More Than Chore Charts: How to use visual communication to connect with your ADHD child and yourself, even if you're not creative with Laura Matteson #183
“The only reason why someone might not like a visual checklist is if they don't understand what the task is. So that's where a demonstration might be needed. Or they feel like it's too hard, in which case you can break up that into even more mini tasks.” –Laura Matteson
Notice how Laura takes the shame and responsibility off the learner when they are stuck. This is my kind of mama and teacher!
Our guest today, fellow ADHD mom, Laura Matteson, shares with us how to use visual strategies to enrich our lives, communicate with our kids, and bring more fun into our everyday lives.
Laura shares her ADHD journey to self-acceptance and how she now uses her ADHD gifts to help moms, kids, and business owners find more joy in learning.
We also cover how to overcome obstacles to bringing more visual communication into your family, including the ever-present “but I’m just not creative.”
Join us as we dive into how to connect more with your child through communication that works.
Laura (she/her) is a visual translator and founder of Illustrative (a visual support studio) and spends most of her time managing her ADHD/Dyscalculia, 2 children, 1 spouse, 1 creative business, and 3 flower boxes (that are miraculously all still thriving!). Through all of these facets of her life, Laura has seen that when people show up as their natural selves, they conserve energy for what matters. She loves helping other external thinkers communicate in their own way while also being understood by others.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Find Laura here:
Website: https://www.illustrative.us
Instagram: @illustrative.us
Stop Medusa Mom in her tracks with these 10 tips to calm down before you lose your cool!
Watch (or read) the free video here: https://www.patriciasung.com/medusa-mom
Laura Matteson 00:00
The only reason why someone might not like a visual checklist is if they don't understand what the task is. So that's where a demonstration might be needed. Or they feel like it's too hard, in which case you can break up that into even more mini tasks.
Patricia Sung 00:16
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family, I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families. Well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD. Hey there successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung, let me introduce you to Laura Madison. She is a visual translator, the founder of illustrative visual support studio and spends most of her time managing her ADHD and dis calcula two children, one spouse, one creative business, and three flower boxes that are miraculously all still surviving through all of these facets of her life. Laura has seen that when people show up as their natural selves, they conserve energy for what matters. She loves helping other external thinkers communicate in their own way while also being understood by others. Now Laura and I have been in each other's orbits for a couple of months now. And I've gotten a chance to know her through successful mama meetups. And we've worked together in creating visual analogies for my business in order to help communicate to you what my programs and courses can look like. And I truly believe that visual communication is so helpful for ADHD brains. And we'll talk about why today we'll also talk about how Laura leans into her ADHD and make sure that she feels supported. We talk about her EDG journey, and then how do you visually communicate with your kids? It's more than just chore charts and morning routines. She shares some common obstacles that parents run into and like what do you do if you're just not creative? How can you still use visual communication to connect get to know your kids, meet them where they are? Explain yourself, and together work forward to a better solution than you would have otherwise? Visual Communication is especially helpful when you the other party or both of you are emotionally dysregulated. So let's jump into our conversation with Laura Matteson of illustrative. How are you doing today, Laura?
Laura Matteson 03:11
So good. I'm so happy to be here with you.
Patricia Sung 03:13
Well, I have so many questions. But let me start at the beginning. How did you realize that you might have ADHD?
Laura Matteson 03:20
It was like a multi step process where I kept saying no, after and then revisiting it again. And it was a combined piece of seeing people online specifically Jack from authentic lady, she I think she was the first few posts where I was like, oh, that's like me. And then I started seeing it other places. And then you know, the YouTube channel, how to ADHD, I just these things started popping up as algorithms do. So part of it was social, where I was like, Okay, what they're saying sounds a lot like me. And then I had to dive into the research, reading books, looking at articles finding out the differences of like female ADHD versus what I thought was like little boy, ADHD sort of thing, because I have family members with autism and ADHD who are boys. So I was like, Well, I guess it could be my family, and I let myself explore. And when I told other people, they're like, No, you don't. And I was like, okay, so then I like stopped the search for a while and go search again. But the interesting thing was, I always knew I had it I just called it creativity and artist, so I didn't call it ADHD. I was just like, I'm a creative or like, I'm an artist, and teachers would even write it off. Like I was doodling all over my test. And they would just be like, maybe you just rework this sentence or just say like, she's not going to be good at this because she's an artist. And so what it actually was was ADHD, not an artist.
Patricia Sung 04:41
I mean, you are an artist, but
Laura Matteson 04:43
yes, that's true. But it was interesting that those seem to go hand in hand with people because of like the absent minded professor, it would be also like the scattered artists just fit so I could just use that and people just excuse my quirks. So yeah, which one is nice.
