ADHD Morning Routine Chaos? How to Find Your Battle Zone and Fix It Without Changing Your Child

ADHD mornings don't have to be chaos. Learn how to identify your household's biggest battle zone and make one environmental shift that changes everything.

_______________________________________

Someone's crying. You're already running late. The shoes are right there but somehow invisible—and suddenly you're not just tired, you're angry. Before you've even had your coffee, you're yelling. Sound familiar?

Here's the thing: the problem isn't your child. It's not that they're not trying hard enough, and it's not that you're failing as a parent. The problem is that we keep asking kids with developing executive function to do things their brains aren't ready for—especially before medication kicks in.

In this episode, Apryl breaks down exactly how she transformed their chaotic ADHD mornings into something actually... calm. No 5 AM wake-up overhauls. No Pinterest-perfect systems. Just one strategic shift that changed everything.

What you'll learn:

• How to identify your household's biggest "battle zone" (and why you only fix ONE at a time)
• The reframe that changes everything: scaffolding isn't creating dependence
• Apryl's exact morning setup that eliminated the "go upstairs" problem
• Why removing decisions beats adding reminders every time
• The Alexa alarm system that took nagging completely off her plate

You'll walk away knowing exactly where to start—and finally believing calm mornings are possible for your family too.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Free Workshop: "When You Love Your Child But Don't Like Who You're Becoming" 
  • Register at: raisingadhd.org/workshop

Chapters

• 0:00 Morning Chaos Problem
• 1:03 Show Intro And Host Update
• 1:47 Free Workshop Invitation
• 2:36 Choose One Battle Zone
• 4:02 Why Mornings Explode
• 5:23 Scaffolding Over Willpower
• 6:34 Environment Design For Mornings
• 9:05 Clothing System And Launch Pad
• 11:05 Low-Dopamine Media And Timers
• 12:24 Body Doubling And Gentle Routines
• 13:37 Customize Your Own System
• 15:04 Slow Changes, Lasting Calm
• 15:45 Connect And Workshop Reminder
• 15:51 Closing And Listener Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Someone's crying, you're late, someone can't find their shoes, even though they're right there, and suddenly you're not just tired, you're angry. Every single morning feels like a battle you're losing before the day even starts. Today I want to show you how one small change completely changed our mornings, and how to find the one battle zone in your house that's quietly draining the life out of you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Welcome to Raising ADHD, the podcast for parents and teachers raising ADHD kids. If you've ever felt frustrated, overwhelmed, or just unsure what to do next, you're not alone. I'm April Bradford, a former teacher and ADHD mom, and alongside my husband, Dr. Brian Bradford, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, we're here to give you the clarity, strategies, and support you've been looking for. Every week we break down the misconceptions, answer your biggest questions, and share real tools you can use right away at home and in the classroom. So if you're ready to feel more confident and less overwhelmed, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04

