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No one has it all figured out. And anyone who says they do? Well, they’re lying.
This is for the women who are trying. Trying to juggle all the things. Trying to make sense of what they actually want. Trying to keep their heads above water without losing themselves in the process.
Career. Money. Relationships. The pressure to do it all. The pressure to want it all. And the moments you secretly wonder, is it just me?
Here we speak openly, laugh through chaos, and ask questions instead of pretending to have all the answers.
Because we’re all a work in progress.
Becca Chambers (00:00):
I wouldn't give up my ADHD because the strengths that come with it are huge and are my differentiators. It's what makes me really good at my job. It's what makes people like me. It's what makes my family work. It's all of the things like my ADHD. I don't want to blame it or give it credit, but those traits are so fundamental to what make me successful.
Gayle Kalvert (00:21):
This is Work in Progress. I'm your host, Gayle Kalvert, and yes, I'm a work in progress. Hey everyone, welcome to Work in Progress. Today's conversation is one I've really been looking forward to. I'm joined by Becca Chambers. I discovered Becca on LinkedIn back when she was just starting to post regularly, which wasn't that long ago. She's a leading voice on the platform now for all things marketing and communications, being a working mom, a proud daughter, which really resonated with me, but that's not all Becca shares. She's honest about her struggles with chronic pain and neurodiversity in the workplace. As you can imagine, there are a lot of ways we could take this conversation today, but I've asked Becca to join us to talk more about her experiences with ADHD and the experiences she bravely shares about her kids. Instead of seeing that as something that she needs to overcome, she's leaned all the way in. She's become an advocate for showing how neurodivergent brains can actually be a competitive advantage. What I love about Becca is she's not trying to sound perfect or polished, she's just real. She's asking the same questions a lot of us are about how to show up at work, how to parent our kids, and how to stop apologizing for how your brain works. So Becca, as I said, I am so, so glad you're here. Welcome to Work in Progress.
Becca Chambers (01:46):
Thank you. I'm super glad to be here too.
Gayle Kalvert (01:48):
You didn't know that I was just stalking you virtually.
Becca Chambers (01:51):
I didn't know. I love that. You make me feel famous.
Gayle Kalvert (01:55):
That's great. So I mentioned to you earlier, I will admit for everybody listening that I don't have a ton of experience. I have a son who has ADD, I tangentially have some experience, but it's not something that honestly, I've had to really, what should we say? It's not something that I've really had a lot of exposure to, especially in the workplace, and I really do admire how open and honest you are and how that can be a positive. Becca, like I shared with you, I don't have a ton of experience in this area. So why don't we just start at ground level. Can you just define neurodivergent for us?
Becca Chambers (02:29):
Yeah, so neurodivergent or neurodiversity is the term that describes the natural variation in how brains function. So traditionally people have talked about neurodiversity as a disorder, like ADHD or autism or dyslexia or Tourette syndrome or plenty of these other disorders. But the neurodiversity, I dunno if we want to call it a movement, people like me advocate for a shift in thinking so that just look at it as a neurological difference and that there are strengths in that, just like there are strengths in other ways that people are thinking. It's thought that 20% of the population is neurodivergent in some way. Again, that means autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia. That's twice the number of people that are left-handed and it's 20 times the number of people who have red hair. So I say that because it's a difference. It's not a bad thing and it's not a disorder.
Becca Chambers (03:32):
And just like a minority of the population are left-handed, it doesn't mean that they are disordered. It means that they have to figure out how to be left-handed in a right-handed person's world. And I think about neurodiversity in that context, and that is my favorite example to use because the world is set up for right-handed people and left-handed people. There's not something wrong with them. Their brain is just oriented differently so that they use their left hand. There are a lot of bad things that come with being a left-handed person in a right-hand person's world. There's also amazing strengths. If you're a left-handed pitcher, you are the most sought after person in the world. And I think that neurodiversity, I'm going a little bit deeper into what is neurodiversity. It is just a different way of a minority of people. Our brains think in a different way that there's research that shows that we just have more synapses or the structure of our brains are different or different parts of our brains work in different ways.
