Episode 328 — You CAN Get Past The Wall
Guest: Brendan Mahan • Date: October 8, 2026
Episode Overview
Brendan Mahan helps parents understand why a child who knows what to do and may even want to do it can still struggle to get started. In this conversation, he explains the “Wall of Awful” and how parents can help their child move forward without unintentionally making that wall harder to overcome.
About Brendan Mahan
Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., M.S., is an ADHD and executive function consultant, coach, and speaker. A veteran educator and former teacher, principal, and mental health clinician, he specializes in helping people affected by ADHD, autism, and anxiety lessen the impact of their struggles.
Brendan is the host of The ADHD Essentials Podcast and creator of the Wall of Awful model. His book, Overcoming the Wall of Awful: Why It’s Hard to Get Things Done with ADHD, Autism, and Anxiety (and How to Do Them Anyway), explores the emotional barriers behind procrastination, avoidance, and overwhelm.
You’ll Discover
Why Motivation May Be The Wrong Place To Start (3:05)
How Parents Can Add Bricks To The Wall (5:13)
The Five Ways We Respond To The Wall (13:29)
How To “Start The Orange” For Your Child (21:59)
Why Agency Matters So Much (32:23)
Full Transcript
Brendan Mahan 0:00
I don't think I let my kids struggle enough when they were younger, because they would start to get overwhelmed, and then that would dysregulate me, and I would swoop in to save the day, kind of a thing. And I think I shouldn't have done that. Like I don't, I don't know that I always judged it right. Sometimes I was right. Sometimes it was like, yeah, this kid needs help. I should step in and help. But I think I probably overhelped early on, and it took me a little while to do that less and back off on that. That's what I would say: is be a little more discerning and thoughtful. Am I helping my kid right now because I'm upset that they're upset, or am I helping because they genuinely need help?
Len Arcuri 0:38
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage, and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be. This podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is Autism Parenting Secrets, where you become the parent your child needs now. Hello and welcome. If you've ever watched your child struggle to do something that you know they're capable of doing, you know they know what to do. They may even want to do it, but somehow they just can't get started. It's easy to see that as a motivation problem. But my guest today, Brendan Mahan says something very different may be going on. Brendan is an ADHD and executive function consultant, coach, and speaker, and is the author of Overcoming the Wall of Awful. That book was just released last month, and his work really helps explain the emotional barriers behind procrastination, avoidance, and overwhelm, and this matters because understanding why someone is stuck can completely change how you, the parent, can help them move forward. The secret this week is you can get past the wall. Welcome, Brendan.
Brendan Mahan 1:57
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation.
Len Arcuri 2:00
Great. Yeah, your book, your book is really hitting a key topic that's so relevant for so many of our listeners, I'm sure. So let's let's go with the obvious question to start things off. What exactly is the wall of awful, and and how does it get built in the first place? The
Brendan Mahan 2:17
wall of awful is my model for the emotional barrier that gets built up between us and the things that we struggle with or fail at, and when you're neurodiverse, I have ADHD. We're talking to parents who have kids with ADHD, autism, anxiety, etc. You just fail more and you struggle more, and stuff is harder, right? So you're going to have bigger and more walls of awful than someone who is neurotypical, right? It's just kind of the nature of being neurodiverse. So the wall of awful is built by that struggle and failure, right? If you have trouble with math, you know, then you got to do math homework, and all of a sudden the kid shuts down and isn't doing The homework that might turn into a wall of awful for homework in general, right? Because that idea that I always have trouble with homework might get generalized. I've had kids who did okay doing homework that I've worked with, but if their sibling was around, they shut right down again, right? Because they had a wall of awful for getting anything done when their little brother was in the room, so it's an idea that's pretty flexible, and it can help us to see why and where our kids are struggling in in a way that avoids thinking about motivation or deciding my kid is lazy and those sorts of things that are just not useful. They don't really get to the heart of the problem. This gets us closer to the hearts of those problems.
Len Arcuri 3:43
Sure, and it doesn't mean that motivation or a lack of interest isn't sometimes part of the puzzle. But I think oftentimes, though, that's not what's driving it. Right? There's some other friction or some other distraction or something that is just you know getting in the way is that a fair way to characterize it?
