Chaos & Caffeine: After Dark

Listen to Dr. Russell's episode here 👉 http://linktr.ee/chaosandcaffeinepodcast At what point do you stop asking whether your ADHD child can handle school and start asking whether school can handle your child? If you've ever considered homeschooling your ADHD child after another frustrating school year, another accommodation battle, or another afternoon watching your child's confidence crumble, t...

I host an ADHD parenting podcast, interview experts, study executive functioning, and spend an embarrassing amount of time learning how to parent neurodivergent kids. And somehow, I'm still parenting from ego. 🫠 Less than I used to? Absolutely. More aware of it? Thank God. Completely free of it? Not even fucking close. This week on Chaos & Caffeine: After Dark , I'm unpacking two uncomfortabl...

My kid's mental health will always matter more than somebody else's expectations. Period. ♥️ After my conversation with Mark Talaga, I found myself coming back to two lessons that ADHD parenting keeps teaching me over and over again: 1. We have to learn the child we actually have. 2. We have to be willing to change the way we parent, teach, and support them. Sounds simple, right? Until you're knee...

Your TikTok feed doesn't know your ADHD kid. And neither does the mom in the Facebook group who swears she found the miracle treatment. 🫠 This week on Chaos & Caffeine: After Dark , I'm unpacking two things from my conversation with world-renowned ADHD researcher Dr. Stephen Faraone that I cannot stop thinking about. First, recognizing ADHD symptoms isn't always as obvious as we think. When m...

Listen to Gerene's episode here: http://linktr.ee/chaosandcaffeinepodcast Well, Gerene Keesler’s episode gave me a parenting realization I really could have lived without: If I want my ADHD kid to eventually become independent, I have to actually let him practice being independent. Fuck. 😂 My son is only in middle school, so college still feels a million years away. But after talking with Gerene...

For years, I was told my son's struggles at school were mostly about his ADHD and hyperactivity. His reading was fine. He was progressing. He was just slightly below benchmark. Except eventually, even he started noticing that he was always slightly below benchmark. After my conversation with reading specialist Faye Bankler Casell, I wanted to talk about the part of raising a neurodivergent kid tha...

That title gives you the emotional curiosity gap and the search terms ADHD kid, picky eater, sensory issues without sounding like keyword soup. A more chaotic After Dark option would be: Well, Shit. I Think My Kid’s “Picky Eating” Might Be Sensory. 😂 I LOVE that for your existing audience, but for maximum discoverability, I'd choose the first one. Description My kid has never eaten an egg. Not on...

Listen to Kelly's episode here: http://linktr.ee/chaosandcaffeinepodcast Six years into parenting an ADHD kid, I really thought I had heard just about every school accommodation there was. Preferential seating? Yep. Movement breaks? Obviously. Extended time? Been there. Chunking assignments? Know her well. And then Kelly Calloway from Inclusive Expectations casually told me about a child who strug...

A couple of things from my conversation with Dr. Roseann have been living rent-free in my brain. The first: before I ask my kid to do anything, is he actually regulated enough to hear me? Which is particularly humbling considering regulation is basically my entire parenting schtick. 😂 Years ago, I realized I was an angry, reactive hot mess and started doing the meditation and self-work that compl...

What if helping your ADHD kid doesn't require another hack, another chart, another supplement, another routine—or seventeen new strategies you started simultaneously because somebody on Instagram said they were life-changing? After my conversation with neuroscientist and ADHD researcher Dr. John Foxe, I walked away with a surprisingly simple reminder: Go back to the basics. Pick ONE thing. Give it...

The public episode with special education advocate Karen Mayer Cunningham teaches you how to navigate IEPs, 504 Plans, and school accommodations. This Patreon After Dark episode is everything I was thinking after we hit stop on the recording. I'm getting brutally honest about my own mistakes walking into accommodation meetings ready for battle, how I've learned to work with schools without giving...

What if the people who could best prepare us to raise ADHD kids... are adults who have already lived it? In this Patreon After Dark episode, we're diving into one of the most powerful ADHD discussions I've ever read. Thousands of adults with ADHD answered a simple question: "What's one small change that would've made school easier?" Their answers weren't about easier homework or lower expectations...

