ADHD Mums

You did the envelope early. You had the cash inside. You booked the babysitter. You had three adults on deck for one soccer game. And by the time you got to the car park, you were at 3% battery, panting, holding someone else's dog, and your son had his shirt over his head pretending to be a turtle. You'd done everything right. And it still looked like you hadn't done anything at all. What We Cover...

Have you ever made a deal with yourself at the end of a really bad week — that's it, I'm not doing it anymore, I'm only doing what he does — and then washed up three times by Tuesday without noticing? Have you ever bought him something mid-fight when you were supposed to be on strike? Have you ever lost it because your nine-year-old defended his dad by pointing out he did one load of washing, as i...

Have you ever been on medication, done all the things, prepped, pre-scheduled, and still lost the plot completely — and then spent the drive home wondering if the medication is even working? Have you ever gone back to your GP and said 'I'm still losing it' and walked out with a higher dose, a different script, or a referral — and none of it touched the actual problem? Have you ever thought maybe I...

Have you ever told yourself you'll finally do the thing when it's quiet — and then the quiet came and you reorganised a drawer? Have you ever promised yourself the school holidays would be different, stacked up everything you were going to get done, and then spent the first Monday back staring at the wall and doing everyone's admin except your own? Have you ever been the most productive you've bee...

It's 11:00 PM. You sit up in bed with your chest tight and your heart going. Nothing happened. You went to sleep fine. You lie there trying to work out what's wrong with you, and the answer is nothing — except your body has been running a two-hour delayed reaction to a school email you read, closed, and forgot about at 9:02 PM. What We Cover The 9:02 PM email, the 11:00 PM panic, and why the two n...

📬 Listener Questions & Community It's 5:45 PM. I'm cooking three separate dinners on not enough burners. My six-year-old is crying about the green spoon. My eight-year-old is in a Minecraft cave with a dog that needs a bone. My ten-year-old has found paint. 'Find a good stopping place' is good advice. It just assumes conditions that don't exist in this house. What We Cover The 5:45 PM scenari...

A psychologist told me to do a body scan. I was lying on hard yellow grass in 38-degree heat with three kids screaming inside and ants on my arms, trying to feel my body. I felt nothing. Or I felt everything and couldn't name any of it. She concluded the problem was me. It wasn't. What We Cover Why 'just breathe' and body scans keep failing ADHD mums — and why that failure isn't yours The differen...

The principal told you to contact region. Region told you to contact the principal. You're sitting in your car wondering if you're going quietly insane. You're not — and neither is the principal. The system is built to do exactly this, to everyone inside it. Sara Hocking is back to map a way out, and the news isn't what you think. What We Cover The one subject line that forces an official response...

A friend came over the other day. She'd just done a week on the Sunshine Coast with her three kids, the whole pack-up by herself. We were sitting at my kitchen table doing that thing where you're laughing and crying at the same time. She couldn't get her kids to put the bins out because they were glued to their iPads. I said yep, same. The deeper problem isn't just the iPad. It's that someone pull...

I picked up the kids in my husband's car the other day. The youngest said something. The next one waited until they finished, then said something back. There was a pause . I turned around and looked at three kids not even fighting and thought, is this how pickup goes? In my car, it's on the second they get in. Someone's interrupting, someone's yelling, I'm turning the music up to drown them out, r...

You're at the dinner table you fought to make happen. Your phone lights up — school app, swimming's been moved, the bag has to be packed tonight. You know in your bones that if you don't write it down right now, it's gone by morning. You pick up your phone. Your kid says, you said no phones at dinner, I'm getting my iPad then. The parenting advice has told you you've just damaged everyone. The res...

Listener Question Episode: Bec drops the kids at school, the kitchen's a mess, and she can't let herself eat breakfast until it's clean. Loads the washing on too — wouldn't want to waste time. She finally sits down at 11am. She's wondering if it's an ADHD thing or if she's just weird. She's not weird. She's been trying the wrong strategy on the wrong problem for years. What We Cover Bec's voicemai...

The cafe moment. A waiter. Six seconds of blank silence. I've ordered for everyone in my life for 40 years and when someone asked what I wanted, there was nobody home. Season 4 starts here. This isn't a self-help season. It's not a divorce season. It's the work nobody warned us about — what happens after the diagnosis, when the operating system fails and you don't know who you are without it. What...

