Songs That Stick: ADHD Tools with JP & Kat Rende
This week, I’m talking with Emmy-winning composers Kat Raio Rende and JP Rende, a husband and wife team who’ve written music for everyone from Elmo to the Jonas Brothers. But today we’re talking about their project Aidee, a collection of songs designed to help kids with ADHD build everyday tools through music.
I got a chance to listen through the album before the interview and it’s honestly really great. Since having my own kids I’ve had the opportunity to listen to a lot of children’s music, so I was pleasantly surprised with how good the songs actually are and how quickly the messages got into my head.
Which leads right into what we Kat, JP and I talked about in the interview - how we can use music as a tool for memory and routines, why silly songs can be powerful ADHD strategies, and how turning everyday frustrations into sticky little tunes can lower shame and raise confidence. We also get into working with ADHD but also how to navigate working with a partner who has ADHD. We also touch on breathing exercises, dealing with shame, and the parenting tightrope of empathy and boundaries.
AIDEE - Nothing Rhymes with Orange Full Album - https://www.youtube.com/@AIDEEHD
Kat & JP website - https://www.earwormny.com/
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
William Curb: I'm so happy to have you guys here with me. I've had fun. I play this playing the album for my kids this morning during breakfast and my 10 year old was like, dad, this is so cringe. And then with the minutes later, like making her stuffies dance to the music and stuff. And I was like, yeah, it's she's like, yeah. But it's it's infectious. And I'm like, that's kind of the point here. It gets in your head and it goes. So but before we get into the music and stuff, can I hear a little bit about you guys and like how you got into making this kind of music?
Kat Rende: I'm Kat and this is JP Rende. We're married. We have two kids who have ADHD and we started out writing jingles. We did a lot of jingles for toilet paper and then we ended up at Sesame Street doing a lot of educational based work and doing a lot of different TV shows for kids that focus on social emotional learning. And our kids, when they had an issue like putting their shoes in the closet when they came home and, you know, the dog ends up eating them, we were at one point we're like, take your coat, put it in the closet. And then we had songs for going and songs for slowing down. And they were just like silly songs that ended up working because they're constantly in our kids' heads. So when we realized how sticky songs work, we decided to make an album about it. And here we are.
William Curb: Awesome. Yeah. And I do find I know a lot of people with ADHD just have like little songs that they're singing to themselves about things they do to whatever it is that they was in their head at the time.
JP Rende: It's interesting that so Kat was late diagnosed as most women that have ADHD are and she was once telling me when we were dating that before she leaves the house, she has this mantra wallet key cell phone, wallet key cell phone...
Kat Rende: It was wallet, key, cell phone, awesome glasses.
JP Rende: Awesome glasses whatever! So when she said that and we started kind of exploring the album in AIDEE, that jumped at my mind. I'm like, wow, for you, that was a tool that you were using to leave the house. So let's, you know, explore that for young children so that they have those tools at an earlier age rather than a 20-something girl that's constantly leaving her tease.
Kat Rende: Oh, yeah. And for me, like it was important to make an album that was like not just for us bias, but in a way that is empathetic so that the parents try to understand their kids a little bit more, especially if they're not ADHD, to understand that like you will be forgetting your shoes in the closet for the rest of your life. But if you have a little sticky song and it's in your head when you get in that door, you will do it more often.
William Curb: Yeah. And one of the things I wrote about early on in the show is this doorway effect where if you walk through a doorway, you just can lose track of your thoughts because you're like processing this new information. The like, I walk into a new room and I'm like, why am I in this room? I don't know why I even got up. And one of the strategies I had suggested at the time was just telling yourself out loud what you're going to do. And this is seems like a much better strategy anyways, where because if I'm like getting up, going to get a hammer, going to get a hammer.
Kat Rende: Yes. And those little like this thing is like it like motivates you to keep going, right? It motivates you to continue to go where you are, not have any distractions along the way. And then when you get there and that magical threshold of a door brings you to a place where you completely forgot what's been going on for the past five minutes, you're still singing that song.
JP Rende: Do you ever find yourself when you're on your computer that you go click on your browser and you're like, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google. Like you're like, OK, that's what I need to do. Google. That's I find myself saying that out loud because, you know, you can get distracted in so many different ways.
William Curb: Even this morning when I was like sitting down, well, before I sit down, I was writing some things on my whiteboard of like things I was going to do today. And I was like, almost stopped at what I was going to do when I sat down. Like I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to get these things set up on my phone. I'm just going to go do that. And like, I'll just write that up there anyway, so that I can check it off.
