Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another conversation on the Parenting with Impact podcast. You’ve got Elaine and Diane here today, ready to pontificate.

Diane Dempster: Pontificating—and feeling a little weary, if I’m honest. We just got back from the International ADHD Conference. As an introvert, I did a really great job taking care of myself, but it’s still exhausting to attend a conference for an entire weekend in a different city, with all the travel, the people, and the fun.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Speak for yourself! For me, I came back rejuvenated, alive, and replenished—well, maybe not replenished. I’m definitely exhausted. Last night, all I wanted to do was sit with a bowl of popcorn and watch a movie. No question. But my brain is on fire with ideas, connections, and thoughts about the people I met.

So, we thought it might be interesting for everyone to hear us talk about the insights we gained at this year’s conference. This was our 14th year attending what’s now called the International Conference on ADHD.

A little history for you all: we first met at the conference in 2010. In 2011, we launched Impact ADHD as an innovative program at this very event. Since then, we’ve been part of it every single year—presenting, exhibiting, and often doing both.

Diane Dempster: Exhibiting might explain why we’re tired sometimes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. This year, we didn’t exhibit. Instead, we presented several times, and there’s still one more live—or virtual—event to go.

But we really got the chance to connect with our people. We met some of the folks on our team, people we’ve worked with for years but had never met in person.

Diane Dempster: Never met. That was so cool.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Absolutely. We met some of our coaches and a lot of our colleagues. It’s amazing when you work virtually like this.

We know these people so well. At one point, Danielle, Diane, and I were sitting together, and Diane was like, “Does it feel like I’ve never met you before?”

Diane Dempster: Right! We’ve been virtual for so long. I mean, we’ve been virtual since 2011, so it’s easy to forget what face-to-face contact even feels like. We’re just so used to doing everything online.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I think we’ve found ways to build those connections virtually, but it’s always really nice to actually be able to give someone a hug.

That was quite lovely and really fun. We had a great experience, and what we want to do today is talk about some of the insights we gained.

We often tell you all, “We’re going to share a lot of information, but listen for the insights—what are you taking away from it?” Over the last week, we absorbed a ton of information, and today feels like our “Monday morning quarterbacking” opportunity to reflect and identify the key insights we’re taking away from this conference.

So, how do we want to structure this? Diane, do you want me to start with when we first met?

Diane Dempster: Yeah. Well, part of it starts with the evolution of the conference itself. When this conference first began, it was hosted by CHADD—Children and Adults with ADHD.

At that time, the leadership within the organization was primarily professionals or spouses of professionals, often serving in board or volunteer roles.

There was a strong focus on research, information sharing, and related fields. Back then, ADHD coaching was still in its infancy. I remember how few people were involved in what we’d now call ADHD coaching.

The majority of participants and presenters were from more traditional professional realms. It’s amazing to think about how much the landscape has shifted since then.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Let me give a little bit of history. CHADD—Children and Adults with ADHD—is a nonprofit organization that’s been around for several decades. ADDA—the Adults with ADHD association—is another nonprofit that’s also been around for decades.

In fact, I think it may actually predate CHADD. Then there’s ACO, the ADHD Coaches Organization, which is a nonprofit that’s been around for about half as long as the other two.

There used to be three separate conferences each year—one for each organization.

Diane Dempster: Exhausting. Really exhausting.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It was exhausting! About six years ago—back when I was still on the board—Jeff Kapur and I brought all the key players into a room and said, “What if we have one conference instead of three?” It was just too expensive for all these small organizations to sustain three separate events.

So, the three organizations came together to create the International Conference on ADHD. It’s been about five years now—maybe four or five—and it’s taken a few years of learning and experimenting. But this year, the conference really felt like it had found its own identity.

This was the first year where it truly felt like the International Conference on ADHD. It didn’t feel like “here’s a little bit of ADDA, a little bit of ACO, and a little bit of CHADD.” Instead, it felt like a unified gathering of the international ADHD community coming together to create something special.

Do you feel that way, Diane?

Diane Dempster: It did. Rachel and I were talking the other day about the balance between professionals and participants who aren’t professionals. You’ve got parent participants, adult participants, and then this loop of professionals—whether they’re ADHD coaches or non-coach professionals.

