Missed our June ADHDKC Parent Group meeting? ~ Or attended and want to revisit the great information shared? We’re excited to share the recording of our June Parent Group presentation, “Anxious Brains and Tools That Help,” featuring pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Dilts. In this engaging discussion, Dr. Dilts explores the powerful connection between ADHD and anxiety, helping parents better understand: * Why anxiety and ADHD so often occur together * How anxious brains process situations differently * The role of avoidance and reassurance in anxiety * Practical coping tools that help children manage stress and worry * Strategies for supporting emotional regulation at home * Evidence-based treatments for anxiety, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) * How ADHD and anxiety symptoms can overlap—and what that means for treatment Parents especially appreciated Dr. Dilts’ practical, compassionate approach to helping children build confidence, resilience, and coping skills while navigating both ADHD and anxiety. Watch or Listen Your Way You can access this presentation in whichever format works best for you: ▶️ Watch the recording right here in our newsletter 📖 Read along with the transcript below ▶️ Watch on our ADHDKC YouTube channel 🎧 Listen as a podcast on your favorite podcast platform - look for ADHD KC Conversations Whether you’re folding laundry, commuting, taking a walk, or sitting down with a cup of coffee, you can learn at your own pace. Don’t Miss Future ADHDKC Content Each month, ADHDKC brings you expert presentations, support groups, podcasts, book discussions, and practical ADHD resources for parents, adults, women, and teens. Subscribe to stay connected: * Subscribe to our newsletter for upcoming events and resources * Follow our YouTube channel for new recordings * Subscribe to the ADHD KC Conversations podcast wherever you listen to podcasts * Like and comment on our content to help others find us! The more connected you stay, the more tools, support, and community you’ll have on your ADHD journey. We hope you’ll enjoy this valuable conversation and share it with another parent who could benefit from understanding the ADHD–anxiety connection. Thanks for reading ADHDKC’s Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it. Resources & Dr. Dilts Information * Slides * Meg Foundation - megfoundationforpain.org * Dr. Dilts’ website - drjenniferdilts.com * ADHD Moms Podcast - letstalkkidshealth.org/Podcasts * Flusterclux Podcast - flusterclux.com Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Group Overview 01:58 Understanding Anxiety and ADHD 04:43 The Nature of Anxiety 07:41 Anxiety in Children and Teens 10:31 Coping Mechanisms for Anxiety 13:23 The Brain and Anxiety 16:40 Avoidance and Its Consequences 19:27 Modeling Coping Strategies 22:30 Words Matter: Validating Emotions 25:38 Normalizing Anxiety 28:28 Practical Tools for Parents 31:31 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 34:26 Modeling Emotions for Kids 38:18 Understanding and Naming Anxiety 42:44 Techniques for Regulating Stress 49:59 Assessing and Treating Anxiety in Children 55:50 Navigating ADHD and Anxiety Together Transcript AI generated - excuse the mistakes speaker (00:00) Welcome everybody as you’re joining in. Dr. Danda, did you want to introduce yourself since you’re relatively new to the group? Yes. I’m Caroline Danda and I am a psychologist. and I’ve got three kiddos that all have ADHD in some form. And so I recently joined the board of ADHD KC and very excited to help co-host the parent support group. And glad to be here because it’s just a I it’s been a long time coming because this has been such a wealth of information. everybody, I’m just gonna go over the since the CHADD agreements here and then I’ll turn it back over to Kristen. just really be kind. Be kind, be respectful. you know, be yourself, don’t try to be anyone else. what we talk about in here, we want to maintain confidentiality when appropriate. and then we are recording this. So it will go up on the website for people to be able to watch that as well. But we’re glad everybody is here. We’re super excited for the turnout. And I’ll let Kristen continue on. All right. I make her do the yucky stuff. not really yucky, but just agreements. Not always fun. but I get to talk about things that are up and coming and I’m very excited. We have several great speakers lined up. Next month will be the Smart Kids Paradox. You know, all of us who have known that kid who’s just not living up to his potential, so smart, but not doing great. Adam Tillove will talk about that. And then Sarah Ketsky will be talking about executive functioning strategies for teens the following month. And I know that will hit right as school is probably about ready to get going and parents are going to want to get their kids set for school. So that’ll be great timing. I also have the CHADD National Event Calendar. Many