The Truth About ADHD, Anxiety & Opposition in Kids (That Most Parents Don’t Hear)

Introducing the Bravely Connected Method

Today is a special blog post (and a longer one). It is the presentation I did for Coventry Hills School for their parent night right here for you to glean from, because I know you’re in the trenches parents – I want you to stay brave! In this blog, I’m taking you through Bravely Connected method—a practical, compassionate approach designed to help you navigate complex behaviours like ADHD, anxiety, depression, and defiance in your children. Before we dive into the “how,” I want to take a moment to share where this method comes from and why it matters.

Where It All Began

I’ve spent the last 25 years working in the field of mental health, starting in the late 1990s on the streets of East Vancouver. Through my work with children and teens who are neurodivergent, oppositional, anxious, or struggling with depression, I started to recognize what helped—and what didn’t.

But it wasn’t just my professional experience that shaped the Bravely Connected method. My greatest lessons came from my personal life. I’m a mom. A mom who’s been in the trenches of a family mental health crisis. We’ve navigated ADHD, anxiety, depression, oppositional defiant disorder, and even hospitalization. Everything I teach is grounded in evidence-based practice, but more importantly, it’s what I lived through and still practice every day.

If you want to hear the full story, it’s in my book, Bring Them Closer, available as an audiobook on Spotify or in print on Amazon.

The Turning Point: Behavior Is Communication

The foundation of the Bravely Connected method is the belief that behaviour is communication. You may have heard this phrase before, but we’re going to explore what that really means—and how to actually get underneath the behaviour.

Let’s get practical. What behaviours are you noticing in your child? Maybe it’s impulsivity, defiance, self-harm, vaping, angry outbursts, or attention-seeking. These behaviours can be overwhelming, and the natural adult response is to try to fix them. But focusing solely on fixing behaviour can actually make things worse. It can increase anxiety, amplify ADHD symptoms, and heighten emotional disregulation.

Getting Underneath the Behaviour

So how do we get to the root of what’s really going on? We begin by asking ourselves four essential questions:

1. What behaviours am I noticing?

Start by observing your child’s actions without judgment. What patterns do you see? This step brings clarity to the surface behaviours that are asking for attention.

2. What might they be thinking?

You may not know for sure, but as their parent, you’re in the best position to guess. A child who’s acting impulsively might be thinking, I need stimulation. One who’s acting out might be wondering, Do I even matter?

3. What emotion could be attached to this?

Emotions fuel thoughts and behaviors. A desire to fit in might be masking feelings of rejection. Impulsivity could be linked to irritability from sitting too long. Children don’t act out in a vacuum—they are reacting from deep emotional places.

4. What strength do I see?

This step is often overlooked, but it’s critical. Your child isn’t just their struggle. Is there creativity, logic, or humor behind the behavior? Neurodivergent kids especially need to hear what they’re doing right to develop confidence and resilience.

What’s Really Behind the Behaviour

When we focus only on surface behaviours—like defiance or emotional outbursts—we miss the deeper layers driving them. Behaviour stems from:

Thoughts
Emotions
Core beliefs
Memories
Values
Wounds
Desires
Passions
Needs

Kids aren’t unmotivated. They’re always motivated by something—even if that something doesn’t line up with adult expectations. Our job is to discover what’s driving them.

Why Bravely Connected?

This approach isn’t a quick fix or a list of top 5 parenting hacks. Bravely Connected is for those ready to go deeper—parents who want to create lasting change by building strong emotional connections.

True behavioural change doesn’t come from punishment or rewards. It comes from connection. And connection isn’t soft or weak—it’s rooted in emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and courageous curiosity.

Neuroscience and Parenting: Why Change Takes More Than Good Advice

Our brains are shaped by our experiences. Neural pathways—formed by everything from how we were spoken to as children to the stresses we carry—create default patterns in how we respond. These patterns don’t change easily.

When someone says, “Just have a growth mindset,” it sounds great, but neuroscience tells us it’s not that simple. Neural pathways don’t rewire with good advice. They shift only when we change our experiences—especially through connection.