Brendan Mahan 4:02
Yeah, kind of. Like motivation is not useful; it just doesn't help, right? Because it's so variable, and a lot of the time, motivation comes after we start doing the thing. Like I happened to me yesterday. I'm a black belt in Kempo, which is a martial art, and I did not want to go to Kempo last night. I just had no interest. I went, and then I was there for all of five or 10 minutes, and was like, "Yeah, I'm so glad I'm here. Like, I'm so glad I came here. I can't wait to do the stuff we're gonna do. But prior to going, I wasn't really feeling it, and that's the same thing that happens to our kids, they just don't know or really like the idea that once you start doing it, then you'll like it. They're like, "Sure, mom, sure, dad, you keep talking, but that's what happens, right? And and it's going to vary thing to thing, right? If your kid has a wall of awful for going to basketball. Practice, but they go to basketball practice and then enjoy it. That's one thing. If they have a wall of awful for cleaning the room, they might never enjoy cleaning the room, right? They're not going to be like, "This is the best. So I don't know that motivation is the place to start. Usually, it's the place to start is like the barrier to entry, right? How what's keeping me from being able to do this thing, and how do I make it easier to access? How do I increase my skills, or give my kids some resources that they can use, so that starting becomes less difficult? And then I also have to factor in there's some kind of a wall of awful and emotional barrier going on between them and this task, and how do I help them manage it?
Len Arcuri 5:41
Got it. So whatever's going on for them, there's something that's in their ways, something that perhaps a parent can help them with, and then on top of that, inadvertently or unwittingly, sometimes as parents, the way we're responding in those situations, based on our programming, perhaps how we were raised, right? Sometimes the way that we're with the best of intent trying to help our child might maybe at best not be effective, and at worst may actually be making it harder.
Brendan Mahan 6:09
And the phrase I use for that is adding bricks to the wall, right? Like, am I adding bricks to my kid's wall and making it taller without meaning to? And a lot of this stuff, like I grew up in the in the 80s, right? I was born in '77, so a lot of the the approach from my parents was like, "Too bad, suck it up, do the thing. Right, like my mom did a pretty good job of being patient with me, but it always boiled down to, "Too bad, suck it up, do the thing, and that's there, right? That's always a strategy we can use it's often a strategy we have to have in our back pocket, but it's kind of a least skilled choice, right? Like, there's other stuff we can do as parents before we get to that one, and that's things like, all right, what are you struggling with? What what's making this hard? Listening to what they're saying and validating those emotions, validating that that experience, which doesn't mean we have to agree, right? I used to teach, and I would have kids come into my classroom and be like, "mrs. Smith is a da da da da da, right? And I'm like, "Okay, well, that's my colleague, so I can't just be like, 'Yeah, mrs. Smith is a da da da da da. That's not how I would validate that student, I would say, okay. So it sounds like you're having some conflict with mrs. Smith, right? Or you, oh, you feel like mrs. Smith isn't doing the stuff you need to do, or you feel like mrs. Smith is angry with you, or whatever, right? That's me validating them, but I'm not agreeing with them. I'm just saying, I, I hear you. I get how you're feeling, and then half the time I'm like, "All right, mrs. Smith actually isn't that bad. Like we just have to, you know, I have to course correct and and bring in a new lens and those sorts of things. And you do the same thing as a parent. I I've I've got identical twin sons who are 17 years old. We are looking at college, right? I've been through up to the college challenges, including some really significant stuff. One of my kids was hospitalized for obsessive compulsive disorder for three months back in eighth grade. So we've been down the road of some really challenging things, and in all of those moments, I didn't always succeed. There are certainly times when I lost my temper and got grumpy and all that stuff, but mostly I've been able to meet them where they are, except for a like a three month window with Nate when he was really bad with the OCD. I struggled, but mostly I've been able to meet them where they are and support them and help them, and it's just letting them be there for a little while. My other son, Gavin, to sort of drill this point home, he's struggling with college applications. He had to write a college essay. It was late. He was overwhelmed. Like he didn't know what to do with it. There's a lot of emotions wrapped up in that, and I thought that was all it was. I was wrong. That me and that kid walked in the woods for like 45 minutes, just trying to me trying to get him to where he needed to be to be able to write this essay, and it was nothing but emotional stuff. We were talking about identity and like friendships and stuff. I'm like, man, we are going deep before we get to the what's this essay about? And that was the first day. The second day, we drove around for an hour. We went and got ice cream. We kept talking, and eventually, he told me that he didn't want to go to film school, which was what I thought the plan was, and my whole family thought the plan was since like freshman year in high school. But he doesn't want to do that. He wants to write movies, not make movies. That was the barrier, right? If I hadn't been validating him, we would not have gotten there.