Patricia Sung 05:00
Which is fascinating how you're the same person, regardless of the adjective used, but yet somehow assigning it, this quality of the artist made it feel more. I was actually thinking palatable, I'm like, but I don't mean to take like not that you don't taste good otherwise, but like, it's, it's just fascinating to me how like, I think that's why a lot of women aren't diagnosed because it gets lumped into another category of someone who's very artistic, or someone who's highly driven. We get these other adjectives along the way that make it like better. But I'm using airboats since you can't see me better or easier to know, manipulate, but like make it work for the situation and just fascinates me how
Laura Matteson 05:43
Yeah, it is easier to mask to because you can learn how to play that character. Like I learned to play the character of the artist or the character of the like silly girlfriend or, you know, cutesy daughter, to be able to mask that. And it worked like in that character. And you know, we work well with like characters and analogies when we're confused. So that was helpful, but also put a lot of pressure on me because sometimes I don't like drawing and I don't want to paint and people like you're an artist. And like, I just I would rather just use something that's already made, like a sticker or a template. But I'm an artist. So I guess I have to make this from scratch now. And that like applied to everything. So just like a lot of energy to keep up with that persona to so ADHD was like mind blowing, like, oh, at the time, I was like, it's a disorder and like, whoa, what am I gonna do with this, but also like, oh, I don't have to play this character anymore. It's like, it's just a way of thinking. So that was that was also a relief.
Patricia Sung 06:38
And one of the things that really drew me into wanting to talk to you on the podcast is that you so beautifully embody who you are, and accepting who you are, I will take a wild guess that perhaps it was not always like that. But watching you the law. I'm like, I'm trying to think like how far along like I've been watching you like not in a creepy way I've been watching. Thinking like, I'm like a Tracy's the one I think, who introduced us. And Tracy was a guest on the podcast in the fall. And the way that you embody the parts of you that are influenced or part of ADHD is really beautiful. And there's been a lot of moms who have sent me notes of like, Hey, we love that you had this super successful doctor on the podcast, like, I don't identify with them. Like, they look like they have it all together. And I'm like, they don't. But like, I feel like you really beautifully embody who you are, you don't put on a show of like being someone different. Like when I saw you online, and then I met you in person when we weren't together. Like it was like, Whoa, she truly is the person that she shows, which is unfortunately rare. Social media. And I just find it really beautiful and like inspiring. And I just like like, that was the moment I like kind of like fell in love with you of like, oh, like Laura really is who she is. And you don't shy away from the hard parts of ADHD. And you don't gloss them over. And you really embody like who you are and accepting all of that. So all that preface to say, I'm sure that was not an overnight Tada. And now I accept myself. But maybe we could just talk a little about it. Like, I mean, obviously, like we can't get it super deep into your full life journey. But like, what are some of the things that really helped you along the way embrace who you are? And how are you okay with that? Because I feel like so many of us aren't okay being exactly who we are. Because of I mean, we can name 400 reasons why, but like, basically like, Do you have any wisdom of this? Because this is one of the things I love about you?
Laura Matteson 08:41
Oh, well, first of all, thank you very much. That means a lot because I would be lying if I said I didn't struggle with like I should look more put together. You know, we all feel that way. Like you see someone with more followers or more influence, and most of them have this polished look, which is a word that I used to replace professional because polished is, is fine. That's great. If you want to look polished, be polished, if you want to look raw and authentic, then go with that they can both work. But yeah, so thank you because that it's nice validation for me. So one of the things I do is collect validation. So like when someone says something I tried to really like take it as true to add to like my bucket of people have said this about me. And I didn't like prompted. So that's one thing I've learned to do. But I think I've always been interested in self help since I was young. So I've always been aware which I think a lot of us are having ADHD. I've always been aware of how I show up. And because I was raised in like a evangelical Christian family, which I've since dropped pretty much everything that I was raised with. But in that process, you have to pay a lot of attention to how you talk to people and what is your conversation going to be about? So I think I learned this skill of Well, part of it was ADHD being vulnerable, where you're just like this is you like it impacts positively say something about yourself. And I started to notice that I wasn't I was impulsively vulnerable and didn't like hide something, I actually really connected with people. So I realized like being vulnerable is very good way to connect with people. And along the way I've just I've always valued having leaders and teachers and mentors and coaches. So I always have somebody, a coach or teacher that I'm learning from at the time that I can, they can reflect back to me, so I'm constantly being pumped up on the back end by my coach. So even if I wake up, and I'm like, What am I even doing? Like, I'm disabled business like the worst mom ever. And then I tell my coaching, they're like, let's work through this thought. It's just a thought, you know, we're doing the coaching. Some years, I'm like, barely making money, because it's going right into a coach and like, right into the support, but then it comes back later, where I'm like, Okay, now I'm able to have more of an impact, because the impact matters more to me, than how much extra funding I'm getting beyond like my needs. So that's why it goes into coaching. So that's one area as well. And I think just being a mom, and seeing, like, my kids reflect me, and my husband back to me, helps me, I want that to mean something for me, I don't want to just have my feelings hurt when they say something or just be triggered by something like I want this to be part of my learning experience, which might be from my religious I'm, I'm a very like spiritual person, but I don't practice any religion or anything. But I think that feeling that spiritual feeling of knowing that we're all connected, that every conversation we have, and every interaction we have, has something it can offer to us and to the other person that's just been there. So when I hear something from someone like feedback or positive, I just take it and I'm like, What can I do with this? That's just a daily practice. Like I even have, like, every morning, I've told these little cards that I'm holding up right now. One is a bunch of mantras that are so beautiful, I can send you the links to these too, but and then questions to hold that just get me in the mindset every day. Like I just do a lot of mindset work. So there's that.
