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Family

Mom shares hacks for making sure her children with ADHD have a smooth morning

She pulls from her own experience with ADHD to help her kids.

ADHD; parenting; morning routines; motherhood; ADHD hacks

Mom shares helpful morning routine for ADHD kids.

Getting kids up and out the door in the mornings can be a struggle whether your children have ADHD or not. A lot of mornings, it feels like anything goes, from your kid waking up looking like they just fought a flock of wild geese in their sleep to them forgetting their left shoe in the refrigerator.

Why was their shoe in there to begin with? No one knows.

Having kids is committing to organized chaos at any given moment, while also accepting that sometimes the chaos isn't organized at all. It's just a free-for-all, and all the tiny humans look like different versions of you. But Tarah, who created the TikTok page @thatadhdlife, has come up with a solution to morning chaos that helps get her kids out of the house on time and ready for the day.

Tarah is neurodivergent and so are her three children. All four of them have ADHD, but it was Tarah's personal experience with ADHD as a child that helped inform the routine she created for her children.


The mom of three explained to Upworthy that she struggled as a child, and with her parents being divorced, she didn't always have the support she needed. Up until recently, her hacks for before-school chaos were just kept between her and her family.

"I was on a live video—I try to do them every Monday—I was explaining this story about how I saw a little boy who was late and running to school all out of breath," Tarah said. "The look on his face reminded me of little me. When I was a kid, I was always stressed and always late."

@thatadhdlife

Im truly sharing this out of love because school mornings don’t have to be stressful. I’m not saying that you won’t occasionally have a couple flustered mornings once or twice a year but for the most part, it’s life changing. I had to do a part 2 because I talk too much when I’m passionate about something 🫠🤣 #thatadhdlife #justcallmeT #adhdkidsbelike #adhdkidsareamazing #adhdschoolmornings #adhdschool #adhdroutines #adhdsystems

Instead of just watching the boy run as she rode her bike home, she tried to encourage him by shouting, "Take a deep breath, you're going to be just fine. You're going to make it." It was the boy's response of "I'm always late," that Tarah said broke her heart and prompted her to tell her followers the story. This then led to people expressing their own frustration with trying to get kids out of the house on time in the mornings, so Tarah decided to upload a video explaining her routine.

In the TikTok video, Tarah tells her followers that they need to first "reverse engineer" their morning by observing their child's day to see what's going wrong. She explains that this could be anything from them not being able to find their shoes to them not remembering to brush their teeth.

After providing examples and a few side quest stories that tie back into the point, Tarah explains her system, which surprisingly starts the day before. They check the weather in order to pick out clothes, then they pack their lunches and clean out their backpacks, all before bed. Tarah says she's been doing this routine since her oldest son, who is 15, was in kindergarten. But it wasn't always like that.

When her oldest child was in kindergarten he was struggling until the mom of three changed things up.

"I really realized with him that he loved when he learned things that became muscle memory, so I made things really hands-on and interactive. I knew I needed to thrive and not just survive," Tarah told Upworthy.

In the video, she explains how this routine she implemented years ago has helped her children be much less stressed in the mornings. Each child has their own version of the same routine based on their age. Parents in the comments were impressed with Tarah's system. Some even said they were taking notes for themselves even though they didn't have children.

Listen to Tarah's helpful tips below:

@thatadhdlife

Replying to @thatadhdlife im just a neurodivergent momma who knew I wanted a different life for our neurodivergent kids. I promise it’s possible but this takes planning, persistence and patience. It’s never too late to start but just know that the older they are, the longer it’s going to take to become an intrinsic habit. Hold their hand through it until then and take a lot of deep breathes. You got this ❤️ ##thatadhdlife##justcallmeT##adhdschool##adhdschoollife##adhdschoolmornings##adhdsystems##nervoussystemregulation##nervoussystemhealing

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New study shows spanking hurts kids' mental health and is less effective at teaching lessons

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Whether to spank your child or not is one of the oldest debates among parents. Many live by the age-old wisdom that to “spare the rod” is to “spoil the child,” while others believe it’s wrong to resort to violence to punish a child when so many alternatives exist.

It also begs the question: If it's wrong to hit your spouse or pet, why is it acceptable to hit a defenseless child?

The 2021 American Family Study found that support for spanking has declined in the U.S. over the past few years. In 2015, 54% either somewhat or strongly agreed with the practice, but that number dropped to 47% in 2021. Thirty-five percent of respondents disagree with the practice and 18% neither agree nor disagree.

A new research study from the Parent and Family Research Alliance in Australia led by Professor Sophie Havighurst and Professor Daryl Higgins from Australian Catholic University makes a strong case that people should stop using corporal punishment to discipline their kids. The study “Corporal punishment of children in Australia: The evidence-based case for legislative reform” analyzed countless studies on the topic and found spanking ineffective and harmful.

The study was published to urge lawmakers to make corporal punishment in Australia illegal. Sixty-five states across the world have made corporal punishment illegal, protecting 14% of the world’s children.

The study defined corporal punishment of children as using physical force to cause pain, but not injury, to correct or control a child’s behavior.

The most startling meta-analysis published in the study found that "only 1 out of 111 statistically significant effect sizes was associated with a link between 'spanking' and a positive child outcome," while 110 were found to be associated with adverse outcomes.

The one positive outcome was in a 1972 study of children of the U.S. military living in West Germany that found those spanked showed less amphetamine and opiate use as adults.

However, the remaining 110 significant results found that spanking had adverse effects, including: “reducing trust and connection with those they are closest to, lower self-esteem, more internalizing and externalizing behavior problems including aggression, mental health difficulties, and increased risk for later substance abuse, antisocial behavior, and violence.”

A meta-analysis found that when children are spanked, they are less likely to internalize the moral implications of the behaviors that led them to be disciplined. It also found that non-physical discipline was more effective at teaching “alternative behaviors,” “developing a child’s conscience,” and advancing their “emotional development.”

Another meta-analysis cited in the story found that corporal punishment in childhood was associated with mental health problems, low self-esteem and antisocial behavior.

In the end, the studies show that corporal punishment is counter-productive when it comes to raising healthy, happy children. But it will take much more than a study to get people to reconsider their views of corporal punishment because they are deeply rooted in many cultural traditions.

Looking for some non-physical alternatives to discipline your child? Here’s a great place to start from WebMD.