Becca Chambers (04:29):
And all it means is that the way that we synthesize information is different than the average person. And we live in a society that's built for the average person. So for us, it's harder to exist in this rigid structure. As you mentioned, I'm a diversity advocate and that's because I have ADHD. I lived my entire childhood and most of my young adult life thinking that I was stupid or that there was something wrong with me. And this is despite going to the best schools and getting really good grades, and I have two master's degrees and I still had it in my brain that there was something wrong with me. And it wasn't until I was diagnosed with ADHD that I was like, oh, now I get it. All of these things that felt hard or wrong for me, really, they were just because I am a left-handed person in a person's world, then I had kids and it became really important to me. And so if more people see what does ADHD actually look like, rather than just the impression of it being little boys that are hyper or whatever, maybe one, it could create some understanding, and two, it could make other people feel less like the I'm stupid. Why am I different kind of person? So it doesn't mean it's easy, but I think understanding all of this and why really helps people like me feel like we have a place.
Gayle Kalvert (05:43):
Yeah, that's incredible. You've changed my opinion. And also I think that my brother must be sending you checks because, and he is an advocate for left-handers in a very joking way that he's been discriminated against as a left-hander. So he's really going to love you,
Becca Chambers (05:59):
And I'm sure he is really intelligent. There's research that shows that left-handed people aren't average, have higher intelligence, by the way, that same for neurodivergent people. So there might be correlation there just saying,
Gayle Kalvert (06:09):
Okay, can we just not tell my brother that though he's paying me. He does not need anyone else to tell him why. He's great. Okay. No, that's awesome. So when did you start realizing that ADHD for you in your case, was a benefit, not a challenge that needed to be fixed?
Becca Chambers (06:29):
That's a good question. And I think that is a constant learning. I think I'm constantly learning that. And I think mostly that came out of a need for me to figure out how to frame my differences in a way that didn't scare other people that I could explain. I might be weak in these certain areas, or you might perceive me as the way that I do. Things are weird or I can't remember names and so therefore that's a bad look on me. But when I could explain the value that I brought and have words to describe why and have data that shows why it almost was a coping mechanism for me my whole life. We neurodivergent people, left-handed people in a right-handed person's world. We create structures for everything so that we can live and exist in our brains in this society. And I think the same was true in this case.
Becca Chambers (07:23):
It's like job interviews are really hard for me because I don't make eye contact with people in this same way. I'm really fidgety. I speak in circles, as you'll note on this podcast. I don't do the perfectly bulleted, I memorize my response. I can't do that. I literally cannot memorize responses and spit them back out. My mood will dictate what I say that day. That makes job interviewing very hard. So what I realize at some point is if I go in and say, Hey, I have ADHD, I'm not going to make eye contact with you. I might interrupt you. I probably won't get to the point. Feel free to interrupt me if I'm not getting to the point. It disarms people, but it's protective for me. And I think that was my first step in advocacy was just advocating for myself. And then when I had kids and I started seeing the struggles that my older son was going through in schools, it lit a fire in me to just be like, there is so much data to support why these children are amazing.
Becca Chambers (08:20):
And I lived my whole life thinking I was an idiot and I'm not going to let my son grow up feeling that way. So that's what started it. And then I created an ERG, an employee resource group at my company for neurodiversity. It was like our most active ERG. It was so fun. It was like group therapy, but this place where we could all just go unmask and the amount of, oh my God, thank you so much for creating this space and being an executive who is willing to share this, the amount that it meant to other people to just feel seen and safe. I was like, whoa, I need to talk about this more. And if I can just make one other person feel that way, then it's worth it.
Gayle Kalvert (09:00):
What are the things that you wish people knew about kids with ADHD or neurodivergent? So that's what kind of snowballed all of this and well, that's amazing. LinkedIn. Yeah, your answers are completely concise and make sense. So amazing. I have a couple of different angles I want to ask your advice on. So if you are a friend to someone because you're talking about your kids and how you grew up and didn't necessarily feel like you were smart, if it's a friend, what are things you'd want them to know?
Becca Chambers (09:38):
First of all, kids who are neurodivergent are working five times harder than a neurotypical kid to do the exact same thing. And I think that alone, if you have a neurodivergent kid who is at grade level, that kid is putting in so much more effort and is being criticized so much more along the way. And I think that's a really important thing to note because my older son, for a while, he's dyslexic, went to a school, four kids with dyslexia, and we would do this exercise where I don't have dyslexia, so I don't know what the dyslexic experience is. We would do an exercise where all the parents would basically do these things where you would experience what dyslexia was like and the frustration and all of the parents were sobbing by the end because it's like it's their own kid and they can't even understand what they're going through.
