First Steps for moms with ADHD attention deficit disorder, Part 4 #004
First Steps for moms with attention deficit disorder, Part 4: A podcast of encouragement and strategy on how to make your motherhood with ADHD better day by day. This month on Motherhood in ADHD, we are discussing the first steps. In Part 4, I’m sharing a rapid-fire list of strategies and ideas you can use to make positive changes quickly.
Patricia Sung 00:03
Welcome to motherhood in ADHD, I'm your friend Patricia Sung. My mission is to be a lighthouse for mothers with ADHD, helping you find your path to success by learning to appreciate your ADHD as an asset. I'm seeking to change the paradigm that ADHD means your life is doomed to be a hot mess. So I'm sharing strategies and encouraging you in your pursuit of happiness, to love who you are every day of your ADHD
Patricia Sung 00:39
Hey there successful mother, it's your friend Patricia. And we are in our series right now of just the first steps you can take when you find out your mom with ADHD. And today, I'm gonna throw a bunch of strategies at you real quick. And I want you to remember that you cannot fix all of the things are right now. So just see if one or two really jumped out at you. And you could implement them maybe in the next week or two to make your life a little bit easier.
Patricia Sung 01:06
Job Number one, ask for help. This is something usually moms are not good at because we're too busy doing all the things ourselves. And you also have to let go of the fear of failure or looking incompetent, like you can't do all the things. But let's be honest, nobody can do all the things all the time. So just let that go. And think about how you can ask for help. And this can work so many ways. The first one I would say is look at your family and friend circle and see how you could get some help there. One thing I think is a great idea is like treating watching kids. And so finding another friend who has kids that you like, because you're gonna spend some time with them, and get along well with your kids, and see if they'd be interested in making an agreement where say every Thursday morning from 930 to 1230. You take turns watching the kids and so maybe you have this week, and then they have next week. And you know, if you don't feel comfortable doing in your house, you can meet at a park or a playground. But you know, meet at the park at 930 Have the kids play, grab some easy activities like bubbles and a bowl and then pack a picnic lunch and the kids can eat there at the park. You know, at 1145 Everything will all be cleaned up by 1230 You can head home for naps. And then you know on your alternating Thursday morning is when you can plan to get things done.
Patricia Sung 02:39
So you know if you have a doctor's appointment that you don't really want to take the kids too. Or if you just want to have a few hours of getting stuff done around the house without somebody interrupting you go get a mani pedi for an hour of that time, just use that time. You know, every other Thursday, you got that on your schedule, and you can plan ahead on that. And that's a great way to ask for help. For some folks, you could do an accountability partner. Like right now, in doing accountability partner for going to bed at night on time. I text one of my friends at 1030 Every night and we make sure that we're both either in bed or heading to bed. That's been a huge help, because I know that time is ticking down and I have an alarm set on my phone at 1030 to check in with her and make sure that I'm doing what I said it was going to do.
Patricia Sung 03:29
You can also delegate hire or outsource. And for some people, maybe this isn't an option monetarily. But that's what I was saying earlier, like find a way to trade if you can't hire a babysitter for that time find a friend to swap with. But you know, one of the great things about having ADHD is that you're really good at thinking outside the box. So do that. Figure out if there's a way you could train somebody if they could hum, come help clean your house. What could you do for that and just don't get stuck in I have to pay bazillions of dollars for help. That's not true. Yes, obviously, you can pay bazillions of dollars for help. But you can make this work for you think about the old days when they used to barter bags of rice for fixing the horse shoes on their horses. That was a very commonplace way of paying for things back in the day. So see if that's an option with some of your friends.
Patricia Sung 04:20
I also highly recommend looking into a coach. If you're really struggling like if you are on the struggle bus, give some serious thought into hiring a coach. You can find all different types of coaches. You can find people that are certified counselors versus people who just specialize in ADHD. But that's the main thing I would say is to look for somebody who is very well versed in attention deficit disorders so that they have a bucket of tricks to pull from and are aware of what you're dealing with so that you're not teaching them about your disorder while paying them. When you look at hiring people. You got your coach, maybe you need to hire a clean Nice lady, because you just can't stay on top of the cleaning stuff. Give yourself permission to ask for help. If money's tight, think about what a trade off could be. Maybe you're spending money somewhere that you don't really need to be spending money on. What's more important, that thing that you're already spending money on? Or is the money better spent on doing grocery pickup for example, you could there's grocery pickups that are free, but some are like $5, maybe ordering your groceries through Instacart. Instead of going to Starbucks, once a week is a totally valid trade off for you. Just think about where you can ask for help, where you can gather some support from other people.