It took me 20 minutes to get there. And I was like, oh, yeah, I was going to do those things. And I was like, I just sat down. How, how did it pop out of my head that fast? Because I but we're not thinking about the distractions that could come in while we're doing the things. We're like, yeah, I'm just going to go do that thing. Why would I there I need to remember something for 30 seconds? I can do that. Apparently not all the time.
Kat Rende: And when we were kids, the three of us were kids, there was nothing like a cell phone or, you know, multi apps in one place to purposefully try to get your attention. There was like, you know, you go on your phone to write in reminder. And there are still this news story, this text message, this missed call, this, you know, other to do that is has to happen right now. And that stuff never existed.
William Curb: It's like, open my phone. Oh, yeah, there was this other thing I was forgot to do 10 minutes ago that I should have been doing then. And then go forget what I was trying to do right now. Yes.
Kat Rende: And speaking of to do lists, I have listened to your podcast and not realized it when we booked it. And when it came to when I saw the podcast, I was like, oh my God, this is the what the timing or day podcast. I still am I to do this, right? How many minutes it would take? And it helps me so much to be able to like, no, okay, this activity should take 30 minutes. And now I have my own timer to, you know, say, okay, without getting distracted, I have 30 minutes to do this task and it will take that long. And like, it has changed a lot of how I live my life.
William Curb: Well, it's really funny because we both overestimate and underestimate what our time things are. Like a lot of the simple things, hanging up a code or something, I'll be like, I don't need to hang this up because that's going to take forever. So I'm going to throw it in the corner and then I have this pile of coats in the corner or unloading the dishwasher. I'm like, I don't want to unload the dishwasher now. I don't have the time to do it. I'm like, well, that actually took like seven minutes total.
And that might be me overestimating it right now. It often takes almost no time at all when I'm like actually doing it and focused on just doing that one thing. Oh, yeah, these are really easy. And then I'm like, oh, how long is it going to take me to write this episode? I'll take me like 20 minutes. Oh, no, that's just three hour process. Okay. I should have kind of realized that.
Kat Rende: Yeah.
JP Rende: Yeah.Cat's driving places. She's like, oh, yeah, it's 10 minutes. So I can, I can, I can leave, you...
Kat Rende: I can leave exactly 10 minutes.
JP Rende: We are taking. And it's a half hour drive without traffic. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, that's just, you know, that's, that's part of it. And that's kind of what led us to really want to create content that kind of starts, like I said, just at an earlier age than later, because although I personally don't officially have ADHD, I have anxiety issues, depression. So I've been in therapy for nearly my whole life. And there's a lot of commonalities in treatment, which is, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is, you know, mindfulness, mindfulness.
That's a word that's thrown around so much. But with ADHD, there is a block in that. So it's not just like, can't you just be more mindful? No, they cannot. They cannot. It's a matter of really working, working towards it and celebrating the wins. And, you know, and accepting some of the losses without judgment. And that's, that's how we navigate our relationship with each other and with our children.
Kat Rende: I was raised when something happened that was a mistake. It was like, whoops, you know, and then we fix it, reset. I mean, we, I wasn't raised like that, but I was raised to like, whoops, okay, anyway, let's move on. And I found out from meeting JP, though, like most people are not raised that way. And the idea of these mounting like fails, of course, it creates anxiety. And like JP said, like the big thing of like making music for kids with ADHD is to like the main, main, main goal, the true main goal is to get them early before the, the extra, you know, the extra co-morbidities happen, right? Because those things are way harder to fix than the, my, my like thing that I always do is, whoops, you forgive yourself immediately, you make it right. And then you find a plan.
So it's not going to happen next time. Right. And if you can do that, I mean, if you do it, if you learn it young, there's a song that we have called learning more every day. In fact, what it's all about. It's like, I may not understand everything. I may make mistakes. And then when I do whoops, that the doer fresh and it's a happy song. Like it's a, that's who I am. I do this. And if you can get that early, that's like the, I think the big, the hardest part is all like the shame that is attached to that.
William Curb: Yeah. Cause shame really defines a lot of ADHDs, more negative sides where it's like, yeah, you got to like get the, with like the keys, it's becomes this thing like, oh, yeah, I lost my keys. And then it becomes this like internalized. I can never wear or remember my keys. And that means that I can't do anything else where I might need to use my memory.
