One of the questions I sometimes ask overwhelmed and stressed-out parents in my therapy practice is more of a dare than a question.
I’ll say, “Try saying this out loud without laughing: I am relying on my teenager for my mental and emotional stability.”
Most parents cannot get through the sentence.
They laugh because the sentence is ridiculous. They also laugh because it is painfully accurate.
Of course, no parent consciously decides to build their inner peace around the emotional steadiness, maturity, gratitude, organization, and impulse control of a teenager. That would be absurd. Teenagers are moody, inconsistent, dramatic, wonderful, self-absorbed, hilarious, and, on some days, impossible to reason with. That is not an insult, it’s just adolescence.
Now add ADHD to the equation.
Parenting a child or teenager with ADHD often means living with more forgetfulness, emotional intensity, unfinished tasks, resistance, missing assignments, and moments when something that should have taken five minutes becomes a family-wide hostage negotiation.
The parent feels the pressure rise in their chest and thinks, Why can’t they just do the thing? Why do I have to say everything five times?
And then the real suffering begins.
Not because packing a backpack is a life-threatening event, but because the parent’s nervous system has started treating the child’s dysregulation and dysfunction as an emergency.
This is where many good, loving parents get stuck. They begin to believe, without realizing it, “I can only be okay when my child is okay. I can only relax when my child is regulated. I can only feel successful when my child is organized, respectful, focused, and on track.”
That belief is understandable. It’s also a trap.
A child with ADHD may need structure, support, treatment, school accommodations, behavioral strategies, medication, or all of the above. ADHD is not laziness. It is not a moral failure. It is not a sign that the parent has failed. But a child with ADHD also critically needs something that isn’t listed on most parenting tip sheets: a parent who can stay steady enough to help the child borrow their steadiness.
That does not mean becoming passive. It does not mean letting everything slide. It does not mean abandoning expectations, consequences, routines, or accountability. It does mean the parent stops making their own emotional stability dependent on the child’s current level of functioning.
There is a big difference between saying, “My child needs help getting through this morning,” and saying, “My child’s inability to get through this morning means my day is ruined, I am overwhelmed and failing, and everything is falling apart.”
The first statement leads to problem-solving.
The second leads to yelling, resentment, shame, and guilt.
Most of us were taught to manage life from the outside in. We try to arrange circumstances so we can finally feel peaceful. The house needs to be clean. The kids need to behave. The schedule needs to run on time. The homework needs to be done. The tone needs to be respectful. Then, once everything is under control, we will allow ourselves to feel okay.
But parenting, especially parenting a child with ADHD, quickly exposes the flaw in that strategy. Children are not controllable enough to serve as the foundation of an adult’s peace of mind. Teenagers are definitely not controllable enough. And teenagers with ADHD? Forget it. You might as well outsource your retirement plan to a raccoon with a debit card.
The better move is not to give up on helping your child. The better move is to stop handing your nervous system over to your child’s nervous system.
Before correcting the child, regulate the parent.
That might look like pausing for one breath before speaking. It might mean lowering your voice instead of raising it. It might mean silently naming what is happening: My child is struggling with a transition, and I am getting activated. It might mean relaxing your shoulders, unclenching your jaw, and remembering, This is not an emergency. This is a challenging moment.
Then choose the next useful move.
Not the perfect move. Not the move that guarantees your child responds beautifully. Just the next useful move. One next instruction, visual cue, timer, consequence (delivered calmly), or moment of connection before correction (most important).
This is not easy. Parenting is emotionally intense because love and attachment are emotionally intense. Watching your child struggle can stir fear, frustration, embarrassment, helplessness, and grief. Those feelings are real. But they do not have to run the household.
The most important (and often most hidden) work of parenting is not simply learning how to get children to behave. It is learning how to remain sane, loving, compassionate, and clear when they do not.
When parents begin to reclaim responsibility for their own emotional state, something shifts. They stop treating every forgotten assignment as a catastrophe. They stop interpreting every outburst as a personal attack. They stop confusing their child’s current difficulty with their own failure.
And from that steadier place, they can parent more effectively – holding boundaries, requiring effort, and teaching skills.
They can still say, “I love you, and the homework still needs to be done. Let’s take a breath together and get started.”
But now the message underneath the words is different. The parent is no longer saying, “I need you to get yourself together so I can be okay.” The parent is saying, “I am okay enough to help you get through this.”
That is the kind of stability children need most. Especially the children who struggle to find it within themselves.
Joseph DeNicholas, MBA, LCSW, is a dynamic, challenging licensed therapist whose work
bridges science, spirituality, and healing. With degrees in electrical engineering, business, and clinical social work, he brings a rare interdisciplinary perspective to both clinical practice and contemplative training. In 2025, he published Seeking Sanity: How to Cultivate Peace, Happiness, and Wellbeing in a World Gone Mad