Becca Chambers (10:26):
And I think if as a parent you're watching your kids struggle, you're helping them every day and you still cannot understand what they're going through, that means the world is not even getting close to understanding what they're going through. And I think just knowing that about neurodivergent kids is really important because they are trying harder and they are getting criticized every step of the way. I watch myself doing it to my kids all the time. I am constantly correcting stuff that I know I shouldn't be doing because it's just them being themselves. That's one. Two, and I tell this to my son all of the time right now, school is hard. It's always going to be hard when somebody tells you, this is what you have to do, this is what you have to learn, this is how you have to do it. You have to sit in these hours.
Becca Chambers (11:05):
As soon as you get to start making decisions for yourself about what you're putting your energy into, you're going to be better than everybody else at it. And I guarantee that. And I think that if somebody had told me that as a kid, I could have just been like, I'm just going to survive this part. I don't have to be the smartest in school. Being smart as a sixth grader does not mean, and by smart, I mean being the best in the class is not going to dictate my future career. And so I just want to be an example to other people to say, Hey, look, I was the dumb kid in school. The oh, if Becca would just try or apply herself or whatever, I was constantly getting put out in the hallway was bad. I was diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder in middle school, which I don't have, but is very common for ADHD because we have visceral physical negative reactions to being told what and how to do things.
Becca Chambers (11:58):
I didn't know I had ADHD, so I'm just like, middle school is bad enough, struggling through all of this. And I just think how much it would've meant to me if somebody had said, you just have to survive this part and when you get to make choices, you are going to be amazing. Watch what you can do. And I tell my son that, I tell my daughter that all the time because class might suck for you this year. It might be great for you this year, but as long as you are trying, that's all I care about right now and learning enough to get going because you are going to be amazing when you get to choose what you work on. And that's because that's how our brains work. We are able to do anything as long as we want to be able to do it.
Gayle Kalvert (12:40):
I have young children too from 11 to 16, and as I said, my son has ADD and what you just said is something I'm going to hold on to and evangelize. I don't want to rail on school and all the problems at school, but I could not agree more. Becca, that as a professional who is now in the workplace, the school system is not caught up. It's so much further behind. And so what you need to do to be successful as a sixth grader and an eighth grader to your point, does not correlate to success.
Becca Chambers (13:12):
That's the thing. And actually my kids go to this amazing school now where a lot of it is neurodivergent accommodations and integrate them into regular class because what all of the data shows is that neurodivergent accommodations are better for everybody because all it does is offer flexibility. Oh, you need to stand up while you listen. Go ahead. Oh, you need to scribble. Oh, you need a blanket on your lap? Oh, you need to wear headphones. Who cares if your kids are doing that? Why can't that just be the norm? Why do kids have to sit and look forward? My son can't learn by somebody saying, Hey class, these are your four instructions. Go start. He'll just sit there and mess around until somebody comes over and is like, did you start? He's like, no, I can't start. I need help starting. And he does. And now because he's in occupational therapy, which helps a lot with ADHD stuff, and he's done, like I said, he wasn't in school for kids with dyslexia before.
Becca Chambers (14:08):
So he has done so much learning and understanding of being neurodivergent that now he knows how to advocate for himself and he's in fifth grade. And the fact that I have a fifth grader that can say to his teacher, he has a little mood board and he can just point to it on a page to be like, I don't want to talk to you right now, but I'm feeling a thing that is so cool. And I just wish that I had those tools available to me. Why don't all classes, it's not hard. It doesn't cost anything.
Gayle Kalvert (14:34):
Personally, I feel like no matter how strongly we feel about advocating for something, there are always times when I feel like, oh, it's a little risky maybe to go out boldly and talk about whatever that is. Do you ever feel now still like you're taking a risk?
