ADHD

Understanding the Bedtime Window It’s 7:45 PM. The evening routine is done. Teeth brushed, lights dimmed, and the elaborate negotiation over how many covers is the correct number of covers has concluded. I’ve said goodnight, and I’ve meant it. Now, I’m mentally calculating how many quiet hours I have left before tomorrow begins. And then it starts. “Mom? Can I ask you something?” It’s never just one thing. It’s never quick. And it’s never — not once in my entire parenting car

I am an early person. I do not mean this casually. I mean it as a foundational life principle, the way some people feel strongly about proper hydration or thank-you notes. Being early — truly early, not just on-time early but a few minutes in hand, bags down, breath caught, lay-of-the-land established — is one of the primary ways I give myself peace in a world that does not naturally offer very much of it. Those extra minutes before a phone call, before a meeting, before arri

My daughter is a beautiful ballet dancer. I mean that in the fullest possible sense — she moves through a studio with genuine refinement, with intention, with the kind of body control and grace that years of serious training quietly builds into a person. She is aware of every line, every angle, every position of her limbs in space. She is, by any measure, extraordinarily coordinated. She also walked into a glass door last Tuesday. Full face. Didn't see it coming. And approxi

Let me paint you a picture of a Tuesday afternoon in our house. It could start anywhere — did someone leave the milk on the counter again, who turned off the turntable mid-song, is the music too loud, was the volume already too loud before that — and within approximately ninety seconds, we have a fully escalated, absolutely heated, completely absurd situation on our hands. We are not arguing about anything that matters. We are arguing about milk. We are arguing about it with

Going Granola Without Going Nuts · Neurodiversity · Sensory · 7 min read When someone first said the words "retained primitive reflexes" to me, my brain immediately went to tiny little monkeys doing some kind of ancient ancestral survival dance. Which is not exactly what it means. But honestly? Not entirely wrong in spirit either. Once I understood that primitive reflexes are movements literally built into every human baby for survival, and that most of us graduate out of the

Going Granola Without Going Nuts · Neurodiversity · Sensory · 6 min read You buy the cute new sweatshirt. It is soft on the outside. It seems perfect. You are feeling like a pretty great parent. And then your child puts it on and announces that it is scratchy on the inside and they absolutely cannot wear it. Or the sock. The seam. That specific seam at the toe that is, apparently, completely intolerable and makes the entire morning fall apart. Or the zipper on the sweater tha

Stimming sits at the intersection of sensory processing and emotional regulation — both of which I've covered in depth. The sensory post: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/sensory-issues-and-adhd-why-the-sock-seam-is-actually-a-really-big-deal. The emotional regulation post: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/emotional-regulation-and-adhd-how-to-help-your-child-name-big-feelings-before-they-take-over. And the calmer home post looks at how to set up your environment to support

Going Granola Without Going Nuts · Neurodiversity · Occupational Therapy · 7 min read I want to start with a confession. When someone first mentioned the words "retained primitive reflexes" to me, my brain immediately conjured an image of tiny little monkeys running around doing some kind of ancient ancestral dance. Like some prehistoric survival routine from a nature documentary. Which is not exactly what it means. But also, not entirely wrong in spirit. Once I understood th

I’m going to be honest. I thought I had a pretty decent handle on ADHD. Not expert level, but enough to feel like, okay, I get what we’re dealing with here. I had the general picture in my head of what ADHD “looked like.” And then I read something that made me stop and go… wait, what? There are not just one or two ways ADHD shows up. There are seven types. Seven! And suddenly I realized I might not have understood this as well as I thought I did. First, What Happened to ADD?

If you're in the earlier stages of figuring out what you're dealing with, the 7 types of ADHD post is a helpful next read: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/wait-there-are-7-types-of-adhd. And if you haven't yet looked into whether a psychoeducational evaluation makes sense for your child, that post is here: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/should-we-get-a-psych-ed-evaluation-asking-for-a-friend. --- IF THIS RESONATED WITH YOU If you're early in this journey — something f

Emotional regulation and time blindness are closely connected — when the ADHD brain is overwhelmed or dysregulated, the time piece gets even harder: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/time-blindness-and-adhd-why-we-re-always-running-five-minutes-behind. And the family dynamics post talks about what happens when big feelings collide between two people with the same wiring: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/when-everyone-in-the-room-has-the-loudest-voice. --- IF THIS RESONATED

Going Granola Without Going Nuts · Neurodiversity · Family Life · 6 min read The sibling conflict piece connects closely to emotional regulation — when the ADHD brain is overwhelmed, everyone in the family feels it: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/emotional-regulation-and-adhd-how-to-help-your-child-name-big-feelings-before-they-take-over. And the family dynamics post about when parent and child have the same wiring adds another layer: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/whe

Going Granola Without Going Nuts · Neurodiversity · 8 min read The medication conversation doesn't happen in isolation — understanding the full picture of how the ADHD brain works helps you ask better questions. The 7 types post is a good foundation: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/wait-there-are-7-types-of-adhd. And if you're at the point of a new or recent diagnosis, Workbook 2 was designed for exactly this moment. --- IF THIS RESONATED WITH YOU The medication questio

Routines and time management go hand in hand — if time blindness is part of what's making routines hard, that post explains the neurological why: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/time-blindness-and-adhd-why-we-re-always-running-five-minutes-behind. And the sleep post is the natural companion to this one — the two really do work together: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/why-sleep-is-everything-for-the-adhd-brain-and-why-i-need-to-take-my-own-advice-too. --- IF THIS RESONA

Sleep and routines are deeply connected — the daily routines post is the natural companion to this one: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/why-routines-change-everything-even-if-they-feel-boring. And if your child's sleep struggles are tied to sensory sensitivities or difficulty regulating at the end of the day, the sensory and emotional regulation posts add important context: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/sensory-issues-and-adhd-why-the-sock-seam-is-actually-a-really-big-

The environment piece connects directly to sensory processing — if your child is sensitive to textures, sounds, or physical discomfort, that post will add important context: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/sensory-issues-and-adhd-why-the-sock-seam-is-actually-a-really-big-deal. And if routines are part of what you're trying to build, that post is a good companion read: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/why-routines-change-everything-even-if-they-feel-boring. --- IF THIS R

The flip side of the superpower is the struggle — and I don't believe in pretending the hard parts away. My post on ADHD family dynamics holds both at the same time: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/when-everyone-in-the-room-has-the-loudest-voice. And if you're wondering how the ADHD brain experiences time differently, that piece connects directly to both the gifts and the challenges: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/time-blindness-and-adhd-why-we-re-always-running-five-min

The tween and teen years bring the time blindness piece into sharp focus — expectations go up just as the ADHD gap can feel wider: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/time-blindness-and-adhd-why-we-re-always-running-five-minutes-behind. And the gentle parenting approach connects closely to emotional regulation — that post is here: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/emotional-regulation-and-adhd-how-to-help-your-child-name-big-feelings-before-they-take-over. --- IF THIS RESONAT

If you're working on the home environment specifically, the calmer home post goes hand in hand with this one: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/creating-a-calmer-home-to-help-decrease-adhd-symptoms. And for the sensory piece of making home work — which is bigger than most people realize — start here: https://www.goinggranola.net/post/sensory-issues-and-adhd-why-the-sock-seam-is-actually-a-really-big-deal. --- IF THIS RESONATED WITH YOU This workbook is the practical compan