Hey there, welcome back to the Racing U D2B podcast. I'm April Bradford, a former teacher, ADHD, household CEO. Um, quick note before we start. If the audio sounds different, I'm so sorry. That is me. I am traveling, I didn't want to miss this week, and I decided to show up imperfectly than not show up at all. So thank you for being here with me anyway. And I hate to tell you, my sidekick, Brian, is not with me today. It's me alone again today. Next week we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program with Brian and I and good audio. So, one last thing before we jump in. Can I ask you something personal? When was the last time you went to bed actually liking the mom you were that day? Not tolerating, not surviving, actually liking her. If you love your kid but you don't like who you're becoming as their parent, I get it. I've been there. And that's why I'm hosting a free workshop called When You Love Your Child But You Don't Like Who You're Becoming. In this workshop, we're going to talk all about what's really behind the anger and the guilt and the yelling and how to break that cycle without becoming someone you don't recognize. You can register for free at raisingadh.org slash workshop. The links in the show notes. Okay, let's talk real life. This episode is going to be short, but it's super important because I don't want to talk about everything today. I just want to talk about one thing that actually has changed our house. And it is not any Pinterest perfect thing. Our house is not Pinterest perfect. I think I've said that in multiple episodes. Just know our house is not Pinterest perfect. We're an ADHD household. So this is not a wake up at 5 a.m. overhaul your whole life kind of way, like gotta, you know, do all the things. No, this is real. I am a keep it simple type person, so here we go. So here's what changed everything for me. Number one, I stopped trying to fix the whole day, and instead, I chose one battle zone. One battle zone to work on. So find your battle zone. Every ADHD household has them. And usually, you're probably gonna be nodding. Here are the three. Usually it's mornings, afternoon, and bedtime. School can also be a battle zone, but we talked about school in the last episode. If school is your biggest battle zone right now, go back to the last episode because it's gonna really, really help you there. Okay, so these are usually the moments where everything blows up, where everyone's nervous system is fried, everyone's melting down, you're yelling before you've had your coffee, your kid is melting down, and you're thinking, why is this so flipping hard? Right? Going back to that workshop, you love your kid, but you sometimes hate your life. Yeah. This is one of those moments. So here's what I want you to start to notice. Where does your day constantly fall apart? That's your battle zone, okay? Or where is the one that is like making the biggest impact? Because I guarantee those ones that I listed, those are all your battle zones, but which one's the one? Like, are you late every day to work and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna lose my job if I don't get to work on time? That's your battle zone that you're gonna focus on, okay? So pick your battle zone for us. Um, we've actually worked on all of the battle zones, and legit, I can honestly say that our house is pretty dang calm. Um, in the workshop, I'm gonna share with you like the moment that like broke my heart, literally broke my heart, and made it so I changed. I figured things out, and that's what I'm gonna be sharing with you in that. Um, but so we really don't have like battle zones anymore because now we have like systems to support our battle zones. So look at the one that is really, really hard for you. I'm gonna be talking about I was looking the other day because I I see so much in like the Facebook groups and everything. Oh my gosh, our mornings are so hard. Do your kids have these problems in the mornings? And it's like, why are our mornings like pretty calm? My daughter's never been late for school. Like we're pretty like yeah, we I feel like we've I say this with quotes, got it together, right? Not all mornings look perfect, but we can still make it out the door on time. And our hair's done, and you know, things like that. So um, but they weren't always that way. They were like same as probably yours are so many reminders, sketch, do this, do this, get out the door, it's time to go, right? And then I realized something important. What's interesting as I started to look back when I was in these Facebook groups, is I was like, why are mornings not so hard? And I realized over time I have slowly implemented things. It's like, oh, I hate that she goes upstairs to get her pajamas on because then she doesn't want to go up, and I don't like going up at night, I'm tired at night too, and you know, like all these things, right? So I slowly implemented things. And here's what um I changed. I changed our environment. And here's one thing that I want you to, because you may be rolling your eyes, like, oh my gosh, I can't do this for my kid my whole life, right? Like they've got to learn to be independent, but hold hold this, hold on to this reframe, okay? Scaffolding does not mean dependence forever. Executive function skills develop about two years behind our like peers. So I stopped expecting my daughter to function like her age and started supporting her where her brain actually was, and this changed everything. So I'm gonna walk you through exactly what I changed for our mornings that made our mornings so easy. First things first, my daughter's bedroom is upstairs, and here's the rule she does not go upstairs in the morning ever. Once she's awake, she is downstairs. Everything, so in our house, um, everything's on the main floor. My bedroom's on the main floor, we have a bathroom on the main floor, right? So she does there's no reason for her to go back upstairs because if she goes upstairs, she's gonna be distracted, she's gonna be playing with toys, she's gonna be looking for a stuffy to take to school, right? She's never gonna bring her shoes down, she's not gonna get dressed. All those things we know medication hasn't kicked in. You know, you live this too. So we removed that problem. Here's what I've set up, and I have and I had this hanging in her closet in her room, but it wasn't working, and I was like, that just never works. I moved it down to my room. It's a little like a it's an organizer that just hangs in my closet that says Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then weekend. And I do this on the week on Saturday or Sunday, Saturday or Sunday. Usually I'm doing laundry and I can just plug clothes in there. Um, I fill