Becca Chambers (14:49):
I'm at a place in my career where I feel like I can be a little bit more choosy about where I work, who I work for, the environment that I work in, all of that. 10 years ago, that might not have been the case, and now that is I can be more comfortable saying, I have ADHD because the people who are going to judge me negatively for that or who don't understand why that's a benefit, I don't care. I wouldn't want to work with them anyway. I realize not everybody has that privilege, which is also part of why I feel the need to be the advocate, because I do have that privilege and I have figured out how to navigate the world some days as a neurodivergent person who can get along fine with neurotypical people and can work in most environments with neurotypical people.
Becca Chambers (15:32):
And I can manage teams of neurotypical people, but the more I advocate even in my discomfort, the more people understand that let's not see this as disordered and let's just start seeing it as left-handed people in a right hand person's world because the stigmas even just to have the conversation is the first step. Stigmas are the second step. So have the conversation. And I will say, and for your watcher listeners, there are a lot of really great benefits that come with neurodivergent brains and for the sake of advocacy, I will tell you as an ADHD person, all of the research shows that we have heightened creativity thinking outside the box. ADHDers are 400% more likely to start a business. That's because we're entrepreneurial. Like I said, we think what's the next thing we can think in big pictures and autistic people can see in patterns and analyze things in ways that neurotypical people cannot.
Becca Chambers (16:28):
There are entire federal agencies in the UK and Australia and Israel that are entirely made up of dyslexic people and autistic people because they can do the jobs that neurotypical people just can't do. It just means that they're an important part of society as well. And now that I understand my brain and I understand how to work with my brain instead of trying to be like everybody else, which is working against my brain, I wouldn't give up my ADHD because it's the strengths that come with it are huge and are my differentiators. It's what makes me really good at my job. It's what makes people like me. It's what makes my family work. It's all of the things like my ADHD, I don't want to blame it or give it credit, but those traits are so fundamental to what make me successful that I hyper-focused. I can do four weeks worth of work in 24 hours. That's pretty cool, but I can't control it, so that's not that cool.
Gayle Kalvert (17:24):
You said working with your brain versus working against it, and what does that look like in practical terms? Working with...
Becca Chambers (17:32):
It means things like not trying to imitate other people's processes. You don't have to do things in the way that everybody else does things. Your brain knows how it wants to do things. Here's a perfect example that has nothing to do with work. My brain doesn't want to go to sleep until 2:00 AM because my best thinking happens between midnight two, no matter when I sleep, what I do, that is when my best thoughts happen, I have to be awake during that time because if my best thoughts are happening then, and I can do a lot, I need to work with my brain in that sense, but it also means I still have to get up at seven and go to work and do it every, so on the weekends I have to sleep a lot. That sucks. But I'm working with my brain instead of against it instead of trying to force myself into the exact same rigid routine that everybody else has because that works for them.
Becca Chambers (18:17):
It doesn't work for me, it's never going to work for me. I'm never going to be a get up and go to the gym in the morning kind of person. So work with your brain instead of looking at everybody else and saying, oh, why can't I do that? I have a husband that is, I'm so lucky that he is able to pick up the slack and the things that I can't do to the point that I don't even try to do them anymore because it was such a frustrating drain on me to be like, why can't I do this? Why is it so much easier for everybody else? I'm such a failure and I couldn't look at all of the stuff that I'm doing in my life that I would say is generally pretty exceptional because I was kicking myself for not going to the grocery store. And at the end of the day, my husband can go to the grocery store and he does, and he makes lunches for the kids and he makes them breakfast. And that has changed my life entirely because I can now focus on the things I can do, work with my brain, and I can put a lot more effort into the stuff that I'm really good at so I can be this exceptional mother, employee, spouse. I just can't be an exceptional homemaker.
Gayle Kalvert (19:17):
The whole premise of this show, Becca, is that none of us can be exceptional in all areas. We have to choose, in my opinion anyway, I suck at a lot of things. There are a few areas where I feel like, yeah, you know what? I'm doing pretty damn well over there, but everywhere else is not so much or I'm not interested or whatever it is. And I think we all need to let go of the idea that we need to be, you've used this term a lot, like work the way other people do or live the way other people do. I agree. And that's across the board no matter what, I think a lot of us are assuming that everybody does everything one way and what's wrong with us? What if nothing is wrong with any of us? And we all have to just figure out what works for us.
