In this thoughtful LiveTalk, Michelle explores what happens in ADHD families when both parent and child become overwhelmed in emotionally charged moments. Drawing from her experience as a professional counselor, family therapist, and mother of a neurodivergent child, she offers compassionate insight into how nervous systems interact during stress and why reactivity can happen so quickly.
Michelle helps parents understand the underlying dynamics of ADHD, including challenges with executive functioning and emotional regulation. Using simple frameworks like Daniel Siegel’s hand model of the brain, she explains why children sometimes “flip their lid” and how a parent’s calm presence plays a key role in helping them return to regulation.
Throughout the session, Michelle shares practical tools and reflective exercises designed to help parents move from reaction to understanding. Participants will explore:
- Understanding ADHD and Emotional Regulation: How executive functioning challenges affect children’s behavior and responses during stressful moments.
- Breaking Reactive Cycles: Recognizing common parent–child interaction patterns and learning how to interrupt them with awareness and intention.
- Supporting Co-Regulation: Practical strategies that help both parent and child return to calm when emotions run high.
This conversation offers parents a compassionate and practical path toward more regulated, connected family moments—helping both adults and children feel understood, supported, and less alone.
In this video
If hard moments with your child escalate on both sides, and fast, this talk with Michelle Puster is about that cycle in ADHD families. It is for parents, and starts with how you want your family to feel and what sets you off. You draw the pattern between you and your child, then practice a pause in a guided visualization. The Q&A covers testing and diagnosis, telling your child about ADHD, and homework.
Chapters
- 0:00 Welcome and meet Michelle Puster
- 2:48 How you want your family to feel and what sets you off
- 9:46 How the ADHD brain works and the hand model of the brain
- 17:29 Drawing the negative cycle between you and your child
- 28:07 How to pause with movement, new thoughts and self-compassion
- 36:09 A guided visualization of pausing in a hard moment
- 39:45 Seeing your child's ADHD superpowers and making a collage
- 43:05 Q&A: teach behavior once they're calm, plus ADHD books
- 47:03 Q&A: testing, diagnosis and telling your child about ADHD
- 50:33 Q&A: helping with homework through movement breaks and play
