ADHD Mums

⚠️ Content Warning This episode contains discussion of eating disorders, food restriction, and medical trauma, including misdiagnosis, inpatient treatment, and NG tube feeding. These themes may be triggering if you’ve experienced eating disorders, hospitalisation, or trauma in medical settings. Please listen with care and step away if you need to. 🥄 Your child isn’t “picky.” They’re hungry, terri...

🤔 Are school holidays not what you imagined? You thought they’d be fun — but instead you’re tired, burnt out, and blaming yourself for not enjoying them. In this Quick Reset, Jane unpacks the hidden truth about parenting through school holidays with ADHD: not all mums start the day with the same energy budget. When you’re managing sensory overload, executive dysfunction, picky eating, or kids who...

⚡ Sticker charts, punishments, time-outs — most ADHD mums have tried them. And most of us have felt the gut-punch of guilt when they “don’t work.” But here’s the truth: what looks like “bad behaviour” is usually a dysregulated nervous system asking for help, not a child trying to make life harder . In this episode, Jane speaks with psychologist Leanne Tran about why conventional behaviour strateg...

Meal planning was built for neurotypicals. That’s why it breaks ADHD mums. In this Quick Reset, Jane calls out the shame trap of “just get organised” and explains why meal planning feels impossible when it demands six executive functions at once. From frozen meat to kids refusing everything you bought, this episode offers ADHD-friendly hacks for surviving dinner when you’re already on the edge . W...

Night sweats, meltdowns, migraines, brain fog — and still dismissed as “mum stress.” For ADHD women, perimenopause isn’t weakness — it’s biology colliding with a system that refuses to notice. In this episode, Jane speaks with Dr Lara Briden , naturopathic doctor and author of Hormone Repair Manual , to unpack what perimenopause really looks like for ADHD women, why blood tests often come back “no...

⚠️ Content Warning : This episode contains heavy confessions. These themes may be triggering for listeners with trauma histories or postnatal depression. Please listen with care and step away if you need to. These confessions prove you’re not broken, you’re not failing — and you’re definitely not alone. For the first time, Jane reads out anonymous confessions from ADHD mums — funny, dark, and pain...

Perimenopause can feel like being blindsided by a hormonal crash no one prepared you for. Mood swings, rage, insomnia, and anxiety get dumped in the ‘mum stress’ basket — as if biology crashing is just bad attitude. For ADHD mums, the mix of perimenopause and neurodivergence is like juggling knives while the floor gives way. This episode calls out the silence around perimenopause, explains the rea...

‘Not tonight’ isn’t rejection — it’s survival. You can be deeply in love, feel safe and connected, and still feel absolutely no desire for sex. For neurodivergent mums, it’s not about being broken. It’s about being depleted. Burnout, overstimulation, resentment, and chronic executive load all take a toll — and desire doesn’t grow in captivity. This episode names the unspoken truth: you can love yo...

School mornings feel like hostage negotiations — not routine. Missing shoes, weird sock meltdowns, vanishing library bags… and still the world says ‘just get more organised’. But ADHD families don’t run on habits — we run on cues. In this Quick Reset, Jane shares the one simple change that turned mornings from chaos into something survivable: the hallway hook. More than a place for bags, it’s an e...

Doctors said anxiety. It turns out, for many ADHD mums, it’s actually hormones colliding with histamine. This episode kicks off our hormone mini-series with ADHD & women’s health naturopath Kylie Smart , exploring how histamine interacts with oestrogen, stress, and ADHD — and why so many mums are dismissed as “hysterical” or “anxious” when the truth is biochemical. What We Cover in This Episod...

‘Don’t label her,’ they said. Now she cries herself to sleep, wondering why she’s too much. 💔 That’s what happens when kids grow up different but unsupported. The world never calls it ADHD — it calls it bossy, weird, difficult. And children believe it. In this Quick Reset, Jane McFadden unpacks the real cost of avoiding diagnosis. Parents often fear labels, but silence does more harm. Kids who do...

You keep the house running. You hold the emotions. You never say no. And still, part of you wonders if you’re doing enough. This solo episode isn’t just about perfectionism or people pleasing — it’s about the deeper pattern so many ADHD mums live inside without realising it: good girl conditioning . Jane peels back the layers of expectation, guilt, trauma, and survival-mode coping that lead neurod...