Laura Matteson 12:05
But I think just I've replaced a lot of my religious upbringing with new things. So instead of waking up in the morning and meeting to read the Bible each morning, which was a beautiful practice for me, because it was a way to start my day kind of thinking in analogy, this like parables and stuff. But when I since I no longer read the Bible, I now have these like cards and these other books that he reads. So even regardless of like, what my religious preferences, it's like these rhythms of taking time for gratitude, and taking time for learning and thinking in parable, or in analogy, and then having people like, knowing that I need someone to help me up, because sometimes I'm gonna feel like and with every growth edge, like I've read, parented myself multiple times, and read so many books on re mothering, I like make a breakthrough. Now I have that same problem again, but like a up leveled version. And so knowing that I need a coach, or I need a book going at any time where I can really keep that front of mind to think just keeping being authentically myself a priority for my children, because I want them to see that they can be themselves. And if I'm telling them to be themselves, and I'm pretending, then I would feel like I had failed, like, that's really important to me to be real. And also, it helps me mitigate, I think this is my last piece, there's a lot of fear about like doing the wrong thing. And if I'm just being myself, then when someone calls me in on something, I can be like, Oh, I legitimately didn't know. Because if I was playing a character, it's like your character should have known this, or like your professional brand should have known this. If I'm just being myself, and people know that I'm being myself, I can just be like, Oh, I didn't know, thank you so much for telling me here's how I'm going to move forward. Because I know that I really was just being myself and doing what I thought was right, based on what I know. So even though it's hard, because you feel like very vulnerable, often and requires a lot of mental awareness, and like self awareness and a lot of rest, which is hard to do. But I think learning that my rest isn't quiet either is helpful, like my rest is very active. And then also knowing that, like I need backup, I need support and that I can handle it from collecting that feedback and everything. I'd say that's probably like all the little different pieces, but as a priority being myself because it's easy to be like I just want to hide now, you know, and I definitely that's how I was before I was like good girl mask, Christian mask, all these things that I can hide behind and be out in the corner. And I like remember that feeling of being unchained. Like I felt like a bird that was chained is what I used to say to people and like, I remember that feeling of being like, oh my gosh, like I was just holding myself down by saying that I wasn't enough. And now that I know like oh even imperfectly like I can fly. I'm a bird. I'm just gonna go do it. And then you know, come back to the nest when I need to. So I think it's setting up a system where you can find the nest again, allows you to just go out more freely, I would say.
Patricia Sung 15:00
One thing that really caught my attention is like a lot of people will ask me like, I don't talk about my religion much at all on the podcast as a general rule, because I know it's a really like sore subject for a lot of people. And they've recently got quite a few messages, people asking me like, how do you balance being a Christian and having ADHD at the same time? And I'm like, rule, I don't feel qualified to answer that question. Excuse me, so I haven't talked about it yet. But like, I'm curious, do you think that that played a part in how you grew up like expecting that you're supposed to be something different than you were like, in relation to your ADHD? Because I feel like this is something that a lot of us wrestle with, like, even if it's not religion, like, there's some other thing telling us like, we should be a certain way. And we don't fit in the box. It's like, how do you sort that out? Especially as a kid, like, that's so big? Like, how do you sift through like being who you are, and who you think you're expected to be?
Laura Matteson 15:55
I can relate to that. Because I, you know, when you're a Christian, you have these characters in the Bible and women examples who you can use as a guide and inspiration, which I always suggest to my clients with ADHD, like have people that you're looking up to as an example, because examples really help us understand like what to do, because sometimes we can't calculate it all in our head, actually, often, we can't. So I think it was helpful having those examples. Even though for me, those examples were harmful because they were one dimensional, which I think is probably just the time that the Bible was written, there wasn't much multifaceted female storytelling going on. So what I did in college, because I have religion major, also, I'm a religion and art major, but you don't talk about the religion major, often, but sometimes I will to people. During that process, I was like, Okay, I'm going to be a female missionary artist, and teach people how to communicate through art so that they can, you know, have a livelihood and stuff and also talk to them about Christ during that. And so I was trying to find that, and in the process didn't find any, like female, like artists, missionaries, and I was like, why? And it was like, they had to drop the art because art is in the Southern Baptists practice, art can be very dangerous. It like makes you go wayward, you're starting, you know, getting tattoos and hanging out with the wrong crowd and all this stuff. So they were like your Don't be a real artist. So there was this imbalance of like, if you're a Christian, you also can't fully embrace your artist side, like you only use art for the Lord and not for yourself. And so it was like, Oh, but I like want to create things. And there wasn't any of this discussion that I discovered in my religion degree, because the Creator made you you are creative. So you create I didn't have that kind of upbringing. But I could have seen that being supportive, where it can be like, well, because I'm made in the image of God, then I can like embrace this creative and so forth in my like uncoupling with myself and religion discovered that there was a lot of like, raw truth underneath there. And those are the things that I loved about Christianity that I thought were just Christianity, but it was like the human experience. So like, I would spend time dancing with God, and I would just feel so emotionally cut dancing with him. But it was that I was not allowed to dance people told me to keep my body still that it wasn't a good dancer, that it was clumsy, blah, blah, blah. So I would just dance alone in my room with God, like, I'll still do that. I'm like, I'm going to a dance party with myself. It's like, I'm just allowed to move my body and be with myself and realize that I'm loved. And that's what I was getting from that, you know. So I think because of the structure of religion, I was able to find all those pieces. And then I was able to uncouple it not like it was an easy uncoupling.