Brendan Mahan 9:34
If I wasn't able to just listen to him for what amounted to almost two hours of time across two nights, um, there was stuff I didn't do because I was listening to him instead. I missed a networking event and didn't go to Kempo and all this stuff. But it's fine. He's my kid, right? And the funniest part is every time we went to a film school, my wife and I would say to him, "You know, you don't have to go to film school if you don't want to. Like we can look at other stuff too." And he did not hear us giving him permission to not go to film school to such a degree that he kind of shut down for a couple days writing an essay because it was being aimed at film school, which is what he didn't want to do. So our kids sometimes don't hear us, and sometimes we don't hear them, and that makes stuff difficult. And that's okay. That doesn't mean you're failing, it just means we have to keep listening and keep communicating,
Len Arcuri 10:23
right? And also comes down to what you started with, where initially to be able to have the intent to see things through their lens, like to try to look at it from their perspective, sounds obvious. But you know, oftentimes we're in that parent-child dynamic, and it's more, you know, about kind of telling your child what to do or giving them advice, as opposed to really trying to look at it from their perspective. So I imagine that's that's the key first move is to try to look at it from how they're looking at it.
Brendan Mahan 10:54
Yeah, and and also bringing in the the autism part, right? Like Gavin's got a touch of the tism. He's he's my OCD autism kid, and Nate's the ADHD OCD kid, and like I don't always see the lens that Gavin has because I'm ADHD. I don't have autism, and that double empathy problem where sort of the autistic brain works in one way, and the neurotypical slash ADHD in this case brain works a slightly different way, and we don't always merge in the way that we want to be able to merge when it comes to empathy and compassion and perspective taking. I do this for a living; like I'm really good at taking perspective. But he's my kid, and I'm sure the autism played a little bit of a role in it because then his nonverbals are different, and I have I've had to learn his nonverbals as opposed to just knowing them, like I do with most folks, and all worth doing. Like he's my kid, but I'm sure there's parents listening who are like, sometimes I just don't understand where my autistic child is coming from. That you just got to keep talking and keep asking questions, and eventually, hopefully, you get there.
Len Arcuri 11:58
Yeah, no, it comes down to that combination of curiosity and patience, right? Because it may take some time for you to actually get it, but if you're just double down on curiosity, wondering why they're doing what they're doing or or why they're thinking the way they're thinking, again, it's not something I know I was taught. And because as a parent, you're like you're not really taught patience and having two-hour-long conversations. It's more, more kind of a different dynamic. So I think that's where, as parents, we need to shift to a different way of operating, perhaps than we were raised.
Brendan Mahan 12:33
A strategy that is hiding in that story of me and Gavin that I want to call out is: we did other stuff, right? We went and walked in the woods for 45 minutes. We drove around and got ice cream, and then kept driving around. We were doing things that occupied our attention beyond the conversation, and that's a big piece of how you get kids to open up. Because if I just sat there on the couch with Gavin and was like, "Well, tell me about this and what about that? I would have driven him nuts, and he would not. There's no way he would have talked to me for that long. It would have been a five-minute conversation. He would have been gone. So when you know you need to get a good conversation going, think about the kinds of places and situations where you've had good conversations with your kids, and head in those directions. And walking and driving around are two great ideas,
Len Arcuri 13:24
right? Yeah, you want to make it as natural as possible, and in any interaction, especially something like this, you don't want it to, from their standpoint, seem pressured. Like we have to talk about this now and come to the answer now. You know that that'll again will likely backfire.
Brendan Mahan 13:39
Yeah. All
Len Arcuri 13:40
right. Great. Well, so when you're thinking about those moments where, for parents who are listening, if they sense their child against a wall, right? That right now, that in whatever way they're stuck, what would you, other than what I suggested, right? Just try to shift to trying to see it from their standpoint. What can a parent do in that moment to be useful, to be helpful, to open up those channels.