You can’t ‘train’ a brain to enjoy being flooded with noise, light, smells, and chaos. You can only push it until it shuts down — or shuts you out. Yet families are told every day that ‘exposure therapy’ will fix sensory overwhelm. In this episode, we talk about why that’s not just wrong — it’s dangerous. You’ll learn: How to tell the dif...

Sometimes parenting feels like being pecked to death by tiny, unstable chickens. We love our kids fiercely — but that doesn’t mean we have to love  every single moment of raising them. In this unfiltered Quick Reset, Jane says the thing so many ADHD mums are scared to admit out loud: I don’t always like being a parent . And no — that doesn’t make you a bad mum. I...

Your child comes home from school withdrawn, teary, or exploding in rage — and you’re expected to stay calm. Every cell in your body wants to burn the system down, but the school says ‘We’re handling it’ . You can see your child’s spark dimming, and you’re being told to keep your emotions in check so you’re not labelled ‘the emotional mum&rsquo...

If school mornings in your house feel like a high-stakes obstacle course — socks missing, bags unpacked, emotions running high — this episode will feel like a deep breath you didn’t know you needed. Jane is joined by Sharon Collon from The Functional Family to talk about how to survive those brutal pre-school hours without burning every ounce of patience you have before 9am. This...

If you’ve already heard MY UPDATE: What Happens When You Lose the Meds That Helped You Survive , you know Part 1 ended on the decision to have lipedema surgery after years of chronic pain, medical dismissal, and the sudden loss of ADHD medication. This is what happened next. In this follow-up episode, Jane takes you behind the curtain of the surgery itself — the reality of navigating a...

This isn’t just about medication. It’s about the pattern so many ADHD mums find themselves in — chasing answers, finding partial relief, and then hitting a wall you never saw coming. In this raw, unfiltered episode, Jane shares the deeply personal story of what happened when her body could no longer tolerate ADHD medication — and how a lifetime of overlapping diagnoses, chr...

With Special Guest: NSW Minister for Mental Health, Rose Jackson 💬 “It shouldn’t cost thousands of dollars and 12 months on a waitlist just to feel like a functioning parent.” For years, ADHD families have been begging for change — and this time, someone in government actually listened. In this landmark conversation, Jane is joined by NSW Minister Rose Jackson to talk abou...

This episode isn’t polished. It’s not another “mum guilt” talk with a tidy little bow. It’s a confession — 10 brutally honest fears that live under the surface of parenting with ADHD. The kind you lie awake thinking about. The kind you’re scared to say out loud. From burnout to school calls, masking to medical forms — this Quick Reset is for the mums...

If you’ve ever jolted awake at 3:11am spiralling over something you said in 2019 — you are not alone. This Quick Reset is for the mums lying in bed, exhausted but wired, wondering if their brain is broken. (Spoiler: it’s not.) In this raw and validating episode, Jane unpacks the real reasons so many neurodivergent women are waking up in the middle of the night. It’s not jus...

What if the exhaustion you're carrying isn’t about your daughter’s needs — but about the systems stacked against her? In this fiercely honest conversation, Jane sits down with Katie Koullas, founder of Yellow Ladybugs, to unpack the invisible weight neurodivergent mums carry while raising autistic and ADHD girls. From masking to missed diagnoses, perfectionism to protection &mdas...

If you’ve ever stood frozen in the kitchen, fully aware of what needs doing — and still couldn’t start — this episode is for you. This week’s Quick Reset tears apart the toxic myth that ADHD mums just need to “try harder.” Jane unpacks what’s actually happening when your brain stalls, and why shame, not laziness, is often the real culprit. From inner...

With special guest: Jayde Couldewell from  Beyond the Bump If you thought finally getting a diagnosis and trying meds would be the end of your chaos — but you’re still overwhelmed, melting down, or yelling into the void — this one’s for you. In this raw, funny, and emotionally honest episode, Jane is joined by Jayde Couldewell to talk about what really happens after di...

If someone tells you to take a bubble bath one more time, you might scream. This Quick Reset is a no-filter, nervous-system-level rant for every ADHD mum who’s been told that a massage will fix her burnout. Jane unpacks why the whole self-care industry is fundamentally mismatched to neurodivergent mums — and how pretending we feel better after one ‘treat’ just leads to more...