It’s both sad and shocking how few parents (adults, really) can regulate their emotions. Our parents largely didn’t and so we never learned and instead adapted by either rebelling and/or people pleasing. I learned that I was responsible for others’ emotions and took care to prevent upsets and anticipate needs, fawning endlessly and becoming wholly disconnected from my own needs and feelings. I do not want that for my child. So I’ve been working hard to cycle break (and help my partner to as well) so we can be the parents our child deserves.
I found Dr Becky at Good Inside in 2022 and wished I had found her approach sooner, the mistakes I made before I understood the lessons she offers and that you mirror here, break my heart. I’m working on forgiving myself and repairing with my child as well as learning and practicing skills to regulate my emotions and model it for him.
I have a niece and nephew who are the kids of my sister Anna - Emmy is 4 and Caleb is 18 mo. When Emmy was 2, Anna and I were visiting with our younger sister Abbie. Emmy was wandering Abbie's home chasing her cats and getting excited over everything. I was watching her and had gotten up to walk over and see what was fascinating her at that moment - when she began to cry.
I stopped. Was she crying because I scared her? Did I do something wrong? I looked to Anna feeling guilty. Anna looked at her daughter and asked "did you go pee pee in your pants?" Emmy nodded yes. Anna walked over and told me I'd done nothing wrong. She scooped Emmy up and immediately changed her clothes. All was then well.
Anna is an excellent mother. She's patient and I've never her heard her raise her voice to either of her children. However, if this situation had been between us and our mother then it might have played a little differently. My Dad certainly would have been annoyed and our mother's reactions would have depend on how stressed and stimulated she was at that time. I remember being snapped and yelled at a lot as a child. My parents didn't always have patience. Even now, when they babysit their grandkids, I recognize and remember their general impatience from when I was a child.
Growing up, I knew that my parents loved me. They enjoyed being with my sisters and I. My father loved to play with me as a child as he loves now to play with his grandkids. I remember crying in my mother's arms as she held me when I struggled to do math problems. I was blessed.
Other parents were harsh, strict or just unavailable for their children. They didn't enjoy being with their kids. Growing up, I remember how judgmental they were of my parents. The women were especially cruel to my mother. She would do the dirty work at our school that no one else would do. They mocked her for it as if they were teen girls and not grown women.
Now, with my father it was a different story. He is an ultra super mega alpha and the baddest bad scorpio bad boy there is, and all the other fathers were scared of him. He would 'encourage' them to do what they should have offered to do. They despised him for making them act as men should act.
But there are things my parents did and do that aren't so good. I know now this is due to their parents inflicting trauma on them. However, my parents are better than my grandparents, and my grandparents were better than my great-grandparents. And so on and so on. Each generation improving from the last.
Emmy will improve from Anna as Anna has improved from our mother. And that trauma that had been inflicted upon my family sometime in distant past will be someday be healed.
I’m commenting on this one since the others are closed to paid subscribers only. But I’ve been reflecting on what you mean to me as an AuDHD-er (and this might generalize a bit to the autistic community too, based on my experiences). I’ve been told that I’m an inspiration and role model to other autistic and ADHD folks in my own circles, and honestly, I’ve always had this nagging zero-sum game mindset about it—like my “light” might make others jealous or annoyed, or somehow diminish them. It made me a little uncomfortable.
But being inspired by you has shifted that for me. Maybe it’s just the nature of true inspiration, but more likely it’s something about you as a person—something I hope to embody too. You’re the kind of person who’s generous in character, giving of yourself in a way that’s inherently inspiring. Even when I’m drawn to qualities in you that I don’t fully have (like certain facets of your intelligence—we’re different, after all), it doesn’t feel like your responsibility, and crucially, it doesn’t hurt. Because of the quality of your character and your content, I don’t feel at a loss; I can just take that inspiration and run with it, without any zero-sum vibes.
It makes me think that if I’m truly inspiring others (and that includes this generosity, this giving back), they’d feel the same way. I’ve been inspired by people like you,—it’s this mirroring effect, kind of like what you touched on in this post about working with children, education, and upbringing. It’s not zero-sum; it’s bi-directional, multi-directional, more like a tide that lifts all boats (sorry for the capitalistic metaphor!).
Beyond that, what specifically inspires me about you: obviously, when you put words to things I haven’t yet articulated or formulated myself. But also the way you mentalize your own experiences, how you seem to have such an articulated internal moral landscape, a philosophical/ethical/boundary-based framework, and that deep self-care. I finally “got” your Substack title too—“bloomed where I was planted”.
Just some thoughts I wanted to share. Greetings from Belgium! 😊
Great text, thanks Paige! I’ll have to bookmark this one. The natural consequences bit was something I hadn’t verbalized yet. Some parts of what you wrote really made me think of training puppies & dogs, I don’t have any kids so this is what I relate it to.
I know from personal experience people get quite mad when you compare their kids to puppies (even when it is just in the context of raising them), but having raised my own children through the first 18 months I definitely still see the similarities.
I know this is besides the point, but just pointing out peeing in the pants is unsanitary is not always the solution. In our case we went through 5+ years of trying absolutely everything to get our girl to go to the bathroom. In the end there would be streaks of days where everything would go in the pants and no bathroom visit was attempted. It is quite frustrating to watch your child grow up not having control over "basic" functions despite all of the energy spent by us and medical professionals, especially not knowing why.
We found out recently it was severe attention deficit. Without medication she just can't feel the need, or better said: she can't pay attention, because it is always drawn somewhere else.
I'm going to be honest though. I was always considered a very emotionally stable person, but over the last years I became that dad many times. Not out of any sense of failure on my daughter's part, but on ours. But she might have to pay for the time she was diagnosed, and I will have to potentially spend decades undoing any damage I've done.