Brendan Mahan 14:05
So one thing to do to do is to know that there are ways that people try to get past the wall, sort of naturally, and they don't all work. So the two ways that don't work are staring at the wall and going around the wall. Right, staring is just they kind of know there's something they have to do, but they can't engage with it, or aren't engaging with it. And then going around it is, I know I have to do this thing, but first let me do this other thing, right? I have to do my homework, but first, can I watch an episode of Bob's Burgers, for example? That might be valid. They might watch the episode and then go do homework, or they might get one episode is two, becomes three, becomes four, and they get caught in that dopamine roll, and they don't do their homework. That's going around it, right? That's you're not really you can't you can't go around the wall. It's a metaphor, and it's infinitely wide. I know because I made it up. You're just not going around it. The way that gets us past the wall but isn't great is smashing, and that's when we use anxiety or anger. To push through the emotions that are in the wall, the emotions that make up the wall are pretty slowing and repelling, right? So it's disappointment, it's guilt, it's shame, loneliness, rejection, all that kind of stuff. I can get through that if I have a strong enough emotion. If I beat myself up, I stink. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just do my homework? I have to do my homework and get so much trouble. Da da da da. I can use the anxiety to activate and push through the wall. That damages me, right? I'm going to burn out if I rely too heavily on that strategy. I'm going to damage my self perception and my self esteem. The other option is I can lash out at whoever's closest. Mom asked me to do the dishes. My little brother is between me and the sink, and I yell at him, right? If you would just get out of the way, I could do the dishes like Mom said. You know, now I'm damaging my relationship with whoever it is that I'm lashing out at-mom, my little brother, whoever it happens to be. Those two things get us past the wall, but they're not great strategies. They don't work in a way that is undamaging. Those three smash, go around, and stare at it. Are fight, flight, and freeze. They're the stress response of the body. So it's just how we work. They're the least skilled options. It takes more skill to climb the wall and put a door on the wall. So climbing the wall is navigating our emotions, managing them, regulating them, and moving on to do the thing. Sometimes we do that on purpose, and sometimes it just happens with time, right? So, your kid is sitting at the table, not doing their homework, and that's all you can see. But inside, they're confronting their overwhelm about this task and the dread that's coming up for them, and they're managing that and regulating that so that they can begin. But we have no idea that that's what they're doing because you can't tell. Putting a door in it is about changing your emotional state in a fairly quick way. So, like the kid that's like, "Can I listen to music while I do homework? Part of that is putting a door on the wall, changing their emotional state. Even the kid that says I want to watch an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants and then I'll do whatever, yeah, they're putting a door on the wall, but they have some executive functioning challenges. So if there isn't an obvious choice point or an obvious end point for Sponge for Bob's Burgers, they might watch the next episode and the next episode and get caught in that trap. So we have to talk to them. We have to say, "Hey, it seems like you're struggling to get your homework done. Do you have a wall of offal for this for some reason? Are you climbing your wall of offal right now? Like, what's going on? Once kids know about the Wall of Awful, and it. There are videos on YouTube about it.
Brendan Mahan 17:44
I recommend the How to ADHD videos. There's two of them, the Wall of Awful Part One and Two. There's a third that's me talking to Jessica, the host, about her car. That's not the one you want to watch. It's the two that are more cartoon based, and they're a great intro that will help people understand. Also, by overcoming the wall of awful, it's a great book. I put a lot of work in it. It's my life's work, and it'll also help you talk to your kid. But if you if you have this as a concept to talk to your kid about, now things become easier to discuss because we're not talking about this overwhelming emotional stuff. It's just like, yeah, do you have a wall of awful for applying to college, do a wall of waffle for doing the dishes? Like, what's going on? And it lets us talk about it more easily. And even a wall of waffle for doing the dishes might seem strange, but I've had clients who were autistic that had sensory issues, and like the soft, goopy slime that ends up on a plate or a bowl or a pan when you're scrubbing it off with a sponge was sensorily overwhelming for them, and so they did have a wall of offal for doing the dishes. Turned out like rubber dish gloves did the trick, and it didn't. It was they could do it now, right? They could handle dishes, but if we don't have this, if this model makes it easier to talk about that stuff, and that's that's a big piece of the power of it.