that up for the week, and then it's just done and ready to go. So we don't have to worry about that in the mornings. Super easy. So we remove that problem by getting her clothes for the entire week into my closet. Um, so that decision making is gone, that morning friction is gone, and then her backpack um is by the back door. We go out the back door, so her backpack is by the back door, we call it the launch pad. That's where anything that's school related lives. And one thing that we're working on right now, because again, like I was telling you, this is scaffolding. We're working on um her emptying her lunchbox when she gets home so that she can start preparing that for the next day, right? So that's gonna eventually come off of me. Um, so we're still practicing, still making progress, and then same thing like with her pajamas in my dresser. She has a drawer in my dresser, so again, she doesn't have to go upstairs at night when we're doing bedtime. Um, her pajamas are in there, but also her socks and her underwear, so she never again has to go upstairs. Do you notice the pattern here? I'm not asking her to try harder. I don't even have to put like I don't have the checklist. I've done checklists, I've done that kind of stuff. I just have these things in place. Instead of asking her to try harder, we ask the house to work smarter, right? The house is set up so it works smarter for her. Another key thing to this is I stopped making mornings productive, right? And very low expectations of what I expect her to be doing. I know that when her medication isn't um like hasn't, you know, set in yet, I have to be her executive function brain for her. Um, so I am doing that for her right now. So our mornings are very simple. She eats breakfast, she watches something like Bluey. I don't let her play games or have YouTube because that's way too much dopamine that early in the morning, and it'd make it very hard to like get her to stop. But that's that's like personal preference. Like, I'm fine if she wants to watch Bluey or you know a cartoon like that. Um, I also have Alexa setup. So there's a timer that goes off that's get ready for school. I don't even have to say anything. Like she just knows, like she hears that, and like that's a trigger for her. Like, oh, I've got to get ready. It drives her crazy actually. But it is that still, she's noticing it because she's like saying, Alexa, stop, right? Um, so that's time to get ready for school, and then there's two alarms when it's time to go to school. The first one is um it says time to go to school, and if we're ready by that time, that means we can walk to school. And the second one says the same thing, time to go to school, that means we have to drive. There's no yelling, there's no negotiating here. It's literally we've put in a system that just decides horse. Okay, it's time to get ready. Okay, it's time to go. And I will say when that time to get ready alarm goes off, she may not be done with her breakfast yet. And I am also, I will say this, I don't have other little kids to get ready, which is big, and I do recognize that. Oh, like totally identify that. Like, I have her, she's my one that I have to get ready, right? But I also will do some bodily body doubling, like, okay, it's time to go to school, okay. Come in to the bathroom, it's time to brush your teeth. While she's brushing her teeth, I'm right there also getting ready. I'm putting on my makeup or I'm brushing my teeth, or so we're right there. Some mornings I have to make it a game. Sometimes I'm like, okay, let's see who can get their pants on first, and I'm like getting my pants on at the same time. So again, we're working together here instead of me like having to you know do everything or yell from downstairs to upstairs, are you dressed yet? You know, so see how see how I put these like little systems in place, right? Here's what I want you to take from this episode. Don't copy my system, obviously, it's not gonna work for you. Like, you have to look at your battle zone and look at your household and how does it function, right? So find your battle zone. We're gonna focus on one mornings after school bed dead. Which one is the one that you're like that's the biggest problem right now? And ask yourself, what is my child being asked to do here that requires the executive function that they don't fully have yet? And maybe they do if they were, you know, their medication hadn't worn off or had already kicked in. So we have to, you know, pay attention to those things too, right? And then we change the environment, not the child. That one small shift, changing the environment and not the child, and adding in that support and that that scaffolding, that's how peace and calm start in your household. Okay, so go ahead, look around, find your battle zone. How can you start? And like I said, this was slow, very slow implementation. Like I was like, oh, I'm gonna buy this organizer and hang it in her room. It never got used, right? And then one day it occurred to me like I should just hang that in my closet. And I had already had her socks and underwear in my drawer downstairs, and then I was like, oh, why am I always the one who has to go upstairs to do the clothes in the morning when I'm trying to get myself ready? And I was like, I can just put her clothes in my closet, easy, right? So start looking for those little things and just start implementing those small things, and it's the small changes like this that are going to bring that calm and reduce the chaos in your house. Alright? So I'd love to hear what battle zone you're working on. You can DM me um either on Facebook or Instagram and call me a boomer. Totally am. I'm more active on Facebook than Instagram, um, and my personal page. Just you can find me Abraham Bradford with a why. Um find me there, and then don't forget to join me in the workshop, the upcoming workshop. You can go to raisingadh.org forward slash workshop, and we'll talk about when you love your kid, but you don't like who you're becoming and you don't like your life right now. We're gonna we're gonna talk about how to fix that. So join me there, and I will see you next week with Brian and better audio. See you there.

Brian Bradford: 15:51

Thanks so much for joining us for today's conversation on raising ADHD. Remember, raising ADHD kids doesn't have to feel overwhelming. Small shifts can make a big difference. If you found this episode helpful, it would mean the world if you would hit subscribe, if you'd leave a review, or if you shared it with another parent or teacher who needs this support. And don't forget to join us next week for more real talk, practical tips, and encouragement. Until then, you got this, and we've got your back.