindergarten, so we got to dive head first into distance learning! My daughter loves reading and is now reading everything in the house… which wasn’t awesome when I left myself a note to remember my tooth fairy responsibilities (oops, had to think fast to get out of that one!). Of course, each day when it was time for my daughter to do math, she would immediately need a snack, find a random bug bite that needed attention, or have an emergency trip to the bathroom. Full di...

When children are first learning to talk, they often say words in funny and unexpected ways. As parents, most of us have at least one story about our child mispronouncing a word, and the embarrassing moments that followed! It is completely normal (and adorable) for children to mispronounce words… but when speech sound errors persist beyond a certain age, this can cause issues in reading, writing, and social interaction. For this reason, it’s important to identify articulation (speech) problems early. 

In this post, I am going to break down a few of the most important questions that parents have about speech disorders, and give you some general guidelines to follow. If you are concerned about your child's speech sounds, it is always best to seek an evaluation with a certified speech language pathologist (SLP). 

1. What is the difference between speech and language? 

To begin with, it’s important to identify the difference between speech and language. In this blog post, I am only talk...

Weekly check in time! How is everyone doing? This week has brought countless changes, and for most of us, a little (or a lot!) of added stress as we adjust to this new “normal.” We are right there with you, and we are figuring it out with our own families too! As schools move forward with plans to implement remote learning, we are getting daily questions from parents, such as:

• How do I support my child with ADHD when they are not motivated to work at home?
• What is the best way to balance my adult responsibilities (working from home, taking care of other children, managing all of this stress) along with making sure my child doesn’t fall behind academically?
• How will my child’s needs be met if they are on a 504 plan or an IEP?

 While we have no expertise in pandemic management, we do know a lot about child development, the parent-child relationship, and special education needs and resources. In trying to think about how we can support you during this time, we decided to bring tog...