Children Need Hope
“One of the greatest ways that you can help a child who has ADHD is to provide hope”
– Dr. Scott Turansky.
If you’re parenting a child with ADHD, you already know how exhausting it can be. You love your child deeply but some days the constant corrections, the forgotten tasks, the explosive moments, and the daily battle to stay on track leave you feeling like you’re failing them.
You’re not failing. In fact, you’re likely doing a lot of good things. You may just need more good things or different good things because your child is unique. Neurodiversity means that your child is wired in a way that requires a specific and strategic approach.
ADHD is a real, biological condition. And parenting a child with ADHD requires a different approach – not stricter, not softer, but different. One of the greatest things you can do for your child right now is provide hope. God has a prescription for hope in Romans 5:4-5: suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. Your child needs a plan for their suffering. Once you have a plan, everything changes.
Watch this 1 hour teaching from Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN on ADHD and ways to use a heart-based approach to help children
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The Coffee Illustration
If you’re a coffee drinker you understand this concept of a threshold. You like to get that coffee pot going early in the morning so that you can have your first cup before life starts coming at you. Why? Because the caffeine raises your threshold level so that you can think more clearly and respond better to the challenges you face.
A number of medications are available to raise the threshold for the child who has ADHD. We are not medical doctors. We don’t prescribe medications nor do we evaluate them. However, we do know this. The long-term solution is to raise the character threshold and as you work to develop it in your child you will see significant growth for the long run.
Time is Your Enemy or Your Ally
The plan for character development is crucial. Each child is different, needing specific tools and strategies included in the plan. Some people say, “I’m hoping he’ll just grow out of it,” but most children don’t grow out of bad patterns. They grow into them, resulting in demandingness, manipulation, and poor anger control. If you don’t have a plan, then time is your enemy. It’s like a child who breaks a bone. Time is your enemy until you get to the doctor and the bone is set and put in a cast. Once the bone is in the cast, then time is your friend. It takes time for healing to take place. The same is true for character development. It takes time but you first must be working your plan in order for time to be your ally.
We Can Help You Develop a Plan
Creating a character development plan is so important. We have several resources to help you do just that. You’re in this for the long term. Your child needs your help. We have developed several parenting tools that break things down into small pieces. We know that a child who has ADHD needs instructions in small steps. Here are the resources we use in our counseling practice to help these kids and you can use them at home as well.
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The best way to help these kids is for parents to get into the Biblical Parenting Coaching Program. It’s an 8 week individualized program that gives you home therapy strategies that train children to make significant changes.
We’ve designed a Strategic Reading Plan to guide you through these six books in ten weeks. You can download it here.
You may want to attend a live parenting seminar in your area. You also may want some help developing a specific action plan for your child by scheduling a phone coaching consultation with Dr. Scott Turansky. And don’t forget to sign up for free email parenting tips if you haven’t done so already.
We know that it’s not just kids who lose hope, but parents also feel hopeless at times. We want to be there for you. Please take advantage of these resources and look for additional tools by stopping by here often. We’d love to be a continual source of encouragement for you as you do the difficult work of parenting.
In addition to the Biblical Parenting Coaching Program, these online courses give you practical heart-based tools you can use right now at home. The Biblical Parenting MasterClass gives you the complete framework for parenting a child with ADHD from the heart. The course will help you strengthen life skills in your child.
It’s fascinating to see the tipping point when a child’s inner sense of obligation becomes stronger than the impulsiveness or lack of focus. Good things happen and the newfound strengths bolster the child’s confidence in positive ways. But it takes training. This course will give you the training exercises you can put into practice in the daily activities of life.
The Honor course shifts focus from what your child is doing wrong to who they can become. The Parenting is Heart Work course deepens your understanding of what’s driving your child’s behavior. And if screens are adding fuel to the fire, the Technology Wellness course addresses that directly.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is Real
The children who experience Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder need help. If you’re the parent of this child, you’re the person God has placed in your child’s life to provide the hope, encouragement, and growth needed to cope in today’s society.
We believe parents are the best therapists for their children if they have a good plan. We’ve spent years developing a heart-based approach that produces significant results when it is practiced intentionally and positively.
A lot of people who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder go on to do great things. They often become leaders, inventors, and public personalities. The challenge is how to raise this child to have the character necessary to be the person God intended. There are many things that you can do, and now is the time to begin.
