May 11, 2022

Recently, I was in my office with Kieran, an eighth-grade boy who was complaining about being bored after school to his mom and me. “There’s nothing to do except gaming and you only let me do that for an hour. What else am I supposed to do?” His mom gently suggested going back to some activities that had previously interested him—guitar lessons, indoor soccer, swim team, improvisational theater classes. “No, no, no.” His mom turned to me and said: “I used to do this to my mom. She called it ‘Shoot ‘em up, and knock ‘em down.’ There’s never a right answer.”

I instantly wondered if ‘No’ meant Forget about it or I’m not sure and need to think about it. Indoor soccer and theater were hard ‘No’s.’ Guitar and swimming were more of an ‘I’ll think about it.” I asked Kieran why he doesn’t just say that and he shrugged, “I don’t know… I just can’t think about all that stuff at once.“ Saying ‘No’ flat out like that gives him space to think about something without any pressure.

With working memory and/or processing speed challenges, kids with ADHD, LD, ASD, or 2E often feel…