625- ADHD Kids Are Awesome: Penn & Kim Holderness on Celebrating Brain Differences

0:03Penn Holderness: Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert Podcast Series by Attitude Magazine.

0:13Penn Holderness: Everyone, I'm Annie Rogers and on behalf of the Attitude team, I am delighted to welcome you to today's special presentation titled ADHD Kids Are Awesome. Today's webinar will feature a conversation and a Q &A with our two special guests, Kim and Penn Holderness. Penn and Kim are award-winning content creators known for their original music, song parodies, comedy sketches, and weekly podcasts, which have garnered more than 2 billion views and 8 million followers across their social media platforms. They are the authors of ADHD is Awesome, A Guide to Mostly Thriving with ADHD, and All You Can Be with ADHD, which is an illustrated children's book released last year.

1:06Penn Holderness: Before making their own content in the digital space, they honed their storytelling skills with 25 combined years in the TV news business. And when they aren't making their audiences laugh, they help international companies make videos of their own along with their team at Holderness Family Productions. Their new book, Get It Done and Have Fun, ADHD Hacks for Awesome Kids, will be released on September 29th. so earlier this year kim shared an emotional and powerful youtube conversation with pen in which she revealed that she too had been diagnosed with adhd like many women kim navigated life with anxiety but found that perimenopause triggered an area an era of unreasonable challenges as it turned out adhd was at the core so we'll talk about this plus the new children's book in the ADHD Kids Are Awesome series.

2:09Penn Holderness: But first, let me mention that you can learn more about the Holderness family by visiting theholdernessfamily.com. Okay, before we dive into today's conversation with Kim and Penn, I have a few housekeeping items. For answers to common webinar questions about slides, transcripts, certificates of attendance, you can just click on the FAQ tab of your webinar screen. And I hope by now you know that Attitude is a quarterly print magazine that can be delivered to your mailbox or the mailbox of your child's teachers, grandparents, or medical providers. Finally, before we start, the sponsor of today's webinar is Accentrate.

2:50Penn Holderness: Accentrate combines omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins to provide kids with brain-ready nutrition. From morning routines to busy school days and homework time, Accentrate supports focus, attention, memory, and mood, helping kids stay on track throughout the day. Click the link on your screen to learn more about Accentrate. Attitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content. Okay, without any further ado, I am so pleased to welcome Penn and Kim Holderness. Thank you for joining us again. And happy Almost ADHD Awareness Month.

3:33Penn Holderness: Happy Almost ADHD Awareness Month to all who celebrate.

3:36Kim Holderness: Thanks for reminding us. We always forget when it is because, you know, you know, you know.

3:42Penn Holderness: If you know, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I mentioned that kind of at the outset that today's webinar was really more of a conversation. And as I thought about it, I was, this is really unfair that I alone get to talk with Penn and Kim. And so in honor of ADHD Awareness Month in October, I am going to actually center today's conversation around the Attitude audience members and their own reflections and using their own words that they have sent to us about their own ADHD awareness and their own understanding of ADHD. And then we're going to use that as our jumping off point for, for the conversation.

4:27Penn Holderness: And we're also going to leave time for Q and A at the end. So, um, yeah, I just, you know, we're so lucky at Attitude to have an engaged, um, and super creative audience. Thank you to everyone who's here right now. The best. Yes. And so we asked our audience recently, how have you seen understanding of ADHD evolve in your lifetime? How have perceptions and care changed from your perspective? And I just love this quote. When I was a kid, we had a kindergarten reader amount of information on ADHD, especially in girls. So little info on what would be the most damaging. So few things to help parents not do those most damaging things.

5:17Penn Holderness: Now we have a college level curriculum understanding. I think there's room for a master's program and doctorates. So, I mean, you with your, the release of your third ADHD book, Get It Done and Have Fun, You're contributing to this library of knowledge about ADHD, not just for professionals, but for kids themselves. And so I just wanted to start asking why the children's book? Why did you feel it's important to teach kids about their ADHD brains and also elevating the conversation as you did with ADHD is awesome?

6:01Kim Holderness: we both uh remember vividly our childhood years um and it's interesting for me i've you know i've been talking about this for better part of a decade with all the books and content we put out kim i think once she got diagnosed a year ago it kind of all came flooding back to her as well you know being called um a space cadet or a crybaby like i think those were the two main things that i remember not being able to really reconcile as a kid why can't i sit still and do what everyone wants me to do, which is just look straightforward and pay attention. And then number two, why do I cry so easily?

6:36Kim Holderness: Why do I get so overwhelmed emotionally when something goes wrong? And to your point, we were getting close to the master's class at this point because no one understood the connection between emotional dysregulation and ADHD when we were kids. Now we do. And it's such an important part of what's going on in their heads right now. And so explaining that to parents is one thing, which I feel like we've done, but giving a taste of it to kids in their language with, you know, fun pictures and poetry, something that almost feels like a song when you're reading it. We're trying to reach them because a lot of times they don't necessarily want to hear what their parents are saying.

7:18Kim Holderness: So hearing it from somebody else doesn't necessarily hurt.

7:21Penn Holderness: Absolutely. And It's so funny, my mom, who's not diagnosed, but if I were allowed to diagnose, I would hand it to her. But once she needs to go to a trained professional for that, but she recognizes herself after my diagnosis. She recognizes all of those things in herself. She ordered this book. She's like, Kim, I can brush my teeth, but I hate, like, there's a lot of stuff I don't like doing. And so I think what it does with the kids' books is it starts a conversation that allows the kids to participate because I don't know about you, but in our house, unless my son is an active participant in like what that system or solution is, it's not going to happen.

