453: Growing Up with Undiagnosed ADHD with Tara Koch
It's not easy being missed, especially when you know you're not quite relating to the world the same way your peers are. For Tara Koch, like so many in our community, the ADHD diagnosis came decades later, childhood long gone. What came with her diagnosis was an open door to learning about herself, her kids, and even set her course for a new career.
This week, ADHD coach Tara Koch joins us to talk about her experience growing up missing the ADHD diagnosis, and how ADHD has impacted her life since.
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Episode Transcript
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Pete Wright: Hello everybody, and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStoryFM. I'm Pete Wright. I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer: Hello, everyone. Hello, Pete.
Pete Wright: Oh, Nikki. Our podcast today.
Nikki Kinzer: Yay.
Pete Wright: Do you feel like... I don't know. I don't know what you'd feel like. We've known our guest for so long in so many different contexts.
Nikki Kinzer: I know. It's exciting.
Pete Wright: I feel like we're just pushing a baby bird out of the nest. That's [inaudible 00:00:40] today.
Nikki Kinzer: Go fly, little baby.
Pete Wright: Go fly, baby bird. This is so awesome. We have so many great things to talk about, so let's get right to it. But before we do that, head over to takecontroladhd.com and get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list, and we'll send you an email each time a new episode is released. Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook at takecontroladhd. As always, if this show has ever touched you or helped you make a change in your life for the better with ADHD, we invite you to check out our Patreon channel at patrion.com/dadhdpodcast. For a few bucks a month, you can join our community, get access to the members only channels over on our Discord online chat community server, and you can get access to our monthly workshops, our live streams, early access to the podcast. We're trying to invest back in the community, and the more help we get from you, the better. Thank you all for those who have already invested in this show, and thanks to those of you who are still considering. Check it out, patrion.com/adhdpodcast. HDs and ADDs.
Nikki Kinzer: HD, DD, whatever.
Pete Wright: They are there. All of them are there, to learn more.
Nikki Kinzer: That's right.
Pete Wright: Nikki Kinzer, our guest.
Nikki Kinzer: Yes.
Pete Wright: She has been a fantastic member of our community since she was a fitness coach. She was an instructor at fitness... We've known her for so long. Then, she comes to us and says, "You know what I'm going to do? I think this is awesome. I think I might get into ADHD coaching. I'm going to go." Then, she does. She puts everything into it and suddenly, boom, she's now an ADHD coach. It's Tara Koch.
Nikki Kinzer: And a great one.
Pete Wright: And a great one. We adore Tara Koch, and we are here to talk to Tara about her experience growing up and diagnosed with ADHD, what it means to be missed. It's kind of a follow-up on our last week's conversation with Dr. Frank, and we're excited to have Tara on the show and talk about her past, present and future. Tara, welcome to The ADHD Podcast.
Tara Koch: Hi. Thanks for having me. It's exciting to be here.
Nikki Kinzer: Welcome. Welcome. Yes. Well, we appreciate you sharing your story. This is a little bit different of a podcast that we've had in the past because we really want to have... You have an opportunity to share your story, because I know there's going to be so many people that are going to relate to it and understand it. Where do you want to start? Where should we begin on who you are, Tara?
Tara Koch: Well, I was born a baby.
Nikki Kinzer: Yes.
Tara Koch: I don't know if you guys have seen that Kicking & Screaming with Will Ferrell, but that's how that movie starts.
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, that's right. That's right.
Tara Koch: Well, I think a lot of it comes down to just my environment growing up. I grew up in a town that both of my parents have lived in or were born in, and my family is really big. I had a big supportive extended family and I went to a small private school and I had the same classmates from preschool to eighth grade. There started with maybe 30 of us. By the end, there was about 20 of us, but I knew those kids my whole life. I think it added a lot of stability. I knew what to expect when it came to social things with the kids in my class, because we just grew up together.
Tara Koch: Even with my teachers, this is something I never appreciated until dealing with it with my girls where every year, it seems like they have new teachers that they might have never heard of before, but I always knew my teachers going into each grade level because there was just a small staff and changes weren't constant. It was like every few years, we might have some staff changes, but you would have the same teachers year after year. I actually had one teacher from fourth grade to eighth grade who worked with me every single year. She knew all of us. There wasn't a lot of change in those aspect. Even in the middle school years where you start changing classes, we would have the one teacher would be the reading teacher basically for all of our middle school years, and the one teacher would be our social studies teacher for all of the middle school years.