Patricia Sung 05:41
My second category of strategies here is rhythms and routines. Now, the word routine sounds super boring. And so people with ADHD, like stick their fingers in their ears and say it out loud, because they don't want to think about boring things. But I prefer to use the word autopilot. And so think about things in your life that always happen that you cannot get rid of. They happen all the time, or some kind of regular frequency that you can make easier by putting it on autopilot. So I'm gonna give you some examples. One is my laundry routine. I touch laundry every day. And I know you're thinking, Oh, Patricia, that's because you just love laundry so much. That's really easy for you. No, I hate laundry. It's literally the bane of my existence.
Patricia Sung 06:27
Until now that I have this autopilot routine, I really don't like laundry, I'd rather clean the toilet than do laundry. It's very unenjoyable to me, I do laundry every day, sometimes, you know, I have two little kids. So I can control how much they change their clothes. So we don't have crazy amounts of laundry. But you might have to do it more frequently if you have older kids who are in activities and the soccer uniforms, and they got like two or three outfits a day that they're going through. But for me, because I can do usually four loads a week, sometimes it's five, but usually four.
Patricia Sung 07:01
I put it in the washer in the morning. First thing, if it's a dryer load get into the dryer. By the end of the day, I tried to get the dryer load folded and put it back in the drawers so that it's done. And when I fold laundry, I tried to do something enjoyable during that time. So it makes it a little more bearable, because that's actually the part I hate the most is the folding and putting it back in the drawers. So I try to listen to a podcast or watch some ridiculous show that's just purely entertainment. And try to make that a little bit better. You could chat with a friend if you're not doing it late at night like I do, but find something enjoyable to match up with that. And then for my loans that are hang dry that day one, I get it washed and hung up. And then the following day, the job is to get it all put away.
Patricia Sung 07:47
So some loads take two days with the drying time. But I don't do another load on that drying day. And once I have to. But generally speaking, I take such good care of the laundry that that one job for the day is fine. This auto pilot version that I have has been going so well. Like y'all we my husband and I used to fight about laundry so much. Like it was ridiculous. We thought about it more than our kids more than money like this was a hot mess of our relationship. And it's because I only buy things that go in the dryer, and then I just don't spend a lot on clothes. That's not a thing that's super important to me. And my husband is very concerned about clothes, he likes to buy nice things, they have to be well taken care of. And I didn't take good care of them. Because I didn't understand that at the time. And so it's taken me a long time to change my mode of thinking to I do usually buy nicer things like quality over quantity.
Patricia Sung 08:47
Now, like back in the day, I buy, you know, five of the same shirt from target because I knew it look nice. Whereas now I would just buy one shirt that's nicer that will last longer. And so I've modified my thinking to do quality over quantity, and just taking better care of the things that I own. But this was not an overnight thing. Like we thought about laundry for probably eight years until I got into this routine and literally almost died. About a week ago. My husband said could you please stop doing laundry so much. And I was shocked. He was complaining because there wasn't enough room in his drawers for all the stuff because normally a good portion of it was in the laundry basket. And so we had plenty of room in his drawers and now his drawers are full because everything's clean all the time. I cannot tell you what a shock that was because we'd spent years where he would complain that he didn't have any underwear left because I took too long to wash the laundry. This autopilot has been such a lifesaver and a relationship saver because I've taken the stress of this project out.
Patricia Sung 09:47
So you could automate lots of different things in your life for example, dishes, laundry, cleaning, all these things that happen on a regular basis. You can do that with I will definitely go more in depth on In my auto pilot concept, because it's been such a lifesaver for me, but at least get that bug in your ear for now, I also recommend just taking a quick survey of what would make the most impact and doing that first, then the last thing I think that's really important for moms with ADHD is to have a way of rest and self care. When we moms are not stressed out, our family is not stressed out. So it is so important that you take a little bit of time to de stress so that you can refill your cup and then your cup can overflow and fill into your families.
Patricia Sung 10:36
You always hear that saying when mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. And that's true, because we can't care for other people if we're not in a good shape ourselves. So start thinking about how you can make some time for yourself. Again, it doesn't have to be super fancy, it could just be sitting quietly at the end of the day, and enjoying some silence that is free. You can do it anytime that your kids are in bed at least. So think about how can you refill your spirit refill your soul, so that you can be an awesome mama to your kids and an awesome wife to your spouse. Alright, so like I said, that's just a really quick list of strategies that you could implement. Don't try to do them all. Pick one or two that you could make your life a little easier in the next week or so. And give it a try. If it's terrible, then stop and do something different.
Patricia Sung 11:30
All right, successful mama. I will talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to motherhood and ADHD. For more resources head over to our website. www dot motherhoodinadhd.com