Can AI make life easier for parents of kids with ADHD?

In our very first episode of Everyone Gets a Juice Box, Jessica gets real with fourth-grade teacher and mom Bayla Weisman about using AI to support kids with ADHD at home and in the classroom. From visual schedules and social stories to doom piles, busy sports calendars, and picky eating, Bayla shares what’s actually helping her family stay afloat. 

Turns out AI can be an amazing tool — not a crutch — in the messy middle of parenting neurodivergent kids.

• Listen: What could the AI boom mean for neurodivergent people?

• Read: 6 ways AI can help you manage ADHD

Bayla Weisman: These kids swim upstream all the time. They're trying to fit in. They don't know how to tie their shoes. Why do I need to make it harder for them? Why can't they just have it just as easy as everyone else?

Jessica Shaw: Welcome to the first ever episode of "Everyone Gets a Juice Box." This is a show where we talk parent to parent about the realities of raising kids with learning and thinking differences. I'm your host, Jessica Shaw. I'm a journalist, recovering radio host, and mom of two kids. And like you, I've had some parenting challenges and a few wins along the way. And I'm guessing that also like you, I've relied on my fellow parents at school drop-offs, in all caps texts, at happy hour, and on late-night phone calls. Sometimes we're sharing the tea, and when it comes to our kids, we're sharing the juice. So here's your juice box, and let's talk parent to parent. We've got each other.

But you know what I haven't gotten too far into? AI. Full disclosure, I never even asked ChatGPT a question until two weeks ago. But let's be real, it's here, and instead of running around screaming about how scared we are of it — aka me two weeks and a day ago — let's have a conversation about it. Can AI be helpful in parenting neurodivergent kids, or is it a slippery slope that isn't even that slippery anymore because AI is depleting the world's water supply?

Today, I'm going to talk to Bayla Weisman, a mom of three neurodivergent and neurotypical kids and a fourth-grade teacher with students who don't all learn the same way. She relies on AI both at home and in the classroom. AI at work? In the journalism world, that is completely verboten. I met a writer once who told me AI polishes every draft he writes. Did I judge him? Uh, yeah, I did. But using AI to get 10-year-olds to understand a challenging topic? Okay, I'm listening.

As for home, well, I have teenagers, so they are fluent in AI, even if their tech dinosaur of a mom is not. Do Bayla's kids know she uses AI? Is there a tell, like a parenting em dash? All of which is to say, I went into this talk a little skeptical and a lot curious. Here's our conversation.

Hi Bayla.

Bayla: Hi Jessica, it's so nice to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jessica: People have strong feelings. It's like, I feel like you say AI, and people immediately go to robots are taking over the world, or they're like, this is going to make my life so much better. So you are both a teacher and a parent. So what was your approach? How did you start getting into it?

Bayla: Right. So it's very interesting because I am, even though I'm, I would say I'm, you know, in my 30s, but I feel like I'm still of the old camp. You know, you can't use AI, it's so new. And not from the angle of, you know, robots are going to take over because I don't believe that's true. I believe that there is going to be a human need in every single area still, which we will get to. But I think to me, AI has always felt like it's cheating, like I'm beating a system. It feels so much to me like plagiarism. And as I've let it in more, I've been able to see the amazing things that it has to offer. Really as an assistant to me in the jobs that I do.

Jessica: Okay, so where did you start using it first, at home or at school?

(03:45) Using AI as an "assistant" in the classroom to differentiate lessons.

Bayla: I started working with AI mostly in my classroom because I work in a gen ed setting, but there are definitely kids who need differentiation one way or another. And AI, I mean, primarily ChatGPT, because that's what I know, if I want to make something, you know, interesting, I don't have to recreate the wheel. I can dictate to them, I want to teach about this topic, this topic, this topic to this type of learner. And they can, you know, give me, it could give me three different levels of the same reading passage, whereas all the kids feel like they're doing what they need to be doing.

And then as I am transitioning into using it more in parenting, I realized that, you know, I'm a busy mom. I work full-time. I've got three kids with both personality and all the things. Um, how can I use AI to make my life a little bit easier? And when my kids were little, I didn't have that need, really little. My oldest is nine. And now we are heavy in fall sports, um, you know, mental health counseling, all the things. And there is so much going on that there's never a regular night. It's never like we get home at 4:00 and everyone has time to do homework and play. And AI is really kind of there to help my child who learns differently really be able to visualize what's going to be expected every single day. So there are no surprises.

Jessica: Okay. So I'm going to get back to the classroom in a minute, but I have to ask you about it at home because I also have two kids, very different, different brains. I mean, you have three kids and every kid is different. So I'm curious what you just said that it tells your child kind of what to expect. So can you explain that to me?