Laura Matteson 18:40
Like I agree, and I was a big time, like, Bible Study leader and everything where people were asking me to lead all these different things. But I was able to then look into it and see that there was all these really great rocks within this boulder that I could like, take out and have to help me stay stable. And so I do think some level of spirituality like how Brene Brown talks about spirituality and our human connectedness and how we interact with the things in this world around us is necessary. For me, I had to drop the religion because the format that I was learning it was harmful. And so I was like, Okay, I'm just not doing that. But also allows me to understand, like, when I have clients who are Christians, or I meet other Christians in the world, where they are in the how they hold religion, are they coming towards someone in the other person's humanity and actually wanting to connect by humanity? Or are they coming and trying to convert them and win them over or like, you know, tell them that they're wrong, because it doesn't match their laws. And so I can see like, where someone's coming from there, and I can understand why they might be holding on to this law heavy side versus the humanity heavy side, but I think I did get a lot of helpful structure around treating people with kindness and humane To be from religion, but I lost a lot of treating myself with kindness and humanity that I had to gain after I left religion because I couldn't believe that I was sinful. And like in need of saving, and also that I was perfectly. So that was a difficult transition. But I could see now being able to read couple that with knowing like, if you're looking at yourself being created, like okay, I was created this way for a reason. But the people, the family members in my life believe that disorders are sin, reincarnated, like if you have a disability, that's because you were punished. So I'm like, I can't believe that. Obviously, it's believing that in the past, but now being able to just see and be like, Oh, I have this is my way of being. And so there's a reason for that. So I'm going to live fully into that. And I can see that kind of echoed in versions of Christianity, that now I just, I call it science magic with my kids, like I believe in science magic, where there's like, clearly, gravity seasons, blah, blah, blah. And then there's gratitude in those things. And noticing the little bits of magic and love and connectedness that we have. And I think that's like a core and a lot of religious beliefs, and that everyone can have access to because it's just there around us like birds returning in spring, like, yes, and things like that.
Patricia Sung 21:18
I'm like a part of me was like, I'm like, so excited about this conversation, because I love untangling those things with people and like talking about how do we wrestle with all that because there's like so, so much to unpack. Part of me is like Patricia jump in, it's gonna be so good. And you're probably like, that's not what this interview is about. I think you inspired me to actually do that episode on it, because I want people to know how much you are loved. And you were created this way. And like, how do you deal with all that? It's a lot. So thank you for sharing.
Laura Matteson 21:46
Its an going conversation. Yes, I was actually talking to a friend that we might do a podcast because we're both X van Jellicle. Moms, and we're like, this could be fun podcast. So Jean. Yeah
Patricia Sung 21:57
Yeah, like bottom line. I want every mom listening to know how much they are loved and how they were created this way. And there's nothing wrong with you. And there's nothing broken about you. And I'm always like, Man, why do people gotta mess up God so much? Like, I mess it all up with rules and religion.
Laura Matteson 22:13
It happens to every structure doesn't get laid down when a great movement like Black Lives Matter or something. It's like Bennett, just people like people taking on and then just charge ahead with the wrong information. Like, all right,
Patricia Sung 22:25
Yes. I'm like, we have good intentions, and then somehow, things just get messed up. Anyways, okay, let me stay on track here. Because what I asked you here today about was communicating with our kids and how we can bring visual communication into our family and with our kids and how we live every day. Like I just love how everything you do you add like this layer of sparkle with the visual communication. And it's so much easier to understand, it's so much easier to communicate. What do you do when you're really struggling to calm down when you're dysregulated, and your brain is offline? When Medusa mom is about to rear her ugly head, and you don't want to yell at your kids again, but you also desperately need some time and space to yourself? Well, you're in luck, Mama, because I've got a free video resource waiting for you. I'm sharing my top 10 tips for what to do when you're losing your cool and you need to resign each of these things you can do in under a minute with no fancy prep, so that you can calm down enough to make a different choice than exploding like a volcano on everybody in the vicinity. Now since it's a video, you can watch what I do for easier practice. And of course, there's audio plus captions to read it. I also have a little cheat sheet underneath of all the ideas. So you can grab that list, stick in your phone somewhere so that a time where you're like totally freaking out, you can go that list and quickly pick the idea that's going to help you calm down in that moment, head over to Patricia sung.com forward slash calm that ca LM and download your free video and how you can keep your cool when you're overwhelmed. That's Patricia sung.com, forward slash calm, because you can learn how to take care of yourself so that you can take care of your family. So first of all, how does integrating the visual really help people with ADHD? or kids or kids with ADHD? Like all the brains? How does it help us in what we're doing day to day?
