An ADHD diagnosis can bring up complicated feelings for parents.
Will this label follow my child? Will other people see the diagnosis before they see my child? Does a diagnosis mean something is wrong?
Or could knowing what is going on actually open a doorway to better understanding, appropriate support, and greater compassion?
In this episode of The ADHD Kids Can Thrive Podcast, Kate Brownfield, ACC, ADHD and Executive Function Parent Coach and founder of ADHD Kids Can Thrive, talks with Lorelei Brush, author of the new novel The Boy with the Butterfly Mind.
Lorelei brings both professional and personal experience to the conversation. With a background in child development and as the parent of a neurodivergent child, she has spent years thinking about what happens inside a family when a child’s behavior does not fit expectations, and parents are left trying to understand why.
Her novel explores ADHD and neurodivergence through the life of a family trying to figure out what their young son needs while also confronting their own fears, beliefs, relationships, and ideas about what a diagnosis means.
And that may be one of the gifts of fiction: sometimes we understand ourselves differently when we see pieces of our own experience reflected in someone else’s story.
Is an ADHD Diagnosis a Label or a Doorway to Help?
One idea Lorelei and I explore in our conversation is the meaning parents give to an ADHD diagnosis.
A diagnosis can feel like a stamp:
There is a problem with my child.
Parents may worry about labeling their child, lowering expectations, making ADHD their identity, or changing the way teachers, relatives, and other people see them.
Those concerns are understandable.
But a diagnosis can also become a doorway.
A doorway to understanding why certain things are harder.
A doorway to school support.
A doorway to appropriate treatment.
A doorway to understanding executive function, attention, emotional regulation, impulsivity, or learning needs.
And perhaps most importantly, a doorway away from assumptions such as:
He isn’t trying.
She doesn’t care.
He should know better.
Why can’t she do what everyone else can?
A diagnosis does not tell us everything about a child.
But when it is accurate and thoughtfully understood, it can give parents information that helps them ask a much more useful question:
What does my child need in order to thrive?
An ADHD Diagnosis Should Help Us Understand the Child
There is an important difference between explaining a struggle and defining a child by that struggle.
ADHD may help explain why a child has difficulty with attention, impulse control, working memory, transitions, organization, emotional regulation, time awareness, or follow-through.
It does not tell us who that child is.
A child is still their humor, curiosity, creativity, sensitivity, interests, relationships, strengths, ideas, and personality.
Ideally, diagnosis gives adults more context.
Instead of seeing a child who “won’t” do something, we may begin wondering whether the child can’t yet do it consistently without additional support.
Instead of simply increasing consequences, we can become more curious about the skills, expectations, environment, or accommodations involved.
That does not mean removing expectations.
It means making our expectations more informed.
Why Parents Can Have Such Strong Feelings About ADHD Labels
For many parents, the resistance to diagnosis is not really about the word ADHD.
It can be about what they fear the word means.
Sometimes parents worry their child will feel broken or different.
Sometimes a parent sees their own childhood in their child and remembers being criticized, misunderstood, or unsupported.
Sometimes family members have very different beliefs about ADHD.
One parent may want an evaluation while another believes the child simply needs more discipline or maturity.
Grandparents, teachers, friends, and extended family may bring their own assumptions too.
That is part of what makes The Boy with the Butterfly Mind interesting. Neurodivergence does not happen in isolation. It exists inside relationships, schools, marriages, extended families, communities, and generations of beliefs about children and behavior.
When one child is struggling, the whole family often has to learn and adjust.
What Happens After an ADHD Diagnosis?
Getting an ADHD diagnosis is not the end of the process.
For many families, it is actually the beginning of learning.
Parents may need to understand:
What parts of everyday life are being affected by ADHD?
Are there learning disabilities or other co-occurring challenges that should also be considered?
What does the child need from school?
What support is appropriate for homework and executive functioning?
Are expectations realistic for the child’s current developmental skills?
What helps with emotional regulation, routines, transitions, and relationships?
And what can change at home?
Rarely does one intervention solve everything.
Support may involve medical care, school accommodations, therapy when appropriate, parent education or ADHD parent coaching, executive function support, environmental changes, routines, and a better understanding of the individual child.
The goal is not to organize a child’s entire life around a diagnosis.
The goal is to use what we know to help that child participate more successfully in their own life.
Why Fiction About ADHD Can Be Healing
We have no shortage of information about ADHD.
There are books explaining executive function.
There are podcasts about emotional regulation.
Articles cover medication, homework, school accommodations, screens, sleep, and behavior.
All of that information can be incredibly valuable.
But fiction offers something different.
A story allows us to enter another family’s experience.
We get to see the misunderstandings.
The worry.
The disagreements between parents.
The moments when adults get it wrong.
The child’s experience.
And hopefully the growth that happens when people begin seeing one another differently.
Reading fiction can give us enough distance from our own family to notice what we may not have seen while standing in the middle of it.
We might recognize ourselves in a character.
We might understand our spouse differently.
We might suddenly see a situation through a child’s eyes.
And sometimes that can be healing.
The Boy with the Butterfly Mind does a wonderful job of creating that kind of reflection.