8:03Penn Holderness: Like if I say, oh, let's put a post-it note or checklist at the door with pictures. If he's not into it, he's never going to check it. So like, that's the hope with the kids books is that like you, you have a partnership because most likely if your kid has ADHD, there's a genetic component to this, right? Like one or more parents might also diagnosed or undiagnosed. So if there's a chance to just have a conversation, like, ah, my brain works like that too. Like what, what can we do to make sure you're turning in your homework? Like once you can make it a conversation and it's not accusatory and you're coming with all these corrections, like, like it just like that, that's the dream, right?

8:41Penn Holderness: To be able to be part of those conversations. Absolutely. And you're right that the neutral territory can be very helpful. Yeah. Very, very helpful. And if somebody could write the book for college kids that I could hand off because college kids don't listen to us either, you let me know. Sign me up. Sign me up. And out of curiosity, I would love for our live audience to put in the chat if you or someone you love recognized their ADHD tendencies, traits, symptoms because of your child's diagnosis. That would be really interesting to know because we hear about it often, but those personal stories are always illuminating.

9:24Penn Holderness: That's when a lot of women are getting diagnosis. They're checking the box and doing all those surveys for their kids. And you're like, wait a second. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. I have more voices to share about how we've seen ADHD evolve. So I'll share this next one. And the stigma of medication and mental illness seems to have lessened from generation to generation. I still feel some shame taking my medication and I've struggled to tell my coworkers I have ADHD. I don't want my kids to ever feel ashamed for having ADHD. I speak with them and others about it openly. They should be proud of who they are.

10:05Penn Holderness: And I've got one more here on this topic. I think awareness of the actual symptoms of ADHD, especially in girls and women, is at an all-time high. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, influencers who are ADHD or AUDHD, autism and ADHD, have made me feel seen, feel less alone, and find more understanding of myself and my kids and given us all grace. So I know you didn't necessarily set out to usher in a new era of ADHD acceptance, but your voices were among the very first on YouTube. I think it's been 10 years since the infamous you down with ADD video. And I'm wondering about your perspective on just this evolution of the conversation where it was 10 years ago and where we are today in not just social media, but culturally, how you think the message has shifted.

11:07Penn Holderness: it?

11:08Kim Holderness: I, the first, the first video we did, I thought it would just be funny to take a parody of naughty by nature. That's like a really dirty song normally and make it about ADHD. And if you haven't seen it basically, like as I'm trying to sing the song, I keep like spacing out and walking away and my family are all like, ah, where'd he go? Um, and so, you know, the first, I think the first minute or so of it is a fun way, just talking about all of the things that I struggle with. But then most people stayed for the second minute, which was talking about all of the reasons that I believe it's helping me.

11:43Kim Holderness: For example, writing the song that you just listened to that came from this sort of brain. So I don't know, that's just, that's always the way I felt about myself. And I didn't realize like how few people felt that way. I think most people just saw it as a crutch, as a debilitating disease, disease really like that's that's medically yeah it's like uh for which there was no cure um and very little hope and um while you know we weren't doctors and we uh we weren't subscribing medication what i think what we what that video did was it kind of destigmatized and gave people a chance to um come out from wherever they were i think mentally hiding and talking about it and because it it did so well on facebook i want to give facebook props here um the comments became this like safe haven for people to connect with other people.

12:34Kim Holderness: So the conversation got bigger than the video was what was going on underneath it. And that part was like really cool to watch. Yeah.

12:42Penn Holderness: I think that for a long time, you're absolutely right. Like people, especially women felt some shame. I mean, we went to, we've met so many, like the community around this and your community too is so great. Like there have been people messaging us like, I'm a nurse and I don't know how to, you know, I don't want to reveal this because I'm afraid they're going to think differently. But in the next minute that she talked about how, like, how, like, this is her special interest, how hyper-focused she is on the patient, how, like, she's so, like, I think truly it's a gift to her. So I hope, and I pray that just by talking about all the gifts that we can lift some of the shame and stigma, I do love that we've been part of this, but I also recognize for clinician, practitioners and clinicians that it's probably hard because we're all everybody thinks they're like they're diagnosing themselves on TikTok.

13:40Penn Holderness: And I was diagnosed with anxiety. My first I went to therapy for the first time in college. Life was overwhelming. I couldn't keep up. Nothing was sticking in my brain. And I was given the diagnosis of anxiety. Not saying that's not true. But if you look at the anxiety questionnaire and then you look at the ADHD symptoms, they practically mirror each other. So it really takes a trained clinician to sort of unravel what's ADHD, what's anxiety, what's both, right? And so I have heard from, we get a lot of messages from practitioners who are like, you know, don't try to diagnose. We're not diagnosing people.

14:18Penn Holderness: We just want to have a community. We just want to like be in community with people who have brains like ours and help in any way we can. And, you know, I just read you one comment that just came in from our live audience. She wrote to say, you both have given me and my nine-year-old little girl hope two years ago. We both got diagnosed with ADHD. My daughter was ashamed of it, but I read your book, ADHD is Awesome, and got the kids book too. it comforted my daughter and me. Thank you. Ah, that makes my heart so, so have goosebumps. That's really sweet. That's really sweet. It is. It's, it's, uh, we see it often in the, in the attitude community that the, the validation, I don't know if that's the right word, um, of like these, you know, very creative, accomplished people demonstrating all of the joys and benefits and strengths of ADHD.

15:20Penn Holderness: You said you talk about it, but you, you live it, right? You show it in every video. Yeah.

15:26Kim Holderness: I mean, I'm glad you mentioned the people, your audience. I got to figure out how to pull up the comments. I don't know how to do it right now, but I, my favorite part of these meetings are the comments.