Laura Matteson 24:26
Yeah, there's a few different ways that it helps. But what I like to remind people is that visual was one of those communications that's been there the longest, because you can just walk out into the woods and see trees around you. There are people who don't use their visual senses. And so their experience is different. But for a lot of us, we can see things before we even hear it or do it or taste it. So it's one of those senses that's very quick and it connects to our brain very quickly and you can get to it very fast so it goes into your eyes and directly to the back of your head. And so for those of us who have a cognitive delay or flipped lid for like feeling dysregulated the visual is still connected and can go just as fast it doesn't use that bridge is that's how I kind of imagined it. Like there's a bridge over to your cognitive and sometimes it's lifted, which I saw someone use that analogy, I think it was ADHD cycles or something, I forgot what her anyway, the drawbridge. And so visuals just forego the drawbridge. It's just like a fast highway on the side of it. So when you're feeling dysregulated, or your kids are feeling dysregulated, seeing something, that's why like, there's that therapy thing, like finding five red things, or trying to connect with your senses, like what's something you smell that something, but they start with sight, because it's so quick. So that's like, my one thing was like everyone can do it. For the most part, if your child doesn't see, then you can just describe and visually give an analogy or story. But for everyone who does use their visual senses, that's so fast. And no matter what language you speak, or lived experience you have, you can start there and be pretty clear. A lot of symbols are also global. So like if you use symbols for kids, and you're teaching them, you know, if you're using basic little symbols, when you make them schedules, or you're showing them like a process or something, then they're learning a valuable global communication skill, because they can use these icons, or these symbols to communicate with people who might not speak their language or who are older than them or something like that. Or even if they don't, right yet, which kids do take a while you're doing that. So that's why I think it's important, especially for people with ADHD, because we need those little highway does like quick tricks when we're not connected to our cognitive, often.
Patricia Sung 26:45
Okay, now, obviously, like, when you think about integrating visuals in your life, most parents when they think about cooking with their kids, and they think of visual things, they immediately picture like chore chart, like morning routine, like this is the first thing that comes to your mind. There's plenty of examples out there. But where else can we integrate visuals into our day with our kids that would help us communicate better?
Laura Matteson 27:07
Yeah, so I love those charts, but also they're made externally by the parent for the kid with very little input from the child usually. And it's based on what you think you should be doing, or have what they should be doing. So I always recommend those kinds of charts and things at the end of the process of the visual communication process. But when we're visually communicating, I'm just going to talk about like the basic thought process behind how we use visuals with kids, before I tell what exact ones because there's different ones for each process. So when you are discovering what's not working for your kid, well, maybe you start with yourself and you're like, I'm noticing this is bugging me, or like this is something I want to teach my kid. So showing like taking time to process that in your own thinking style. That's what always comes first brain dump, write it, talk it out, you know, sing it however you need to. A lot of us are external processors. So do that first before you start any conversations or making any visual aids or you'll spend two hours making a chart that makes no sense.
Patricia Sung 28:12
So that I'm pretty sure every mom is like been there, done that.
Laura Matteson 28:16
And you're like, why am I doing this, I could have just like, done this other things. That's first second, find out what your kid thinks. And allow them to process in the way that they process best. So if they want to talk it out to you, if they want to act out, like maybe you have stuffed animals, this is all visual, if you're acting it out, and you're using stuffed animals, like mommy giraffe is noticing the room is dirty, and Mommy drafts is feeling well or head spinning, she's feeling a little confused because it's so messy. And then baby giraffe wants to help. And the first thing they do is let's say you're like acting it out, and then the kid can make the draft. So play is a great visual because the kids watching the show happen before them. It's you know, and it's fun, because you're also interacting with each other and bonding. So using demonstrations also. So I teach Montessori as well. And there's just like, you can very simply demonstrate for a child with very few words, which I find to be really helpful when I'm feeling stressed. And I want the kids to have help with something. You just like take your whole hands and kind of gesture towards things. Or you can do it for them slowly. And you can even say like, I'm just going to show you how I like to do this. And then you can let me know what you saw. Or you can let me know what you think and then just demonstrate it rather than the like, this is how you're supposed to do it. And it's like doing it all quick because everyone's coming into that feeling the rebellion like that, well, I could do it differently. So like inviting them to watch a demonstration. And if you think of it that way, it feels less stressful because you're like I can adjust the demonstration. If the kid needs to see something else again, or they want to know why a certain piece happens. Then you can like to Questions. So thinking of it as demonstrating, also realizing if you have a kid with ADHD that you might need to demonstrate things you did not realize you needed to demonstrate like how to properly put the lip of the cup up on your mouth, so you don't miss it. Yes, like little things like that. And so if you did demonstrations, often, your kids will get them faster, like they'll know what to pay attention to in the demonstration. And you can also do the demonstration again, like if you notice, it's also a great way to discipline. It's like a visual discipline, if they keep leaving the door open, you're like, Okay, I'm going to demonstrate how I know the door is all the way closed. This is how I do it right here, whatever you would like to try, and then they can demonstrate it to you. That's a good way of learning. Because one, you're acting on it, because you always want to mix visuals or auditory or written with action, like all humans need to try it. So with all the visual communication you're gonna make, you want to also have the kids use it for take action, then when that's made, one of my kids favorite visual tools that we use are visual checklists, which seem like boring. But kids, I mean, I have yet to meet a kid who doesn't enjoy visual checklists where they can like look at the picture, and then do it. The only reason why someone might not like a visual checklist is if they don't understand what the task is. So that's where a demonstration might be needed. Or they feel like it's too hard, in which case, you can break up that into even more mini tasks. But my kids make me checklists now and they make themselves checklists, and they make contracts. And they like draw pictures and asked me to add to it. So we now have a two way like democracy of visual communication when it comes to the charts and the checklists and stuff. But if your goal is to have a visual piece that you can go back to over and over again, like a chart, like a family values poster like placemat that they can use when they're eating. Like if you want things like that, I would follow a process up into that point, instead of just buying a place map that has placed settings, or buying a map of the world and putting it up so that they can like learn the countries or something like thinking about what you feel like they should have, find out what they're interested in, start doing those demonstrations and checklists at the beginning to figure out what's clicking and what's not. And then that way you're using like your money and your time to actually help them with the next thing that's helpful to them. And another great thing is using their favorite characters or things that they're already into, especially if they have a blend with autism, or anything like that.
