S.P.A.C.E. ADHD Group

ADHD Parent Support Group

ADHD

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SPACE Guest Speaker – Cheryl Knupfer

At our next parent and carer meet up, we are being joined by Cheryl Knupfer. Cheryl is the Strategic Lead for Autism in Stockport and is well known by many of our families.

As Greater Manchester moves towards offering services for Neurodiversity rather than focusing on ADHD, Autism etc separately, Cheryl will be coming to outline the neurodevelopmental support offer in Stockport.

Cheryl will be joining us from 7.00 pm and starting her talk soon afterwards.

If you are parenting a child with ADHD or another neurodiverse condition, you are very welcome to join us. We are primarily an ADHD parent support group and meet on the 2nd Tuesday of the month, between 7 and 9 pm. Our meet ups are informal and an opportunity for parents to meet others facing similar challenges. There is no need to pre-book and you are welcome to join us, even if your child does not have a formal diagnosis of ADHD.

Our meeting dates for the rest of 2025 are available on our website.

event flyer

Our May meet up will be at The Dog and Partridge on the A6, close to Stockport Grammar School. Postcode SK2 7AN

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ADHD and Clutter

Two areas that adults with ADHD are more likely to struggle with than their peers are finances and keeping their homes tidy. Nobody expects small children to be tidy, organised or good with money, but we generally expect those things from adults, particularly if they have children to look after.

ADHD is a lifelong condition, but much of the support and strategies for adults with ADHD is still firmly focused on increasing their ability to concentrate during the day. Many adults with ADHD also struggle in other areas and it is not commonly recognised that the root cause of these challenges could actually be their ADHD.

Decluttering with ADHD

One of the many downsides to the focus on ADHD being centred on “naughty little boys” is that the rest of the ADHD community misses out. Common challenges and patterns of behaviour for adults with ADHD are missed, ignored or written off as personal failings. Untidy homes is one of these areas.

Children are usually untidy and generally disorganised, but as they get older, the expectations on them to know where their belongings are increases. This can lead to problems at school and battles at home about messy bedrooms. By the time our children are old enough to run their own households, it is generally accepted that they will somehow have all the necessary skills to keep their homes clean and tidy. Unfortunately many people with ADHD struggle to master the necessary habits and simply don’t understand why no matter how hard they try, their homes remain out of control.

There are lots of well known books, television shows and a variety of systems for getting homes under control, but many of them fail to work for those with ADHD and the way their brains work. This can lead to embarrassment and a lack of motivation. Decluttering sessions often make people feel guilty about wasting money or involve disagreements with other family members, all of which can make this a real challenge.

Much of the common decluttering advice is to take everything out of a space, organise it and then return the items you wish to keep. Unfortunately if a person with ADHD loses focus, is distracted or is interrupted, they are often left with a bigger mess than they started with. The decluttering process often requires a lot of executive function to make decisions on what to keep and what to let go of, which can lead to decision paralysis and hinder progress.

Dana K White is an American Author and Podcaster, who managed to get her own home under control and created a system that worked for her and many others. Dana’s A Slob Comes Clean podcast featured an episode with guest Megs Crawford who talks about how Dana’s No Mess Decluttering Process can be really useful for making steady progress, without making a bigger mess.

Dana’s books are also available on Kindle and as audio books for those of you who prefer to listen.

Decluttering Books

The following is a short list of books on the topic of decluttering that you may find useful. Feel free to share your own favourites with the team.

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week

This week is Neurodiversity Celebration Week, where those with ADHD and other conditions such as Autism, Tourettes Syndrome, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia raise awareness and celebrate the positive elements of being neurodiverse.

Claire will be delivering a free online session called Myths around ADHD organised by ADHD Wise UK

Free tickets are available from Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.com/e/myths-around-adhdneurodiversity-tickets-145906800167/

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Happy New Year – Happy New Lockdown

Welcome to 2021 and less than a fortnight in, it looks as though, as parents, we’re set for at least a few more months of disruption.

For the first January in many years, we don’t have a full year’s worth of face to face meet ups in our diary, because at the moment we have genuinely no idea when we’ll be able to walk through the doors of Funky Monkey, order a coffee, sit down on their comfy chairs and chat to other parents and carers.

Whilst most face to face activities have moved online, we haven’t been able to do this with our meet ups. As a parent and carer peer space, we simply have no way to ensure that conversations wouldn’t be overheard by people in the background if we “just used Zoom instead”, so in order to maintain confidentiality and ensure that our usual safeguarding practices remained in tact, we held our breath and waited. Our private Facebook group has however remained open as a safe space for discussions.

When the first lockdown kicked in all those months ago, we assumed that our private group would be unindated with parents and carers needing support but instead we’ve found that the group has been quieter than usual. There could be a number of reasons for this but it appears that a large portion of the explanation is that when you take school attendance out of the equation, some of the stress that comes with parenting a child or young person with ADHD simply disappears. The peer group drama, the issues around detentions for late attendance or a lack of equipment, cease to be a daily discussion if children don’t go to school every day. When bullying, issues with individual teachers and school bus incidents are not part of every day life, it seems that parenting changes. I don’t personally think that this means parents are having a lovely time day in and day out, just that the challenges are different.

As a child, essentially our life is very focused around what happens at home and what happens in school, and as parents our home-life is heavily influenced by the schools our children attend and their experiences there. We’re interested to see how this changes things for our families and we’d love to know more about the ups and downs.

We’ve decided that although we can’t hold our usual meet ups online that we will do some form of online event each month to try and replicate the info share that usually takes place at the start of our meet ups. We’re currently working out the best way to do that. Facebook Live has been suggested as a good idea because it doesn’t require anybody to log in or master video calling, Facebook is also good at prompting people with reminders, Facebook rooms is also a possibility however there are downsides. Both of these options require anyone attending to use Facebook and we know that not all our families use that platform, so we’ll give it some thought and let you know what we decide to go with.

Happy New Year

Claire