15:34Penn Holderness: He gets a little distracted by it. It's okay.

15:36Kim Holderness: No, but like it's everyone here is so wildly creative.

15:39Penn Holderness: I know. We love your audience. They love you. So speaking of them, I've got more comments. So this was still on the evolution. We had so many great comments come in. When I was a kid, my brother had ADHD and couldn't get a diagnosis. He was skipping school by third grade and barely graduated. What's promising about ADHD nowadays is we understand it so much better and have the research to show what medication offers in terms of outcomes that helps parents make the right decisions for their kids. And then as a prescriber and a parent, I've seen significant change in progress with ADHD care. Children are being diagnosed and treated earlier.

16:24Penn Holderness: Early treatment and intervention provides a great opportunity for symptom management, academic, and behavioral support. And this just goes to say, like, it all starts with those conversations, with that awareness that ADHD is not something to be ashamed of and that we all benefit when we talk about it. Do you think it's ever too early to begin discussing ADHD with your child or with their, you know, care team?

16:53Kim Holderness: Maybe not when, you know, they're in the delivery room. No, no. I think as soon as a child is old enough to understand behavior and right and wrong, it's probably a good time to at least start explaining their brains to them. Right. Like the example you just gave of that, that, that kid who was skipping school that, that might've never, like the question was, where'd he go? He's in trouble. How long are we going to suspend him? No one really bothered to ask, like, why is he skipping school? Is school completely unbearable to him? Is it something that is so not built for him to sit still and like pay attention and look straight ahead that his body had no choice, but to get out of there.

17:36Kim Holderness: So like, I'm saying that to say that like, what seems like compulsive, disrespectful behavior at any age, I think it's never too early to start the conversation and ask why do you feel the need to do that?

17:51Penn Holderness: And also the thing that, you know, he has said it over and over again, but you know how sometimes it just kind of strikes like a tuning fork. So he's always absorbed that like my brain isn't defective. It's just a different sort of brain. It's not, my brain is perfectly, it's perfect the way it is. It just, it works differently than these brains. And I think as, you know, these kids, especially with ADHD are getting a lot of discipline. Listen, we love teachers and God bless the teachers. They're dealing with so much, but when you're hearing that over and over and over again, when the shame is popping in and it's, And it's an impossible situation.

18:33Penn Holderness: But my heart breaks when you hear about a third grader feeling so deeply uncomfortable in class and not wanted when some maybe, I don't know, just permission to get up and do a laugh. You know what I mean? Permission to go run around the track between classes, that sort of thing. And you brought up medication a few times. And so I worked with my psychiatrist and I was prescribed ADHD meds for the first time a few months ago. And it was wild. I took that medicine and I was like, wait a second. Is this how normal people feel? And it just, the voices in my brain, the conversations in my brain kind of settled.

19:21Penn Holderness: It allowed me, it was such a relief. And I have been, I'm like now backing off anxiety medicine because the ADH, once I took the ADHG medicine, like anxiety is like, poof, it was gone. So it was magic in my brain. And so that has been a huge gift for me. um and i think the conversation like around medication especially for women like as part of the conversation um all of women's health care is an ongoing conversation um but particularly perimenopause and hormone replacement therapy and the the role that medication for ADHD can play for diagnosed individuals. I mean, this is, we are really at the beginning here of this, which is infuriating and also hopeful.

20:22Penn Holderness: I know it makes me sad for women. Like, so we had an 82 year old woman, a woman message us after she saw her podcast, um, about my diagnosis. She went and got diagnosed at age 82, but also she was part of the group that was never given hormone replacement therapy. Like it makes me want to cry for women of that age. We are getting so much more than they did. And well, it's like, let's hope our daughters never have to muddle their way through this. Right. Right. Um, and actually that's a great segue to my next, um, comment, which is really about, it has to do in part with girls, um, and, and how ADHD has changed in conversation for girls.

21:09Penn Holderness: As someone who went to grade school in the 1970s, things have obviously made a 180 degree turn. Children are more likely to get help than to get punished for their struggles, but children of color still often get treated punitively for challenging behaviors in school. And then instead of focusing solely on outward physical behaviors, people are now focusing on the neurology of ADHD. I'm optimistic about the possibility that educators will be able to tailor their work to different brains and ways of thinking in the future, instead of assuming that one size fits all approach. So as a girl with undiagnosed ADHD in the 80s, Kim, what were some of the behaviors and coping mechanisms that you think were perhaps overlooked or that clearly strike you now as signs of your ADHD?

22:03Penn Holderness: And I'm curious how that was different for Penn. I think it's interesting because I think our situations really mirror. And so part of a proper diagnosis of ADHD is you are, when you're an adult, you go back because it can't just like pop up when you're in perimenopause. It has to have been present across every area of your life. So there's this archeological dig you have to do back into your childhood, including talking to people who knew you in your childhood. And my sweet mom, she was just like, I just remember you had really outsized reactions to things that maybe didn't require that sort of reaction.

22:43Penn Holderness: And so I do remember just being incredibly emotional about everything. And then on every one of my report cards was Kim struggles with transitions. Like I would get so into something and then they would be time to switch classes. And like, I couldn't do it. I couldn't get in. I'd get there and then I'd get there a couple minutes late, like starting in middle school would be a couple minutes late. And then it would take me so long to get into that. And then it was time to switch again. And so I just thought maybe I was lazy. Like I just, or I just thought I was like unmotivated because I did well in school, but it just, none of it made sense.