of the CHADD chapters like ours will post their online things and you’re welcome to join any of those. And then the new book club that Dr. Danda is co-leading is going on now. The adhdkc.org groups page has a book club group and there’s a forum there that’s discussing chapter by chapter, and they’ll wrap it up at the end on August 6th. with a Zoom talk about the whole book. So if you want to read ADHD 2 .0 or maybe just listen in on what everybody else who’s reading it is learning, I highly encourage joining that book club. So Dr. Fer Dr. Fur Doctor Jennifer Dilts is a pediatrician in the Kansas City metro area. She practices with Bloom Pediatrics, which is direct primary care, but she doesn’t do primary care. She focuses on ADHD anxiety and migraines, which don’t sound like they go together, but they really do. And I’m super excited. I’ve gotten to know her really well. Through multiple channels, and I’m excited to hear her talk tonight about anxiety and ADHD. So I’d love to take it away. Thank you. I am excited to be here. I also now get the honor of co-facilitating with Dr. Stuppy the Teen Group. And so we have a lot of fun each month in the teen ADHD KC group. So we’re talking today about anxious brains and tools that help. And as Kristen said, I’m Dr. Jennifer Dilts and I practice at Bloom Pediatrics here in Kansas City. And also as Kristen said, I treat anxiety, ADHD, headaches, migraine, and depression. And then I am also board certified in acupuncture and I do acupuncture for both kids and adults, which is really fun. The overlap, ‘cause cause as Kristen mentioned, it it seems like kind of a strange mix, but part of the overlap for me, or a big piece of the overlap and why I like treating all these conditions, is because I love teaching kids about their brains and how brains work and giving them tools, demystifying some of this so that they can have agency and feel successful. And I also, in a strange sort of way, like talking about hard emotions and negative emotions. We all have them. And so I think it’s helpful for our kids when we are able to talk about them and when we feel comfortable talking about them, then they are gonna feel more comfortable bringing up hard things with us. And the other thing that we know is that our kids, whether they’re little kids or teens, are really good at coming up with stories, and we want them to have helpful. And accurate narratives. And this is really easy to think about for me with ADHD because when a child gets an ADHD diagnosis, then a lot of times they can replace an unhelpful narrative like I’m just stupid or I’m the bad kid with no, I have ADHD. I have a fast brain. It’s harder for my brain to take that pause sometimes. And so the same thing with anxiety and other hard emotions, we want our kids to be able to understand what’s happening in their brains and how their own brains work so that they have helpful information and they’re not telling themselves other stories that that aren’t as true or aren’t as helpful. And so today we’re gonna run through how anxious brains work. It’s really interesting to me when I dig into anxiety that whether you’re four years old or 64 years old, whether you’re afraid of spiders or you’re afraid of public speaking, anxious brains tend to behave in predictable ways. And there are things that both for little kids, teens, and adults tend to help anxious brains too. And so we’re going to talk about how anxiety works and How we can help our kids with negative emotions, including anxiety, and then the most important part, tools that help with anxiety and with other difficult emotions, both for ourselves as parents and for our kids. And it may seem maybe like a little bit of a reach. I don’t know that we’re talking about this in the ADHD parenting group. This isn’t specifically an anxiety group. I also want to say that. I know Dr. Natasha Berger came and and talked to you all and her book, Managing Childhood Anxiety for Dummies, is a fantastic book. You can go back and watch her presentation that she did for ADHD KC here a few months ago. I watched it and I I think that she and I I think our presentations will go well together. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t repeating for you a lot of the info that she talked about and I I think They just kind of complement each other nicely. And what we know is that anxiety and ADHD are good friends, depending on which study, which which set of data you you look at, up to half of kids with and teens with ADHD also have an anxiety disorder. So 25 to 50% is kind of how that shakes out. And that is significantly higher than kids and teens who don’t have ADHD. Their rates of anxiety is more like 2 to 15%, sometimes as high as 25% in teens, depending on again which studies you’re looking at. But what we know is anxiety is super common, just like ADHD. And if you have one condition, you are more likely to also have that other condition. One of the lan