Tara Koch: Even when things started to change, it was still extremely stable. I think that helped a lot that I didn't struggle because there were no surprises. There was nothing to adjust or adapt to. I was in the talented and gifted program, so my intelligence made it so that procrastinating didn't really matter because it was easy as soon as I decided to finally get to whatever the work was, I didn't struggle at all. I didn't learn studying and prioritizing skills at all because I didn't need them. Then, when I got older and I needed them, I had no idea where to start.
Pete Wright: Well, it sounds like your teachers, they knew you well enough that they realize there was no intervention really ever needed.
Tara Koch: Right. Exactly. Yeah. I think that's part of the struggle is that my ADHD wasn't negatively affecting me in those years, but I missed out on learning so many of those skills that I would need later on because they didn't come in handy. They weren't necessary then.
Pete Wright: True. It's like [inaudible 00:06:18] myself to building a brick wall with maybe 65% of the bricks. There are just these massive holes that you don't really notice if the wall still builds if it's still there. It's just a less functional wall.
Tara Koch: Yes. Exactly. Then, things were easy basically until they weren't anymore. I got to that point where my intelligence couldn't make up for my lack of organizing and study skills like into high school and college where it just got a lot harder.
Nikki Kinzer: What happened with going to high school? Because I know from talking to you, you moved. You went from a very small community of students and teachers to what we would consider like a normal kind of public high school? Yeah. What did that look like?
Tara Koch: My freshman year, I went to the local high school in my hometown. It was like in that period, that first semester that my dad got a job in South Carolina. It was actually halfway through my freshman year, so I did have this transition to from small private school to large public high school. That was a little jarring, but I still had some of my kids that I grew up with at that school. I was a cheerleader, and so I had that to keep me going, but then when I went from that to the school in South Carolina, it was just a completely different situation because I knew nobody and it was a much, much larger school. It was really like the size of a small college campus. There were multiple buildings and it was really overwhelming.
Nikki Kinzer: Wow.
Tara Koch: Yeah. That was a huge change because I was in a new place with new people and everything at home was different. That's when things started to get really hard because I didn't have any coping mechanisms because I never needed coping mechanisms in the previous situation. It's like even though nothing bad was happening, then it's like I missed out on all of those skills. Then, when things got harder, I didn't have any of them. That's one reason I keep an eye on those things with my daughters, because they're kind of in that state right now where everything is fine, but I know that there's things that are getting missed because they are smart enough to work around it the way that I was. I'm hoping I can fill in those gaps for them.
Nikki Kinzer: What were some of the things that you noticed that when you did go to the larger high school that you struggled with? What were some of the difficulties?
Tara Koch: I know a lot of it was just feeling overwhelmed by how big everything was. Even in high school, I did still do pretty well with the academic portion of it. I was a notorious procrastinator, but I could always manage to eke out at least a B on an essay that I wrote the night before, or I was still able to get through it. It was very stressful, but I still managed to perform well in school for the most part, but I think a lot of it was dealing with all those social aspects when you're in high school.
Tara Koch: It just occurred to me recently that when I was dealing with a lot of this stuff, I was 14 or 15, but executive function wise, that's so much younger. When I really took that into consideration, it's like no wonder I couldn't cope once I made that big jump because in the small private school, it was okay for me to be behind because it was such a safe and stable and nurturing environment that it made up for that, but then when you're just thrown into this... It's like the what?
Pete Wright: Big pond. Right.
Tara Koch: Small fish in a big pond type thing.
Nikki Kinzer: Right.
Tara Koch: It's a lot harder to keep afloat, and figure out what's right, what's wrong. Then, dealing with approval and stuff is so different when you go from knowing everyone your whole life to all of these people are new as a teenager.
Nikki Kinzer: Right. You want to fit in and... Right.
Tara Koch: Exactly.
Pete Wright: Well, any rejection are [inaudible 00:10:43] becomes magnified by the number of eyeballs you imagine are watching you fail, right?
Tara Koch: Oh, yeah.
Pete Wright: As you start feeling the stresses of just that kind of social magnification. I totally get that.
Tara Koch: Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Well, and if you were still able to get your work in, then I can see too where the diagnosis is going to be missed. Right?
Tara Koch: Right.
Nikki Kinzer: Because we see this as a... It's so common as a gender bias for sure that if you're not that hyperactive child, boy or girl, or however you identify with, and you're not causing an issue, it's going to be missed. Especially if you have good grades, then they really aren't going to think anything is different, right?
Tara Koch: Right.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah. Yeah.