Kat Rende: And like the other thing that when you were talking about like, about the, how long it'll take to do something like that, I think that's the biggest thing to do something or like, this will only take 20 minutes. The other thing that I hope to get out of my life, my kids life, the album, the whole thing is that things may take longer when you have less spoons, right? Like if you are in a mood where you can't do it now, you might want to save that task for a time when it actually will only take 15 minutes. Like it may not have made that for you. You know, it might, it might not have been that at that time.
William Curb: Yeah, there's definitely, I have stuff that I've done about following your energy patterns and like, you don't want, we only can do so much stuff in a day. It feels like we should be able to just push through everything and just like, oh, yeah, I can work, you know, it's an eight hour work day. I should be able to do work all for full eight hours. No, that's not how your brain works at all.
Kat Rende: No.
William Curb: Especially with ADHD. But it's something that we kind of embrace it like, oh, I'm going to do stuff when I can do it best. That's going, I'm going to get the best results. And I'm sure that's really true with writing music.
JP Rende: It's not a typical eight hour work day, you know, you can't. And, and some days I will admit, you know, you're just staring at the keyboard or the computer blank and you're just like, all right, it's just not coming today. You know what? And that's it. And it's OK. Whereas if you're at a corporate job, you know, you don't have that luxury. And when you're in a creative space, you kind of got to know when is your best time to create?
And for us, it's different. You know, a years ago, I used to be a night owl. I used to do all my stuff late at night. And now I can't even stay up past 10 o'clock. You know, I'm more of a daytime worker, but not in the morning. Like I have my like my most creative hours, believe it or not, are like eleven o'clock till about four o'clock. Those and then and then that's about it.
Kat Rende: And then I was just thinking like as a like a creative person and a person who's like job feels like place sometimes when when we were at that point right after like grade school, high school, we went to music school. But like when you're when you have all day to do the thing you love, you will. I mean, you can truly take like the whole day, right? You can just morning to night, create this masterpiece. Like everything goes exactly your way. And then once you say, OK, well, now you're you have other projects or you have personal responsibilities or you have kids and they need your time. And so now like it had to get into this very tight space. And it, you know, as my daughter and my son, but most of my daughter, because she's starting to she has she's more vocal about how she feels.
As I realize that she's getting pulled in so many directions all the time. So all the time because she's eight. I realized that like if she could just stay in one space, she'd be the absolute best version of herself. However, we all need to like be pulled in directions and have these tight tight schedules sometimes. And like if I have to remember, if I can't remember to if I brush my teeth and I have to have my toothbrush on the left and move it to the right when I'm done and I'm an adult with decades of experience, how can I expect her to thrive in a short amount of time? She has to learn that too. And, you know, that's that's a that's a hard thing to learn as a parent, that your kid is your like unrefined self. We're all its beauty and all its hardships.
William Curb: Yeah, it's amazing with kids. It is funny. I have a joke with a friend of mine that kids are like the ultimate productivity hack because they teach you how to really manage your time because, oh, I suddenly half the day, I just could not do what I thought I could do because I need to be paying attention to them or I but not need I want to be paying attention to them because that's the important part of my day.
Kat Rende: Right. And it's like the place where you get to play all day.
William Curb: One of the things that I'm wondering too is so do you have any techniques that you guys use to work together, especially with, you know, one partner being ADHD and trying to manage that schedule with this creative process and trying to actually because there's also I know the creative side is great, but you there's also a business side to making sure you're communicating and getting stuff out in a timely way and all the aspects.
JP Rende: 100%. So how we work together is separate. When we're working on a television show or a project that comes across, we have a brief, there's a deadline. It's not like, okay, whenever you get it done. And we're very, very cognizant of that of hitting the deadlines. And Kat is actually way better at scheduling that stuff because she has everything down to a T. Okay. You know, so we really haven't come into any issues with meeting deadlines. Thankfully, but I do...
Kat Rende: Except for that when we like forget that the project exists. And then we're like, oh, we have to do this right now. We have an hour. But like...
JP Rende: Like that does not happen to me. Sorry, I'm just kidding.
Kat Rende: It's happened to me.
JP Rende: But going back to our process. So she has her own studio today. We're in mine. We're right across the hall. So we have a server. So one of us will start a song, then send it to the other and come back for refinement. She's the singer. So she's the last person to touch it creatively. And then we'll send it out. So we have this kind of assembly line situation going on between us. And thankfully, you're just, you're using all the tools that you've learned for so long that we're able to stay in business.