I think there’s been some evolution in that dynamic, and it definitely feels more like a professional conference in some ways. A lot of the professionals in the ADHD space are also adults with ADHD.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or parents. Or both.

Diane Dempster: Or parents or both. So there’s this beautiful overlap that happens.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I just had this realization. We met in 2010, and back then, we started Impact because there were so many resources available for kids, but almost nothing available for parents.

A lot of parents would attend the CHADD conference because it was really the only place they could go—once a year—to get resources and information.

Now, fast forward 14 years, and it feels like there are telesummits happening every week!

Diane Dempster: We’re in a digital age—the amount of information is overwhelming.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We’re definitely living in a digital age. There’s so much information available now that it’s almost too much. Parents are struggling to figure out what’s legitimate and credible.

There was actually a presentation at the conference by a physician with a big social media presence who addressed how to discern credible information. It was incredible—such an important topic. It was a keynote by Dr. Tracy Marks, and we’ll share some links in the chat to connect you to her work. It was really impressive.

What’s happening now is that more professionals are attending the conference, while fewer parents and adults are coming, largely because they now have access to resources that weren’t available 15 years ago. It’s been a big shift.

Diane Dempster: That’s true. What are one or two of your key insights, Elaine?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, let me jot down Dr. Marks first. Probably the biggest insight for me, aside from noticing the demographic shift in the conference—like, who’s showing up—is the change in the overall tone of the ADHD community.

Fifteen years ago, there was a lot of “Oh no, my world is so bad and hard,” and there was this vibe of what I’ll call “poor me-ishness.” (Yes, that’s a very technical term—poor me-ishness.)

Diane Dempster: Yeah, don’t get us wrong—there are still a lot of significant challenges and impacts.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No question about it. But now, we’re looking at it through a different lens. It used to feel like a conference full of people who were sad, really struggling, and trying to figure out how to get a handle on their lives. This year, though, it felt like there were more empowered people coming to take charge of their lives.

Diane Dempster: The programming committee did an amazing job. Two of the keynotes, in particular, had this subplot—a rallying cry for sharing your message, leaning into your strengths, and living your best life as an adult with ADHD. It was inspiring—not just for ADDers, but for non-ADDers as well.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Totally. Here’s the bottom line: ADHD is complicated. It’s really complicated to diagnose, complicated to treat, and complicated to live with—for some people, not everyone, but for a lot of people. Then you add in coexisting conditions, and it becomes even more complex.

So, when we shift out of that “poor me” mindset and into a mindset of, “Okay, let’s understand this better so I can get a handle on it,” everything changes. It’s about figuring out what you need to do to manage ADHD from a place of confidence and clarity. It feels like we’ve moved from a space of victimhood to a space of empowerment.

Diane Dempster: As you’re saying that, it makes me think about everything we teach parents. If you’re freaking out and trying to fix it, or if you’re feeling like a victim to it—thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is never going to change, this is terrible”—then you’re coming from a dysregulated place. And when you’re in that state, you can’t problem-solve effectively. What we’re observing now is that the community—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The conference itself—felt more regulated.

Diane Dempster: Maybe more balanced. I remember so distinctly from years ago—do you remember the year they had Russell Barkley and Ned Hallowell on stage together?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The Q&A session? It was like, “He said this, and he said that.”

Diane Dempster: Exactly. One of them is very strength-based, and the other is more deficit-focused—kind of doom and gloom. But the message was clear: ADHD is a significant challenge.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And both are true.

Diane Dempster: And the juxtaposition of the two—what’s that?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Both are true.

Diane Dempster: Exactly. Both are true. But the juxtaposition of those things—acknowledging both the challenges and the strengths—has led us to a place where we’re no longer polarized by one perspective. Instead of saying, “Oh my gosh, that’s terrible,” or, “Oh my gosh, it’s such a strength,” we’ve landed in the midst of accepting that both of these things can coexist.