Bayla: Yeah. I would love to be this amazing Pinterest mom. You know, I would love to be able to create all the things.

Jessica: You and me both, Bayla.

Bayla: And you know what? I think we all do. I think all parents want to do like what is the most beautiful and what is the most amazing. But at the end of the day, that's not going to be the best system for everybody. If you're a really creative person and you're sitting there, then fine, you know, that's going to be something that's going to work for you. But for me, I have no time for that. But I do know that my child needs to know when the when the tests are coming, and what days there's not going to be school bus, and what days we're going to go home on the bus and we're going to go home with mommy, and what days we're going to go to have therapy, and what days we're going to take siblings to therapy, which days are going to be softball practice, which days are going to be hockey, when are we going to have dance, when does basketball fit in? And how are we going to manage all those things? Because as a parent, our jobs spread so many ways. But as kids, their primary job is to be a student almost in the school year, but then all these things are extras.

Now, we know as parents to fit in all these other things is so essential to their development. But we need to be able to have that. Now, I have a child that when the schedule changes, she cannot always manage that. She needs to know exactly what's going to happen. And so, yes, I would love to sit with her every day when she says, "Mommy, tell me how today is going to go." But if I can tell AI, listen, here are the six things that are going to be on for today. Please make something broken up for these times. Or here's the entire softball schedule. Here's the entire school line calendar. Put it all together and put it on a calendar where my child can see exactly what's going to be there. And then, you know, I can add in the doctor's appointments, the other things. It can make that so much easier for her, for me. Those are, that's the, the biggest area where I've been using it.

Jessica: Yeah, I, I feel that to my core because first of all, there's the organizational element of it. And then also one of my daughters also has ADHD and she, just like yours, needs to know exactly what's going to happen and when it's going to happen. And she doesn't like a sharp right turn, you know? So —

Bayla: Right.

Jessica: — as as I'm sure your daughter does not either. And that sounds like it's something that can be tremendously helpful. So do you give her like, okay, this is this is the story of today and she checks it every day kind of thing?

(07:58) Being a calmer, more effective parent with the help of AI

Bayla: Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't always, like some days I'll say there's nothing on the schedule that's for you today. And then she doesn't need that. But on a day, like if I throw in a doctor's appointment, like she needs to know in advance exactly minute to minute how the day is going to work because the doctor's appointment always overlaps with school. So there is always this overwhelming anxiety surrounding what's going to happen.

So that coupled with using sometimes, not often, but I'll sometimes use like a social story, have AI create something for me to talk about, you know, a child going to this type of specialist, talk about what happens if you need to go for a blood test, what's going to happen if this, and really experiencing it from someone else's point of view where again, I don't have to sit there and create it and break my teeth for hours. I could, it's within my ability, but it's not necessary. And AI can help with that.

Jessica: Tell me about in the classroom because like I said, you're a fourth grade teacher and as you said, every classroom, whether or not there's a kid with a diagnosis, with an IEP, whatever it is, kids learn differently and there are neurodivergences in every classroom. So tell me how you utilize AI in the classroom.

Bayla: Okay, so I don't use it like in front of my students, but I will definitely use it to modify, differentiate something. You know, if I'm teaching a topic that I've been teaching for 15 years and I'm just sick of looking at the paper, I could just ask them to like, reorganize the paper, create something new with the same language, you know, move around the words. Tell me, you know, I'm teaching now about the five boroughs of New York. Just, we have a few days in between all the high holidays, there's two days here, two days here. And I want them to know about where they live, right?

So I want to teach them about the five boroughs. I don't need a history book, right? I need AI to tell me the top five things that nine-year-olds like in the Bronx, right? And they like the Bronx Zoo, and they like Yankee Stadium, and they like to go to, you know, Legoland, which is close by. And they can visualize that. And that's not in the Bronx, but I'm saying they are able to then it's able to be something that speaks to them. And I don't have to do a million Google searches, right? Tell me things to do with nine-year-olds in Queens. What do they like? And so those kind of things are helpful.

Jessica: Do you find that with the different kids, that depending on where they learn, their learning styles, that they process the things that you give them differently?

Bayla: Sure. And especially since they could take, you can take the exact same text, you could put it in paragraphs, you could put it double-spaced, you could put it in bullet points, you can put pictures, you can make the text different sizes. Um, I don't have a colored printer, but obviously different colors are helpful for kids with reading disabilities, as we know. Um, and it's the same information. And I think that that is something that's truly important in general with parenting is that, you know, parents in my class, friends of mine, they say my kid only reads graphic novels, only reads graphic novels. So I say to them, graphic novels are reading. Reading is reading. They are reading. It doesn't matter. 

