The ADHD Dopamine Collective with Rhonda Estling

ADHD and Youth Supports: How to Support Your Neurodivergent Kids

Youth sports can feel like one of the hardest things to navigate as a neurodivergent parent — especially when you're raising neurodivergent kids too. In this episode, I sit down with my go-to friend and resource, Chandran Lepel. She's a licensed therapist, former collegiate athlete, high school varsity coach, and mom of kids in the youth sports world — which gives her a lens almost no one else has. We get into the idea of the "bubble" — the emotional safety coaches and parents can create around a team — and why support needs to come from around the bubble, not inside it. Chandran shares the concept of hype levels, why regulation matters more than winning, and the very real differences between coaching an 8-year-old and coaching an 18-year-old. We also talk about how to advocate for your kid without overstepping, when to trust your gut that something's off, and why radical acceptance might be the most important skill a coach can build. If you've ever sat on the sidelines gaslighting yourself about whether your kid's environment is the right fit, this one is for you.

AI Is Not Going to Fix Your ADHD (But It Could Be Your Best Training Wheels)

AI is not going to fix your ADHD, and the way most people are telling us to use it might actually make executive dysfunction worse. In this episode, Rhonda is walking through a third path between the AI is amazing and AI is ruining us camps — one rooted in how ADHD brains actually work. You'll hear about scaffolding vs. substituting (a concept from education that changes how you engage with the tool), MIT Media Lab's 2025 cognitive debt research, and the one litmus test question that audits every AI conversation you have. Plus four concrete shifts to turn ChatGPT or any AI tool into scaffolding for your executive function instead of a substitute for your own thinking. RESOURCES MENTIONED * MIT Media Lab 2025 study, Your Brain on ChatGPT — coined the term cognitive debt * Michael Gerlich 2025 study on AI use and critical thinking (~666 participants) * Free AI prompt generator for ADHD brains — sparse version (linked in show notes) * Workbook version of the prompt generator (linked in show notes) * Deeper prompt generator included inside Rhonda's workshops and programs AI has become either the worst thing in the world or the next planner that's going to fix everything. As late in life diagnosed ADHDers, we already know that's not how it works for us. In this episode, Rhonda offers a third path — one that doesn't argue for AI or against it, but instead asks a more useful question: how do we engage with the tool in a way that actually supports the way our brains work? SCAFFOLDING VS. SUBSTITUTING Scaffolding is a concept from education, originally developed for working with neurodivergent kids. The idea is that you put structure around a learner so they can do the task while they're learning to do the task — and eventually the scaffolding comes down because the skill has grown. Substituting is the opposite. You hand over the entire task and you're handed back a completed project you didn't think through. You didn't create it. You didn't learn anything from it. Think of AI like the bumpers in a bowling alley. The bumpers don't roll the ball for you. You still have to do the work. They just keep things from rolling off into the gutter. THE ONE QUESTION THAT AUDITS EVERY AI CONVERSATION After you use AI, ask yourself: did it give me the answer, or did it help me better understand myself and what I thought? If you got an answer but can't explain the reasoning — substituting. If you got an answer and you understand your situation better — scaffolding. FOUR SHIFTS TO MAKE IT STICK One — ask AI to ask you questions, not to give you the answer. Two — feed it your needs first (sensory, energy, context). Three — use it at the start, not the finish, then close the tab and go do the thing. Four — run the litmus test every time. If you'd rather not figure out prompts from scratch, here are two free AI Prompt Tools: www.rhondaestling.com/ai-prompts [http://www.rhondaestling.com/ai-prompts]

The Dysregulation Detective: How to Read What Your Kid Is Really Telling You

What if your kid's meltdown had nothing to do with behavior — and everything to do with an unmet need? In this episode, Rhonda sits down with Brett Welch, licensed therapist and parent coach at Sensitivity Is Strength Coaching, to talk about what it actually looks like to parent highly sensitive, neurodivergent, and PDA-profile kids in a world that wasn't built for them. Brett brings 20+ years of experience as a school counselor and child therapist, plus the very real perspective of a mom raising two deeply feeling daughters of her own. She breaks down why behavior is communication 100% of the time, how to become a dysregulation detective, what PDA is and what it isn't, and the one mindset shift that changes everything for exhausted parents. No parent is broken. No child is broken. And repair? Always possible. Resources Mentioned: * sensitivityisstrengthcoach.com [http://sensitivityisstrengthcoach.com] — Brett's website * Brett's Regulate, Relate & Repair Parent Group (starting April 10th) * PDANA — PDA North America community * Casey Elrich — PDA expert and educator * Amanda Dykman — PDA community leader * The Invisible String — children's book * Loop Earplugs — sensory tool for noise sensitivity This one is for the parent who's Googled "why does my kid lose it over everything," who has felt judged at every birthday party, who has been told their kid is "so well-behaved at school" while the house is in full meltdown mode every afternoon. This one is for you. Want to work with Brett or join her next parent group? Head to sensitivityisstrengthcoach.com [http://sensitivityisstrengthcoach.com].