Becca Chambers (20:04):
So two things, first of all, and the working with your brain, not against it. It should not be just for neurodivergent people. I say it to neurodivergent people, it gives you permission to stop feeling bad about yourself, but that's true for everybody. Everyone is going to have things that they excel at and things that they suck at. And if you can lean into the things you excel at and outsource the things that you suck at, that will make your life so much more joyful. But you first have to be able to identify that, right? I know that these are not my strengths and they'll never be my strengths, so let me figure out systems to deal with those and I'll focus my energy and my effort on the stuff that I'm really good at because then I can be exceptionally awesome at those things.
Gayle Kalvert (20:44):
How did this go for you growing up? Were aware that this was something you were dealing with?
Becca Chambers (20:49):
No.
Gayle Kalvert (20:50):
Did your parents deal with any of this? Okay.
Becca Chambers (20:52):
No, but if you go look at my report cards, it's like I am just a typical ADHD or I was at a school for gifted kids. So gifted kids tend to have a much higher degree of neurodivergence than the general population. But I was also gifted but not profoundly gifted. Some of the kids at my school, so the profoundly gifted kids, the ones who can literally sit down and play a full symphony on a piano or they make one up in their head, really impressive stuff. Those kids get a pass for their neurodiversity because it's very obvious. Nobody even flagged me. Like I said, I got diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder because I was kind of an asshole as a middle schooler and I didn't listen in class and I didn't sit still and all these things. And instead of it being like, oh, maybe we should address some underlying issue that Becca has, it's just like Becca's just not applying herself.
Becca Chambers (21:43):
She's not trying hard enough. She's oppositional, she wants to, it was nothing but insults. Criticisms, let's say criticisms. I feel bad for my parents. I know that my mom has a lot of guilt around it now, but they didn't know. All they heard from school was that I was a bad kid and doing all these bad things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you internalize that, by the way. And what's interesting is I got diagnosed in my early twenties with ADHD, then my dad got diagnosed, then my sister and my mom surely is neurodivergent. It's very obvious. But there's so many conversations that we have where we're like, oh, hey, this is an autism thing or this is an ADHD thing and my mom's like, everybody does that. We're like, no, no, they don't, just us, just our family because we are a whole neuro spicy bunch right here.
Becca Chambers (22:31):
But to answer your question, I didn't have any of that. And it goes back to why I want to be as kind of bold and open about things with my kids so that they also see me struggle. And I think when I can contextualize that as I have no energy out of dopamine, and then my son says something like, Hey, let's put on a dopamine song that is so awesome. He's advocating for me and he knows tools that will help because he can apply those for himself too. And of course everybody else around him, our space. And you made a comment earlier about how you have a kid with ADHD and I talk to parents a lot who are really frustrated or sad or whatever, and frustration. I understand not at the kid, be frustrated at the environment that they're in because they don't have a choice.
Gayle Kalvert (23:23):
I'm curious too, what you think, Becca, because as we're talking about this, I think there's some friction between parents or people who think, while we're coddling our kids today, this has nothing to do with neurodivergence right now. It's like, okay, there's this whole school of thought. Well, we're coddling them and they're not exposed to hard things anymore. And so there is this school of thought that are we making too many accommodations and provisions for these kids? And then on the other hand, it's like, are we letting them just live and figure themselves out? What is the pushback you hear? Do you get any pushback when you are loud and proud about this?
Becca Chambers (24:02):
I think a lot of people don't necessarily agree with even the kind of education that I think most kids should have, which is a very progressive, not it's more interest-based and you're doing projects and you're connecting dots between things. So this is a perfect example. My kids' school, they're like building Mayan pyramids, but that's their math class in addition to their art class and their history class because measuring and they're building things to scale, then they're using all of their art skills and clay and paint to make it look realistic and then all of the historical stuff to make real cities. When you make education like that, that's how people actually think. That's stories. Those are the things people remember. That's how you get kids to engage rather than, here's a worksheet we're going to learn how to read here. Here's a math worksheet. I get that it's harder to track progress when school looks more like the first thing I described because you don't have the worksheets that everyone has done.