23:24Penn Holderness: And so I don't think they, I wasn't misbehaving. Like I wasn't in class. I'd, you know, I kind of like saved it all. I would go into the bathroom in the bathroom stall and I would cry a lot in the bathroom stall, middle school and high school. But I'm like, didn't everybody do that? Didn't everybody go cry in the bathroom stall? So like, I think it was like a lot of the emotional stuff that was really hard. And I think Penn is like, that's what he talks about too.

23:51Kim Holderness: Yeah, no, I mean, crybaby. That was the big one. And it was masked for me because I did well in school. I didn't, like, my emotional dysregulation didn't come in outbursts. It came in general fidgetiness and then tears. It wasn't an angry outburst, which also, as you know, is another possible route that you can go on. That, again, it's not a decision that the child is making. It's the only way out in their brain to the position that they're in. Yeah.

24:27Penn Holderness: And as you said at the beginning, the recognition of the emotional side of ADHD, I mean, it's still not in the formal DSM diagnosis criteria, but it's part of most questionnaires now, as it should be.

24:44Kim Holderness: And if you work, so we've had a person, you said, who was a prescriber, those people who are coaches and those people who work with parents, 100 % of the parents who show up are surprised by, oh, this emotional dysregulation is a part of these symptoms. that's something that Marcy Caldwell thought of. She's like, they still like, when they come in my door, they're not ready for that, even though it makes perfect sense once they hear it.

25:08Penn Holderness: Yes. Yes. We have a lot of people in the live comments.

25:12Kim Holderness: Sweet. I don't know how to find them. He does not know how to find them.

25:15Penn Holderness: Well, we're agreeing with that. Go ahead. Sorry.

25:18Kim Holderness: Sorry. Sorry.

25:23Penn Holderness: Okay. I'm going to move on to our next question. I'm sorry, our next set of quotes about the evolution of ADHD. I didn't realize how much ADHD and hormonal changes, puberty, PMS, PMDD, perimenopause, and menopause can dramatically influence the severity of symptoms for women. Also, ADHD symptoms can be misdiagnosed as PTSD, depression, and anxiety. And as a child, my ADHD was missed. ADHD then was considered only a boy's thing. It wasn't until perimenopause that my masking fell apart and my ADHD revealed itself in all of its glory. And so, Kim, I know in your videos you have spoken quite openly about your experience in perimenopause.

26:14Penn Holderness: But I think it's so validating to hear. So I'm wondering if you're willing to share about just the symptoms that signaled to you that what you were dealing with was more than just run-of-the-mill, you know, perimenopause. Right. It's so interesting now reading the studies, and there are such good studies coming out, and I'm going to misquote them if I try, but just the impact of estrogen on what's happening on an ADHD brain, it's validating, I will say, because I had wild PMS my entire life. I was medicated for it. Terrible postpartum depression and anxiety. And then perimenopause is wild. Again, there's not much it would have, no way it would have done differently.

27:02Penn Holderness: But let me tell you, just to have known like, oh, you have ADHD, postpartum might be tough. Maybe set up some checks, maybe set up. So this man is the only reason I made it through because I had, I had his support and he recognized like, you need help right now. But a woman who doesn't realize what's happening in her brain, like it can be, it was, it was scary. So, um, I, I love that the, the research that's coming out on that. I do think once I hit perimenopause, he is so sweet. He came up with a, I was not myself anymore. Like I would, you know what it was? I was probably more myself than I ever was in my entire life.

27:44Penn Holderness: And, but this version of Kim, like I had never really shown up as Kim in a situation and Kim is a little chatty and Kim's a little bossy and Kim has opinions, but I had been wearing this like really sweet mask of this, like really sweet person for my entire life. And then perimenopause comes, yanks the mask down. He's like, who the hell did I marry? So nice to meet you. I never said that. No, he never said that. He never said that.

28:11Kim Holderness: But it was the timing. It's not cool for whoever plans all this because you go through perimenopause, which affects your executive functioning. It's generally around the same time that your child goes off to school, which is its own like dramatic change and things. And then this isn't like universal, but our entire street is under construction at this point. So like that, I feel like that's been one of the triggers for you.

28:40Penn Holderness: There's just so much noise at all times.

28:42Kim Holderness: So there's a lot of noise, a lot of hammering and a lot of jackhammers. So it all came together.

28:47Penn Holderness: It all collapsed. And so all of the things that I had been using to cope with my life, like all of the systems I'd put in place. and I'm realizing now like all that anxiety and all that spinning up was because of my ADHD and

29:04Kim Holderness: like it was like what by the way nad tad said didn't pen write the skit with perimenopause

29:09Penn Holderness: pen wrote the skip script on perimenopause because it was like two separate people right but um they it was just something and I've been in therapy my whole life right but this was this This was something else. Like this was something else. And so I have a psychiatrist and I have a therapist and I'm describing all this. And then Dr. Amelia Kelly, who is very wonderful, I went to see her and she's like, let's just do the work of a diagnosis. And it takes a while, right? It's not a quick, you know, one survey type of thing. And we did the work of a really thorough diagnosis. And she's like, ma 'am, you have a pretty significant case of combined type ADHD.

29:55Penn Holderness: And I am not like the clinicians and the practitioners and the therapists and everybody I saw beforehand. I'm not blaming them at all. But I never felt I felt like when they hand it to you, that's it. Right. Like that's what it is. It's anxiety. It's depression. It's OCD. Like, well, they know they're the professionals. It didn't it didn't even occur to me. to say like, oh, well, that OCD doesn't really square with me. Like, yes, I get into like these spiral sort of thoughts and I get sort of obsessed on things, but I don't really have the compulsions. I don't have like, so it didn't occur to me to kind of challenge it or have a conversation about it.