Laura Matteson 32:35
But pretty much all kids this is helpful for like if they love dinosaurs, and you get them a little, you know, those little like pads that you put on the fridge that magnet up there. And then you can like rip off the list. Getting one of those a little dinosaurs on it or getting them dinosaur stickers that you decorate a note with that has important information on it. Teaching them how to draw their favorite characters, or how to like trace them is empowering for them. Because if they know that they can kind of draw a picture or make a scribble and you'll understand it and encourages them to keep trying to communicate with you in that way. And then cards, I love cards like I showed in the beginning that I have cards for myself that have text on them, but for the kids. And for myself, I actually have over here these like self care cards that when I'm feeling dysregulated, I can just go through them. There's like take a shower, light a candle go outside, but I have just the little picture symbol on each one. So I can just look at it. Because like I said, when you're dysregulated you just see the leaf, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna go out to a leaf. And you can just like connect to that, like, you see the water running, like I'm gonna turn on the shower. That's how I pick the visual for my cards is the first action. So I'm like, find a leaf, turn on the water, get a match. And like, then I have it in my hand. And now I can continue. It's like that waterfall effect for a lot of us with ADHD. Like once you've taken that step, then you're kind of just going now. So you can use that with kids too. And using picture books is really helpful. A lot of people think about like getting picture books for kids, but not everybody thinks about getting a picture book to answer a question that you're talking about with the kids. So if they're struggling with something and you have picture books showing kids going through it, and then that's helpful for them to connect to that story because they have the picture there. You can also have them draw a picture of their story. Like if you they see it in a kid's book, then they'll be able to translate it like here's my story. I'm upset that I don't want to tie my shoes in the morning and I think mommy should be the one to tie my shoes every day. Because this is too exhausting or whatever. Then you can make little comic strips little like books where you're coloring together about like here's untied shoes and then the little stick figure trips and here's velcro shoes and that might work but we lose our shoes or something. So you're like kind of talking it through with like little stick figures and it makes it funny and playful. And the kids remember it better than just saying like well you have to tie your shoe Who's because this or this, but having the stick figure tripping is a pretty good visual reminder. And you can even tape it up on the wall next to your shoes are my roommate and I used to put, we used to accidentally leave our stove on a lot because we both had ADHD, we just didn't know it at the time, because I'm late diagnosed. And we put this picture of stick figures running out of a burning building over the stove. And it was great.
Laura Matteson 35:24
People would come over and be like, What is this, but we just thought it was so funny. And while we're cooking, we're staring at those stick figures running out of the house. Like we always remember this dope from then on. I'm like, no problems there. Because it was silly, a silly visual reminder. I think that's if another one pops up, I'll let you know. But most of the like things that you would think of to use with grownups or to help explain to someone who doesn't speak your language would work great for kids. So if you're just kind of sitting like I always tell people to ask the question, how can I make this more understandable? Or how can I make this clearer? And usually, we'll come up with some sort of visual like, showing them exactly like my daughter doesn't clean her room very often. And I thought it was, you know, to spite me, and then I was like, Okay, maybe it's because she has an attentive ADHD, maybe, and I did the body doubling and stuff. But it turns out, she just didn't know what a clean room looked like what I meant when I said clean room, so I cleaned her room with her. And then I took pictures of all of the sections, and she has a little photo album with the pictures of what the clean parts of the room look like. And that helps her a lot, because then she can say, this is what it's supposed to look like when I'm done. And she'll now like, clean it, and then take a new picture of it if she rearranged it or something. So she's kind of developing that skill for herself. Yeah, and then just like loving visuals, like taking pictures, leaving little pictures or notes for them, putting stickers on things just because not because they earned it. We have things around the mirror talking about what they are like positives about themselves. So little like visuals, I'll like change up coloring pages for my youngest who has short hair. And so I'll like remove the hair, white out the hair on the princesses and put like short hair. And so these different things can help with like their view of themselves because they're developing their like identity. So you can use visuals of like finding characters and finding coloring pages and things that they can relate to, which is also like a deep internal visual communication. But coloring pages can be pretty helpful for kids and grownups. I don't like coloring pages personally, because I feel like I'm like a rebel. I'm like, I'm not gonna do it this way to like add to the coloring pages. And I'm mad at it because it doesn't look as cute as what I wanted. Yeah, a lot of people like them.