Kat Rende: Yes. And in terms of like an executive function partner, and we've never talked about this, like JP is like always there to be like, Hey, remember, you have your doctor's appointment in 15 minutes or, Hey, the kids are coming back. Who's going to take them? Hey, you know, you're, you're like whoever is working, the other person's making dinner. Whoever is working, the other person is doing the invoicing that needs to be done or things like that. But because of my systems that I have created, my, for example, gig log has this is, you know, when I've worked, this is who, who I have to invoice for things.
And JP CCs me on it. If he makes an invoice, I check it off that we have it. And the two of us tried to have as much fail safe as possible. Another on another side, personally, we have for school, we have one email address. That means that I'm get, I'm getting stuff. He's getting stuff. Then we talk, you know, we talk about it. Whoever responds, it shows that that email is not bolded anymore. Right. If you get the email, you are responsible for responding to the email.
And I highly recommend that to every set of parents, whether ADHD or not, one family email address for school stuff. And even for, I mean, bills and everything so that, like, we have a, we have a good friend who happened to miss an email and because it was only on their email address, the other parent had no idea existed. And, and that would have been like heartbreaking. And if it was something important, and that's something that has helped a lot, a lot.
JP Rende: Yeah, definitely.
William Curb: Yeah, because I mean, it sounds like you guys have a great working relationship and a great, like partnership there, creating a lot of accountability that I know sometimes I need when I'm like doing creative work or it's just like, I'm like, this is a deadline, but not this week.
Kat Rende: Yeah, right. And oh, self deadlines is a whole different thing.
William Curb: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what I was also thinking about with the, this album that you guys just wrote, like, did you, how was that process going with? Because I feel like that would have less of a, like deadline than what was, would typically you'd have.
JP Rende: For sure. Yeah, it got pushed back several times because when other projects came, came, came up, you know, we're, there's only so many hours in a day and we're like, okay, we're gonna have to push AIDEE aside again and finish over. So that, so there was a bit of compromise in finishing the project. And it also wasn't as simple as the songs are. It wasn't a quick process because we really did a lot of research and spoke with a lot of people and met with our kids therapists and really wanted to make sure that we were doing a service and not a disservice with this.
So as simple as they are, there's, there's some depth behind them and some research that we've done. So it could have taken, you know, just a couple of weeks, but, but we took, we took a while on it.
Kat Rende: Yeah, we ended up, we have this board, this like Dollar Tree board that we have on our wall and it says each of the songs, right? And it says, it was like concept, right? We wanted a, like, look back while he keys cell phone song and that's called anything else. That's our first song. And then we, you know, we wanted a song about slowing down and chilling out. And so each of those songs had slowed down, chill out and that became breathe. We had this, this became this. And so we have that, then it's like rough lyrics, final lyrics, rough production, final production, rough form, final form, rough vocals, final vocals, mix, final mix, master. And it's got all these things on it because literally you, where are we on this song? I don't know, you know, if that's hard.
JP Rende: Yeah, it was, it was, it was quite a process because we were juggling other projects at the same time.
Kat Rende: Yeah, we had like four shows at the time. I think we're doing Princess Power, Baby Shark, Sesame and, what's the fourth one?
JP Rende: And some of Gabby's Dollhouse.
Kat Rende: So we had like a lot of shows that were, hey, we have, we need a song for me. We need a song for you. So that was.
William Curb: It was funny when I was like reading the bio, I'm like, oh, I know all these song, these shows. And I'm like, and these are the shows that could clearly come out after my kids aged out of them.
JP Rende: Yes. Yeah. Well, we're finding that now too, where if anybody's listening, our kids are really into K-pop demon hunters. So we need to get on that. I don't know if you know that one. No, but yeah, our kids, like we were, we were cool for like a nanosecond with our kids. And then they're just like, eh.
Kat Rende: There was like a moment in first grade where everybody's like, everybody was brushing their song, brushing their teeth to our Elmo song, Brushi brush. And they're like, I'm brushing your teeth with your toothbrush. Like cool. And then, then yesterday, Ella was like, we were writing a song for Disney series. And Ella's like, is this for babies? And I was like, actually it is. She's like, oh, good. Okay.
William Curb: Yeah. It's very funny with how quickly they are just into new things and just.
JP Rende: It's wild. How old are your kids?
William Curb: 10 and almost eight.