Len Arcuri 19:07
Yeah, no, it's a powerful construct, and again, it it does it kind of gives a a different way of looking at something, kind of removing the emotion part of it, and and and getting it to where it's something where you can more easily see paths forward, so I could see how empowering it would be, and yeah, we'll include in the show notes links to those videos and, of course, your book. But I think with um with a a child particularly who is you know in some way stuck, right? I guess I'd like to shift this away to or shift this toward root causes, in terms of like what might be at the root of why a child stuck. So you just mentioned perhaps it could be something like sensory issues, which you wouldn't think about with something like dish. Are there any broad categories of root causes that you can talk about about why some a child is stuck? And I know one of them might also. Be the beliefs they're holding about themselves or the situation.
Brendan Mahan 20:04
Sure, yeah, that's possible. Since I sensory is a good go-to, right? Even things like my kid wouldn't eat hamburgers. Turns out it's the texture of a hamburger. He doesn't eat meatloaf. He doesn't eat meatballs like that. He'll eat taco meat, but once you stick it together in a patty of some sort, he doesn't like the texture. So that sensory component is there, right? Also, just wonder about skill level, and that in particular gets tricky for like homework because we're like, well, it must they must be appropriate. Maybe when my kids were in second grade, they had to make flashcards for vocabulary words. Totally shut both of them down because there's these long sentences and these big words, and I handwrite all that stuff, and it feels overwhelming. And it's one index card each, so instead of one piece of paper, I have to do 10. All of that stuff shut them down, and I was like, "Cool, let's reduce the barrier to entry. And the first week, I wrote all the definitions down, and then I mixed the cards up because they're supposed to be matching words to definitions, and they wrote the words on the other side of the cards. The end, they made their flashcards. Right? It was less effortful. The next time I did half of the definitions, here's the here's the sneaky dad part. I let them pick, knowing that they would pick the longest definitions, and that's fine, right? Like I'm almost 50, or how old I was at the time. So I let them do that, right? And then the next time I was like, "Yeah, I'll do like two or three of them, right? And of course they're going to give me the long ones. After that, I'm like, "All right, I'll do a few of them, but like you can't give me all the long ones, right? Because now you're not getting anything over on dad. I want them to know in second grade they can't fool dad. So in high school, when the really bad decisions start happening, they're not thinking they can get past dad. Thankfully, they haven't made those bad decisions yet. And then if like by a month in, I'm like, I don't like. I feel like you guys can just do this, and they're like, "Yeah, we're fine. And they off they go, right? We didn't battle over it. It took a month for them to be able to do the index cards on their own, but who cares, right? Like that's the first month of school. It's not a big deal. And we had friends who were still fighting with their kids about flashcards into like January, February of the school year, right? Like we didn't, we didn't battle. And if you've got a kid who's neurodiverse, figuring out ways that you can-the education term for this is scaffolding. How do I do some of the task, but not all of the task, to make it easier for them to start? I like to think of it as how can I start your orange, right? Like my kid will happily peel his orange, but they can't break the skin, so I have to break the skin. Like, how do I? And that's in general. How do I start your orange so that you can then do the task? That's a big wall of awful strategy. And so is the story they're telling themselves. And so is like, how are they feeling? And is this a is this autism thing, or an ADHD thing, or an anxiety thing, or is this just a year 12 thing? Right, like those questions also matter. Basically, any of the neurodiverse strategies that you have are probably a good thing to think about and bring up when you're trying to help your kids start. And so too is their IEP 504. Those are written to help parents to help kids understand know what to do with school, help teachers help their kids, help their students, but they're also useful for parents because teaching is just communication, right?
Brendan Mahan 23:30
So even if it's my kid doesn't clean their room, if one of their IEP accommodations is break large tasks down to small manageable chunks, guess what cleaning a room is right. Like you do that. Like make it smaller, make it easier. Tell them they just have to like clear off the floor or make their bed. And once they do that, move into the next step, or go into their room and clean it to your specifications, and then take pictures and give them the pictures so they can make it look like the picture the next time the room is messy.
Len Arcuri 23:59
Yeah, no, that's a great suggestion. There, there are a lot of great concepts in those IEPs that definitely aren't just limited to school.
