My child is so emotional! Is that part of ADHD?

When I first started this journey, my oldest daughter was 4 years old. She had so much trouble with her morning routine. She couldn’t get out of bed and once she was out of bed, getting her motivated to get dressed, brush her teeth and hair, etc. was a struggle.

That all sounds like things we’ve heard before – hard to get motivated, hard to keep focused, struggles with routines. But the thing that set my daughter apart and was the worst part of mornings was that she was so emotional! Anything that didn’t go her way, she would have a tantrum. If I pushed too hard, she would have an emotional outburst and that would set us back further in our efforts to get out the door on time. And as quickly as she would get upset, she would turn things around and “get over it” and not understand why I was still reeling from the emotional interaction!

As we were trying to understand her struggles, many experts told us that the emotional issues we were seeing were not due to ADHD. Emotional regulation was not recognized at that time as one of the “official” Executive Functions.I knew in my heart that this had to be part of the ADHD struggle but didn’t have the proof. Now Emotional Self-Regulation and the individual’s ability to manage their emotions is most definitely recognized as an official Executive Function.

As more and more studies have been done on the effect of emotional regulation on individuals with ADHD and the specific impairment it causes, we are learning so much about how to treat this specific aspect of ADHD.

One of the most common impacts of impaired emotional self-regulation is the individual’s response to criticism or feedback. For individuals that have ADHD, criticism or perceived negative feedback is taken as an attack on their identity – they feel as though you are attacking them personally. Instead of seeing what they can take from the feedback objectively, they take it as a personal slight! This has been called “Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria” or RSD.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short — failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations.

In addition to RSD, many individuals with ADHD have very low frustration tolerance meaning that if something causes discomfort or irritation, they respond with very strong emotions. Many times the emotions appear to parents or caregivers as not “matching” the offense. Sometimes, the caregivers don’t understand what caused the outburst. It is not readily apparent why the individual is upset. This often comes from rigid thinking about how things should go or be and anything that knocks the individual’s “status quo” off kilter causes extreme emotional reactions.

Many individuals with ADHD live in extreme emotions – if something is amusing, they find it “hysterical” or if something is annoying, they are “livid”. This can cause quite a strain on relationships between individuals and with parents and children.

Individuals with ADHD not only struggle with emotional regulation, but studies are now showing that as your anxiety and emotions escalate, your access to your Executive Functions go down. This exacerbates the situation and causes a “double whammy” where individuals cannot use executive functions and reasoning to help them calm down because they cannot access those things in the moment.

The good news is that there are ways to deal with emotional regulation struggles! For more information on whether ADHD and Executive Functions are impacting you and what to do about it, reach out to me and we can start the conversation. (Click here to make an appointment) I can help identify those Executive Functions impacting your success and help you implement effective tools to manage those deficiencies so you can let all of those other amazing gifts and talents shine through!

Judy Richardson-Mahre, MA, ADHD-CCSP
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
ADHD Expert & Coach
Parent Coach
Educator
612.930.3903