JP Rende: Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a lot. ours are seven and almost nine. And so very, very similar. And you can see the transition and it's such a strange thing that like just last year, they were still little, you know, still into little things. And just a year later, they're just like, yeah, I don't need to sleep with Bun Bun anymore. I don't need to do this. And I'm just like, wow, it's interesting.
William Curb: Yeah. I'm looking at the playlist of this album, the 80s world. And I think we can definitely, we had talked earlier about talking about some of the themes in these songs, because I think there are a lot of really great themes to think about. One of the songs that immediately gave to mind to me when I was listening was the breathe, because I was listening to it. I'm like, this is really anxiety inducing in like the first three seconds. And then it like slows down. I'm like, oh, I get it.
Kat Rende: Ah, because like when you're angry and you're like, you're, we have so many ADHD people around us of all different types. We have like the inattentive, we have hyperactive, we have adult kids around and all of us are like, I need a second to breathe. I need a second to breathe. Okay, hold on. I need a second to breathe. And that's like a really angry thing to say and that's what you would say, right? Like I just need a second, right?
And mostly adults, but also kids are like, I just, I can't handle this. I need a second, I need a second to breathe. I need a second to breathe. I need a second to breathe. I need a second to breathe. I need a second to breathe. And then all of a sudden it's like this, we made the mix in Atmos on purpose. I mean, with it in mind where it all of a sudden opens for you and then you're here. And then instead of this like laser, like all I can think about is my anger and kids don't get this.
They can't put it into words, but they hear that it's all in one place, right? I'm so mad. I'm so mad and you're thinking of one thing. And then all of a sudden, once you, once you can hook yourself onto your thinking brain, your, instead of your, your angry brain, as soon as you can get back into that space, then you can hear the things around you again, right?
And even with anxiety. And so all of a sudden it opens up and now you have space. You have reverb. You have like this tempo that is like telling you, hey, I want your heart be here, right? Breathe. And then by the end of the song, it teaches you how you listen to, you listen to your heartbeat by putting your finger on your neck.
You hear it. You breathe in for two out for four. That was an old singing technique that I would use and then later teach my own students. Breathe in for three, out for six, in for four, out for, and then this tempo slows and slows and by the time you're done, it's like you can hear the world around you again and like we all get into that moment. But once you're down, then you can, then you're literally calm again. Like, and you can, your brain is not full of bees.
William Curb: Well, and it's funny too, because I had heard about breathing techniques for such a long time in my life and then learning at some point like, oh, there is like a physiological change in your parasympathetic nervous system, like activating when you're doing these like slow breathing deep breaths. And it's like, there is a point to all of this.
JP Rende: For sure. And like we talked about in the beginning of the commonalities of treatment with anxiety and ADHD and several others, breath work is paramount in everything. And there's box breathing, there's breathing like Kat was talking about and just even just trying to focus on that because with our, we're talking a lot about our daughter who's older, there is an anxiety element to her ADHD and sometimes she does get severely overwhelmed and we have to just be like, okay, let's breathe. And it's just really, really, really important.
Kat Rende: I tried a new one last night where, and this is like a really, really good one for ADHD in general, because you're always hearing things, right? You're always, you're always, it's not that you're hearing, you're not hearing voices, right? You're just hearing like sounds of people talking, conversations. You're hearing the whir of the fan on the computer, right? You're hearing the buzz of the cash registers. You're hearing, I mean, they don't consist anymore, but like you're hearing all the things and what I found if I take a giant breath and push all of my air out to the point where I'm struggling a little bit, once I let that go and I did with my daughter last night and she immediately fell asleep was everything gets quiet. It's like the first time you're medicated, like those things get quiet and you can, you're back in the world again. It's pretty great. That one also works.
William Curb: Yeah, because often ADHD kind of boils down to being this like filtering problem of I'm paying attention to everything all at once or trying to and that's why my attention's so scattered. And then this mindfulness piece comes in of, oh, I'm focusing, I'm being mindful of that I'm hearing everything, but focusing on the things I want to focus on.
Kat Rende: And that's like that. If you can get that, you are golden in my opinion. Another song that I am very, very passionate about because my son has a problem with, I can't remember it's inter-reception or proprioception, just it's I'm brain farting right now. Appropriate.
William Curb: It's your body in space.