The birthday of ADHD Mums came and went and I didn't celebrate. I'd spent a whole season demanding a seat at the table. By the end of it I was in bed, couldn't walk, getting diagnosed with perimenopause mid-record, and a friend asked me one question that broke the whole thing open. Supportive of what? What We Cover The launch episode promise — "no more explaining, just strategy" — and why I delive...

Sorry I'm late. I have ADHD. So does my friend. She's sitting at the coffee shop halfway through her first one, watching me sweat through the door twenty minutes late. Same diagnosis. Different morning. Different brain doing the work behind it. What We Cover The vein surgery saga — three appointments, three completely different outcomes, same brain The receptionist who handed me the appointment ca...

You take your child to the doctor. You tell them this isn't fussy, this isn't a phase. They tell you he'll grow out of it. Maybe it's his tonsils. Maybe you're anxious. Maybe your boundaries aren't strong enough. You leave the appointment knowing something isn't right, and starting to wonder if the something is you. What We Cover Why ARFID gets missed for years while professionals chase tonsils, g...

You can talk your daughter down in two minutes. Then you turn around and tell yourself to stop being such a f*cking embarrassment. Same brain. Same mum. Two completely different voices within minutes. 🧠 What we cover in this episode: Why you can co-regulate a child in two minutes and tear yourself apart for the rest of the day The "good girl" reflex and how we absorbed an inward voice between six...

Sometimes the only thing that got you through the day was the iPad. And then you scrolled past a clip telling you screens are rewiring your kid's brain. Causing ADHD. Making them socially broken. And your stomach dropped. You weren't being lazy. You were trying to regulate yourself before you said something you'd regret. But the guilt arrived anyway. Right on cue. This week, Amanda Moses — senior...

There's a script around Mother's Day that doesn't account for any of us. You're meant to want a candle, a coffee, a sleep-in, and to look visibly grateful at the end of it. If you can't name what you want, you're ungrateful. If you do name it, you have to manage it. If you stay quiet, you spend Sunday night cleaning up the wrapping paper from your own gifts. This episode is the one underneath that...

Half the conversations about AI are men in San Francisco telling you it'll change everything. The other half are people telling you it'll destroy the planet and your children's future. Neither of those people are doing the school run, the NDIS application, the lunchboxes, or holding it together at 9pm. This episode is for the mum in the middle. The one who's curious but hesitant. The one who's alr...

This podcast episode is not a replacement for individual medical advice and is general education only. You go to the mother's group, you don't put the brake on the pram, and it rolls across the carpark. Baby is fine. You are not. You're already the mum who decided — quietly, without asking anyone — that you wouldn't take your ADHD meds while breastfeeding. Because that's what good mothers do. This...

You've spent more time on drop-offs, pickups and meetings this week than your kid has spent actually learning. You keep telling yourself the routine is good for them. They come home flat anyway. You can see it isn't working. You just can't picture what else looks like. So you stay on the fence. Another term. Another meeting. Another 11pm google. What we cover Why most homeschoolers in Australia di...

If your child looks ‘fine’ at school… but falls apart the second they get home — this episode is for you. 🧠 What We Cover in This Episode: What masking really looks like in a classroom setting Why ‘they’re fine at school’ can be deeply misleading The invisible work happening before the school day even starts Why internalising kids are often missed entirely What it costs to ‘look like you’re copin...

If you’ve ever sat in a school meeting hearing what’s ‘expected’… and thought ‘this feels like too much… too early’ — this episode is for you. Because sometimes it’s not subtle. It’s that quiet moment where something doesn’t sit right… but you’re told it’s normal. In this episode, we unpack what’s really happening when school expectations keep creeping up — academically, behaviourally, socially —...

If you’ve ever said ‘can we just talk about something?’ and it escalates before you’ve even said the thing — this episode is for you. Because it’s not the conversation that’s blowing up. It’s what happens in the seconds before it even starts . In this episode, we unpack that exact moment — the one where you’re trying to keep it calm, keep it small, keep it ‘not a big deal’… and somehow it still tu...