30:36Penn Holderness: And now if I give any advice to women, it's like, if you don't feel like that diagnosis is 100 % complete. Have a conversation with respect to their credentials, but have a conversation about what you're really feeling. Absolutely. And not for nothing, we're starting to get the science around, as you mentioned at the outset here, the impact of estrogen on symptoms of ADHD and we will put it in the resources for this session, the newest research that you can bring to your doctor to show. Because it is new science and not everyone, I mean, the fact of the matter is that most general practitioners only receive, what is it, like less than two hours of training on ADHD or something, you know, astronomically poor.

31:39Penn Holderness: Right. And again, like just like teachers, they're dealing with so, so much. So to go in, like knowing that you have to advocate for yourself. And I think that I was such a rule following good girl. Like I just, I followed the rules and I did what people told me. And so when my doctor told me, or when the doctor in college told me like, the reason you're overwhelmed and nothing can stick in your brain and everything feels like it's falling apart is anxiety. I was like, oh, well that must be right. Like, and I never, it never even occurred to me to question that until honestly, the, the lack of estrogen makes you really bossy and wonderful.

32:18Penn Holderness: And so that's when I could actually stand up for myself. I could stand up for myself for the first time. That's a silver lining. Maybe not for all the people making noise around my house, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I have more great quotes to share. This time we asked our readers, what's one, and it kind of piggybacks here. What's one thing you have come to understand about ADHD that has struck a powerful chord? And one person wrote in, the way it manifests explains a lot of the behaviors I've been criticized for throughout my life. Learning about it hit powerfully because I realized that contrary to what I was told, there's nothing wrong with me.

33:04Penn Holderness: My brain just works differently, which is exactly what you said, Kim. The way I can see trends and patterns and join pieces of information together at a strategic level is my strength. And that not all people think that way. It's one of the best things about ADHD, which means I've got to throw it over to Penn. Does this comment ring true for you, especially in the context of your work, your songs and your video concepts that we all know both of you for?

33:36Kim Holderness: No doubt. Absolutely. She nailed it. She said patterns. I think that I find patterns in music and in comedy and in the world around me. And the reason why is because we all have a very special antenna in our brain in the way that we receive stimulus. And it can really suck when you're in school, right? If I have a second, I'm going to describe this metaphor that I got from Dr. Marcy Caldwell. The neurotypical brain is like a VIP room inside a dance club, where there is a giant muscular person keeping things out that should not be out. There's a red velvet rope and whatever you want to be inside there is inside there and you really don't have to mess with all the other stuff going on.

34:19Kim Holderness: So that's the neurotypical brain. The neuro spicy brain, the ADHD brain is Coachella. Everyone's invited. It rains. You can feel the wind. You take in everything, which can be incredibly distracting when you're in a school or when you're in a job or when your wife is telling you about her day. Like any of these situations are danger zones for someone with ADHD. But when you're trying to be creative and recognize patterns, you have such a wider antenna. It's not a lack of attention. It's actually an abundance of it. And when you allow it to come to you and you can filter it in certain ways that you care about, you can be incredibly prolific in anything that you do.

35:00Kim Holderness: And so when I heard that metaphor, I was like, holy bleep. That's why I can do this. It's also why sometimes when my wife's telling me about her day, I have to ask her to start over. Both things are true. You're saying you're not interested? I'm so interested in how your dance class went, honey. I am. I am. But I think you have to acknowledge both of those things and do a little work on the stuff that you aren't as good at.

35:28Penn Holderness: The pattern recognition is wild. If I can admit something here that I've not told people before, I used to think I was psychic because I just knew what was going to happen. Like I could go into a situation and I was like, Oh, I'm just so deeply empathetic. And I know exactly how people are feeling at every turn. And so I had a clinician or at a therapist one time, she's like, maybe it's PTSD. And that's why you're so empathetic. And you're like on high alert all the time. And I was like, I mean, I had, I had like a normal childhood. My parents are divorced, but everybody's parents a divorce. Like I was like PTSD.

36:01Penn Holderness: I don't know if that, I don't know. I think it's like the ADHD pattern recognition and I could just see the patterns. And so it was kind of easy to predict what's going to happen in a situation. But here I was thinking I was a psychic. Right. Well, just as maybe everyone wasn't crying in the bathroom in middle school, everyone can't predict like that is maybe not maybe maybe I am a psychic well no but I mean like I think they're you're onto something that ADHD brains are seeing yeah we see everything seeing the whole of Coachella and they are making magic happen by putting pieces together that other people just can't see our, the vision is too, too narrow.

36:49Penn Holderness: Um, and yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. So that will lead me to our next, um, powerful cord moment with ADHD, emotional dysregulation, which we've touched on here a bit is so central to ADHD biologically, and it can quite sensibly result in rejection sensitivity and low self-esteem if left undiscovered, undiagnosed and untreated. and discovering that ADHD is about regulating focus, as you were just saying, Penn, and motivation, not a lack of willpower. Struck a powerful chord with me. It reframed my entire self story from seeing myself as not good enough to understanding that my brain is wired differently and that is okay.

37:34Penn Holderness: I just found this comment really beautiful and just wanted to get both of your thoughts on any of the above, but kind of that theme of like imposter syndrome, especially, and how many brilliant people with ADHD seem to battle with rejection sensitivity and that imposter syndrome. And please, in the comments, chime in if you've got stories to share. We want to hear them.