Josh Turansky is the son of Dr. Scott Turansky and he is a pastor and a national radio host. Josh struggled with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as a child. You might want to listen to the podcast of Josh interviewing his father on the subject of ADHD, recorded as Josh looks back on his life growing up.
ADHD fall under the umbrella of Neurobehavioral Disorders. In short, the brain’s chemical transmissions aren’t functioning efficiently enough to allow for clear concentration to take place. This child then is easily distracted by internal and external stimuli while trying to accomplish simple tasks like listening to a teacher, cleaning up a mess, or going on an errand.
In short, these children often find thinking to be hard work, and if they don’t have the internal character to overcome the challenge, they tend to fail. However, when parents practice exercises with their children, these kids learn the coping skills necessary to be successful.
Children who have ADHD are magnets for correction because they are often doing the wrong thing. They commonly live with a lot of frustration and often have explosive anger. Some children with ADHD also struggle with social cues, not picking up on the fact that they are annoying or irritating others.
Motivate Your Child
A Christian Parent’s Guide to Raising Kids Who Do What They Need to Do Without Being Told
Children with ADD or ADHD need to develop internal motivation. Specifically they need to develop that uncomforable feeling we call obligation that becoms strong enough to overcome their urges. This obligation is formed and developed in the conscience of a child.
This book takes you step by step through each area of the conscience to understand it and parent in a way that helps strengthen this internal guidance system designed by God. Spiritual development is also addressed in ways that help kids maximize their spiritual growth.
You will have a greater understanding of your child’s challenges and specific tools for casting a vision for change.
208 pages. $19.99
Motivate Your Child: Action Plan
Along your parenting journey, you’ll need plans to overcome specific, deep, challenges that your child experiences. This plan will help you address problems such as Reactive Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorders, as well as disrespect and arguing disorders.
You can call these things disorders if you like, but the solution has to do with teaching children how to address their tendencies and actually change them.
Using the same strategies God uses with his children, this book outlines a specific ACTION PLAN to develop for any child of any age with any problem. You’ll learn how to use five components to address the tendencies of a child’s heart.
The book comes with 12 audio sessions and outlines 12 meetings to have with your child to address character. 164 pages, $39.95
Parenting is Heart Work
Most kids with ADD or ADHD don’t respond to the typical reward/punishment models that are out there. A heart-based approach is far more effective. All parents want to reach the hearts of their kids, but what is the heart? This book shares the results of a study that examines the 750 times the word “heart” is used in the Bible and first asks the question, “What is the heart?” Parents find the conclusions insightful and empowering.
Then the book asks an important application question, “If that’s what the heart is, then how do we parent differently?” As parents read this book, they gain greater understanding into the heart and life of their own child, resulting in significant action steps that encourage change.
184 pages, $17.99
Parenting is Heart Work Training Manual
The routines you have in family life are strategic for heart change If you use them as therapy for character development. This one manual will guide you through an important process to develop the therapy routines in your home in common areas.
Rebuilding the heart of a child takes place in small pieces over time. The Instruction Routine, for example, teaches kids cooperation, responsiveness to authority, and responsibility. It’s not just about changing the way you give instructions. It’s about practicing the Instruction Routine over and over every day to build patterns of thinking and acting. This step alone teaches children how to focus and stay on task.
Three chapters on correction help parents reach the hearts of their kids using a Break, a Positive Conclusion, and 7 Categories of Consequences. Attitudes, and Accepting No as an Answer each take a chapter.
By practicing these techniques, heart issues in kids are addressed one step at at time.
The book comes with eight 45-minute audio sessions that complement the chapters.
212 pages, $49.95
Say Goodbye to Whining in You and Your Kids
All kids need honor but those who have ADD/ADHD benefit from it tremendously. Honor addresses selfishness and many of its manifestations. For every form of selfishness, there’s an honor-based solution.
We aren’t suggesting that the root cause of ADD is selfishness, but it is true that becoming more aware of others and focusing on what others need helps these kids make huge strides in their progress.
Kids with ADD/ADHD often end up with relational challenges and the biblical concept of honor is an excellent solution. It helps parents focus on the positive trait a child needs to develop instead of focusing on the negative traits kids need to get rid of.
196 pages, $14.99
Kids Honor Club
Using activities, Bible stories, crafts, games, and snack ideas, kids ages 3-12 learn in practical terms what it means to be an honoring person. Most children with ADD/ADHD learn best through experience. Lectures rarely produce lasting benefit. So this experience-based approach to learning the concept of honor can go a long way to teach it.
