Brendan Mahan highlights the importance of recognising the ‘wall of awful’ – an emotional barrier rooted in repeated struggle – to improve responses to challenging tasks and foster resilience in families.
Brendan Mahan says the best way to understand the “wall of awful” is as an emotional barrier built through repeated struggle. In a recent conversation with Penny Williams, the ADHD coach and podcast host said the concept helps explain why some children and adults freeze before tasks that appear simple from the outside, such as homework, bill-paying or social plans. The idea has become central to his work with families, and it also shapes his new book, which aims to make the invisible effort behind avoidance easier to recognise.
Mahan describes the wall as a response to repeated negative experiences: guilt, disappointment, shame, anxiety and frustration accumulate until starting the task itself feels overwhelming. He argues that this is often mistaken for laziness or low motivation, when in reality the person may already be doing substantial emotional work just to face the task. That distinction, he says, matters because it changes how parents, teachers and carers respond.
The framework also helps explain why struggle can spread through a household. Mahan says parents who keep trying to push a child through homework or other demands can develop their own wall of awful, especially if the process has become fraught. In the interview, he stressed that adults often focus on getting the task done, rather than helping the child manage the emotions that sit between intention and action. His broader point is that families need to address both the practical problem and the emotional resistance attached to it.
He divides responses to the wall into five types. Two, he says, are largely unhelpful: staring at the barrier and going around it. Staring means remaining trapped in rumination or emotional distress without moving towards action; going around it means avoidance, often disguised as preparation, research or perfectionism. Mahan warned that this can look productive, particularly in older children, teenagers and adults, but it often postpones the real work indefinitely.
By contrast, he said the more effective responses are still difficult, but healthier. One is “smashing”, where anger, anxiety or frustration is used to force a person through the barrier. It can work, he said, but it may damage self-esteem or relationships because it relies on stress rather than skill. The other two strategies are putting a door in the wall and climbing it. Those approaches involve making the task more engaging, breaking it into smaller steps, validating the emotions involved and allowing time for processing.
Mahan said that music, movement and even leaving a phone behind can help create the mental space needed to think more clearly. He also pointed to the value of what he called passive processing, in which the mind continues working in the background during activities such as walking or listening to music. In the interview, he urged parents to recognise their own emotional state before stepping in to help a child, and to avoid handing down their own stress. He said the goal is not to eliminate difficulty, but to build resilience, practical problem-solving and emotional awareness so children can face hard tasks without feeling alone in them.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