Tara Koch: They're not seeing me at home writing four-page papers the night before it's due
Nikki Kinzer: In the middle of the night. Right.
Tara Koch: Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Tell us a little bit more about now looking back? Because I know you didn't get diagnosed until what? You were in your 20s?
Tara Koch: It was last year. No. Well, it was last year, so I was I'm 31.
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, okay. It's still a very new diagnosis for you?
Tara Koch: Yeah, it is.
Nikki Kinzer: Okay. You went 31 years...
Tara Koch: I have had a depression diagnosis for more than a decade though, so I've been in the mental health realm for a long time.
Pete Wright: Industrial complex. Right.
Nikki Kinzer: Right. Looking back now that you have the diagnosis of ADHD, where do you think it showed growing up in high school and college? I'm just curious what your thoughts are reflecting back and saying, "Oh, I wonder if that was ADHD? Oh, maybe that was." What your thoughts are on it?
Tara Koch: Right. Well, even going back a little bit further, I look at some of my behaviors as a child and I feel like that's very typical of ADHD children. I have a lot of sensory quirks. I could never have like tights or socks that had seams that went across the edges of my toes because it just made my skin crawl. I always had to have the seam on top of my toes. My mom loves to tell a story of when I got dressed up for a big family picture for my grandparents' anniversary and she had little lace gloves on me, and I just sit around the whole day with my hands up next to my face because I didn't know what to do with my hands with these gloves on them, it just didn't feel okay.
Pete Wright: Everybody is looking at you saying like, "Look, she wants to be a surgeon."
Tara Koch: Yeah. I'm just like, "What do I do with these? I don't understand." I've always had a lot of sensory quirks, which I think can really be tied to ADHD. Some of my study habits in school, I always did my homework on the couch in front of the TV because I couldn't just sit where it was quiet. I would watch the next show. The commercials would come on back when we had commercials and I would do as much work as I could during the commercial. Then, it would come on again and I would watch. It might take me a lot longer, but it kept me... It was almost like a reverse Pomodoro.
Nikki Kinzer: Right.
Tara Koch: With the TV show and the commercials where I knew, "Okay. I got to do this work now," but I learned some different... I had coping strategies. I remember doing social studies homework where we would have to read this long chapter and then answer the questions. At some point, when I realized that I would read the whole thing and then go to the questions and then have to reread it all to find the information, I started to flip that, and I started looking at the question and reading until I found the answer. Then, just those little things that made it a lot easier that I didn't have to double that constantly. Then, I was a very physically sensory seeking kid too when I would sit and watch... I wouldn't sit and watch TV, I would be on the floor doing like shoulder stands with my legs up in the air or just being in all these weird yoga type positions, so I didn't even know what yoga was.
Tara Koch: That was definitely a big part of it. Even looking into like middle school and high school, I feel like I'm right at that border of kids who went through the phase where they were on the phone nonstop talking to their friends. Before it became just texting and messaging friends, I think I'm right on the edge of that generationally. I can remember talking for hours on the phone and just pacing the entire time. I would have to find... I got to my front porch and just non-stop walking because I couldn't sit and talk. There's no way that that was going to happen, and I still paced on the phone.
Nikki Kinzer: Well, that's one of the things that...
Tara Koch: Yeah. My phone doesn't work.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah. That's one of the things I love about when we do our happy hours because we'll have happy hours every month with our Supreme Discord members and Tara has joined us on those for many of them.
Pete Wright: Many years.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah. She's always doing laundry or doing something and then she'll contribute to the conversation. Then, we'll see her little girl come in who is adorable by the way.
Tara Koch: Yes.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah. I love that you're able to know that that's how your brain works and that's how you process things. One of the things I want to point out with what you said about reading the question and then doing the reading, that is such a great strategy that any students out there that are listening to this or parents who have students, tell them about that because it is it... You figured out how to work with your brain without even knowing you had ADHD, right? To make it easier for you. Yeah.
Tara Koch: Right. Well, for me, I think a big part of it is that sometimes if I'm reading something that I'm not actually interested in, the words are just going through me and I'm not really taking any of it in, but when I have that question, I'm searching for that answer and it puts it all into context, so it actually makes more sense while I'm reading it because I know what I'm supposed to be getting from it whereas when I was just starting there and I feel like that's something a lot of people probably do. I think as someone with ADHD, maybe it just doesn't occur that I could do it that way, that it felt like you read it and then you answer the questions and you should be able to just retain everything you read, but obviously that's not true even for a lot of neuro-typical people probably.