I think that’s self-regulating for the community. It’s like, “Okay, there are strengths and challenges all at once. What are the real problems we need to solve? And how do we begin to move the needle forward?” Whether it’s in the medical support systems, the school support systems, or other areas—let’s just say the support systems in general—how do we start creating progress?

For me, that was a big part of what stood out...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Wait, we were going to take a break and come back to that. I know where you're going, so let’s take a quick break.

[After Break]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay, welcome back, everybody. It's Diane and Elaine here. We’re having a conversation about the International Conference on ADHD and discussing the trends in ADHD treatment and management over the last 15 years.

Diane, you were about to talk about the shift now that the community is a little better regulated and has found a balance between acknowledging both the deficits and the strengths. There’s this magic middle, but still some challenges within that, right?

Diane Dempster: Exactly. The direction I was actually going to take is that the ADHD community itself now knows a whole lot about the strengths, the challenges, the biology—everything—and, in many ways, has actually outpaced both the school system and, often, the mental health system.

I think we’ve talked about this on a previous podcast, but it was shocking to me that over 95% of psychiatry programs in the U.S. don’t even mention ADHD in their training. That’s information number one.

I’m not saying this from a judgmental place, but it’s just shocking given how prevalent ADHD is, and how little the medical and educational systems truly understand about it. As the ADHD community has raised its awareness and knowledge, those who are in the spaces supporting the community are, in some ways, on par with the community itself.

It’s an interesting place to be. And it doesn’t mean that these professionals know less, but they just have a different set of information.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I’m going to go back to what we were saying earlier. A lot of times, professionals haven’t been as well educated about ADHD as the people who actually have it. If ADHD isn’t their industry, or if they’re not regularly treating it as a provider or educator, and they’re not actively seeking continuing education on it, then as parents or adults with ADHD, we are sometimes better informed than our providers.

That creates a disconnect because we expect them to know more, when in fact, we often understand the condition better ourselves.

Diane Dempster: Or the other issue I saw a lot this weekend is that professionals get it, but there’s a tendency to oversimplify the solutions. I found myself up on my soapbox in the hallway during a workshop on college readiness.

It was a great presentation by experts from the disability services at a school. They really understand how difficult it is for students with ADHD to succeed in college, and they listed all the things these kids will have to manage once they’re over 18.

They’ll have to do it on their own, without parents around, and a lot of other things besides.

Their solution was: “You just have to make sure these kids have the executive function they need to manage all of these things by the time they start college, or by the time they…”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That’s not a reasonable expectation, everybody. So, Diane comes out into the hallway, just seething because she had been self-managing and trying not to get upset during the workshop.

Diane Dempster: Right. I think the issue here is that these professionals are well-meaning, but there’s a gap. The opportunity I see is how we bridge that gap between what the experts know is needed and helping them understand what is and isn’t realistic when it comes to helping the community meet those needs. Yes, these kids do need executive function skills.

Many will develop them in their 20s or later, but some may never get there. The solution isn’t just, “Let’s make sure they have executive function skills,” because it’s not that simple.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No, it’s not. And, like we were talking about before we started recording, there’s almost something here about book smarts versus street smarts. So, book smarts means we understand what the situation is. We can break down the executive function challenges and deficits. You can look at Ross Greene’s work and examine lagging skills.

We can identify those deficits. But then there’s the real-world experience—living with it and learning how to build relationships, especially when we’re talking about kids, to help them step into wanting to learn how to manage themselves. And as they become teenagers, we’re not going to achieve that by just telling them to.

Diane Dempster: And that’s the distinction. As you were saying, Elaine, it’s like we need to think about this not as something to be fixed, but something to be managed.

But if the system—whether it’s the educational system or the medical system—is in a fix-it mindset, saying, “Here’s what you need to do to fix it,” instead of, “Here’s what’s going to be needed over time to be as successful as you can at managing it,” there’s a huge difference between those two approaches.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Well, what that makes me think of is our conversation near the end of the conference with Ryan Wexelblatt, who’s the ADHD Dude. We’re big fans of his work, and he’s a fan of ours. There are some fundamental differences in our approaches. When I went to his workshop, I left feeling a little frustrated with some parts of it.