Kids learn to address their anger, speech, and meanness. They learn what honor is and how to implement it in daily life.
86 page Workbook, $29.95
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: My child was just diagnosed with ADHD. Where do I even start?
A: Take a breath. We know this moment can feel like the ground has shifted under you. But here’s what we want you to hold onto – God made your child exactly the way they are, and He has a plan for them. A diagnosis doesn’t define your child. It just gives you a clearer picture of how they’re wired so you can love them better. Start by giving yourself grace, giving your child grace, and finding a strategy built for who they actually are. You don’t have to figure it all out today. You just have to take the next step.
Q: What if my child doesn’t have a diagnosis but I suspect ADHD?
A: You only need a diagnosis if you’re trying to obtain medication or get special services from the school. Otherwise we function quite well with out an official diagnosis. We believe in parents and when they see symptoms we rely on their observations. Furthermore, the treatment is the same whether your child has a diagnosis or not. We are strengthening your child internally using a heart-based approach to help them address the biological challenges they are experiencing.
Q: I feel like I’m constantly correcting my child with ADHD and nothing ever changes. It’s wearing me out.
A: We hear you. And we want you to know that the exhaustion you’re feeling isn’t a sign that you’re doing something wrong. It’s a sign that you’ve been trying so hard for so long. The truth is, correction alone was never designed to produce lasting heart change. Your child isn’t defiant. They’re struggling. What they need most is training, patience, and a parent who refuses to give up on them. That parent is clearly you. Keep going. We can teach you how to use training to build the internal strength your child needs now. The exciting reality is that these exercises will not only help now, but they’ll provide life skills ongoing.
Q: How do I discipline my ADHD child without losing my temper or making things worse?
A: This is one of the hardest parts of parenting a child with ADHD and you’re not alone in struggling with it. When things escalate, your calm is the most powerful thing in the room. You don’t have to have the perfect response in the moment. You just have to stay steady. Short, clear, immediate responses work far better than long lectures. And when things cool down, that quiet conversation afterward – sitting close, speaking gently – is where the real connection and teaching happens. Those moments matter more than you know. And, remember, that correction alone isn’t the strongest way to bring about change. Training is much more powerful than correction alone.
Q: My child is completely consumed by screens and I don’t know how to pull them back.
A: You’re not imagining it. Screens are genuinely harder to resist for kids with ADHD because of how their brains are wired. It’s not a character flaw in your child – their brain is seeking stimulation and screens deliver it instantly. That’s why willpower alone won’t fix it. What helps is having a clear, loving plan for your whole home around technology – not just rules, but a vision for what you’re protecting. Your child’s heart, their attention, their relationships are worth fighting for. And you can do this.
Q: Some days I wonder if God gave me more than I can handle. Is there real hope for my family?
A: Yes. There is real, genuine hope for your family. Lamentations 3:22-23 reminds us that God’s mercies are new every morning. Every hard day is followed by a new one filled with fresh grace. God did not make a mistake when He placed your child in your family. He knew exactly what He was doing. You were chosen for this child. And the very things that feel like your greatest weaknesses as a parent are often the places where God does His most powerful work. You’re not alone in this.
Q: My child’s ADHD is affecting everyone in our home. The whole family is stressed and I feel like I’m failing all of them.
A: That weight you’re carrying is real. When one child’s struggles ripple through the whole family it can feel impossible to get it right for everyone. But here’s what we know – you don’t have to be a perfect parent. You just have to be a present one. Getting a clear plan that everyone in the home understands makes an enormous difference. When you’re all responding consistently and with the same approach, the tension drops and the family starts to breathe again. Please don’t carry this alone. Support is available and it genuinely helps. We like to suggest to parents that they tell the other children that God has something special planned. This is not an accident and their ability to learn to respond well to annoyance and offenses will help them greatly in years to come.
Q: My child with ADHD seems to believe something is deeply wrong with them. How do I help them see themselves differently?
A: This one breaks our hearts too. So many children with ADHD have heard corrections, reminders, and redirections so many times that they start to believe the worst about themselves. Your child needs to hear from you – often, specifically, and sincerely – what is right about them. They are not their diagnosis. They are image-bearers of God, uniquely gifted, deeply loved, and full of potential. The energy, the creativity, the passion they carry – those are gifts. Help them see it. Speak life over them every single day. Those words will stay with them long after they’ve left your home. Remember that hope is a powerful motivator for change. You can bring that hope into your child’s heart.