Becca Chambers (25:00):
I don't know what you're testing then you're just testing kids' ability to regurgitate information. I was just telling my husband yesterday, I got almost straight A's in college and I did all of my studying the 24 hours before a test, and if you had tested me again a week later, I would've failed it. So I got really good at learning how to regurgitate information. Did I learn anything in those classes? The ones that I was interested in and I wanted to listen to? Sure. The other ones absolutely not. And I think if we just allowed more flexibility, we would have more engaged students at all levels. And having parents who or educators who pushed back to that, to me, it tells me that they just haven't seen what that looks like. Because luckily I went to this school, very progressive school growing up. I did grow up at a school that was super progressive and had project-based stuff and we didn't have grades and things like that. You learn how to learn, and I think that's so much more important than just having information in your brain because we have access to information everywhere now. We need to know how to engage with that information and how to synthesize it and process it and apply it to the world. And I feel like if more people saw what that kind of education looked like, they would be much more for it. And I do think that that's what a lot of the neurodivergent accommodations just look like. Flexibility and interest-based learning instead of worksheets and testing.
Gayle Kalvert (26:23):
Well, I know for me, we didn't know what was going on with our son and why he wasn't doing well academically, despite the fact that we knew he was a super smart kid, like you're saying, and was thriving in all other parts of his life. So we're like, this just doesn't make any sense. And you used the word frustrated and it's like, for sure so much frustration. At first I thought, well, this is just parenting because you hear these stories like, oh, okay, it's just this or that, and you make up these stories. And then I realized something's up. And for us, luckily it was finally a teacher who saw what was going on, recognized something is up here and you should have him evaluated.
Gayle Kalvert(27:06):
We found out his IQ is unbelievably high, and I always knew his mom. I'm like, he's going to be successful no matter what. He figures out how to get the person next to him to read the thing for him. So he, because read it back when he was six. And I'm like, I'm not worried about that. That's a success factor right there, but I know that because I experienced it, Becca, and that's what happens. People have no experience, they don't know, and then they're angry at their kids or they're frustrated at their kids. Can you maybe tell us what are the maybe three or four things you should look for or might be signals for parents that, hey, you know what? If you're getting really frustrated and upset and you don't know what's up, these might be good. Or maybe somewhere to go to find out.
Becca Chambers (27:50):
Let me start with if you are having the experience you had where you're like, it feels like more than just hard. Other kids are hard, this feels different. Trust your gut, go talk to somebody, and not all teachers are right. I would say in many instances teachers will say, no, I've seen ADD. That's not what ADD looks like.
Gayle Kalvert (28:10):
We had that many times. So yeah, so it's like you talk to somebody and you don't get any help.
Becca Chambers (28:16):
Go to a specialist and you know your kid. And if you have multiple kids, you can look at your multiple kids and see how they're different, but also how they're different from their peers. The most important thing that a parent with neurodivergent kids can do is reframe their thinking. And I think for me, this was not as hard as it was for my husband because my husband is neurotypical and grew up with, these are the rules. Things are right or wrong, you do them, it's black or white. That's not how our neurodivergent family lives. Now, because I live entirely in the gray or entirely in black and white, it's either extremes or it's total fuzziness for my husband, learning to understand that about my son, it totally changed their relationship and it changed his ability to relate to him because, let me see. Dyslexia is a perfect example.
Becca Chambers (29:10):
When you're trying to get a kid to learn how to read and you show them a B over and over and over and you're like, what letter is this? And they're like a B, and then they see it in a word and they have no idea how to say it. You're like, are you just messing with me? How many times did my husband and I actually say to our son or to each other? Is he messing with us? We just said it, but we don't understand that experience. And we needed to reframe our thinking to just be like, you know what? Maybe he's just not going to learn how to read the other kids, and that's okay because there is voice to text. There is audio, it can read to you. There are so many workarounds now. And then it turned out kid learns how to read whatever, and now it's a new thing that we have to reframe sports.
Becca Chambers (29:53):
Another good example, I really struggled with sports as a kid because a lot of ADHD kids struggle with, it's the insecurity, the not having enough understanding of the rules, having a hard time with certain transitions. Team sports can be really hard for kids with ADHD, individual sports are easier swimming or things like that. We started experimenting with my son and it was really challenging for my husband to understand, why is this so hard? Why can't we do this? And it's like, because he has ADHD, these things will be harder for him. And as soon as we started to reframe and just be like, you know what? He's never going to be a basketball player. He might be six six and he's never going to be on the basketball team. Who cares? That's awesome. That's fine. Just your expectation of your children can't be what you want them to be. It's what they are. If your kid is dyslexic, guess what? They're probably not going to be a spelling bee champion. No matter how much you want them to be, not how their brain is wired, guess what? They might be the best architect that has ever walked the planet if you let them work on the stuff that their brain is oriented to work for, because those are the things that they're going to be good at.