The Power of Attunement: Rewiring the Brain Through Connection

When we think about changing a child’s behaviour, many of us instinctively focus on discipline and correction. But as research in interpersonal neurobiology shows, real transformation doesn’t begin with behaviour—it begins with attunement.

Attunement means paying attention not just to a child’s actions but to the thoughts and emotions underneath them. Instead of reacting to the behaviour, we ask ourselves: What might they be thinking? What emotion might be attached? This approach actually rewires the brain. Rather than locking in undesirable behaviours, attunement dissolves old neural pathways and builds new ones—pathways that lead to resilience, regulation, and relationship.

This doesn’t offer a quick fix. As the speaker shared from her own experience, shifting her parenting approach took about a year before she began seeing real change. That’s why this is called the Bravely Connected Method—because it requires courage to choose long-term healing over short-term control.

Attuning Inward: Leading Yourself First

Before you can meaningfully attune to a child, we must first attune to ourselves. One of the most important practices I recommend is a daily check-in with three simple but powerful questions:

What is my resting emotional state?
What does that sound like as a sentence in my mind?
What behaviors are coming out of me as a result?

For example, during a difficult time in my family, my resting emotional state was despair. The sentence in my mind was, “This is going to be my life forever.” That thought drove behaviours like yelling—something I’m not proud of, but bravely acknowledged.

This kind of self-awareness isn’t about shame. It’s about understanding that your behaviour is also communication, just like your child’s. When your inner world is full of anxiety, stress, or hopelessness, it often leaks out—whether in yelling, irritability, or emotional withdrawal.

To truly support our children, we must become aware of how our own emotional state affects them. As the speaker explains, you cannot manage the anxiety in your child until you learn to manage the anxiety in yourself. It’s like putting on your own oxygen mask first—you become the stable presence your child needs.

Mirror Neurons and the Power of Co-Regulation

It’s important to understand that your child’s emotions can “infect” you—not because you’re weak, but because of mirror neurons in the brain. These are what cause you to feel angry when your child is angry, or anxious when they’re anxious. Our brains are wired to connect.

But this connection can either escalate chaos or cultivate calm. The more you practice self-awareness and emotional regulation, the more you’re able to be the “bottom hands” for your child. That means you’re holding space without reacting, providing the calm foundation they need to settle.

This self-management is like “taming the tornado.” When you attune to yourself—naming your emotions, your thoughts, and your resulting behaviours—you take control of the chaos instead of letting it control you.

Brave Parents Go First

Whether you see yourself as a leader or not, you are leading your children. And leaders go first.

By practicing attunement inwardly and outwardly, you are already 10 steps ahead. This approach doesn’t just help your child regulate—it helps you hold steady through the ups and downs of parenting. Even when it feels like everything is falling apart, your calm and grounded presence can begin to shift everything.

My own emotional instability—being “hot and cold” like a Katy Perry song—added to my children’s chaos. Neurodivergent children especially need consistency, and when we’re emotionally unpredictable, we unintentionally add to their disregulation. Recognizing this is not a source of guilt but a call to compassion and growth.

Rewiring the Brain With Empathy

When we attune to our children’s underlying thoughts and emotions, we help them move from the limbic system (where reactivity lives) to the prefrontal cortex (where reasoning and problem-solving live). This shift doesn’t happen through demands or discipline, but through empathy.

Empathy is what allows us to understand what’s underneath behavior, even if we don’t like the behavior itself. It’s the skill that rewires the brain, allowing both parent and child to connect and communicate more effectively. But it starts with knowing where you are, emotionally and mentally, before you engage.

And let’s be honest—many parents don’t realize how much care they need themselves. In the hardest moments of my parenting, I found myself asking myself: “As I’m holding my kids, who is holding me?” Sometimes the answer was: no one. And so, I had to learn to hold myself.

That act—of recognizing your emotional world, offering yourself compassion, and staying grounded—is a radical and healing form of self-care.

Moving Away From Fear, Control, and Punishment

Many of us were raised with a model of parenting built on fear, control, and punishment. For Gen Xers, this meant being watched constantly, punished quickly, and expected to behave or else. It was behavior modification at its most intense.

But those strategies create chaos in the minds of children who are neurodivergent, anxious, oppositional, or depressed. The old methods don’t work—and worse, they often make things worse. Yet we often revert to them unconsciously, because it’s what we know.