38:01Kim Holderness: Yeah. I mean, first of all, Annie, thank you to you and to the people here every time we go here. I wasn't as aware of RSD until you told me about it. I definitely was aware of rejection sensitivity, but that's been a big part of our learning experience over the last year because we have both experienced physical symptoms to rejection in our lives. And again, it's something separate, but they commonly get along. And so what she just read, which was this way to understand like this is the way it is, the self-awareness in those sentences. And like the acceptance, but also not like I give up, like this is how I'm going to grow and change.

38:51Kim Holderness: Like that's how we all thrive with the brain that we have.

38:57Penn Holderness: In those conversations, you know, and Dr. Sasha Handami has a book called Too Sensitive Out, and it's so good. I totally recommend it. But in those conversations about RSD, again, it's not a part of the DSM. It's not part of a clinical diagnosis, but it's something that a lot of people with ADHD tend to identify with. I've been able to have conversations with my son because, again, this is not a lack of motivation. But I recognize in myself, I don't start things unless I think I'm going to be really good at it because if I'm not good at it and I experience any sort of negativity, then it causes me physical pain.

39:38Penn Holderness: So I'm a boy, I avoid even doing it. And so I was able to have a conversation with him because I recognize like he recognizes that in himself too. They have like, okay, let's just, let's just try to do something very badly. Like I'm going to write the worst script ever. And I'm going to try it. And like, we have actually, it's like really, it is like exposure therapy, but in like a funny way, like I'm going to try to organize my closet in the worst possible way. And so kind of like, but then once you, once I have started and once I'm in motion and the same for him, once he's in motion and you realize like, oh, if I suck at this, it's actually okay.

40:19As long as I turn in the homework, you know, and I've tried my best, like it's okay.

40:23Penn Holderness: So that has been a huge part of our, just our family's education. Well, I will say two things have struck a chord in real time here. One, a number of people saying that one woman wrote in, my late mom, whom I believe probably had ADHD, always said she thought she had ESP. and another another woman wrote in I can totally relate to this I actually spent a lot of my life seeing things that other people seem to not see and another one said that her family won't watch movies with her because she can predict what the ending like within the first like five minutes of the sixth sense we were dating at the time I was like why do they think he's alive and like it ruined it for like everybody

41:16Kim Holderness: video is with sorry if that's what people haven't seen i'm kidding i'm like why are you guys like

41:22Penn Holderness: why he's not alive like what you what are you doing so um if you're waiting to see the sixth

41:28Kim Holderness: sense you really shouldn't you shouldn't have waited this long yeah that's serious procrastination yeah that is some yeah that's the next level congratulations actually for waiting this long

41:39Penn Holderness: um and then the other thing that has struck a chord in this conversation is the talk about RSD. And someone wrote in, RSD is strong in my brain. I walk away from almost every conversation thinking it will be the last time that person talks to me. I just only realized this. So I practice every conversation in my head and then I replay every conversation in my head. And then I heard that people don't, there are a lot of people who don't do that. I'm like, what are you thinking about then?

42:12Kim Holderness: should hey well and i'm gonna ask you this because you know more about it than me are we talking about rsd or are we talking about rejection sensitivity it's like anxiety like i don't have an anxiety disorder but i get anxiety um what do you mean like what's what's the what's the line is it is it the physical symptoms because i think we can all admit we have rejection

42:32Penn Holderness: sensitivity of some sort yeah i think well according to um dr bill dodson who coined the term rejection sensitive dysphoria um it's the dysphoria that it is the physical manifestation of of pain um feeling you know like someone has stabbed you um when you feel that you have been um rejected or criticized and i think the key there is that you you feel that you have been even if you have not. And so, yes, I think anyone who is rejected is going to feel hurt. But for those who experience RSD, no rejection may have taken place. It may be the anticipation due to a lifetime of criticism or this sort of underpinning emotional dysregulation of ADHD that seems to make it so much more common.

43:34Penn Holderness: It is, I should be clear, RSD is not a formal diagnosis, but we have found it to be such a universal experience. It is actually going to be a topic that we concentrate on in our forthcoming spring, 2027 issue of Attitude Magazine. So if you're a subscriber, you will dig deep into RSD in that issue. Yeah. The physical pain. Like, I thought we were going to do help with chores and kids. Oh, sorry. Sorry. This is what happens. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We went off topic a little bit. Sorry, we're not off topic. Thank you, Melissa.

44:21Kim Holderness: I've been, like, sitting here looking at my book thinking, like, it's probably time.

44:27Penn Holderness: um yeah we probably should get to that so um okay let me just say that um we've got one more comment that will actually lead us into um some of this um chores with kids stuff um and that was somebody wrote about um hypersensitivity as we just got discussed but then understanding hyper-focus and the propensity for hyper-focus is one reason that you were previously dismissed the idea that they could have ADHD. And that, again, this idea of the poor self-esteem as an adult stems from negative feedback throughout their life of being too much, manic, all over the place. And that the understanding of this has been revolutionary, And I wish my younger self would have known that she was enough.

45:24Penn Holderness: So this might be a stretch, but I'm going to, I'm going to bring this back to the new book and how your approach to helping kids get things done in a way that doesn't make them feel bad about their brains, because we can see how the impact of, of negative messaging can last a lifetime. So could you talk a little bit about your approach to this book? And it's in the title, get it done and have fun and how you approach this. There are, the book has several steps.

45:57Kim Holderness: The first step is acknowledging that, hey, we're all on the same boat here. We're all like, we're all ADHDers. We all have a special type of brain. And the next step is saying, because we have that brain, there are things in our life that we dislike so much that it nears torture. I'm going to give Annie some more credit here because when we were on one of these calls, we talked about what it feels like to do, to be bored. And, and I said the word borcher, and then I forgot that I said it. And then Annie wrote an article on it and I was like, Oh, I said this word. So like,

46:36Penn Holderness: I remember it.