Gayle Kalvert (31:00):
If you continue to see me smiling, it is because you are explaining my son to a T in some of that, like the individual sports versus the team sports. And the whole point of this is for me to admit the embarrassing things out loud, but I was like, oh, you don't give a shit about that soccer team. Why do we keep supporting soccer? And I wanted him to be the one to determine or say that that was, or what he was or wasn't what he wanted to do all along. I knew I'm like, he does way better with individual sports, but Becca, literally, until we were having this conversation, I didn't put that, I didn't connect that with his ADD, right?
Becca Chambers (31:39):
So many more things that are definitely your kid's, ADD or anxiety related to their ADD, which I think is another huge thing that people don't talk about is I was diagnosed with anxiety from a very young age. My anxiety is caused by my ADHD. If you tackle the ADHD, that helps tackle the anxiety. If you're just treating the anxiety, you can't just treat anxiety when it's caused by ADHD that's raging all day long and you're anxious because I feel different. This is harder for me. Why is everything easier for everybody else and for people like your son, it goes back to he doesn't have the words. He doesn't know how to, he doesn't even know why he doesn't like this or that. He just knows that he doesn't. He knows there's bad feelings in these things, and it's kind of up to us as the adults in their life to identify and help them, you know what? You don't like this thing. Let's figure out what it is about this that you don't like and let's find an alternative for it. Right? Give choice. It goes back to as long as they can have choices. It really makes such a big in the happiness of being an ADHD.
Gayle Kalvert (32:42):
It's unbelievable how much I'm learning in parenting my own children and then reparenting myself or changing my way of thinking as well.
Becca Chambers (32:53):
Most of the ADHD research has come out in the last 10 years, so most even teachers and therapists don't know half the time parents have to be our kid's best advocates because no one else is going to do it for them. I think that's the other thing is if we have the words for it, we can try to help even with our spouses, oh, yelling at him isn't going to work. Let's try this strategy instead. Because we know he has ADHD. And I do think that kids with ADHD, especially the common threads of what childhood looks like is just we are all such textbook examples of these same common themes that if you go start talking to other parents who have experienced this, you will find people with your exact same lived experience. And that's where you get the best tips for how to solve things.
Gayle Kalvert (33:42):
This is proof for it because we literally started the episode with me saying, I have not had much experience with this, and this entire episode has been a therapy session for me on parenting. So you've definitely helped me and I'm sure many, many others. I wanted to switch the vibe a little to, I have three fun questions that you don't know what I'm going to ask you. Okay. My first question is, are you coffee or tea?
Becca Chambers (34:07):
Ooh, now I'm coffee. But what's funny is I don't actually like coffee. I just like caffeine. I can't give a short answer.
Gayle Kalvert (34:15):
I don't want short answers, Becca.
Becca Chambers (34:17):
I love tea and I drink tea straight up, no milk, no sugar, just about any kind of tea. I will drink it. And when I was pregnant, I would drink tea, and then when I had babies, I started drinking coffee because lots of espresso, but I put a bunch of chocolate in it. So really it's just hot chocolate with espresso shots in it because I don't like coffee, but I do like hot chocolate.
Gayle Kalvert (34:40):
So you're just covering up the coffee taste with chocolate.
Becca Chambers (34:43):
Literally hot chocolate with three shots of espresso in it.
Gayle Kalvert (34:47):
Oh, that works for you. Okay. Always hot or iced or...?
Becca Chambers (34:50):
Always hot. This right now is cold. It's been sitting here for two hours and I'll probably drink it, but I consider iced coffee. Might as well be old coffee.
Gayle Kalvert (34:59):
This question is really great. People are polarized on this topic with the hot or the cold. I didn't know it was such a contentious...
Becca Chambers (35:05):
I heard that people in Boston only drink iced coffee no matter the season, which I find fascinating.
Gayle Kalvert (35:11):
Everyone in Boston.
Becca Chambers (35:12):
That's just a Boston thing.
