When children feel they've been treated unfairly, retaliation can seem completely justified in their minds. Whether it's yelling, hitting, breaking a sibling's belongings, or trying to "get even," these moments can quickly escalate if we focus only on the behavior.

In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor shares a practical, values-based approach to helping children and teens with ADHD move beyond revenge and develop healthier ways to respond to conflict. Learn how identifying core values, practicing active listening, and teaching concrete problem-solving strategies can help children build self-control, emotional regulation, and stronger relationships.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why children with ADHD may retaliate when they feel wronged.
• How to use core values to guide behavior and decision-making.
• Ways to help children pause before reacting.
• When retaliation may point to a larger family or classroom issue.
• How consequences, forgiveness, and empathy all play a role in long-term growth.

🎁 Free Download: Click here to access the worksheet that supports helping kids understand the anger behind retaliation feelings.

Children with ADHD often say exactly what they're thinking—not because they want to hurt others, but because the pause between thinking and speaking can be difficult. In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor introduces the concept of the social filter and shares practical strategies to help children and teens develop stronger social awareness and communication skills. 

Using memorable analogies like a firewall, a spam filter, and the soft ball vs. pokey ball, Dr. Tish explains how to teach children to pause, consider their audience, and think about how their words will be received. She also explores common social challenges such as sarcasm, tone of voice, gossip, unsolicited advice, disagreements, and repairing relationships when something slips through the filter.

Whether you're a parent, educator, therapist, or mental health professional, this episode provides simple, actionable tools you can begin using immediately to help children build healthier friendships and stronger communication skills. 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why children with ADHD often speak before they think
• How to teach the concept of a social filter
• Three visual tools that make social communication easier to understand
• Why tone, sarcasm, and unsolicited advice often create social conflict
• How to help children repair social mistakes with confidence

Connect with Dr. Tish Taylor at https://www.tishtaylor.com and access the free worksheet here for this episode.

Subscribe to ADHD Connect for practical, evidence-based strategies that empower parents, educators, and professionals to help children with ADHD thrive socially, emotionally, and academically.

Children with ADHD often say, "It's boring," "This takes too long," or "I don't want to do it." But what if the challenge isn't the task itself—it's learning how to persevere through it?

In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor uses the classic fable The Tortoise and the Hare to teach a powerful lesson about persistence. She shares practical strategies that help children shift from wanting to finish quickly to understanding the value of slow, steady progress.

You'll learn how to help children:

• Build perseverance when tasks feel difficult or boring
• Break overwhelming assignments into manageable steps
• Replace negative self-talk with confident, encouraging thoughts
• Develop a mindset that supports long-term learning and success
• Recognize when emotional regulation needs to come before problem-solving

🎁 Don't forget to download the companion Perseverance Worksheet included with this episode! It's a simple, engaging resource to help children practice the skills discussed and reinforce the lesson that steady effort leads to growth.

Whether you're a parent, teacher, therapist, or caregiver, this episode offers practical tools you can begin using right away to help children with ADHD develop resilience, confidence, and the ability to keep going—even when the work feels hard.

Following directions seems simple - until it isn't. Many children with ADHD struggle when asked to stop what they're doing, transition to something new, or follow through on a request. What can look like arguing, ignoring, negotiating, or even defiance is often connected to challenges with transitions, emotional regulation, and the need for predictability.

In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor explores why direction-following can be so difficult and shares practical strategies to reduce power struggles while helping children move toward cooperation. 

You'll learn:

• Why some children resist directions, even when they know what is expected
• How transitions and shifting attention contribute to arguing, ignoring, and pushback
• Simple prevention strategies that make following directions easier
• Why visual schedules, timers, and advance notice can reduce resistance
• How to acknowledge feelings without getting pulled into lengthy negotiations
• Ways to use choices and motivation to increase cooperation and follow-through

Whether you're dealing with morning routines, homework battles, leaving for appointments, or classroom transitions, this episode offers practical tools to help children follow directions with less frustration and fewer emotional blowups. Visit The ADHD Store and take the next step in your journey.

Children with ADHD often get stuck in a judgment, a feeling, or a belief that something is unfair. When thinking becomes rigid, it can impact emotional regulation, relationships, problem-solving, and everyday success.

In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor explores three common areas where inflexible thinking shows up: labeling people ("They're mean"), rejecting situations ("I hate it"), and getting stuck on fairness ("It's not fair"). She shares practical strategies to help children develop greater flexibility of thought, including expanding vocabulary, using continuums instead of all-or-nothing thinking, and broadening perspective.

You'll discover how these simple but powerful tools can help children better understand situations, regulate emotions, and navigate social challenges with greater confidence.

In this episode:

• Why rigid thinking is common in ADHD
• How language shapes perception and behavior
• Strategies for moving beyond black-and-white thinking
• Helping children develop perspective-taking skills
• Practical tools for parents, educators, and professionals 

Bonus: Download the companion worksheet, Flexible Thinking, for reflection questions and practical exercises to help put these concepts into action.

For more ADHD resources, visit Dr. Tish Taylor at TishTaylor.com.

Big emotions can feel overwhelming for children with ADHD and for the adults supporting them. In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor explores the deeper reasons behind meltdowns, classroom disruptions, impulsive behaviors, and emotional outbursts. 