46:37Kim Holderness: At the heart of the book, like the most important page of the book is this cute girl. Vin Vogel, our illustrator, is amazing. He has encapsulated this perfectly with a mop. And she's just that's how she feels. So this is the chores that you don't want to do. And so this book is about acknowledging that we all feel like almost tortured when we have to do these sorts of things because we're in an interest based nervous system. We like things that are fun or exciting or new, but we're also all part of a team in this family and we've got to do them. Right. And the purpose of this book is showing ways to use your creativity, your parents' creativity and like raising the stakes of things that you're doing to make it so that it's actually enjoyable getting through it.

47:28Kim Holderness: And a lot of it, we give some suggestions, but really a lot of it is showing the scaffolding on how you and your parents can put together these fun ways to get it done.

47:39Penn Holderness: Nobody likes doing chores. Nobody. Nobody likes doing chores.

47:41Kim Holderness: But we like it less than most.

47:43Penn Holderness: Yeah. And I think that for a neurotypical brain, there's enough dopamine. You can kind of picture the end. You can kind of picture like, oh, what it's going to look like when your room's clean. So you're like, okay, I'll suck it up and do it because I can picture that. And that's enough kind of to get you through it. um, ADHD brains don't, don't work like that. And so again, it's not a lack of motivation. It's not a lack of knowing what to do. It's just that actually that initiation. And I have to say, I mean, we talk about like brushing the teeth and hygiene tasks and like things in this book, I can brush my teeth, but ask me to pay a bill, Annie.

48:18Penn Holderness: It is, it is for sure. I don't know why it's kryptonite for me, paperwork and paying bills kryptonite for me. so I literally have had to like okay I set a timer I turn on a song the song is five minutes and let's see how much I can crank through in five minutes and then and I do it again so I have to trick my 50 year old brain to do really boring tasks too so our hope is you read this with your kid and because we've already talked about how your kids actually just like they don't listen to to you you can talk about like what are some ways that you know we can like brushing teeth without becoming, you know, without becoming a battle every single night?

48:58Penn Holderness: Like, what are the ways you guys can gamify it that it doesn't make it torture? Yeah. Yeah. Things do need to get done.

49:13But, okay.

49:14Penn Holderness: So I'm opening it up for live questions. We have quite a few already. And one that kind of branches off here of this last conversation, was a question for Penn. What would you recommend for a middle school-aged boy who is resistant to addressing his ADHD, including, like, doesn't even want to talk about treatment, doesn't want to talk about executive function coaching, has no systems in place? There's a lot going on here, but as a former middle school boy with ADHD, um any insights and help for this parent who really obviously wants the best for their child

50:00Kim Holderness: um I think it's for the best if it's it's always for the best if the person with the brain can acknowledge the fact that they have whatever type of brain that they have um he's probably I don't know him but he's probably resistant to all of the things in ADHD that he expects to come next which is you need medicine, you need to go on like a study plan.

50:25Penn Holderness: You need special accommodations at school.

50:29Kim Holderness: You're going to be looked at as different. All of that stuff. The way that we started explaining ADHD to our child who was a middle schooler, and again, apples and oranges, I don't know your child. But we started noting things that he did that were especially creative or spectacular or like his ability to remember the starting lineup from a basketball team eight years ago. And we took a strengths-based approach and said, buddy, you know, the normal brain can't do that. Like what you're doing, you've got, you're different. You have a different type of brain. So we started talking about, which I know sounds crazy when you're struggling, and he was struggling to turn in homework and was having all the problems that a middle school kid had.

51:12Kim Holderness: But we told him about the things that he did that were exceptional. Because we believe that that's not possible without ADHD. That's part of it. And so we use that as a launching off point and said, you know, that part of your brain that is exceptional and has energy and spontaneity and great curiosity also leads to some troubles when it comes to those more mundane tasks in places like school, which weren't really built for you. um so i'm not saying that always works but that that did work for us well yeah i that that is

51:51Penn Holderness: first of all i just am sending sympathy and empathy because first of all middle school for a neurotypical kid is hard like middle school is hard the the hormones of it all is just hard and then you add in some neuro spiciness and it's it's just hard i will say as we now have a 16 year old age helps a lot. So I know like the impact of time will, it will help, but exactly what Penn said, like find out where his interests are. Like he had a very specific interest in like rosters of football teams and basketball teams who could talk sports. So like, that's what, that's what we did. Found out like he loves comedy, found an improv comedy group for, um, that actually had middle school classes nearby.

52:39Penn Holderness: And so, and he found his people there. So like he would get in the car from when we picked him up from improv and he'd be like energetic. Whereas like when you pick him up from school, it's like, you know, one words, but like you, when your kid gets in the car and has energy, you're like, Oh, this is all I need. This is all I need in this life. And then also he, he's great. He's got good grades, all those things, but we couldn't, we had to stop comparing him to our daughter like academically and we had to like our expectations they did not lower our expectations but they changed of like what does success look like for this really cool kid that we have um and he's gonna have a different path he's good he's interested in different things than our daughter is but like when we were comparing where he was like where she was versus where he was at the time, it was like they were raised in two different families.

53:33Penn Holderness: So it was a lot of work. Middle school's hard. Middle school's hard. Middle school's hard. Yeah. I want to share a comment that just came in. As a licensed mental health counselor, I'm grateful to you both for the way you're bringing awareness, positivity, and creativity to help families thrive with ADHD. I'm excited to read your new book and recommend it to my clients. thank you that means so much thank you for what you do yeah no kidding yeah thank you right and it's wonderful we have um quite a lot of uh professionals um uh here in our live audience educators as well as coaches and therapists and so thank you for being here and taking the interest in in getting to know the lived experience um because i think it obviously makes a huge difference.