When our children don’t cooperate—whether it’s about putting on shoes or doing homework—we can easily fall into the trap of control. We bring in our spouse, the school principal, friends, or even the medication to try to force change. But what if the starting point wasn’t external intervention—but internal transformation?

From Control to Connection: The Shift That Transforms Parenting

When parents feel overwhelmed, it’s natural to reach for reinforcements—strategies, experts, threats, consequences. But when we rely on external controls to manage our child’s behavior, especially a child with ADHD, anxiety, or oppositional tendencies, we often miss the root issue. These children are not being defiant on purpose—they can’t control their impulses or switch off their anger. And yet, we respond by calling in the metaphorical armed forces.

The Power of Belonging Over Fear

Fear, rejection, and disconnection are often the default tools we use when we feel out of control. A child exhibits challenging behavior, and our instinct is to remove privileges, isolate them from peers, or make them feel the weight of their actions. But disconnection triggers a child’s deepest fear: abandonment. Whether it’s telling them they can’t go on a field trip or isolating them from their friends, these actions speak louder than any lecture.

The worst fear for any human, child or adult, is to be rejected by their group. Separation in response to behavior does more than discipline—it creates shame and fear.

Replacing Punishment With Relationship

It’s tempting to think that rejecting punishment means being permissive. But connection doesn’t mean being a doormat. Connection, boundaries, and discipline replace fear, control, and punishment. These three work together to build trust and shape behavior.

Connection fills the emotional cup first.
Boundaries give clear, consistent expectations.
Discipline (meaning “to teach”) teaches rather than punishes.

Discipline invites a parent to be a coach, not a judge. It says: I’m here to help you, not shame you.

The Brave Parent’s Role: Manage Yourself First

At the heart of powerful parenting is self-management. Before addressing a child’s behaviour, the brave parent checks in with their own:

What am I feeling right now?
What am I thinking about this situation?
What behavior is this leading to in me?

This attunement isn’t passive—it’s preparation. It’s the difference between reacting from fear and responding from purpose.

Focus on One Goal at a Time

Especially for parents of neurodivergent or anxious children, trying to tackle every problem at once leads to frustration and burnout. A child might struggle with getting to school, doing homework, helping with laundry, and managing social dynamics. Instead of demanding everything change at once, pick one priority—maybe this year is simply about attending school regularly. The other issues can wait.

Choosing one small, intentional goal not only respects your child’s capacity but also helps you stay grounded.

Shifting From Blame to Ownership

Powerless homes are marked by blame—blaming the mental health system, the teacher, the spouse. But powerful parenting begins with ownership. What’s mine to carry? What’s mine to release?

You are the adult. No one controls you. Not your child’s meltdowns. Not their refusal to get ready for school. You are responsible for your own responses.

And that’s where the attune-in process begins. It’s a daily discipline that helps parents stay centered, so they can respond rather than react.

Anxiety: Not a Problem, But a Signal

Before we shift into understanding ADHD and opposition, let’s pause on anxiety. One ninth-grade girl described it this way:

“Living with anxiety is like being followed by a voice that knows all your insecurities and uses them against you. It becomes the only voice you can hear.”

Anxiety, like physical pain, is a warning signal. It tells us something is wrong. If ignored, it escalates—just like ignoring pain in a twisted ankle can lead to more damage. When anxiety is dismissed or suppressed, it can grow into something pathological, sometimes requiring medical intervention.

But when anxiety is heard, it becomes manageable. And, importantly, the environment can either raise or lower it.

Belonging as the Antidote to Anxiety

Through 20 years of working in schools—teaching dance and forming student circles—the power of environment became clear. Even students with paralyzing social anxiety would surprise themselves by stepping into the dance circle. Why? Because the environment was safe. Because they felt like they belonged.

Belonging reduces anxiety. And the hardest place to feel disconnected? At home.

As Brené Brown says, the most painful experience is to feel like you don’t belong in your own family. But when connection, boundaries, and discipline are rooted in love, they offer the security children crave.