Brendan Mahan 24:06
Yeah, and we don't think of them that way. We almost no one brings the IEP home, and you should you should bring it home and see how does it apply. How has it applied in the past? Right, like I don't know. We had to we went to like a an event with grandma that was like celebrating her retirement. It was a big fancy dinner, and my kid was a mess. Yeah, because you didn't preview a new experience like you're supposed to, according to their IEP. So,
Len Arcuri 24:28
yep, yeah, no, and I'm sure there's several other categories of kind of of the causes like that might be behind everything. I know one that's very relevant within the autism community, particularly with the within the spellers community, right in terms of children who may be struggling with speech, and ultimately one of the key root causes that might be behind that is motor issues. So, so the motor issues could very well be in some way behind part of how. Child's presenting, yeah. So, so I think that there's number of root causes, and just having that curiosity, what might be at the root of why this is challenging for my child, just a very useful question to ask as a parent.
Brendan Mahan 25:11
Yeah, and and can they envision the end product? Right, like that's the whole take a picture of the room when it's clean. Now they can see the end product. My kid's challenge with with college is like he can't picture that he doesn't know what that is, right? So it's totally overwhelming. Of course it is. I don't have a I don't have a good answer. Like we're I'm looking for like sitcoms and stuff that take place in colleges to give him an idea. It's needs help.
Len Arcuri 25:36
Yeah, it's a simple concept, but now I'm dating myself going back. I go back to Stephen Covey and the seven habits of highly effective people, right? Like begin with the end in mind, and to really give that visual description of what that outcome is can be an incredibly powerful strategy. Sounds simple, but for for some of our kids, that's absolutely what's needed,
Brendan Mahan 25:56
right? Or a picture, you know, like if you can, if there's a possibility to bring a picture up, or in school, it's often like this is last year's projects that go look at what kids made last year, and then that's basically what you're doing, right? And that's a big help. They're called exemplars. That's not always possible in like the day-to-day life of a kid, but where you can, that's the way to go.
Len Arcuri 26:19
Absolutely. Well, I know with your book, it's been a culmination of many, many years of you learning trial and error. So I guess if you can go back to your early self, you know, perhaps when your twins were quite young, is there anything that you would just highlight as kind of a big mistake for parents to try to avoid earlier in terms of how they can ultimately, you know, do what all of us parents want. We want to be able to meet our kids where they are, and we want to be helpful. But before that, it's kind of like the Hippocratic Oath. We want to first do no harm and make things, you know, harder than they need to be. Is there anything that jumps to mind?
Brendan Mahan 26:54
Yeah, I think I took the Hippocratic Oath a little too seriously, and I ended up doing some harm that I need to do. I don't think I let my kids struggle enough when they were younger because they would start to get overwhelmed, and then that would dysregulate me, and I would swoop in to save the day, kind of a thing. And I think I shouldn't have done that. Like I don't, I don't know that I always judged it right. Sometimes I was right. Sometimes it was like, yeah, this kid needs help. I should step in and help. But I think I probably overhelped early on, and it took me a little while to do that less and back off on that. So that's that's what I would say: is be a little more discerning and thoughtful. Am I helping my kid right now because I'm upset that they're upset, or am I helping because they genuinely need help? Like those are a little bit. There's a little bit of a distinction there that I think was where I misstepped.
Len Arcuri 27:45
Yeah, and I'm sure many people are listening right now, nodding because that's that's a hard thing to find balance with, right? Where it's our natural inclination is to help, and perhaps excessively so. With but we want to allow our kids to learn to understand that life has consequences, and the sooner they understand that, the better. So, yeah, the key is finding that sweet spot where we do let our children learn and and don't step in too much. Yeah, and that's something I know it took me a long time to learn, but no, that's a very useful thing for I think people to keep in mind early on. So now flipping it instead of a mistake to avoid. Is there something that you think, if you would have known earlier, would have made a huge difference in how you were showing up as a parent?