What I realized is that his model is really effective for younger kids, especially boys under the age of 10, before parents are ready to move into collaboration. His approach is about teaching parents how to be effective directors and authoritative parents, and he does that brilliantly.

But there’s something that needs to happen after that. That’s kind of what we do—when it’s time to move out of director mode, how do you transition into collaboration and support effectively?

The problem is that a lot of the ADHD community gets stuck in that director mode and doesn’t understand the importance of bringing these kids along with us. We need to enroll them in taking ownership of it, instead of just telling them what to do. Does that resonate?

Diane Dempster: It does. For me, it always takes me back to the point where I’m freaking out and thinking I’ve got to fix this, versus how do I figure out how to be with this?

How do I walk alongside this, live with this, help my kid navigate this, and not just focus on solving the problem, solution after solution, because this isn’t something to be necessarily solved or fixed.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I have this big note on my desk that says, "You can’t fix a teenager."

Diane Dempster: I probably need one of those.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s a reminder for all of us that this isn’t about fixing it. It’s about learning to manage it. Whether we’re adults with ADHD ourselves, and we want to learn how to manage our own ADHD in a way that helps us manage our kids, or we’re supporting kids, teens, or young adults.

I feel like a broken record, but it’s about learning that ADHD is something we have to manage continuously, over and over again.

Diane Dempster: Let’s not make it sound like it’s something that can’t get better. I just want to make sure we’re clear on that. That’s not what we’re saying. It’s not like it’s going to be terrible forever, not at all.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. It can get better.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, in order for it to get better, you have to understand what’s really going on. And if you’re in...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And then do something with that information.

Diane Dempster: Right. And I think the other thing we were talking about is how well-meaning, goodhearted professionals sometimes oversimplify ADHD. They often say, "If you’ve seen one child with ADHD, you’ve seen one child with ADHD."

And if that’s true, then creating a list of tips and strategies and thinking it will help everyone systematically is an oversimplification. I think that’s where the community gets stuck.

Parents go out there looking for that one thing that will help, but it’s an oversimplification because every parent is different, every child is different, every adult with ADHD is different. We need to stop simplifying it so much.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And here’s the irony: one of the things we need to do is make sure our systems are simple. But you're not saying we should make it more complicated.

You’re saying we need to find the right solution for each individual’s challenge and make it as simple as possible. But that’s not as simple as just giving everyone a reward chart.

Diane Dempster: I think the language I’ve been playing with, and I know we’ll be talking about this a lot next year, is the concept of behavior management. It’s something we talk about a lot, like helping my kids manage their behaviors more effectively. But it’s the layering of change management on top of behavior management.

So, it’s not just about behavior management. I’ve got to know how to navigate changes in the family dynamic. I’ve got to figure out how to handle situations when one kid is different from another. I’ve got to figure out how to handle it when I’m stressed out and neurodivergent as a parent. It’s not just about managing behaviors; it’s also about managing change.

That’s what makes me love our work so much because it enables us to look at what’s going on in the family or individual system and say, “Okay, how do we approach making this change?” It’s not just, “Here’s the thing to do to fix the problem.” If that makes sense.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I love that. It’s funny because when we created our model a dozen years ago, we always said it came out of coaching and change management in the workplace.

And you're right, we’ve never really talked about it much from that perspective. Heads up for 2024: maybe it's time we start thinking in terms of the goal here.

Learning to manage ADHD is really about learning how to navigate change and steer our lives in the direction we want them to go.

Diane Dempster: And helping our kids change for themselves. It’s that shift from thinking, "I have to change my child" to "I need to foster my child’s ability to live in the brain and body they have, as successfully as they can, for the rest of their lives."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, exactly. That’s what it’s all about. There’s one other point I wanted to share, and I suspect this happened to you at the conference as well. I was so struck by how many people came up to us and said, “Oh my God, you changed my life.

You changed my life. Sanity School changed my life, and now I’m [doing this].” It was so profound for me, but it’s a result of them getting their heads around it. Now they’re doing it to help themselves, their families, and to help other people.

