It's not Drama

Last week, a mom described what happened after soccer practice. Her 11-year-old son climbed into the car, slammed the door, and burst into tears because she'd parked in a different spot than usual. Like, WHAT?!! "I just stared at him," she told me. "It made absolutely no sense."

Except it did. Because once again, it wasn't really about the parking spot.

He'd spent the last two hours holding it together. He'd been trying to keep up with the drills, worried he'd made a mistake during scrimmage, frustrated that one of his friends ignored him, and exhausted from a long day at school. By the time he got to the car, his emotional gas tank was empty.

The parking spot was simply the last drop.

Parents see this all the time. The broken granola bar. The wrong-colored cup. The sibling who looked at them "the wrong way." Being asked to take a shower. Leaving the pool. They fall to the ground crying, or they get mad or just whine for a bit.

And honestly, it looks dramatic from the outside, or even from the inside of the family. Sometimes it even feels manipulative. But for many kids with ADHD and anxiety, those moments aren't about the thing that's happening. They're about a brain that's run out of room to cope.

One of the biggest misconceptions about ADHD is that it's mainly an attention problem.

Attention is part of it, of course. So are organization, planning, and impulse control. But if you ask most parents what creates the biggest conflict at home, they rarely say homework.

They say, "He can't handle being told no."

"She falls apart when plans change."

"He takes everything so personally."

That's because executive functioning isn't just about remembering your backpack or keeping your room clean. It's also what helps us pause before reacting, recover after disappointment, shift gears when life doesn't go as expected, and put problems into perspective.

When those skills are still developing—as they often are in kids with ADHD—big feelings can become even bigger. Add anxiety to the mix, and the emotional volume gets turned up another notch. My daughter definitely had big emotions, and often, other members of my family thought I should not coddle her by acknowledging the issues. But an anxious brain is constantly asking, What if? What if I mess up? What if they're mad at me? What if this doesn't go the way I expected? So when something small goes wrong, it isn't always experienced as small. That's why telling a child to "calm down" or "it's not a big deal" rarely works. To them, it is a big deal.

Self-regulation (calming yourself down) is a developmental skill, not a personality trait. Kids aren't born knowing how to calm themselves, tolerate frustration, or recover from disappointment. Those are skills that develop over time—and for children with ADHD and anxiety, they often take longer and require more coaching.

I think that's one of the most hopeful messages parents can hear. Because skills can be built.

That doesn't mean lowering expectations. It doesn't mean excusing hurtful behavior. It doesn't mean letting your child do whatever they want. It means recognizing that consequences alone don't teach emotional regulation. Yelling never helps, taking away dessert doesn't work.

If your child melts down because it's time to leave the park, the goal isn't simply to stop the meltdown. The goal is to help them gradually learn how to handle disappointment, transitions, and frustration without becoming overwhelmed.

That's a very different goal, it's a new perspective, and it's also a much longer game.

One of my favorite reminders comes from Ross Greene:"Kids do well when they can." Read that again. Not when they want to. When they can. I've found that one sentence changes the way parents see their child. Instead of asking, Why is he acting like this? They begin to ask, "What's making this so hard right now?" They start looking beneath the behavior, looking for patterns. What came before the tantrum?

That doesn't make you permissive, but it does make you curious. And curiosity is where good parenting, coaching, or teaching begins.

Our job isn't to rescue our kids from every disappointment. It's to stay beside them long enough that they begin to build the skills to manage those disappointments on their own.

That's how resilience grows. It doesn't grow from life just getting easier, but from getting stronger.

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Next week, we'll talk about what to say in those big moments—because sometimes one sentence can either fuel the fire or help your child begin to find their footing. In the meantime, join my free parent group