Brendan Mahan 28:34
All I'm going to sound like such a jerk right now because no, outside of like knowing Nate had OCD, which is not-I don't think-the spirit of the question. I came to parenting with a pretty significant advantage, especially compared to most men, which is I had been working with kids since I was in my 20s. Like I was at maybe not even might have been 19. I was an RA in college, so I was working with college kids who were pretty much my age, but still, I was at the Future Teachers Program of America when I was in high school. I worked at my preschool in my high school, so even as a teenager, and then in college, I was a summer camp counselor. I was a I taught elementary school and middle school, like I rolled into parenting with a pretty deep kid skill set that most men just don't have, so I don't think there were too many things that I didn't know. Right? Maybe the the the biggest one was early on. I was a little too like authoritarian about stuff. I was a little too like because I said so. Like that was the mindset. I broke out of it pretty quickly because they were my kids and I didn't want to boss them around so much. Like my basic model is like treat your kid with dignity and like they're a person. So even by the time they were like two, I was like, we're going to the bank because I kept thinking if I just grabbed my wife and threw her in the car and drove away, she would. Lose her mind. Why would I do that to my kids and not let them know where we're going and what we're doing, even if they don't totally get it? So that that I think was a useful reframe when I thought that had that thought. But yeah, I don't I don't know that there's too many things that I, as much as we've struggled, but I I think I had I was pretty well armed for bear from being a dad.
Len Arcuri 30:25
Yep, no, that's fair. And I think going in, I think all parents show up being equipped to some degree. Perhaps you are more so because of the nature of what you did, but it's also easy for us to feel like you know we know what's going on. You know we're we're we have the answers. Let me kind of a false sense of confidence, which is why I think I know for me. I wish I had more humility early on in terms of looking at how I was operating, because again, I had a playbook that I felt pretty good about. You know, handed in some way from how my parents raised me, and I just feel like with our kids, especially now, the old playbooks just don't work. So I wish I would have had a little more humility to kind of reevaluate how I was operating. And when you talk about being authoritative, you know, as a parent, we can be authoritative. You know, and there's definitely situations where that makes sense. I think the key is not being authoritative in a way that that's dysregulating for your kid. That that your child sees as unsafe, because even though that might get you the payoff in getting what you want in the moment, the long term damage of that can be can be great.
Brendan Mahan 31:32
Yeah, and now now that I'm thinking a little deeper, I think probably I would have asked for help more often. I'm not very good at that because I'm the helper, so like it feels like failure when I have to ask someone for help. So I think probably that would been taught because I wasn't that authoritarian. Like it wasn't that, and it lasted like a month. Like it, you know what I mean? It didn't stick around very long, but I continue to struggle to ask for help. So I'll go with that one.
Len Arcuri 31:59
Yeah, no, that makes, and I think we all, all parents, none of us love the idea of needing to ask for help. It's we could all have our own wall with respect to reaching out. So I know I appreciate the honesty. No, it's great. Well, again, I appreciate the focus of your book, what you're sharing, and there's a lot to unpack there. I guess the final thing I'll ask is if there's from a you touched on it earlier where with the scaffolding comment, but I would imagine a big piece of this also has a lot to do with control, where you know our kids especially if they don't feel they have a sense of control and and agency in what's going on that can feel really unsettling. So is there something you can share about the sense of control that's a piece of this puzzle?
Brendan Mahan 32:46
Yeah, that's actually in the book. So, I have this model for anxiety. There's a couple models. This is one of them, and then I call Urpu and Kakaw. Urpu is the stuff that makes anxiety worse. There's a little slime monster mascot for that, Kakaw unsurprisingly is a crow mascot. That's the stuff that reduces anxiety, and so Erpu is uncertainty, rejection, powerlessness, and uncomfortableness. The other side of that is certainty, connection, agency, which is the word you just used, right? That having some power, having some ability to affect things, and then well-being-sort of how health, mental health, physical health, the whole nine yards. So what's tricky is in order to give our kids agency and let them go do that thing on their own, we as parents have to deal with uncertainty, so we're going to feel more anxious trying to let them go do things on their own, and they're going to be anxious too because this is probably the first or second time they've done it. So there's uncertainty for them in the course of figuring out how to have some agency. So yeah, that's that's a prominent piece of this model. Is like we just got to deal with that, right? My in my mind, anxiety is the mortar that holds the bricks of the wall of awful together. It holds all those other emotions together and lets them stay in our way.
Len Arcuri 34:11
Yeah, no, that's a powerful concept to keep in mind. And and I know there's a lot of other topics that we haven't really touched on, but I would encourage people go check out your book, read it, listen to it. I know you have the ADHD Essentials podcast. So, so again, I appreciate you sharing a lot of these powerful concepts, and wishing you nothing but success with your book. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on. Your child needs you running on all cylinders now, and the fastest way to rise is with personalized one-on-one support. Get started today. Go to elevatehowyounavigate.com
