Good Inside with Dr. Becky · Good Inside

ADHD Beyond the Label with Penn and Kim Holderness

December 16, 2025·41 min·2 clips

Penn Holderness coins 'shame spiral vs. support staircase' to describe how Kim's response to him leaving the stove on — 'there must have been a lot going on when you were cooking' — made him want to fix the problem rather than get defensive.

The conversation starts with shame and accountability. The idea is simple: if the goal is real growth, kids need space to reflect on what happened instead of just carrying blame. Penn and Kim then turn to ADHD. Penn says the phrase deeply feeling kid gave him a clearer, non-negative way to understand emotional dysregulation. The idea landed quickly. He says he heard it on TikTok and that Kim had forwarded him a video. That mattered. The new language felt like relief because it did not sound like crybaby, drama queen, dramatic, disproportionate, or overreacting. Penn names the old labels plainly. He says he was called a crybaby by people around him, including teachers, and that he was a teenager when he was still carrying those feelings. The conversation stays close to family life. The point is not to pretend big feelings are easy, but to give parents a way to respond without piling on shame. Kim leans in. The three of them keep returning to the idea that shame gets in the way of accountability instead of helping it. That frame matters. It shifts the question from how do I make this stop to what would help a child actually think about what happened. The tone stays warm. The back-and-forth is honest, funny at moments, and grounded in real parenting language rather than theory. The episode keeps circling one useful shift. It asks listeners to see sensitivity, dysregulation, and family frustration without turning any of them into a character flaw.

As heard by us

A careful look at ADHD, shame, and accountability.

This episode brings ADHD, shame, accountability, and parenting into the same frame without getting tangled up in jargon. Penn and Kim Holderness make the case that shame gets in the way of accountability, and the conversation lands well once it turns to the idea of a deeply…

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Why you'd press play

When you need a kinder name for ADHD feelings and the parenting moments around them.

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