54:28Penn Holderness: Um, okay. A few more of our live questions. Um, okay. Um, hold on. I thought I was so organized. Um, okay. So this is kind of, I guess this is a question for, for both of you. Um, how would you have liked to be supported as a child? Um, she's a mom of three children. Um, And wondering, yeah, looking back maybe specifically to Kim, since you didn't have the diagnosis, what do you think would have made a difference? Or, you know, Penn as well, your own childhood, how could it have been made different? Or what do you think contributed positively in your childhood to where you are today? Um, I will say I, so I started dancing when I was like 11 or so, 10 or 11, which is like late, which is so funny.

55:27Penn Holderness: Um, but I realized, um, that was, that became something I did six hours a day, seven days a week and how regulating that intense exercise, uh, was. So I think that's what actually got me through. And then I stopped dancing for about six months, my freshman year of college. And that's when like the world fell apart for me. And, and, um, so like how regulating that was and kids don't always want to like get up and exercise, like going to the gym for a 13 year old. That's like not a real thing. You have to like find a, you have to like find a group at that time. But Penn's mom did like without a PhD or a, you know, an online community to help her.

56:11she did such a good job i think of of just like knowing what she just had this extensive like

56:17Kim Holderness: knowing what he needed yeah i was really lucky in that sense um i had a i had a parent who i think she was innovative in her own way before anyone had written books or even knew what adhd was in her community we were part of a church that was like all duke doctors and like even that they were like ah um and so she just she worked with me to find creative ways to get through the day um and i guess the one thing i would have i could have used a little more support with that i think is less of a problem now is the the school communities really didn't have any um anti-bullying movements it was it was just just let her let her ride um and i'm not saying it's completely solved but being a kid who was a little bit different who cried easily um in a in a bully culture was really tough yeah yeah i'm bigger than all now i know right i know i swear to god

57:11Penn Holderness: i was at a he saw when i was at a football game and my main bully was sitting in front of me this

57:16Kim Holderness: was like a year ago and i'm like doing great like look i married a smoke show like i'm on this webinar with you and i was paralyzed i wanted to leave like it's like he's right in front of me

57:29Penn Holderness: because like I know his name because we've talked about him I was like I wanted to drive there and I wanted to give him a wet willy and he's like no it's fine it's fine it's fine but it like isn't that he's in his 50s and it's still so dysregulating it's moments like these that are so validating I guarantee you everyone in this audience is shaking their heads and being like thank god it's not just me I mean you still remember the guy yeah yeah early experiences stick with us. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Um, we are running short on time. I want to share really quickly that we have a lot of book ideas for you in the chat.

58:08Penn Holderness: So our audience humbly requests that your future books are a graphic novel for teenagers because they won't read a real novel, or I should say a purely, um, words based model. Maybe stay tuned for that very soon. Yeah. Okay. Uh, spoiler and also a book for educators for those who are new to ADHD.

58:34Kim Holderness: Can I recommend another book? Of course.

58:39Penn Holderness: Dr. Emily King.

58:40Kim Holderness: Yeah. So Emily King helped us with the back of this book. Whenever we do a kid's book, it's called Back Matter.

58:47Penn Holderness: Which makes me feel like acne or something they call back matter.

58:50Kim Holderness: Or poop or something. I don't know. It's a weird name. But this is like the back page that explains. It's not actual back matter.

58:56Penn Holderness: I know. Back matter. It seems like a dermatological issue.

58:59Kim Holderness: It's what the publishers call it. So Dr. Emily King helped us write this because she's honestly trying to change the way that our world educates neurodivergent kids, period. So not just ADHD. She writes really well. She's on all of our podcasts. And she just released a book called The Neurodivergent Learner. And I can't recommend it enough.

59:21Penn Holderness: So The Neurodivergent Learner by Dr. Emily King. and she does a lot of work with educators. So she goes into school systems and she talks about it for autism and ADHD mostly, but she, you know, other stuff too. We will add that to - So I would never pretend to - Yeah, I would never pretend to write a book for educators. Right. Okay. We will add this resource and a link to it, to the resources for everyone attending in the post-webinar wrap-up. And then the other suggestion that I will end with is, of course, perimenopause. So noodle that. And I will say, as always, it has been such a pleasure.

1:00:10Penn Holderness: Time has flown over the last hour. Kim and Penn, thank you for joining the Attitude community, for sharing your stories, for making so many people feel seen and heard.

1:00:24Kim Holderness: thank you thank you so much i'm going to be a total uh um i'm going to be one of those guys who just puts the book up and says this is available um right now and we're very very proud of it and we think it'll really help both parents and kids when it comes around to like doing this sort of stuff so thank you for supporting our books thank you you have such a

1:00:44Penn Holderness: great community thank you absolutely and um for those of you watching and the new book is here and I believe it is also clickable. So you can click right there to pre-order. What? Clickable? It is clickable. Yes, and we will share the link as well. In the meantime, since we are running a little over, I will quickly thank everyone for joining us today in our live audience. As I said, we will share the event resources. If you're ever looking for them, visit attitudemag.com and search for podcast 625. The slides and recording will be posted a few hours after we wrap up. And if you're listening in replay mode, just click on the episode description.

1:01:31Penn Holderness: Also, we hope you know that our full library of Attitude webinars, including the two previous conversations with Penn and Kim are available as a podcast. It is called the ADHD Experts Podcast and it's available on most streaming platforms. Kim and Penn, thank you again. And we hope that your book launch is a wild. Thank you so much.

1:02:17Thank you.