Nobody tells us as adults what we can and can't do, when we can go to the bathroom and when we can't, you know? So with this AI, if this, if they can, if AI can help me take the same information and make it easy on the eyes for them, easy for them to intake, why does their life have to be harder? These kids swim upstream all the time. They're trying to fit in, they don't know how to tie their shoes. They're, they're trying to do the things that all the other kids that don't have all these letters attached to them can do. Why do I need to make it harder for them? Why can't they just have it just as easy as everyone else?

(12:41) What’s next in using AI?

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. And you're also able to utilize social stories in the classroom as well. Is that, is that kind of to navigate interpersonal, inter-friend skills?

Bayla: Absolutely. In that kids never want to hear about what they did wrong. But if you're telling them a story about Jack and Andy, they cannot wait to hear it, right? Because they can immediately see what Jack did wrong. Yeah. And why Andy reacted this way. And then they can turn it and say, okay, now I see. And it's not necessarily the same day. You know, these things are not instantaneous. Yeah. But the kids, it definitely helps.

Jessica: What would you say to a parent, like me, who is, frankly, a little bit afraid? Though I got to be honest, talking to you has made me a little bit less afraid and all I'm seeing is like disappearing doom piles in my future. So I'm very into that. But what would you say to a parent about what's a kind of good way to sort of wade into these waters?

Bayla: For parents, for sure, just like type things in to AI, find an AI platform that works for you. I only use ChatGPT because that's what I know. But I know that there are like so many different types of AI. If you're looking for something specific, there's different things. I saw like a meme on Facebook and it said like, if you, it's probably not even a meme, like a picture, whatever. And it says, if you're looking for this, use this AI. If you're looking to edit photos, use this AI. If you're looking to make schedules, look, use this AI. And I'm happy with what I've found so far, so I wasn't looking deeper, but it really is, there's so much out there for parents. For kids, I I can't recommend it. Like, I can't recommend giving the internet to children. I think that we need to be more careful as a people. Yeah, in general.

Jessica: What is your next, what is your next thing that you want AI to do for you? Like, what's on your to-do list?

(15:15) Tackling "doom piles" with AI

Bayla: So, what I would really like to do with AI is I would like to really figure out the things that my picky eaters are going to eat and create like a menu that uses that, right? Because my child who is, you know, all wonderful, amazing things, and she only eats things that are white. So, what could I get that for her that is that that can give her nutrition? And I think maybe they'll have something for me. Maybe AI will have something for me. Maybe AI, she also only reads fantasy books, right? So maybe AI has an arsenal of authors that are appropriate for nine-year-olds that are reading on a 12-year-old level because as these books get more significant, you know, different things, relationships happen and different things that you don't necessarily want your nine-year-old exposed to. Right. Um, and you know, we're looking for more. The librarian knows a lot, but so does AI.

Jessica: Yeah. I love it, Bayla. I have to say, I came into this conversation a little bit like, there's nothing she's going to say to me that's going to convince me that it can help me, that it can help me parent. Yes. It can help me parent. And some of those things that we just sort of, I don't know, like throw our hands up like, all right, I got to find another white food to give my kid because God forbid she'll eat something green, you know, or literally any other color. And sometimes we're just like, uh, but even knowing that there's, you know what, maybe tiptoe into a slightly uncomfortable space because there might be help for you.

Bayla: Right. And if there isn't, then I'm not any worse off. It's not like, you know, I only went to my device to look at this. Like, let's be real, we're on our devices too much anyway as adults, right? So like this few minutes spent on AI is no harm, no foul one way or another, you know? Yeah. It can only help us as long as we are navigating it properly.

Jessica: That was Bayla Weisman, mom, teacher, user of AI. And okay, it's not what I feared, a full outsourcing of parenting and teaching. Bayla uses it for scheduling. I can totally see that. Personally, I like making hundreds of paper lists because it feels really good to manually cross things off. She uses it to create a story about how a day is going to go, schedule-wise. That's kind of interesting because some kids do process information differently when they have a narrative to follow instead of the hard facts of doing this at this time, doing that at that time. It's something I might have tried when my kids were younger, had the technology been available.

Maybe I'll try making a story for my 15-year-old going to a high school party and see how that goes over. I know for sure there's a doom pile on my night table that is trembling with fear that AI is about to tell me precisely how to get rid of it.

Thanks for listening to "Everyone Gets a Juice Box." Our show is hosted by me, Jessica Shaw. It's produced by Cody Nelson, and video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jessie DiMartino. Briana Berry is our production director, and Neil Drumming is our editorial director. If you have any questions for us or ideas for future episodes, write me an email or send a voice memo to podcast@understood.org.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.