Gold Medals in Coffee Losing (and Other ADHD Tales)
If there were an Olympic sport for 'Losing Your Coffee Mug While Simultaneously Explaining Phonics to a Five-Year-Old,' I’d have the gold medal. For over a decade, I just thought I was 'The Messy Teacher.' But eleven years and a diagnosis later, I’ve realized that being a mom and a teacher with ADHD isn't a weakness—it’s a superpower that just needed a better operating system.
For years, I walked into my classroom carrying the secret belief that I was a mediocre teacher who loved her job enough to keep chugging along, but thanked her lucky stars she didn’t work in a school with micromanaging admin. I knew I made beautiful, memorable connections with my students; that we started each day with a clean and joyful slate; and that every year my students grew not just academically, but emotionally and socially, as well. Despite that, I looked at the organized, systematic approaches of other teachers and felt I was lacking. I was constantly “building the airplane while flying it”, sometimes even planning and prepping the next block during the current one. I kept thinking “if anyone looks any closer, they will see that I am drowning.”
Then came Motherhood. I had my first daughter in 2021, right on the cusp of the world opening back up after the pandemic. I chose to leave the school I’d always viewed as my dream school (a private, nature-based school of magic and wonderment) to teach preschool at the childcare center we’d gotten her into. Postpartum depression hit me like a brick- I mourned the ease with which I always thought I would feel about parenting- and though I didn’t realize it at the time- I was going to miss the elementary school setting. Battling a major identity crisis, a baby who never (and still doesn’t five years later) sleep through the night, and an inability to keep up with managing my home- I finally found myself in therapy. Only a few weeks after that, when my first was 14 months old, we discovered that I was pregnant with baby number two. Everything felt impossible. The vision I had always had for myself- a joyful and gentle educator, a patient and sing-songy mother- was nowhere to be found. I felt anger toward myself over not relishing in the fact that I had everything I had ever wanted.
As it turns out, I was the only one NOT surprised by my ADHD diagnosis. My therapist helped me to discover that anxiety, depression, and ADHD can present in a confusing and tangled web… but that seeking help and tools to ease the symptoms was not a crutch at all, and rather the very thing I would want my daughters to do someday if they needed it. Fast-forward almost 3 years from that moment, and I completed the second Praxis that I’d not completed 10 years previously (THAT story for another day), was hired as a kindergarten teacher at a small rural school within the district my girls will eventually go to, and somehow began coming up with and implementing strategies and systems that have actually started to stick.
If I could go back and hug earlier versions of me…
A few months ago, we had a bout of sickness run through this house that I thought would never end. Between daycare germs and the elementary school germs, and the germs my husband brought home from coaching, I think we endured 10 solid weeks of all the illnesses. I had been juggling this idea to create some sort of year-long planning document to hopefully once and for all help me feel like I could get organized and know what I was teaching, not just today, but tomorrow, next week, and even next month. With a fevering child on my lap and a particularly ADHD hyper-focused moment combined with my meds clearly hitting just right, I started in. It was all I could think about for weeks, and it grew and grew into something that was either brilliant or insane.
Preferencing it with “Okay, so don’t think I’m crazy…” I started showing it to a few people; First my husband, who isn’t an educator, and definitely stared at it wide eyed and kind of confused; a collegue who was a mix of impressed and also a bit baffled; my best friend, who said “Woah, Nicole- people would totally buy this; and finally, my homeschooling sister who said, and I quote, “Holy THOROUGH.” And that is how the tiny seed of an idea planted itself in my chaotic brain- that maybe I could be an example and pave the way for other neurodivergent or just plain disorganized teachers to not just find systems and resources that save their sanity, but also validate their feelings and remind them that they are still amazing educators. I hope this is one of many blogs to come!
