Understanding AuDHD in Children: Navigating the Push and Pull of Autism and ADHD

When your child is both autistic and has ADHD (often referred to as AuDHD), it can sometimes feel like they are being pulled in two different directions at once. As a parent, you may notice moments where their needs seem to clash — for example, a strong urge to move, explore, or act quickly, alongside a deep need for predictability, calm, and time to process.

Understanding these internal “pushes and pulls” can be incredibly powerful in supporting your child.

The ADHD side of your child’s neurodivergence may bring fast thinking, bursts of energy, impulsivity, and a drive for novelty or stimulation. This can look like fidgeting, interrupting, or jumping quickly between activities. At the same time, the autistic side may seek structure, routine, and a slower pace. It may show up as caution, a need for sameness, sensory sensitivities, or feeling overwhelmed when things move too quickly.

Rather than seeing these traits as conflicting problems to fix, it can help to understand them as different needs that both deserve space and support.

For your child, this can feel confusing. They might want to join in quickly but then feel overwhelmed. They may crave stimulation while also becoming easily overstimulated. Without understanding what’s happening internally, this can lead to frustration, anxiety, or shutdown.

This is where your role becomes so important.

By gently helping your child notice and name these different experiences, you give them a language for understanding themselves. You might say, “I wonder if one part of you wants to go fast, and another part wants things to feel calm and safe?” This kind of curiosity helps children feel seen, rather than corrected.

From there, you can begin to support both needs in practical ways:

• Building in movement breaks alongside predictable routines

• Offering choices between high-energy and calming activities

• Creating transition time so your child can shift at a manageable pace

• Validating when things feel hard or confusing internally

  
  

Over time, this approach helps your child develop self-awareness and self-compassion. Instead of feeling “too much” or “not quite right,” they begin to understand that their brain is responding in different ways — and that both are valid.

Ultimately, supporting an AuDHD child isn’t about choosing one need over another. It’s about helping them find a rhythm where both parts of themselves are understood, respected, and supported.

At the Little Bird House we create the space to develop that self-awareness and self-compassion. For some children it can be helpful to separate and label the experiences and explore which animal might represent these. Sometimes a tortoise or sloth are chosen to represent the slower more cautious experiences and rabbits, birds and crocodiles to the faster, more fidgety experiences. Labelling the experiences with animals can sometimes feel a natural way to connect with them and express what they need…..

"My crocodile brain is feeling very snappy and fidgety right now, he needs to move."

"My tortoise brain is feeling slow and a bit worried, he needs things to feel calm and quiet."

In this way, using animal metaphors helps children externalise and understand their inner experiences, making it easier to communicate their needs with clarity and self-compassion. Once this is modelled many children go on to make their own personalised metaphors and phrases, often with humour and playfulness!

Here is how I explored this with one of my clients this week..shared with permission.