That really stood out to me. There are so many professionals in this community who, eight, seven, or even ten years ago, started by focusing on themselves and their kids.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, and it’s amazing. I don’t know if this is true in other communities because I’m not in them, but a big part of why we all get involved—especially mental health practitioners—is because of this emotional and practical connection to the cause and the mission in a very different way.

Whether people became coaches because they wanted to help themselves or their kids, or if they became therapists or educators, it's all tied to this deep desire to help.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or even change their medical practice to something else. We have someone who works with us now, who’s an MD, and she’s completely shifting the way she practices medicine.

I’ve always said that motherhood is the necessity of invention, and I think there are just so many people now reinventing how we approach the world we find ourselves in, especially with the complexity of the times. There’s now a new awareness that it’s not just complex people, it’s complex people in complex times.

Diane Dempster: It’s true. We always say this: we’re all neurodivergent at times. And the cool thing about what we do, or what anyone else in our community does, is that the tools are just solid tools that help everyone, not just those who have the diagnosis or don’t have the diagnosis.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: One more thing, and this is really a prop to Diane. Diane and I did a workshop on deep coaching for coaches, and we don’t usually get to do that at an ADHD conference, so it was surreal.

Diane and I, from the beginning, have focused on all the work we do around parents and families, and supporting parents and the professionals who support them. We’ve also had kind of a sub-commitment to elevating the coaching industry—raising the bar on the quality of coaching across the board. Diane and I are classic coaches with expertise in neurodivergence and ADHD.

So, we’ve always had a value of elevating other coaches, particularly coaches in the ADHD coaching space. We got to do this deep coaching workshop, and what was beautiful to see, I thought, was how well people responded to it, and how much they loved it.

What we’re talking about in deep coaching, which is what we do at Impact, really, is that it’s not just about what we do as parents; it’s about who we’re being as parents. I’m curious about your experience with it, Diane, after the workshop.

My experience was that a lot of the professionals in our midst were beginning to realize—some were saying, "I started off this way, and now I’m doing all this doing on my way back to being." Others were saying, "Thanks for the permission to go deeper, to have more contextual conversations." What did you notice?

Diane Dempster: The place that this takes me, and this goes back even to working with parents, is that parents are constantly presenting us with problems. And it’s natural to want to solve those problems. It’s easy as human beings, especially if we’re feeling overwhelmed, agitated, anxious, or whatever it is, to jump to a solution.

We think, "Oh, wait, this is easy. Just do this!" and we quickly enter problem-solving mode. Coaches are human beings, too, and I do this all the time. A client will say something, and my first instinct is to pull from my experience, think about similar problems I’ve seen, and offer them solutions.

But that’s ultimately not what we do as coaches. We need to pause and step back as helpers. We have to ask ourselves, “How do I see this person, not just the problem?” That’s really important.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And to get beneath the problem, to understand what else is really going on, because there are always so many layers.

Diane Dempster: Exactly. I love that. This is what we teach parents to do all the time. It’s not just about identifying the issue and jumping straight to a solution. It’s about asking, “What’s really going on here?” and then exploring some potential experiments to get closer to understanding what’s truly needed in this particular situation.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I had a conversation with someone recently about a strategy. We were discussing what happens when it doesn’t work. She said, "Well, I’ll just give it up and try something else." I was talking to her about this idea of “rinse and repeat” – what if you start with the assumption that whatever strategy you try isn’t going to work the first time?

It was a really eye-opening moment for her, encouraging her to adopt an experimenter’s mindset. It was fun. Anyway, we need to wrap up this conversation.

Diane Dempster: I’m not even sure, it felt like a stream of consciousness. Hopefully, you were able to take away some useful tidbits from it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Let’s ask, what do you take away from this conversation? We’ve covered a lot – some of you may be looking at the historical context, others at behavior management or change management.

What’s your takeaway from this conversation that Diane and I have had? And what do you want to do with that information? What’s your next step, and what does it look like for you?

Diane Dempster: And thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us episode after episode, and thank you for everything you're doing for yourself and your kids. At the end of the day, it makes a real difference.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: An enormous, enormous difference. Take care, everybody. Have a good one.

 

Helpful Links:

-Parent Expectations: 2 Steps to Success 

-Parenting is Leadership Guide