Nikki Kinzer: Right. Right. Yeah.
Tara Koch: Yeah. Strategies like that helped a lot over the years.
Nikki Kinzer: Earlier, you were talking about looking for things in your own girls, like seeing what gaps you can fill. I'm just curious what that looks like for you as a mother looking at what they're doing and what are you looking for? Just curious what you mean by that?
Tara Koch: Okay. I have three school-aged kids right now. My youngest is a toddler and we would be the perfect case study for a psychologist because I really feel that each of my daughters has a different presentation of ADHD with my oldest being inattentive, my middle being a combined type and the third being hyperactive. It's funny because with the inattentive and combined type, they are already struggling. I know that I need to get them help my oldest who has trouble focusing in class and retaining the information to do homework and all of those types of things where she always just feels overwhelmed and she can't get started. For her, it's clear what we need to work on. Then, with my combined type, a lot of it is emotional, a lot of growth mindset stuff that we need to work on where she just feels like she can't do it. If it's hard, then she just doesn't want to do it.
Tara Koch: She doesn't understand that gap where it feels hard when you're learning and that's normal. She just thinks, "It's hard, so I'm stupid and can't do it." With her, it's clear what we need to work on too. It's actually my third daughter who's hyperactive that I'm really watching for the warning signs. I have been for a few years now because she is an academic rock star. She does so good at school. She's such a hard worker. It reminds me a lot of how I was in school where it all just came easily to me. There weren't any problems, but she has a lot of impulsivity and a lot of hyperactivity. I'm worried that it'll be the same thing where she's so good at this stuff, and so smart that those other skills like the prioritizing and the organizing are going to be really hard once that content exceeds her natural talents and abilities once we get into the middle school and high school years, and everything is a little bit more complicated and hormones always have a lot to do with it.
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, for sure.
Tara Koch: For her, it's like I'm waiting for that procrastination to start, so I can jump in there and say, "Okay. How can we stop this before it becomes a chronic issue?" Because I almost feel like sometimes when things are really good, that's when your deficits ended up being really big in the ends because you don't have to practice those skills throughout your lifetime. It's just a brand new thing that all of a sudden you're experiencing one day. For me, actually, I feel like it started in my eighth grade year because I was in the talented and gifted program, and it's always just been an extra thing that we would do the work in class. We would miss our classwork when we got pulled out and have to make up for it, but for some reason, in eighth grade, it ended up being above and beyond what we were normally expected to do where it's like we would have to make up the work in class and then also have homework from the talented and gifted program.
Tara Koch: That's when I really had that first, "This is too much. I can't handle this," sort of situation. I ended up dropping out of the talented and gifted program because it's more important to me to keep up with my regular schoolwork than to put all of this effort into just an extra that's not really going to benefit in the long run. I feel like that was the first sign of the cracks for me, and what had been an otherwise easy school experience.
Nikki Kinzer: Right. Yeah. Well, I think it's a great reminder too, for people that are listening, that grades are not the end all. Right?
Tara Koch: Yes.
Nikki Kinzer: In fact, you shouldn't even necessarily look at them that... Of course, you should. That's not what I mean. You can be a straight A student and still have ADHD and still struggle at home, and the teachers aren't going to pick up on it, which is exactly what happened with my daughter. I think that just having that message of parents really paying attention to when their kids are doing their work, how they're doing their work, because that can also definitely give you some clues on what might be going on. Right?
Tara Koch: I get a lot of pushback with my third daughter, the one who is hyperactive and really good at school anytime I bring up ADHD. I think it has a lot to do with negative stigma that they feel like when I say she has ADHD and can we look out for these signs, they almost get defensive of her because they feel like I'm saying something bad about her. It's like, "No. You can be super smart and super good at school and still have ADHD," but all of her teachers just get really defensive because she's such a lovable kid. Pre-COVID, she hugs everyone, and they're just like, "Oh, there's no way. She's just..." Then, I'll point out, "Well, doesn't she run out of the line to go hug another teacher across on the other side of the school? Doesn't that kind of show her impulsivity that she can't stay there at her age in the line?" She just does what she wants right on that spur of the moment. Then, they're kind of like, "Oh.' They still won't admit.
Nikki Kinzer: It is. I had the same exact situation and where I felt like I had to convince the teacher like, "No. I'm not crazy. What you're seeing is not exactly real," because I think that especially for girls who are people pleasers or who could feel like they're people pleasers, she was really good at pretending. She could pay attention. She'd be like nodding like, "Oh, yeah. I get you." Then, she would have no idea what they were talking about or whatever. Yeah.
