ADHD parenting courses

[Sausagescanfly]

My Facebook is constantly offering me courses to help with parenting my child with ADHD (may be AuDHD, but not there yet). I think we could do with some input as there are bits of our experience that feel like battles. Has anyone done any of these things that pop up, or anything similar, that they would actually recommend please?

I’ve not done any of them sorry @Sausagescanfly. Maybe I should have done? Things could have gone more smoothly but then they may have not and I would have been out of pocket

99% of what is advertised on FB is spammy nonsense and overpriced. Much of the same info you can get by reading a book and some of it is actually predatory or plain wrong/counterproductive.

If you have money to throw at things I would look into private OT or child psychology. I have also heard really good things about SPACE and NVR - these are programs which have been developed professionally over many years, whereas a lot of the FB advertised courses are based on extremely scant evidence and sometimes no direct experience with children or parents at all. There is no regulation for the terms "parenting coach" or "ADHD coach". The New Forest Parenting Program for ADHD is also good. If you're going to pay for a course, I'd absolutely stick to something which is prescribed and used "officially" (e.g. in school settings, or as parent training) somewhere in the world, even if you don't have access to it through that route.

What specifically feels like a battle? I can possibly recommend some resources because I have a whole list addressing different bits of the puzzle I've amassed over ~14 years (eldest is 17 now).

Battles are doing homework and getting out of the house in the morning. Generally it's a battle to get her to do anything when asked.

What is SPACE please?

I don't know much about it but I do see people saying good things about it. https://www.spacetreatment.net/

In my experience, it's not so much what you do but how you do it, or rather, how regulated and calm you are while doing it. So if you get triggered by your child's behaviour, or stressed because you find mornings, school gate, being under time pressure etc overwhealming, it will make it harder to help your children regulate their emotions, and it can even intensify your child's anxiety/overwhelm/meltdown. Basically, co-regulation is the aim, where your inner calm calms your child. You are supposed to step back, give space, choices, be patient, gently encourage, be humorous and playful, relaxed, understand their feelings and validate them while calmly and clearly set boundaries without many words. That's all pretty difficult for anyone if your child is challenging and you are late for school and work, or totally knackered, but especially difficult for someone like me, who has ADHD myself. For me, getting calmer, more focused children meant working on my own calm first by getting my own diagnosis and working out what I need to stay calm, avoid overwhealm and meltdowns etc. Self awareness and oxygen mask first approach. My own mother clearly had AuDHD and she went from one meltdown to another, so for me it's getting out of generational behaviour patterns that are based on hereditary neurodiversity. I assume in many/most families with neurodiverse children neurodiversity runs in the family.