Rather than viewing these moments as simply “bad behavior,” Dr. Taylor encourages parents and educators to look at the whole child and ask an important question:

What’s driving the behavior? 

She discusses how emotional dysregulation, attention-seeking, academic frustration, peer dynamics, impulsivity, and sensory or movement needs can all contribute to disruptive behavior.

More importantly, she shares practical strategies for responding with calm, structure, and understanding while still maintaining healthy expectations and boundaries. In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why emotional regulation is such a challenge for many children with ADHD
• How to identify triggers and patterns behind meltdowns and outbursts
• The difference between attention-seeking and regulation struggles
• Practical classroom and parenting strategies that actually help
• How movement, sensory supports, and academic adjustments can reduce behavioral challenges
• Why staying calm and curious matters more than reacting emotionally

This conversation is filled with compassionate insight and realistic tools for parents, teachers, and caregivers navigating big emotions and challenging moments.

📄 Download the companion worksheet + episode guide here.

🎙️ Hosted by Dr. Tish Taylor | ADHD Connect Podcast

When the class clown takes center stage, it’s easy to focus on stopping the behavior, but what if the behavior is telling us something important? In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor explores why some students with ADHD become disruptive in the classroom and how parents, teachers, and school professionals can better understand the behavior’s underlying causes. Is it attention-seeking? Impulsivity? Academic frustration? Peer dynamics? Boredom? 

Dr. Tish walks through the underlying causes and explains why identifying the “why” behind the behavior completely changes the intervention. 

You’ll hear practical strategies for:

• Understanding classroom disruption through a functional lens
• Recognizing patterns related to time, peers, and academic tasks
• Supporting hyperactive and impulsive students more effectively
• Using movement, structure, and reinforcement intentionally
• Responding without escalating the behavior
• Building collaboration between home and school

This episode is part of the ADHD: The Social and Emotional Self series, where Dr. Tish takes a deeper look at the often-overlooked emotional, interpersonal, and behavioral experiences connected to ADHD.

📄 Download the companion worksheet + episode guide here.

🎙️ Hosted by Dr. Tish Taylor | ADHD Connect Podcast

In this episode, Dr. Tish Taylor introduces season 2 and the deeper focus on the social, emotional, and relational aspects of ADHD. These are areas that are often talked about, but rarely explored in a comprehensive, practical way. From emotional regulation to peer relationships to a child’s internal experience of themselves, this season is about understanding what’s happening beneath the surface. You’ll hear real-life patterns that many families recognize:

• The child who holds it together all day at school… then melts down at home
• The growing distance in friendships and social struggles that are hard to explain
• The frequent “I’m so bored” leaves parents and teachers unsure how to respond

Dr. Taylor also shares key research insights, including large-scale meta-analyses that highlight challenges with emotional reactivity, peer functioning, and social processing in children with ADHD - reminding us that these struggles are not random, and they’re not a reflection of a child’s character.

This episode sets the stage for a season focused on clarity, compassion, and practical strategies, so you can better understand your child and respond in ways that truly help. 

Have a question or topic you’d like covered this season? Reach out and be part of the conversation at www.TishTaylor.com!

In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor explores one of the most common challenges for children and teens with ADHD: impulsivity. Impulsive behaviors can show up in many ways, including:

• Blurting out or interrupting
• Struggling with personal space
• Attention-seeking behaviors
• Acting without thinking through consequences

While these moments can be frustrating, they’re also opportunities to teach important skills. In this episode, you’ll learn practical tools to help kids pause, think, and make more thoughtful choices:

• “Stop, Think, Go” to support better decision-making
• How to teach a social filter (thinking vs. saying)
• Ways to reinforce positive behaviors
• Simple strategies to help kids understand consequences
• Tools to build perspective-taking and empathy

Dr. Taylor also explores what may be driving impulsive behavior, including sensory needs, attention-seeking, and the desire to fit in with peers, so you can respond with more clarity and confidence. If you’re a parent, teacher, or caregiver, this episode will give you realistic, practical strategies you can start using right away.

How we talk about ADHD shapes how children understand themselves. In this episode of ADHD Connect, Dr. Tish Taylor explores a question many parents and educators don’t often stop to ask: How are we thinking about ADHD, and is that way of thinking actually helping our kids? Some children hear messages like “I can’t help it, it’s my ADHD.” Others hear “You’re just making excuses.” Neither approach gives kids what they truly need to grow. Dr. Taylor explains a more helpful way to understand ADHD as a neurodevelopmental lag in executive functioning and attention, and why the goal isn’t lowering expectations, or pushing through with shame, but building capacity over time. 

You’ll learn:

• Why the language we use about ADHD matters
• How a “not yet” mindset can shift motivation and confidence
• What scaffolding means and how it helps children succeed
• Practical examples of adjusting environments to support kids with ADHD
• Why progress often happens when adults and children work together to find what works

Dr. Tish Taylor also discusses how other challenges, like anxiety, sleep issues, learning differences, or mood concerns, can sometimes be part of the picture and affect how ADHD shows up. This episode offers a calmer, more constructive framework: ADHD may make some things harder, but it doesn’t have to make them impossible. If you're a parent, educator, or caregiver trying to support a child with ADHD, this conversation will help you shift from frustration to strategy, and from limitation to possibility.