The Connection Cure: Understanding Anxiety, ADHD, and Opposition in Kids

When children struggle with anxiety, ADHD, or oppositional behavior, our natural instinct is often to fix, manage, or control their behaviour. But as we’ve explored so far, the most transformative step we can take isn’t behaviour management—it’s connection. And connection only happens when trust is present.

What Anxiety Really Needs

Anxiety flourishes when there’s no trust, and trust cannot exist without relationship. The speaker shares candidly about her own parenting experience—how a lack of trust with her children created a breeding ground for anxiety. She was focused solely on managing behavior, and the result was a household overwhelmed by anxious energy.

So, what does anxiety need from us? It needs attunement. It needs us to “attune out”—to stop looking at the behavior and instead look underneath it. The path to calming anxiety isn’t forcing kids into situations they’re not ready for, but meeting them where they are and building up from there.

Small steps matter. For example, if a child is too anxious to attend school, start with just one hour a day. Then two. Gradually build them up. This slow, steady approach honors their nervous system and helps rebuild trust.

ADHD: It’s Not Just Behavior, It’s the Brain

To understand ADHD, imagine your child’s brain as a boardroom. Every function—memory, time management, organization, emotional regulation—is a person at the table. But with ADHD, a few of those board members simply didn’t show up. The neural pathways tied to those executive functions are either underdeveloped or missing entirely.

That’s why children with ADHD may seem scattered, late, forgetful, disorganized, or quick to anger. These aren’t signs of laziness or defiance; they’re signs of underdeveloped brain pathways. But here’s the hopeful part: attunement rewires the brain.

Rewiring the Brain Through Attunement

ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but the key word is “deficit.” If attention is lacking, giving intentional, attuned attention has the power to heal.

We now know that the brain is not fixed. Neuroplasticity means we can build new neural pathways even into adulthood. The attunement parents and teachers give today can literally rewire a child’s brain, especially in the prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for problem-solving, emotional regulation, and decision-making.

Here’s the kicker: this part of the brain doesn’t fully develop until around age 25. So if your child is 5, 8, or even 15 and still struggling, that’s normal. We’re in this for the long haul.

What ADHD Needs from Us

Kids with ADHD need learning and life to stay interesting. This doesn’t mean expensive vacations. A walk, a game night, a silly dance party—these moments of joy connect and stimulate their brain in healthy ways.

They also need co-regulation. You are your child’s prefrontal cortex. Your mood, your habits, your way of handling stress—these are constantly being mirrored. Even when we get dysregulated (because we all do), we teach resilience through repair. It’s not about perfection. It’s about showing up again and again.

Reframing Opposition

When kids constantly say “no,” it’s easy to get frustrated. But opposition isn’t just defiance—it can be a sign of nonconformity, independent thinking, or leadership. These “difficult” traits, when understood, become strengths.

Oppositional kids desperately need us to manage our own moods and keep our emotional energy separate from theirs. If we get caught in a power struggle—escalating consequences, raising our voices—we miss the opportunity to model regulation.

One story shared paints this perfectly: a mother loses her temper and starts removing all her son’s belongings in a fit of frustration. The boy just stares blankly, undisturbed, while she escalates. If she had kept her mood separate from his, the power struggle could’ve been avoided entirely.

Connection Is the Goal

Especially with oppositional kids, connection must remain the goal. It’s not about obedience. It’s about truly seeing your child.

One example comes from a classroom game called I See You, where kids share strengths about each other. When a boy steps into the circle and classmates repeatedly say, “he’s the bully,” it reveals a powerful truth: what we speak, children become. If we only ever see the bad, that’s all they believe they are.

Connection is not about activities—it’s about perception. It’s about saying with your words, tone, and presence: I see you. I see beneath the behavior, and I love who you are.

Practical Tools and Resources

To support parents and educators further, the speaker offers multiple resources:

A podcast available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple, with weekly tips on connection and regulation.
Two books: Bring Them Closer for Parents and Bring Them Closer for Educators—also available in audiobook format.
Free cheat sheets for working with children who have ADHD, ODD, or anxiety. Each one contains five core strategies for daily grounding and support. Just contact me here and ask for them!

Whatever you do, parents. Keep being brave.

Keep showing up when it’s hard, loving without walls, forgiving when it hurts.

You’re going to get through this.