Pete Wright: Defensive teachers at some point, that is the...
Nikki Kinzer: I know.
Pete Wright: That is the value, the incredible value...
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, yes.
Pete Wright: No, you guys, seriously, that is the incredible value of evaluations, 504, IEPs, those evaluations are multi-variate because the teacher does not see everything, but one teacher might not see something that another teacher does see. To have that kind of reportage is critically important, particularly because... I was thinking about something you said earlier that I struggle with because for me, I'm inattentive and I don't have great experience with the hyperactive stuff I have. Sometimes I'll have repetitive movement issues that I have to deal with, but generally, I don't relate to it. When I have to come and relate to my son whose diagnosis is combined and does have this hyperactive moments, I really struggle in what to me feels like a sort of normal... Like neuro-typical response. I can't relate to this, what I'm seeing here as ADHD. Is this an energetic kid? Is this ADHD? Is this like a different ADHD that is as yet undiscovered?
Pete Wright: Because it's so magical to me how this could be the same thing that fits in my lived experience, it's so crazy. Because we're related, it's incredibly frustrating for me not to be able to unlock that. Right? It takes so much more to communicate, to remain centered, to remain present and not let my own emotions get out of control from of just watching and experiencing those, "Stay in line. Don't get in the grocery cart. You're too big for that. Do you brush your teeth? You look like you just ate a caribou." Just those kinds of things while there's running in circles, so it's hard.
Tara Koch: Yeah. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Well, I definitely want to add to your point, Pete, that teachers are wonderful. I don't mean to say that they're not paying attention because they totally are. That, I think is the issue with this type of misdiagnosis is that it's just so easy to get missed and that's why, because they are doing great.
Pete Wright: And because specifically in many cases, I would say most cases, the teacher is acting in the defense of the child. Right?
Nikki Kinzer: Right.
Tara Koch: No. Exactly. I was going to make that point too. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Huge. That is their job to love these kids, teach these kids and defend them as best that they understand these kids. Again, value of multi-variate evaluations.
Nikki Kinzer: I have to give kudos to her high school teachers because now she's in high school and it's online, of course, and she made a comment to one of her teachers around her ADHD, and they didn't know that she had ADHD. They had contacted me and wanted to know more about her history and what was going on? It was a wonderful conversation because now we're all on the same page and they can understand her more. She's more free to say, "I don't think that way. I don't know what you're talking about." Yes, please. I don't want anybody to think that I think negatively of the teacher because I love them. They're amazing angels.
Pete Wright: Yeah. They're amazing angels.
Tara Koch: Well, it's funny though because my mom is a teacher and she is one of the people who I think even before I had my diagnosis would say, "You really should see something if you might have ADHD," because she's just different at home and she's different around us. I feel like one of the things though is that... That I don't fault teachers for is the societal stigma of what ADHD is and the misunderstanding that it's only these negative things. I think that's where it stems from. There's even healthcare professionals who were supposed to be treating people with ADHD who have those same ideas. I don't think it's any specific industry or job that does that.
Nikki Kinzer: You're absolutely right, Tara. Because with the last show, I expressed that her doctors didn't think she had it. It wasn't until I had to really trust my instinct and keep going further with the testing because they didn't either. Yeah. It's an issue on all around.
Tara Koch: It's an awareness issue.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah. An awareness issue, but I am curious, Tara, you said you got diagnosed at 31. What led to that ADHD diagnosis as an adult?
Tara Koch: Well, in high school after the move, it's fairly typical. I've seen it reflected in some of Ned Hallowell's work and [inaudible 00:28:40] work that in high school, a lot of undiagnosed women or girls with ADHD have some sort of mental break at that time. That happened for me. I've had a depression diagnosis since then. Then, in adulthood, after my third daughter was born, I hadn't been treated for depression in quite a while and I had really bad postpartum depression at that time. Then, I continued getting treated for depression and it ended up getting changed to a persistent... It's dysthymia, which is persistent depressive disorder. That's what I had been diagnosed with for a really long time.
Tara Koch: I even have a bachelor's in psychology and I had never even thought for a second about ADHD as a possibility for myself. It wasn't something I had ever thought of in that context. I was actually listening to a podcast and it was Judge John Hodgman, and they do these things where they... Basically, people send in the little disputes they're having with family members to get solved. There was one that was kind of... It sounded like ADHD was maybe involved. The guest at the time was a woman with ADHD who had just been diagnosed a year or two later. When she's shared her thoughts on it, it just was so clear that that's what I was also dealing with.