What The Boy with the Butterfly Mind Can Help Parents Think About
Lorelei’s novel follows a family confronting questions about ADHD, neurodivergence, parenting, relationships, and how to find the right support for a young child.
But underneath the story are questions many parents raising neurodivergent children eventually confront:
What if my understanding of my child’s behavior is incomplete?
What beliefs about ADHD did I inherit?
What happens when two parents see the same child differently?
When do I need to ask for help?
How do I advocate for my child without defining them by a diagnosis?
How do I trust my instincts while remaining willing to learn?
And how might I need to change too?
Those questions don’t have simple answers.
Sometimes a novel gives us a safer and more compassionate place to explore them.
A Parent Coach’s Perspective: Diagnosis Is Information, Not Identity
As both the parent of young adults with ADHD and an ADHD Parent Coach, I have lived through many different chapters of this journey.
My understanding of ADHD changed as my children grew.
And I changed too.
One thing I have come to believe strongly is that we can hold two ideas at once:
ADHD is real and understanding it matters.
And:
Our children are much bigger than ADHD.
A diagnosis can provide valuable information about how a child’s brain works and what support may help.
But the goal is never to turn ADHD into the entire story of who they are.
Our job as parents is to keep getting curious.
What is hard for my child?
What are they capable of?
Where do they need support?
Where might I need to step back?
What strengths are emerging?
What does my child need from me now, and how might that change as they grow?
That is one reason Lorelei’s message about diagnosis being either a stamp or a doorway stayed with me.
I want the diagnosis to be a doorway.
A doorway to understanding.
A doorway to support.
And ultimately, a doorway that helps a child understand themselves well enough to keep moving toward greater confidence and independence.
Listen to Lorelei Brush on The ADHD Kids Can Thrive Podcast
In this episode of The ADHD Kids Can Thrive Podcast, Lorelei Brush and Kate Brownfield discuss ADHD diagnosis, the fear of labeling a child, neurodivergence within families, parenting, and her new novel, The Boy with the Butterfly Mind.
They also explore how fiction can help parents step into another family’s experience and perhaps see their own child, parenting, and family relationships through a different lens.
Listen to The ADHD Kids Can Thrive Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.
Want to Join an ADHD Parent Book Club?
I would love to bring parents together to read The Boy with the Butterfly Mind and talk about the questions the story raises around ADHD, diagnosis, family relationships, and supporting neurodivergent children.
Sometimes the most meaningful conversations happen when we are not simply discussing another parenting strategy, but reflecting together on a story.
If you’d like to join a book club discussion, reach out through ADHD Kids Can Thrive.
Is an ADHD diagnosis harmful for a child?
An ADHD diagnosis does not define a child. When an evaluation is accurate and the diagnosis is used thoughtfully, it can help families better understand a child’s challenges and identify appropriate treatment, school accommodations, executive function support, and parenting strategies. Parents can acknowledge ADHD while still seeing the whole child.
What should parents do after their child receives an ADHD diagnosis?
Parents may want to learn how ADHD affects their individual child, explore whether learning differences or other co-occurring conditions are present, communicate with the child’s school and healthcare providers, and determine what support may be helpful at home. ADHD parent coaching can also help parents translate general ADHD information into practical support for their particular family.
Can fiction help parents understand ADHD?
Fiction can provide a different way to understand ADHD by allowing readers to experience the emotional and relational side of neurodivergence through a character or family. Stories can help parents develop empathy, recognize familiar family patterns, consider different perspectives, and feel less alone in their own experiences.
What is The Boy with the Butterfly Mind about?
The Boy with the Butterfly Mind by Lorelei Brush is a novel about a family trying to understand and support a young child showing signs of ADHD. The story explores neurodivergence, parenting, diagnosis, family relationships, differing beliefs about labels, and the process of finding appropriate help.
How can ADHD parent coaching help after a diagnosis?
ADHD parent coaching can help parents better understand what may be underneath recurring struggles, determine which expectations and supports are realistic, and develop approaches that fit their particular child and family. Coaching may address areas such as homework, executive function, emotional regulation, screens, routines, boundaries, school challenges, and parent-child conflict.
About Lorelei Brush
Lorelei Brush is the author of The Boy with the Butterfly Mind. Her background in child development, education, and her personal experience parenting a neurodivergent child inform her exploration of ADHD and family life.
Through fiction, Lorelei invites readers to consider not only what a diagnosis means, but how beliefs about neurodivergence affect children, parents, marriages, schools, and communities.
About Kate Brownfield, ACC
Kate Brownfield, ACC, is an ICF Associate Certified Coach, Certified ADHD and Executive Function Parent Coach, founder of ADHD Kids Can Thrive, author of How We Roll: A Parent’s Journey of Raising a Child with ADHD, and host of The ADHD Kids Can Thrive Podcast.
Kate supports parents raising children and teens with ADHD who are navigating executive function challenges, homework struggles, screen-time conflict, emotional regulation, routines, school challenges, boundaries, and recurring parent-child conflict.
Through private ADHD parent coaching, group coaching and community support, education, and expert podcast conversations, Kate helps parents move beyond generic ADHD advice and choose the support that best fits their child and family.
Learn more at ADHDKidsCanThrive.com.
This article and podcast are for educational purposes and are not a substitute for individualized medical or mental-health advice.