Patricia Sung 37:44
Yeah, that mean, I was like, there's so much good stuff in there. But I think the point that stands out to me from like a kid perspective, is understanding that usually when our kids are not cooperating, it's because they can't, not that they won't. And so in those things, like if they don't understand what a clean room looks like, they really can't give you the end product because they don't know what it looks like. And a lot of times is grownups we forget that. Like what I think is a clean room might be really different than what you think is a clean room. Like some parents, when they say clean, they mean I want it to be like pristine where I can eat off this floor. And other parents would say I just need a path from the door to the bed. And someone else will say, well, as long as everything's off the floor, or there's nothing under the bed like everyone has their own version of the vague term clean room like what that entails. So giving your kids that picture allows them to see the end result, which is an issue for a lot of people with ADHD. Like if we don't know what the end is, we don't know how to get started. Because we're not sure where we're going. And like in that same vein of just understanding what does our kid really need in that moment and getting their input. If they're the ones drawing, you get to see, oh, this is the part that they're struggling with. Because when you think about something like cleaning a room, that's like a 40 step process, they might only be stuck on Step five, but that means they're never going to get to six through 40 because they got stuck at five. So something really small can be revealed in that time where you're asking for them to give you information back is when you can actually see where the struggle is coming from. So yeah, absolutely. There's so much good stuff in there. I'm like I could talk to you for another four hours on all this I'm like,
Laura Matteson 39:23
Well, I'm down for it. Let's copy chat.
Patricia Sung 39:27
For sure. Um, I think one more question before we wrap up so many people tell me I'm not creative. So how can somebody who's quote not creative still utilize or maybe it's not so much the instructions but like is there like a little mindset blessing you could give them that's like, How can we not let that hold us back as a parent this narrative that I'm not creative and therefore I cannot do any creative things. What can we do there? If if the mom was sitting who's like, I'm not creative. I'm not adapting any coloring sheets like that sounds way out of my I like ability zone. What would you say to that Mama listening?
Laura Matteson 40:04
Well, a few things. One is I'm in the field that I believe that everyone's creative and that because the system has this like idea of creativity that we feel like creative people are this, like we were talking about the beginning of the thing, like an artist is a certain person. So one thing I do is allow yourself space like to create a little bit of time, whether it's while you're driving, or something, where you're thinking about being creative, and thinking about ways that you might be creative, because creativity just means making something new or kind of blending things together. So there's lots of little creative games, you can get little books from the library that are for creatives, creatives, being like professional creatives, we don't just create, we have journals we use in the morning, we sketch every day, we do all of these creative exercises continuously. And if we stop, we're like less creative. Whoa. So if you want to be creative, just start using it in your everyday life where you just ask like, what if I put these two things together, or what if I just use the only this tool to do this and just like, make it like gamify it into your day, if that's something that you want to like, get in touch with. That's one thing, I know that when we feel creative, we also parent better, because we're like, I can handle this, because you feel creative. And if you feel like you're not creative, you're coming from a space of us that one thing doesn't work, then I have no more ideas. So I would challenge you to connect with your creativity, you did create a human or you created a space for a new human to come into your home. So you already got the ball rolling. Also, what I would say is if some of these ideas feel big, creativity is play. And so just allowing yourself to approach the problem that you're facing with some play, the ability to make mistakes, what you don't see on Instagram from artists is the gazillions of mistakes that happen to make that piece of artwork.
Laura Matteson 42:05
So make the stick figure and if your stick figure has four arms, great, that's hilarious, like whatever. And there's symbols. And you can make symbols if you can write words, because words are symbols. So you already know how to do symbols, you already know how to do letters, do a little circle with a line that looks like a lollipop tree, and it works and the kids will love it. Because the main thing I want to leave everyone with for that is that your kids really love you. And the fact that you are taking time to understand them. And to clarify your point of view to them means it's going to work. It doesn't matter if your bear looks like like a fruit, an apple or something like that. They know what it is because you're there with them working on it. And you can laugh about it like my husband cannot draw. And my daughter hung up this little unicorn that he made her up on her wall because she thought it was so funny because we thought the kid drew it and my husband did and made this whole family like laffy thing. But now it's like a symbol of love up there on the wall that he like, took time to make a unicorn even though that wasn't his expertise, or the way that he usually communicates. And he'll even do like the packing lists with little clothes, they look horrible, like they do. You can barely tell us a pair of pants, like one long lego one short, little length, but you know why? Like, the kids love it because of the effort. And so I would say just keep it simple, like just draw a little squiggly doodles, little symbol, little stick figures, kids are not looking for anything hugely, like painterly and artistic. They're just looking for being understood. So if that's the goal, then go for it and have lots of laughs which is pretty much how you have to handle ADHD, right? Like, a lot of self compassion, laughter and, and then moving on. So that's how I would approach the non creative thing.
