ADHD Parents Parenting ADHD Kids
October 21, 2025
Guiding Without Grabbing: How to Support Without Taking Over
By Carol S. Siege, PCC
Founder, Family Pathways Coaching, LLC
Parents, can you relate:
It’s homework time. The clock is ticking, and your child is stuck. They don’t know how to complete an assignment (or study for a test or apply for a job). You want to help, so – with the best intentions – you offer suggestions, reminders, and little nuggets of wisdom, all meant to provide support for your struggling child. But rather than delivering relief and momentum, your efforts yield only anger, resentment, and obstinate refusals.
I have been there on my journey raising my neurodivergent sons, and perhaps you have too. While all parents must navigate the treacherous crevasse between helping just enough and overstepping our welcome, parents of neurodivergent children must factor in the reality that our children often do need extra support to reach their goals. We also may be particularly sensitive to the possibility of their failure, having watched them fall short – and feel bad about it -- in the past.
But here’s the thing, as parents, we need to learn to hold back sometimes, even when our strongest urge is to jump in and find a solution. As explained in Psychology Today by Julia Leonard and Reut Shachnai, both affiliated with Yale University, “Help isn’t the enemy. But over-helping prevents growth. … Every time you solve a problem for a child … they may internalize … ‘You can’t handle this without me.’”
Read on for tips to avoid stepping in when you really need to be stepping back, and how to support your child without grabbing the reins.
- Scaffolding
Parents can help effectively by offering their kids tools to help develop skills. If your child is known to hyper-focus and doesn’t think to check the clock, set a timer; if they need help organizing their work, suggest a checklist with a routine of adding assignments and crossing off completed tasks. Once you have introduced the tool, though, let your child use it … or not. If they are successful, great; if they are unsuccessful, ask questions and let your child come to their own conclusions.
- Promoting Self Advocacy
The more often your child can speak up for themselves, the more confident they will feel and the more they will trust themselves to know what they need. Perhaps they need a break from intense concentration or noisy classrooms. They may need a snack or to get up and move around. Coach your child on the language to make appropriate requests and remind them it’s okay to respectfully ask for what they need.
- Is This Skill- Building or Avoiding Discomfort?
It is important to differentiate between encouraging our children to improve their abilities and allowing them to circumvent what makes them uncomfortable. When one of my sons was young, he had difficulty with the physical act of writing. I allowed him to dictate his essays, which I could type quickly for him. He learned to organize his thoughts without the added burden of putting pencil to paper, but he still had to construct his own topic sentences, supporting paragraphs, and conclusions. As he learned to keyboard, he did the same work without my assistance.
- Building Tolerance for Frustration
It’s really hard to watch our children struggle. When one of my sons was young, he had enormous trouble answering that age-old essay prompt: “What is your favorite (fill in the blank)?” He worried about making the right choice – was chocolate really his favorite ice cream flavor? Perhaps it was mint or coffee or Super Fudge Chunk… My job wasn’t to remove the obstacle – in this case, asking his teacher to change the prompt – but rather, to help him understand that the prompt was merely a suggestion to get him writing, not to make a proclamation that was set in stone. My son had to learn to manage his anxiety, and that skill grows stronger the more we use it.
- Dealing With Our Own Anxiety
When our kids are neurodivergent, we parents watch as our kids deal with rejection, frustration, or failure. And then we are often left to pick up the pieces. Repeated social, academic, or emotional challenges can leave parents feeling the need to protect their child from yet another setback. Perhaps we even feel the pressure ourselves and work to arrange our child’s world to make life easier. But it’s important to know the difference between our own anxiety about what could upset our child and a challenge our child would benefit from struggling through.
A parent’s efforts to ease the way for their neurodivergent child comes from the best intentions. We know our kids already struggle; we want to support them and see them succeed. Just remember: Success comes in different forms, and sometimes the most beneficial wins come from the highest hurdles.