Hardware vs. Software: The ADHD Reframe That Changes Everything

You're not doing it wrong. You've just been working on the wrong piece of the system. I had a conversation in my therapy office recently that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. A woman — smart, capable, doing the work — looked at me and said, "I feel like I'm doing something wrong." She'd read the books. Tried the hacks. Bought the planners. Was on TikTok and in the Facebook groups. And she still felt like she was failing at her own brain. I don't want a single one of you to ever sit with that belief. So today I'm walking through the reframe I use in my office that takes the shame out of all of this and finally puts the work in the right place. It's the hardware/software metaphor — and once you see it, you can't unsee it. The metaphor (and where it came from) This came up in a session a year or two ago with a client who works in IT. We were talking about the parts of his ADHD that weren't going to change no matter how much effort he poured in, and the metaphor showed up on instinct. It landed for him. It landed harder for me. Your hardware is your brain. The wiring. The way it processes (or doesn't) the things that we know ADHD impacts — working memory, emotional regulation, prioritization, sensory input. Hardware shifts somewhat with sleep, hormones, medication, and maturity, but it isn't curable. It's the template you came with. Your software is everything built on top of it. The perfectionism. The people pleasing. The shame loops. The masking. The anxiety-as-fuel. All of it was learned. All of it can be updated. The hardware/software pairs we cover Most of the episode is spent walking through specific paired examples so you can start spotting them in your own life: * Dopamine seeking is hardware. The shame about it is software. * Sensory sensitivity is hardware. Believing you should be able to push through it is software. * Hyper-focus is hardware. The guilt about everything you didn't do during it is software. * Variable energy is hardware. "I should be on all the time" is software. * Masking started as hardware-protection. It's the biggest software issue most of us are running. The honest part about updating your software This is where I'll disappoint anyone hoping for a nine-step fix. Updating software is slow work, and it starts with noticing. Noticing when you're trying to change hardware versus when you're punishing yourself for it. Noticing the shoulds. Treating your life like an experiment instead of a performance review. Finding the people who get it. The episode goes deep on what this looks like, including a recent moment I had where choosing not to attend my kid's volleyball tournament was the most caring choice I could make for myself and for them. It's the kind of trade-off math that only makes sense once you stop trying to change the unchangeable. The takeaway Your hardware is not the problem. It never was. The problem is what you've learned to do to cope with it. The goal isn't to fix your brain. It's to build a life your brain can actually live in.

Idea Midwife: What It Looks Like to Trust Your Redirects with Imani Harrison

In this episode, Rhonda sits down with Imani Harrison, LCPC — therapist, facilitator, and what she calls an "idea midwife" — for one of the most honest, winding, neurodivergent conversations we've had yet. Imani shares her journey from late ADHD diagnosis to full-on life overhaul: ending a marriage, dissolving a business partnership, letting go of a name she loved, and somehow landing in the most expansive season of her life. They get into the Sankofa philosophy (going back to fetch what you left behind), what it means to live a "yes life" — and why that requires just as many no's — and how smut romance novels became part of Imani's healing arc. If you've ever been in that fog where something is ending but nothing has landed yet, this one's for you. Topics Covered: * Late ADHD and autism diagnosis: what that moment of recognition actually feels like * Masking as survival (not performance) * Raising neurodivergent kids as a neurodivergent parent * The Sankofa philosophy and reclaiming yourself through transition * What a "yes life" actually requires * AI as a 504 plan for neurodivergent brains * Liminal spaces and why not knowing doesn't mean you're stuck * Why saying yes gets easier when you also start saying no Contact Imani: imani@sankofahealingwellness.com [imani@sankofahealingwellness.com] #adhd  #neurodivergent  #mentalhealth