It’s both sad and shocking how few parents (adults, really) can regulate their emotions. Our parents largely didn’t and so we never learned and instead adapted by either rebelling and/or people pleasing. I learned that I was responsible for others’ emotions and took care to prevent upsets and anticipate needs, fawning endlessly and becoming wholly disconnected from my own needs and feelings. I do not want that for my child. So I’ve been working hard to cycle break (and help my partner to as well) so we can be the parents our child deserves.
I found Dr Becky at Good Inside in 2022 and wished I had found her approach sooner, the mistakes I made before I understood the lessons she offers and that you mirror here, break my heart. I’m working on forgiving myself and repairing with my child as well as learning and practicing skills to regulate my emotions and model it for him.
I have a niece and nephew who are the kids of my sister Anna - Emmy is 4 and Caleb is 18 mo. When Emmy was 2, Anna and I were visiting with our younger sister Abbie. Emmy was wandering Abbie's home chasing her cats and getting excited over everything. I was watching her and had gotten up to walk over and see what was fascinating her at that moment - when she began to cry.
I stopped. Was she crying because I scared her? Did I do something wrong? I looked to Anna feeling guilty. Anna looked at her daughter and asked "did you go pee pee in your pants?" Emmy nodded yes. Anna walked over and told me I'd done nothing wrong. She scooped Emmy up and immediately changed her clothes. All was then well.
Anna is an excellent mother. She's patient and I've never her heard her raise her voice to either of her children. However, if this situation had been between us and our mother then it might have played a little differently. My Dad certainly would have been annoyed and our mother's reactions would have depend on how stressed and stimulated she was at that time. I remember being snapped and yelled at a lot as a child. My parents didn't always have patience. Even now, when they babysit their grandkids, I recognize and remember their general impatience from when I was a child.
Growing up, I knew that my parents loved me. They enjoyed being with my sisters and I. My father loved to play with me as a child as he loves now to play with his grandkids. I remember crying in my mother's arms as she held me when I struggled to do math problems. I was blessed.
Other parents were harsh, strict or just unavailable for their children. They didn't enjoy being with their kids. Growing up, I remember how judgmental they were of my parents. The women were especially cruel to my mother. She would do the dirty work at our school that no one else would do. They mocked her for it as if they were teen girls and not grown women.
Now, with my father it was a different story. He is an ultra super mega alpha and the baddest bad scorpio bad boy there is, and all the other fathers were scared of him. He would 'encourage' them to do what they should have offered to do. They despised him for making them act as men should act.
But there are things my parents did and do that aren't so good. I know now this is due to their parents inflicting trauma on them. However, my parents are better than my grandparents, and my grandparents were better than my great-grandparents. And so on and so on. Each generation improving from the last.
Emmy will improve from Anna as Anna has improved from our mother. And that trauma that had been inflicted upon my family sometime in distant past will be someday be healed.
Hey Page,
I’m commenting on this one since the others are closed to paid subscribers only. But I’ve been reflecting on what you mean to me as an AuDHD-er (and this might generalize a bit to the autistic community too, based on my experiences). I’ve been told that I’m an inspiration and role model to other autistic and ADHD folks in my own circles, and honestly, I’ve always had this nagging zero-sum game mindset about it—like my “light” might make others jealous or annoyed, or somehow diminish them. It made me a little uncomfortable.
But being inspired by you has shifted that for me. Maybe it’s just the nature of true inspiration, but more likely it’s something about you as a person—something I hope to embody too. You’re the kind of person who’s generous in character, giving of yourself in a way that’s inherently inspiring. Even when I’m drawn to qualities in you that I don’t fully have (like certain facets of your intelligence—we’re different, after all), it doesn’t feel like your responsibility, and crucially, it doesn’t hurt. Because of the quality of your character and your content, I don’t feel at a loss; I can just take that inspiration and run with it, without any zero-sum vibes.
It makes me think that if I’m truly inspiring others (and that includes this generosity, this giving back), they’d feel the same way. I’ve been inspired by people like you,—it’s this mirroring effect, kind of like what you touched on in this post about working with children, education, and upbringing. It’s not zero-sum; it’s bi-directional, multi-directional, more like a tide that lifts all boats (sorry for the capitalistic metaphor!).
Beyond that, what specifically inspires me about you: obviously, when you put words to things I haven’t yet articulated or formulated myself. But also the way you mentalize your own experiences, how you seem to have such an articulated internal moral landscape, a philosophical/ethical/boundary-based framework, and that deep self-care. I finally “got” your Substack title too—“bloomed where I was planted”.
Just some thoughts I wanted to share. Greetings from Belgium! 😊
Great text, thanks Paige! I’ll have to bookmark this one. The natural consequences bit was something I hadn’t verbalized yet. Some parts of what you wrote really made me think of training puppies & dogs, I don’t have any kids so this is what I relate it to.
I know from personal experience people get quite mad when you compare their kids to puppies (even when it is just in the context of raising them), but having raised my own children through the first 18 months I definitely still see the similarities.
I know this is besides the point, but just pointing out peeing in the pants is unsanitary is not always the solution. In our case we went through 5+ years of trying absolutely everything to get our girl to go to the bathroom. In the end there would be streaks of days where everything would go in the pants and no bathroom visit was attempted. It is quite frustrating to watch your child grow up not having control over "basic" functions despite all of the energy spent by us and medical professionals, especially not knowing why.
We found out recently it was severe attention deficit. Without medication she just can't feel the need, or better said: she can't pay attention, because it is always drawn somewhere else.
I'm going to be honest though. I was always considered a very emotionally stable person, but over the last years I became that dad many times. Not out of any sense of failure on my daughter's part, but on ours. But she might have to pay for the time she was diagnosed, and I will have to potentially spend decades undoing any damage I've done.