Parenting a child with ADHD is full of daily challenges, but also opportunities for growth. With mindfulness, relationship-driven support, and a focus on strengths, parents can become their children’s strongest allies.
ADHD is not a rare or isolated challenge, but a shared experience for many families. From my personal and professional work with children with ADHD and their parents, I know how heavy the journey can feel. Mornings may begin with repeated reminders that never seem to stick, evenings stretch into homework battles or bedtime struggles, and the smallest frustrations can erupt into big emotions. Over time, these daily challenges can leave parents exhausted, fearful, and filled with self-doubt.
Yet the impact of unconditional love is profound. In my coaching workshops, I use a mindfulness practice called “the first encounter,” inviting parents to recall the moment of their child’s birth. Almost all parents share the same wish: the simple desire for their child to be healthy and happy.
ADHD Awareness Month is a timely moment to reflect on how parents can support their children with evidence-based approaches such as Parent–Child Interaction Therapy and the Positive Parenting Program, as well as Collaborative & Proactive Solutions, Mindfulness-Based Parenting, Behavioural Parent Training, and the Nurtured Heart Approach, and become their children’s strongest allies.
Mindfulness-based parenting helps parents pause, reconnect with unconditional love, and meet challenges with awareness rather than reactivity. From this ground, compassion naturally arises, opening the space to notice lagging skills and unmet needs. With a growth mindset, remembering that “children do well if they can,” challenges become opportunities for growth rather than proof of failure.
Relationship-driven parenting means connecting with children through active listening, emotional regulation, respectful communication, and collaborative problem-solving. These daily practices are living demonstrations of the executive functions, such as attention, self-control, flexibility, and organisation, that children with ADHD are still developing.
Strength-focused parenting shifts the lens from what is missing to what is thriving. Transformation begins when we recognise what is going right and celebrate unique strengths.
Parenting a child with ADHD is never easy, but when parents focus on strengths and celebrate progress, families discover resilience, nurture confidence, and grow stronger together.
About the Author
Xiaolei Lu is the founder of Colourful Journeys Education Centre, based in Singapore, supporting parents and neurodivergent children among them ADHD, through mindfulness-based, relationshipdriven, and strength-focused coaching and learning support.