Kat Rende: Your body in space. Inter-reception. We have a song all about inter-reception called Jelly Belly and it is where you're, the song's called, it's Mad Mad. Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, why do I feel so bad? I might be hungry, I may be tired, I might be frustrated, let's wait a while and then ask your stomach like why am I feeling this? Like our daughter had a problem with, she always thought she was going to vomit, but I think that she didn't realize that she was having, I'm hungry, I'm nervous, I'm frustrated, I'm this, that and my son gets hangry and he gets really mad and he did it the other day because if you can say, I'm mad and if you can say it in a funny way, that immediately breaks your anger itself, right?
You can kind of like, you humor it a little bit like, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, like and then once you get past that emergency, I'm in the red, then you can say, okay, am I hungry, am I tired, when our kids were little and they're crying, there was a list that you say, okay, why is my newborn crying, right? When your kids were born, you're like, okay, what is it? You know, diaper change to over-simulated, under-simulated, tired, hungry and there was like this list, right? It's most likely a diaper change, then the second priority is this and so you go through all those things and especially for ADHD parents, like if you're stressed out, all the answers may go out the door. So if you have a, why do I feel so bad, you have a list and you can say, okay, there was, it could have been all this stuff. I told JP that I wanted to say I have to pee, but we couldn't put that in song. But sometimes you're just mad because you don't realize that you've been drinking water all day and you haven't used the facilities.
William Curb: Or the opposite, you've had no water in the day and you're like, I'm completely dehydrated and it's like, oh, if I have some water, I'm going to feel at least a little bit better in a bit. I do have some trouble with my kids being, I'm like, oh yeah, if you do this, you'll feel better and they're like, I had some water, I don't feel better. I'm like, you got to wait a little bit.
JP Rende: Yeah. It's not instant.
Kat Rende: Right. And we still do it. We still go hours without drinking and then wonder why we feel so tired or mentally foggy. Oh right, I haven't drank any water literally today. But yeah, so we have that one and then we have the proverbial, don't put it down, put it right.
William Curb: Yeah, I'm just thinking about that one.
Kat Rende: I hope, I hope, I really hope and we've been, not focus testing it, but we have been sending it out to people as this is new right now. And don't put it down, put it away has not come out. But like I said, we've been sending it around. And we have heard that you go to put it down and you're like, you know, don't put it down, put it away, away, away, away, like this like very excited, like I'm doing it right guys, I'm going to put this down. And like you said, say what you're doing away, away, away, and you're taking the thing and you're going to put it away. There we are.
It is back in its place because 80 gives a high five to our future self like, hey, I'm going to do that. I'm not like, it's not a, it's not a shame based approach. It's a good for me. Like I did it. I, you know, like I put the thing away. So the hope is again, that each of these songs are meant to be in a, the moment where you're about to do something else with the thing, with your shoes, with your moving into another room, don't put it down, put it up and as you're walking, way, away, away, away, away. And they're all like sticky, silly songs that hopefully will send them all the way to the place where they have to put it away.
William Curb: Yeah. And I think it's one of the things that I always think about too with the put it away stuff is reminding my kids like, okay, we're going to find a home for this thing to live. So that way we can put it away because if we don't have a place for it to go, where's it going to go? And they're like, well, wherever. And I'm like, and then does that going to be its home? Can't be.
JP Rende: Yeah, of course.
Kat Rende: Every cheese sticks wrapper is home, apparently is on our kitchen table. Yes.
William Curb: Oh, wrappers everywhere.
Kat Rende: Wrappers. I mean, that was, that was us, right?
William Curb: Yeah. And so I think this is like a great, like definitely intro to like building your toolbox of things that you can do to help like with your ADHD, because it's not always like oftentimes when I have like people like emailing me or asking me questions, they're like, what like app should I get? Or I'm like, it's not apps, it's strategies. That's what you need.
Kat Rende: Strategies.
JP Rende: 100%. 100%. And that's, and that's our goal with this project and moving forward, you know, we want to work with foundations, we want to work with medical personnel and therapists to just kind of expand on this concept, because we're not claiming to be experts, but we have some knowledge in it and done some research, but there's so much further that we have to go. And kids, they really, you know, it's just coming out now where there's less of a stigma with it, but it's still there. It's still definitely there. And it may always be, I hope not, but if this is a way to kind of soften it a little bit, then we've done our job.
William Curb: Yeah, because we all want our kids to know how amazing they are and that, you know, even with ADHD, it's not just this deficit, it's all these amazing things they can do within their, what their brain, working with your brain so that you can do the amazing things that you're capable of.
