Catholic Counseling Institute

I have a question!!!! What to you think about art or a creative practice?

4 days ago | [YT] | 5

Catholic Counseling Institute

New FREE Handout! "How To Repair After Yelling At Your Child" : Just one more of the MANY FREE resources in the CCI Resource Vault.

5 days ago | [YT] | 22

Catholic Counseling Institute

I'm working on a video for next week..... Any guesses on the title? Does it look like an interesting topic to you? Yes, my editing program use AI components to help polish PowerPoints, make graphics, brainstorm hashtags, but NO, AI does NOT write or create my content - here is further "proof". (I've had 1 or 2 comments suggesting this). Why would miss the opportunity go geek out on all these amazing topics!!!!! But THANKFULLY modern technology can help me get something polished out to you quicker! ANYWHO! .... Who is ready to talk about how art can help manage emotions .... even if you are not an artist? Wanna see my sketchbook? 😜 😉 ♥️ 👩🏻‍🎨

6 days ago | [YT] | 12

Catholic Counseling Institute

You are not imagining it. Their brain truly is wired against bedtime.
Studies show ADHD brains often produce melatonin 1 to 2 hours later than typical. Your child is not stalling to push your buttons. Their internal clock genuinely says it is still daytime. Telling them to just go to sleep does not change their biology.
And here is the harder part: all day long, ADHD brains use external stimulation (school, conversation, screens, movement) to outpace their own thoughts. When the lights go off, the noise inside finally catches them. Bedtime is when their hardest mental work begins, not ends.
Protect their sleep like a sacrament. Same wind-down time. Lights dim 30 minutes before. No screens in bed. Weighted blanket. White noise. Maybe melatonin (ask your pediatrician). Sleep is when the ADHD brain consolidates learning, regulates emotion, and resets dopamine. It is not optional.
Even God rested on the seventh day, friend. Rest is not weakness. It is built into the design of creation.
A full sleep protocol is inside the course.

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1 week ago | [YT] | 25

Catholic Counseling Institute

This is the post I wish someone had handed me when I started this work. Save it, friend.
Research is clear: ADHD raises the risk of OCD, anxiety, and rumination disorders. The same brain that cannot turn attention ON for homework often cannot turn attention OFF a worried thought. Spiritual perfectionism finds extremely fertile ground in this exact wiring.
Add in Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (a common ADHD feature where rejection registers as catastrophe), and suddenly a small moral lapse does not feel small. It feels like the end of the world. Your child is not being dramatic about confession. Their nervous system is genuinely registering it as life-and-death.
Rumination is not reverence. Replaying the same sin for three days is not piety. It is a stuck brain. Scrupulosity is a treatable mental health condition, not advanced holiness. St. Francis de Sales himself warned us to gently disobey the scrupulous thought.
A child's faith life should leave them lighter, not more terrified. Let it.
If your ADHD child is showing signs of scrupulosity, both my Catholic ADHD Parenting course AND my Scrupulosity course can help.

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1 week ago | [YT] | 31

Catholic Counseling Institute

Friend, can we talk about you for a minute?
ADHD is highly genetic (twin studies put heritability around 70 to 80 percent, on par with height). If you are raising an ADHD child, there is a real possibility you have it too. Many Catholic moms get diagnosed only AFTER their kid does. You are not alone. You are also not crazy, lazy, or failing.
The exhaustion you feel is not a character flaw. It is a real neurological cost. An undiagnosed ADHD mom parenting an ADHD child is doing one of the hardest jobs in modern life on the lowest dopamine reserves. Of course you are depleted.
The same scaffolding that helps your child helps you. Visual lists. Predictable rhythms. Fewer decisions. More sleep. Build the family system around how YOUR brain actually works, not how a Pinterest-perfect Catholic mom's brain supposedly works. (She is fictional, by the way.)
Mary did not parent Jesus alone. She had Joseph. She had the Holy Family. She had a community. The idea that one mother should hold the entire mental load of a family alone is a modern lie, not a Catholic ideal. Asking for help (therapy, medication, friendship, your husband) is not weakness. It is the design.
The course was built for both of you, friend.

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1 week ago | [YT] | 39

Catholic Counseling Institute

Okay friend, let's talk about it. Without the guilt.
Screens are a dopamine expressway. Video games, TikTok, and YouTube are engineered to flood the brain with the exact neurotransmitter the ADHD brain is short on. Your child is not addicted because they are weak. They are drawn to it because their brain is finally feeling regulated for the first time all day. That actually matters.
Zero is not the answer (cold turkey usually backfires). Neither is unlimited. The research supports clear, predictable limits paired with non-screen alternatives that ALSO produce dopamine: exercise, music, sports, building things, time outside, time with friends, time with you.
Try this language with your kid: "Screens are designed to be hard to put down, even for adult brains. So in our house, we use a timer. It is not because you are bad with screens. It is because they are good at being screens." That protects their dignity while you hold the limit.
St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body reminds us we are integrated body-soul persons. Screens fragment that integration. Protecting their attention and their imagination is part of forming a whole human, not Catholic legalism.
The course has age-by-age screen frameworks

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1 week ago | [YT] | 42

Catholic Counseling Institute

It is not because they do not love Jesus.
Mass demands one hour of everything the ADHD brain genuinely lacks. Sit still. Stay quiet. Stand on cue. Kneel on cue. Track unfamiliar words. Ignore the toddler behind you. Hold reverence for an invisible reality. For an ADHD brain, this is honestly the hardest hour of the week.
Friend, hear me on this: fidgets, holy cards, board books, and back pew seats are not failures of reverence. They are accommodations. The goal is for your child to ENCOUNTER Christ, not to perform stillness for the people staring at you.
What forms a Catholic is going. Showing up. Hearing the Gospel even imperfectly. Seeing their parents receive Communion. Years of low-pressure exposure form a Catholic. White-knuckle weekly battles often form a child who associates Mass with their own failure.
Jesus said let the children come to Him. He did not say bring them when they can sit still. Bring them. The Holy Spirit will do the forming.

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1 week ago | [YT] | 29

Catholic Counseling Institute

Catholic moms especially get socialized to not make waves. But friend, your ADHD child cannot self-advocate yet. If you do not name what they need, no one will.
Being polite and being clear are not opposites. Be both. Save this post.
→ Request a 504 plan or IEP in WRITING. Verbal conversations disappear. Written requests start a legal timeline. Email the school counselor and the principal: "I am formally requesting an evaluation for a 504 plan based on my child's ADHD diagnosis." Date it. Save it.
→ Push for the boring accommodations. Extended test time. Movement breaks. Reduced homework load. Preferential seating. Permission to use a fidget. Boring scaffolding is what actually changes outcomes.
→ You are the expert on your child. Teachers see them 7 hours. You have seen them 24 hours a day since birth. Bring data. Bring documentation. Bring your dignity. And bring it again next year.
The course has email templates, IEP language, and meeting scripts you can borrow.

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1 week ago | [YT] | 17

Catholic Counseling Institute

Could I ask a favor? We have an Instagram page and are trying to grow it in the same way you have SO AMAZINGLY helped us grow this YouTube Channel. Would you mind checking us out over there and giving us a quick follow?! Thank you!!!! ♥️

1 week ago | [YT] | 20