Welcome to ADHD Mom Court—the corner of Chaos & Caffeine After Dark where anonymous ADHD parenting dilemmas get zero judgment, a whole lot of reassurance, and the loving brutal advice we sometimes need to hear. Today’s Reddit mom is exhausted. Her five-year-old son has ADHD, and hyperactivity, impulsivity and emotional dysregulation are showing up as hitting, kicking, throwing things, defiance...

Before we dive into twelve weeks of experts, research, and practical school strategies, I wanted to sit down with you—the Chaos & Caffeine family—and share the story behind it all. This episode is incredibly personal. I take you through our ADHD journey from first grade to the middle school transition, including: ❤️ The day my son came home crying because he believed he was "the bad kid." 🧠 H...

Ever feel like you're doing all the work—therapy, books, nervous system healing, ADHD strategies—and you STILL lose your patience with your kids? Same. In this Patreon After Dark episode, I'm getting brutally honest about something I don't think we talk about enough: I've been doing self-work for six years... and I still lose my shit. More often than not, it's the few days before my period, when m...

After 13 episodes with leading experts on ADHD, screen time, social media, executive functioning, and raising kids in a digital world, this is the biggest takeaway of the entire series. Not another lecture about limiting screens. Not another conversation about taking away devices. A practical system that helps ADHD families reduce screen time battles, teach responsibility, and create calmer aftern...

Did you lose your cool this week? Did bedtime turn into a battle? Did you raise your voice, walk away feeling guilty, and immediately start wondering if you're failing your child? Friend, this episode is for you. After my conversation with ADHD coach Jenna Free, I found myself thinking less about fixing my child and more about understanding what is happening inside my own nervous system. In this r...

Listen to Chris' full 👉 https://linktr.ee/chaosandcaffeinepodcast I thought I had screens figured out. Google Family Link? Check. Restrictions? Check. YouTube monitored? Check. Then I sat down with digital safety expert Chris McKenna from Protect Young Eyes and realized I may have been asking the wrong questions all along. In this honest After Dark episode, I'm unpacking one of the biggest surpri...

After recording my episode with Dr. Randy Kulman, I realized something that honestly hit me harder than I expected: I think many of us ADHD parents have become so afraid of screens… that we’ve accidentally forgotten what real play, boredom, creativity, and independence are supposed to look like. In this raw Patreon after-dark episode, I unpack the biggest mindset shifts I took away from our conver...

After my conversation with Dr. Jenny Radesky, I couldn’t stop thinking about one thing: What if the goal isn’t controlling every screen… but teaching our ADHD kids how to handle them safely, responsibly, and without screens becoming their entire source of dopamine? Because whew. This one got personal. In this unfiltered Chaos & Caffeine After Dark episode, I’m diving into: why ADHD kids are ba...

https://linktr.ee/chaosandcaffeinepodcast Ever sit down to “check one thing” on your phone… and suddenly it’s two hours later, your nervous system feels fried, and you somehow know intimate details about a stranger’s pantry organization routine? Yeah. Same. In this raw, unfiltered After Dark episode of Chaos & Caffeine , I’m unpacking one of the biggest mindset shifts I had after my conversati...

What happens when your ADHD child notices screen addiction before the adults do? In this raw and emotional Chaos & Caffeine After Dark episode, Danielle opens up about a heartbreaking moment at the park when her son realized his friend no longer enjoyed outdoor play because all he wanted was video games. What started as a normal afternoon turned into a powerful conversation about dopamine, ADH...

Let’s talk about the part of screen time no one is saying out loud… After my conversation with Dr. Jane Shawcroft , I realized something that honestly made me equal parts relieved and furious: We’ve been sold a lie. Tech companies make screen safety settings so complicated, buried, and time-consuming that most parents will never fully implement them… and then turn around and tell us, “It’s in your...

This one is real. After my conversation with Dr. Jody Carrington , I couldn’t just move on. Because what she said about not being everything to our kids? It stayed with me. So this is the After Dark version—what this actually looks like in my ADHD household. We’re talking about: Why ADHD kids don’t just use screens—they rely on them to regulate The uncomfortable truth about building a “village” (a...

If you’re in the middle of daily screen time battles with your ADHD kid… this one is for you. After interviewing experts, testing strategies in real life, and—let’s be honest—failing more times than I can count, I’m sharing what I’ve actually learned so far from the Chaos & Caffeine Screens Campaign. We’re talking about the uncomfortable truth behind screens and ADHD: why screens aren’t the en...