Patricia Sung 44:01
Yeah, your kid will appreciate the effort. And they also have I think, as kids just have, they constantly practice their creativity. Whereas grownups we think that creativity is more for kids. And they have a much better imagination to look at the lollipop and know that it's actually a tree or a bear or a unicorn. Like once you've established that like their brains are really amazing and they just run with it. Like I'm pretty much a stick figure artists and the kids always around with me even when it was terrible.
Laura Matteson 44:30
Yeah, I stick with stick figures even though for a living I draw people but with my kids and like we're just doing a stick figure here. Because the point is this chart or whatever.
Patricia Sung 44:39
The point is the communication the point is the connection point with your kid not that you made like a museum or the piece of art so well, thank you so much for joining me today. Before I ask you our lightning round questions, working mums hang out with you and tell us about what you do both for like business owners and for moms.
Laura Matteson 45:01
Yeah, so I love hanging out online with people. I'm on Instagram at illustrative dot U S. So that's in the show notes. I was gonna try to spell it here, but, and then illustrative is the name of my business. So that's the website, that's everything. And then it's dot U S at the end. So illustrative.us. On my website, I have a library of resources, all about different visual aids. So you can learn about how visually it's helped people with ADHD, how to process in your own way how to even approach finding a visual aid, a lot of those are business focused and self care focused. But the business of parenting is very similar. Like wherever I might say, make a loom walkthrough video, you might just do a walkthrough in your home for your kid of how to do it. So like a lot of these things just translate exactly the same over to the home. And I mean, if they're a teenager, maybe you would make a little walkthrough video for them and send it digitally. Maybe that's how you connect with them. But yeah, so the library's full of free stuff. And I also have a membership where people work with me to actually create the visual aids that they need to communicate with people, whether they're a leader of a community organization, a teacher, a business owner, a parent, it's when you're needing to use visual aids often, or when you need them for yourself to help you process what steps you're taking and how you're going to communicate with others, or most people in they're using them for themselves and their group, and some people just for themselves as leaders. So that's called the offbeat illustrative community. And you can find that on the website as well. illustrative.us backslash Oh, I see, which is the nickname for it. Because you say, Oh, I see when you use it, which I was really proud of all the triple meanings. That's gotta be an ADHD thing. Because I'm, like, always need more than one meaning to everything. But yeah, so that's the main way Instagram coffee chats. And if you want to be learning directly how to make these visual aids, then the community's a really good spot to
Patricia Sung 46:58
Yes, and personal endorsement. And Laura is the one who walked through my mermaid analogy, which you all have heard before and, you know, building on the water and understanding someone with ADHD as living on the water versus on the prairie. And she's the one who helped me take all that jumble out of my brain and put it on paper into a way that I can communicate it more clearly and visually and verbally.
Laura Matteson 47:23
Yeah, that was a fun project.
Patricia Sung 47:26
So, okay, now we've got our lightning round questions. I'm gonna read them out. You don't have to explain anything, you just fill in the blank and we'll go to the next one. Sounds good. Okay, number one, the best thing that I read or listened to recently is...
Laura Matteson 47:38
hurting Tigers by Todd or Ted. I can't remember. I'll give you the link for it. But hurting Tigers has been a fantastic book. I love it.
Patricia Sung 47:49
I'll put in the show notes. Number two, my most boring about me. Fact is,
Laura Matteson 47:54
I feel like I'm not boring at all. I always have cereal every morning so I couldn't get enough iron and vitamin D
Patricia Sung 48:02
Number three, when I'm having a rough day, my go to quote song podcast, poem, book activity, whatever is,
Laura Matteson 48:10
depending on the problem. It's either the Renaissance album by Beyonce or Liz's recent album. Those are my two dirty ladies.
Patricia Sung 48:18
Number four, don't tell anyone I,
Laura Matteson 48:21
I guess sometimes when I'm nervous, I'll chew on my hair. But like I don't even care if anyone knows.
Patricia Sung 48:29
Number five, if I had a magic fairy wand for one spell,
Laura Matteson 48:32
I would, I would use my wand to make it so that when people speak their words translate into an understandable version for the other person so that people can have constructive communication and we can get along better.
Patricia Sung 48:50
Okay, number six, my best piece of advice for mamas with ADHD is
Laura Matteson 48:55
surrounding yourself with people who love you for who you are, and are who are themselves all the time. Because people with ADHD, we're just not going to do it alone. That's just not what we do. It's a together thing. Yes. So
Patricia Sung 49:13
thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate your authenticity and love for people to be able to create that connection that we all wish we had, but maybe aren't the best at communicating. And now we have tools to be able to communicate a little better with people that are important to us. So thank you so much for having me.
Laura Matteson 49:36
These are great questions.
Patricia Sung 49:40
For more resources, classes and community, head over to my website, motherhood in feet hds.com