Kat Rende: Yeah, and that first, your first episode with the building your toolbox, it was, people have talked about it since, but I don't remember it having been talked about before that, like having your, this is what I'm really good at doing, or these are the hours that I work best, or I'm really good at this, but not this. So instead of trying to get better at this, let's make this work. Like let's, you know, like my toothbrush thing, like instead of trying to say, Catherine, you never remember whether you brush your teeth, you never remember whether the contact went into which eye and where to put it back.
If you're like in middle age and you're still doing those things, it's not exactly a hard reality anymore. It does come like that, you know, but like it shouldn't be anywhere anymore, because we know so much more about ADHD. Like you're, you always, you will always have that, right? Routines do not exist, right? So you might as well do it differently and not kick yourself every time, like make it work for you. Like it's so silly not to.
William Curb: Yeah, and just figuring out, it's often it's very small tweaks to how we're doing things that can make it, make all the difference into getting things done. The example I always come back to is I had such a hard time remembering to reline the trash can after taking the trash out, and I was like, oh, what if I just take the trash out, reline it, and then take the trash?
Kat Rende: Yes, or put a whole bunch of trash bags underneath it.
JP Rende: You know, it's interesting is that that is some of the conversations that we have in our personal life where I'm just, you know, because to me, I would do that because I would forget and then I would be like, okay, so we're going to just do this and then it almost becomes obsessive with me. So I'd be to Catherine, you know, why don't you just do this? And then as soon as I suggest it, she doesn't want to do it anymore, which is also what is that called?
Kat Rende: PDA.
William Curb: Yeah.
JP Rende: Yes. Yes. So I said, now I learned not to suggest. Now I play a little like, you should not be a line of the garbage can, you should just leave it there, you know, why don't you just leave it there? Just like, no, I'm going to put it away. And I'm like, yes, no, I'm just that's a joke.
Kat Rende: But it does work.
JP Rende: But yeah, that's ultimately the goal because, you know, I was talking with my therapist yesterday about anxiety and the goal is not to get rid of it. You know, the goal is the anxiety is just we're humans and it exists. The goal is to not write stories with it. And it the same thing could be said with ADHD like it is and it's going to exist and to say, I wish I didn't have it.
You know, we want to work with what we have, give people not just kids just empowerment like, oh, I can never do this. I can never remember this and anything that has to do with my memory. I just stink and it's like, no. And with certain tools, people will get it and they'll be like, okay, I'm not so bad, you know, because shame is just a really, really toxic trait that a lot of people feel with with these. So
Kat Rende: Yeah. And I, you know, as parents, I have a hard time when I mean, I'm sure people I'm sure you've talked about this with other people, but like, I have a hard time when I'm overwhelmed. And how can you not be overwhelmed when you are at ADHD and you hear everything and your kids are both love, you know, not only like the dopamine they get from fighting with each other, but the high that you get from singing at the top of your lungs or like playing so loud that you're screaming, right? I think that I think I probably went into singing because I loved the idea of singing, like of being loud, right?
And that is, by the way, something that I highly recommend. Like, even if you don't, if you're not a good singer, like if you can just yell it out, like my mom does karaoke and she just feels really good about that. But and I'm trying to get my kids into singing, but they don't, they don't, they're great at it. Both of them have like, very good pitch, like they're totally on, they have a lot of feeling for it, they're not doing, but if your kids are doing those things, how could you not be overwhelmed?
And you just want to be like, get outside or like, you guys do this all the time or tell them what they're doing, you guys are getting excitement from yelling at each other, but you don't realize, no, you just say, I'll be right back. I'm over simulated, you know, you guys can go outside, go play, if you want to be loud, you know, go in your room and be louder. If you want to do that, you could, you know, but like, it's really important, it's really hard to do to stop, to refrain from saying, hey, being loud, you know, is terrible. No, because if you're singing loud and you're doing it for a reason, it's great.
If you are speaking up for yourself, it's great. It's not attaching shame to anything is really hard to do as first time parents and especially like millennial parents, right? Being of the age where that's what they did, like, let's go somewhere else, I don't care. We have a hard time, like we all, we have a hard time doing that. And I have a hard time not putting shame on the fact that I feel that way. But like, I just have to know that I'm doing the right things. And I'm removing myself so that I don't create a problem, right?
