Big Feelings, Not Bad Kids: ADHD and Emotional Regulation
A few years ago, I drove about an hour to a school to observe a student who I was assessing for ADHD. When I arrived, the whole school was in a panic. Nobody could find him.
We found him eventually; he was hiding and locked himself in a bathroom stall. By then, the teachers were stressed, the office staff were stressed, and the boy at the center of it all was overwhelmed.
That morning has stayed with me because it captures what emotional dysregulation really looks like. It isn't just one child having a hard moment. It ripples out and affects everyone around them.
After my last article - What I Wish Every Parent Knew About Child ADHD, a reader shared something that really resonated with me. She said there's still a lot of misunderstanding around emotional regulation and behaviour in ADHD, and that we're often quick to focus on what needs to be "fixed" when what a child really needs is understanding and support. I couldn't agree more, so I wanted to explore it further here.
What emotional regulation actually is
Emotional regulation is the ability to notice what you're feeling and respond in a way that fits the situation. The emotion itself is never the problem. It's the fit between the feeling and the response.
Anger, for example, isn't wrong. If someone approached me aggressively on a dark street, yelling would be exactly the right response. Yelling at a teacher because the maths worksheet feels impossible is a different story.
This skill is genuinely hard, and it relies on the "CEO" of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. It's the last part of the brain to develop. Babies and toddlers have very little ability to regulate themselves, which is why we, as parents, act as their external regulators. We soothe, we hold, we calm.
For tamariki with ADHD, the CEO part of the brain often develops more slowly, while the emotional alarm system (the limbic system) fires quickly. Feelings arrive bigger and faster, with less of a brake.
Interestingly, there was real debate when the current diagnostic criteria (DSM-5) for ADHD were written about whether emotional dysregulation should be included. It wasn't, yet in my clinical work, it's often the part of ADHD that has the biggest impact on daily life.
It also looks different with age. A six-year-old might melt down on the floor or slam doors. A teenager may not cry in front of you at all, but might turn to alcohol or other substances to manage feelings or to fit in.
Why we rush to "fix" it
When a child is melting down, our first instinct is usually to make it stop. I think that's partly how many of us were raised. Big public displays of emotion, even from children, aren't always well tolerated. And all of us, adults and children alike, like to feel a sense of control.
But consider what happens when a child keeps hearing, in words or in looks, "you need to change." Over time, many neurodivergent children stop hearing "what you did was a problem" and start hearing "I am the problem." That can grow into a deep sense of being bad, broken or not good enough.
Early in my career I worked at a care and protection residence, with teenagers whose behaviour could become unsafe. Keeping everyone safe mattered, of course. But what I saw again and again was that what actually helped these young people was acceptance, not punishment.
I often picture a seesaw between acceptance and change. As parents, we tend to push for change before we've built enough acceptance. It's the same with adults. If a friend comes to you upset and you jump straight into problem-solving, they'll usually resist your suggestions. Children are no different.
To be clear, acceptance doesn't mean accepting every behaviour. It means accepting the child and their emotions. We can validate who they are and how they feel ("you're really angry right now, and that makes sense") without endorsing hitting, kicking or throwing things. Connection, acceptance and a sense of belonging come first. Then, gently, we can coach for change.
Regulation starts with you
This is the part I most want whānau to hear: we don't learn to regulate on our own. We regulate with other people.
Remember the toilet paper panic-buying of the first COVID lockdown? Plenty of us grabbed an extra pack simply because everyone else was. We are social creatures, and our nervous systems take cues from the people around us.
Children look to their parents for those cues constantly. My own kids pick up on my tone of voice and my energy instantly. When I'm calm, they settle. When I'm frazzled, so are they.
I like to think of the family as an aquarium. As the parent, you set the water conditions for everyone in the tank. That's not about being perfect. It's about noticing your own stress, and your own neurodivergence if that's part of your story and looking after yourself so you have the capacity to stay calm.
You can't coach a skill you aren't practicing. Emotional regulation starts with us modelling it.
What helps in practice
Use a traffic light: I use this with children, teens and adults alike. Red is fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Green is calm, rest-and-digest. Orange sits in between. Try mapping it as a whānau: what pushes each of you into red or orange, and what brings you back to green? None of us can avoid red and orange entirely. The problem is getting stuck there. Your job as a parent is to spend as much time in green as you can, so your child can learn to find their way back too.
During a meltdown, say less: a child in meltdown is in survival mode. The thinking, reasoning part of the brain has gone offline, and words, explanations and breathing coaching rarely land. Keep it short, stay close and calm, and redirect gently with as few words as possible. The talking can come later, once they're back in green.
Check the basics first: before looking for a deeper cause, ask: is anyone hungry, angry, lonely, tired, sad, sick or stressed? Overwhelm, a packed schedule and poor sleep are some of the biggest drivers of dysregulation, for children and parents alike.
Understanding before change
A child with ADHD who struggles with big emotions isn't a problem to be fixed. They're a young person whose brain is still building its brakes, and who needs the adults around them to lend some calm while that happens.
If your whānau is finding emotional regulation hard, you don't have to work it out alone. At Empowerment Psychology, our psychologists support tamariki, rangatahi, and their families with ADHD and neurodivergence, in person in Auckland or via telehealth across Aotearoa.