Nikki Kinzer: Really? Wow.
Tara Koch: It was [inaudible 00:30:04], I was like, "Oh, wow. It's not that I'm depressed, so I can't do all the things around my house. It's that I don't know how to do all the things around my house. I get overwhelmed. Then, I get depressed." It's almost always in that order. That's when I realized that it was the executive function stuff that was really stopping me from being happy and it wasn't just depression in and of itself. That's really when I started doing my deep dive. I think I joined the Discord community before I even had an official diagnosis. It was like I had my appointment to get my diagnosis and I joined Discord because I was 100% certain that I had ADHD. Yeah. It was such a quick... A fast experience. It was so obvious. Hindsight, it's 2020 type of thing.
Nikki Kinzer: Sure. What made you decide to go into coaching?
Tara Koch: About three years ago when my youngest was just born, I finished my bachelor's in psychology and my plan had always been to go on to get a master's eventually to be either a therapist or a counselor, but because of my own mental health struggles, I've always been worried about it being a little too heavy helping people with all of their, really difficult problems. "Life" in general has always been in the back of my mind as a future career possibility. Then, when I found out that ADHD life coaching was a thing, it just seemed like the absolutely perfect thing to... I feel like it's a little bit more in between that therapy counseling and just neuro-typical life coaching because there is that mental health psychology aspect with the ADHD.
Tara Koch: I think that is really what drew me in. It was just like, "This is the perfect thing to do to get a career started," because now that my youngest is three, I'm ready to be doing more because I've been a stay at home mom and student pretty much my entire adult life with part-time jobs here and there. Yeah. When I decided it was time to get a career started, it seems like the perfect fit and so far, I absolutely love it. I feel like I've made the right choice.
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, I definitely think you have.
Pete Wright: Well, what a great time. It's weird how the pandemic hits as you're making this transition, like... It feels to me so much like all of these kind of latent behaviors, people are discovering about themselves this year. If there is any gift... I know this sounds bizarre. 2020 is just a flaming toilet, but just in general, like what people are able to discover about themselves as they are pushed by nature and quarantines and general environment may lead to a really great awakening for 2021. Here's hoping.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
Tara Koch: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Here's hoping 2020 is the ice cold glass of water to our faces that it allows us to wake up and realize, "Hey, there are people out there like Tara who can help."
Nikki Kinzer: Absolutely.
Pete Wright: That's what we need. Good timing.
Nikki Kinzer: Tara, tell the audience what kind of coaching... I know you do ADHD coaching, but you also specialize in some things too.
Tara Koch: Oh, yes.
Nikki Kinzer: Tell them that.
Tara Koch: Yep. I worked specifically with women, mostly moms, but you don't have to be a mom to work with me. We usually are working on things that relate to taking care of your house and your personal life, sometimes time management. A lot of it comes down to confidence and self-esteem and understanding your ADHD. A lot of it, especially if you're newer to your diagnosis, is just realizing that it's okay to celebrate small successes and that that can help so much in building up and making it easier to do the next thing. I find that a lot of the people I work with and a lot of moms that I interact with in general, even when we do things well, it's just never quite good enough and we never let ourselves really celebrate. That's definitely a big thing that I work on with my clients is just every success counts. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Nikki Kinzer: That's right. That's right.
Pete Wright: Well, Tara, thank you so much for joining us. I love hearing your story. I hope people can learn a little bit more about you. Where do you want to send them to find you online?
Tara Koch: Well, I am on Facebook and on YouTube at tarajanekock.com. Then, for YouTube, you just add that word, /youtube to the end of my website address and it will redirect you. Then, I also do have a Facebook group that's specifically to support moms with ADHD so we can link that too in the description.
Pete Wright: You got it.
Nikki Kinzer: You have a website, right? So people can look you for coaching services and all of that?
Tara Koch: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Nikki Kinzer: But we'll have that in the show notes too.
Pete Wright: I'll put all those links in the show notes. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Yes.
Pete Wright: All right. Thank you, Tara.
Nikki Kinzer: All right. Thank you, Tara.
Pete Wright: We so appreciate all of you for downloading and listening to this show. Thank you for your time and your attention. Don't forget if you have something to contribute about this conversation, we're always available on the show talk channel and our Discord server, so you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer and Tara Koch, I'm Pete Wright. We'll see you next time right here on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