And like, I just hope that with the way that we treat our kids and we, you know, we still have like, these are our, this is what I expect from you, right? I don't expect you to remember it every time, but I expect if I prompt you, right, if I say, you know, what do we do every day after we, you know, we brush our teeth, what's next? Or, you know, or we have like a teeth hair deodorant. Or we have songs kind of for everything. But if we prompt, you know, we have things that we expect. If they are outside of those things, there are consequences. They may not be punishment, but like, oh man, you had to go to school without your trumpet because you forgot it again. Or you had, you had to, you know, you missed out on something that really stinks.
I'm so sorry. You know, it's not like we're not going to let them fail. But like, I do think it's important to feel like, oh man, if I had done that, it would have been so much better. But we don't, so we have boundaries, I guess, and we have like rules and stuff, but we don't have the shame. You say, okay, you know, that's, that's what happens. Not like, you stink, go to bed. At least that's the goal.
William Curb: Yeah, it's you, you want to get them to think about how we want to approach this in the future and make it all work for, because we're like, we're all a family and we want to be happy. And what, I always try to think they're trying their best. I need to try my best for them too.
Kat Rende: And it, you know, so easy. It's like I said, it's so easy to get into shame. The hope is you do that, that you celebrate your, you celebrate your wins, like, you know, I'm learning more every day. Or, you know, I'm celebrating the wins. And then if you don't, if my, if my parent may not understand that, like, I can't change this about myself. So, I got to let them know, like, there's a song in that same song, like the second verse is like, sometimes people misunderstand me, I say to them, hey, can we talk, I'll tell you what you missed, like, you missed that I actually was doing the thing you said, it's just, I was asking a clarifying question, right? Which is that's the thing that bothers, like, neurotypical parents and neurotypical teachers and friends. Like, I was asking you, sometimes like, tip, he'll be like, you know, we're not, we're not playing with sand today. Well, you didn't say Play-Doh, like, right?
William Curb: Oh, I love that one.
JP Rende: Yeah. Oh, gosh, man, you know, or you say no to one child and the other one does exactly, I'm like, do I have to literally say Ben? No, Ella, no, like, no, no, no, but, you know, there is a processing thing that can get clouded and, you know, it just takes patience. It's just, that if, if, if anything I've learned as, I guess, neurotypical, though I probably am not, is that it takes patience, it's patience and, and that's all it is, it's patience.
Kat Rende: We want them to, you know, speak up for themselves. Like, I want you to know that I wasn't, you know, that, that you missed something. Like, you don't, I want you to understand me as well. And that's something that's, that's hard to do, I think.
William Curb: Yeah, I was trying to remind my kids and like, hey, we're all gonna have things where, you know, I apologize when I make mistakes and, you know, let them know, hey, I also have trouble with these things, remembering to do things and getting things done on the wrong time and it's not just you, it's everybody. All right, so I was wondering if you guys had any final thoughts you wanted to leave the audience with?
Kat Rende: Just if your parent and your kid has ADHD, empathy is such an important part of it and celebrating the wins and creating these little mnemonics to help them remember specific things is always helpful because it's always better to work with joy.
JP Rende: Yeah, and please check out AIDEE right now on YouTube and hopefully it helps because that's, that's what we're doing it for is to be helpful to, to parents and children. Yes. What's the- Oh, youtube.com@AIDEE-A-I-D-E-E-H-D. Same thing on socials, right? And socials as well.
William Curb: All right, well, I'm going to encourage everyone to listen to the music because it is, I know growing up kids music was not always the best and sometimes I will have the kids put on stuff and I'm like, what is this? But stuff you guys made is fantastic. So I think people really enjoy it.
JP Rende: Awesome. And yeah, the album that'll be on Apple Music, Spotify anywhere.
Kat Rende: And thank you to you for your podcast because it really helps so much.
This Episode's Top Tips
For our tips today, let’s go through all those songs on the album, each of which is a tool in itself:
Anything Else - Reminding us to check if there is anything else we need when we leave the house.
Mad Mad (Jelly Belly) - which asks us to check in with ourselves when we’re feeling dysregulated and seeing if maybe we just need to take a second to take care of our basic needs
Put it Away - I think this one is pretty clear cut, don’t put it down, put it away.
Control - While one of the symptoms of ADHD is that we tend to be quite impulsive, we still have control over our actions - when you feel that impulse you can take a breath and decide if that’s what you really want to do
Learning More Everyday - We’re a work in progress and while we’ll have mistakes along the way, that’s okay
Breathe - when we’re feeling overwhelmed it’s important for us to slow down and take a second to breathe and get ourselves recenter
And remember to hear all those songs just check out the Aidee Youtube channel - link in the show notes