Gayle Kalvert (35:14):
Okay. Alright. What is your current hype song? Happy song? You said it earlier, your dopamine. What's your dopamine hit?
Becca Chambers (35:22):
I'm kind of in a Kendrick Lamar phase right now.
Gayle Kalvert (35:25):
Love him.
Becca Chambers (35:27):
Peekaboo is the song of the moment, but mostly because it's appropriate for my kids to listen to too, so I can play it in the car. But yeah, Kendrick Lamar is my dopamine rotation of the moment, but it does change a lot, so okay, my all time dopamine song is Queen. Don't Stop Me now. It was rated by science as the happiest song. They worked out what makes things happy in your brain, and so there you go. Science validates my choice.
Gayle Kalvert (35:57):
Okay. I like it. I'll try. What is it called?
Becca Chambers (36:00):
Queen's Don't Stop Me Now.
Gayle Kalvert (36:02):
Okay, now this is kind of fun because we have this in common, your favorite show. I have to guess. Let's see if I get this right. Your favorite show to binge watch.
Becca Chambers (36:13):
You're going to guess based on my gifts?
Gayle Kalvert (36:15):
Yeah, yeah, because it's my favorite too.
Becca Chambers (36:17):
Okay, well.
Gayle Kalvert (36:18):
Should we say it at the same time and see if we're right?
Becca Chambers (36:19):
Schitt's Creek is my...
Gayle Kalvert (36:20):
Schitt's Creek. It's so good.
Becca Chambers (36:22):
So good. So Schitt's Creek is my mood inspo. And by the way, I love Schitt's Creek, don't get me wrong. And Moira, Catherine O'Hara, we hired her to do an interview with the CEO years ago. It was her first ever paid keynote thing. And so I got to write all the questions and she said one of the questions that I had him read, she started cracking up and she's like, you know what? That's really funny. She's like, no one's ever asked me that before. That's a really good, funny question. And I was like, Catherine O'Hara thinks I'm funny. I'll take it. Whatever.
Gayle Kalvert (36:55):
That's a life. What do the kids say? Like an iconic moment. Oh, I'm going to get made fun of now, 'cause I don't know the word. A canon event. A canon event.
Becca Chambers (37:02):
Oh, I haven't even heard that. I don't know, but it's Aura points or something like that. But I would say actually my favorite show. I really like The Office. I watch The Office a lot and I could always watch The Office, I would say, and then Silicon Valley. As far as, I mean that show is so good and it is so relatable and accurate and hilarious.
Gayle Kalvert (37:27):
You too. We too are tech girls, so yep, I'm with you on that. We can keep going. You got more shows you like?
Becca Chambers (37:35):
I watch a lot of TV. I will say.
Gayle Kalvert (37:36):
I do too. I love to binge watch shows.
Becca Chambers (37:38):
I need some new shows.
Gayle Kalvert (37:40):
Okay, I'll get you some. All right, Becca, we have so much more to talk about, so I hope you come back. I would love to, before we let you go, where can everybody find you?
Becca Chambers (37:50):
Obviously on LinkedIn.
Gayle Kalvert (37:52):
Obviously.
Becca Chambers (37:52):
Becca from LinkedIn, so find me there. But I also have a website. beccahasadhd.com is the easiest to remember. I need to update it. I haven't updated it in probably six months, but it has a bunch of my content and other podcast episodes and more about me and all of that.
Gayle Kalvert (38:11):
Oh, I love it. Becca, seriously, thank you so much. I was serious. I'm always honest when I said I was so excited to have you on and I had no idea that our conversation was going to help me personally as much as it has, so I'm really, really grateful for you. Thank you.
Becca Chambers (38:26):
You're welcome. And I'm happy to be the unlicensed therapist on your show for the...
Gayle Kalvert (38:32):
Oh, perfect. Yeah. Should we say we're not doctors, none of what we've said is scientific.
Becca Chambers (38:36):
No medical advice.
Gayle Kalvert (38:37):
Use it how you'd like. Yeah. Okay.
Becca Chambers (38:39):
Just authentic random ADHD thoughts.
Gayle Kalvert (38:42):
Yeah, I love it. Thank you. Alright, we'll see you soon. I hope that was helpful. If you know someone that you go to for this topic, send them my way. After all, we're just figuring this out together. See you next time.