Dam Parenting

Kicking off ADHD Awareness Month with the least polished episode I've ever made. Recorded nine hours before it went out, at my kitchen table, in one take. The deadline is the only thing that has ever made me do anything.
I was diagnosed in my forties — the same month this podcast launched. Three medications in three months, none of which worked, and then I was told I'd maxed out my dose. And what I felt wasn't "the system failed me." It was "I've failed. Again."
In this one:
– What a late ADHD diagnosis actually feels like as a parent
– Why ADHD medication not working can feel like a personal failure
– New University of Warwick research linking ADHD to gut problems, IBS and constipation
– Why calling it a deficit of attention was always a con — it's regulation, not concentration
– Why neurodivergent mothers burn out more than everyone else
– And why "just rest" is the most useless advice ever given to a working parent
All of October is ADHD on DAM Parenting — for you, your partner, your kids. Debby on sex and intimacy when your brain won't settle. Adina on the grief nobody warns you about after a late diagnosis. Kate on raising neurodivergent children here. Mimi on languages. And Liam and me on a Saturday, going through everything we've tried that didn't work.
New here? There are 200+ episodes, all sorted by theme at damparenting.nl
📩 Newsletter Sign up here
🎧 Last month's episode on regulation with Adina Petre

Your child understands every word of your home language, and answers you in Dutch. Every time. If it started when school or daycare went back, you're not imagining it.
Why does my bilingual child only answer in Dutch? Mimi from Growing Up Multilingual explains why the school language takes over so fast, whether you should insist on a reply in your language, and why she'd retire one very popular piece of bilingual parenting advice.
We also get into the child who seems embarrassed by the home language, one easy thing to try this week, and what to do if you feel you've already lost ground.
For international parents raising bilingual and multilingual children in the Netherlands, where Dutch at school can quickly become Dutch at home too.
Get the free Multilingual Cheat Sheet when you join the DAM Parenting newsletter
Check out our website: damparenting.nl

The Dutch and English langauges are everywhere. The language your child speaks with their grandmother? Almost nowhere outside your front door. And kids notice.
Mimi joins me for a short one about Taalparade, a free multilingual family day for children aged 0–12. We talk about why seeing your home language out in the world matters more than any lesson about diversity, and why asking a bilingual child to "say something" in their language can backfire.
For international families raising multilingual children in the Netherlands.
Taalparade:
Saturday 7 November,
11:00–16:00,
Library Amstelveen (next to the shopping centre).
It's Free.
Whether your family speaks one language or five, you're invited.

Camila moved here for love straight out of university, spent sixteen years climbing at a big media company, and quickly built Joy In Organizing a business with 77,000 followers and a book deal. Then came burnout, a divorce that ate €45,000 in legal fees, and nine months of job applications that went nowhere.
This summer she got on a bike with an Uber Eats bag. The reel she made about it has over a million views now.
This episode is about shame. The kind that makes you go quiet instead of asking for help — and what happened the day she messaged every single person she knew, including a man she once rented a bike from.
We talk about carrying a household financially for years, what divorce costs when you have no family in the country, why supermarket and restaurant shifts don't work if you're the only adult in the house, and why she says you should never confuse needing help with failing.
For anyone raising children in a country they didn't grow up in, working a system nobody explained to them, and wondering how they'd survive doing it alone.

Newsletter, once a month: Sign up here

Tried breathwork, silent retreats, sound baths and every calming app going, and still can't relax? You're not bad at it. Your nervous system might just need something different.
 
In episode 3 of DAM Trauma, trauma therapist Adina Petre explains nervous system regulation in plain English. No Latin, no diagrams, no pressure.
 
In this episode:
– What regulation actually means (it isn't feeling calm all the time)
– The window of tolerance, hyperarousal and hypoarousal, for parents running on empty
– Why fight, flight and freeze are automatic, not a willpower problem
– Co-regulation when your support network is a plane ride away
– What constantly adapting to a new country does to your nervous system
– The one thing Adina says doesn't exist at all
– A simple, slightly playful tool you can build tonight from an old shoebox
 
For international, expat and immigrant parents in the Netherlands dealing with parental burnout, brain fog, the mental load and the everyday stress of raising a family abroad.
 
If this episode brings up something bigger than a podcast can hold, talk to your huisarts or contact Adina directly.
 
Adina Petre: Instagram
Get the DAM Parenting newsletter: once a month, plus early access to the last-Wednesday episode.
Find episodes by topic: damparenting.nl