Starting to help and getting distracted before you finished
ADHD parent behaviour
ADHD attention is interest-driven, not importance-driven. Partway through helping, the task lost its novelty signal and your dopamine system followed the next input. This is not a choice or a measure of how much your child matters. The repair is the return. Go back, name it plainly, and finish. Say 'I got distracted. Let me come back to this,' then stay with it until it is done.
What to do right now
You started something with your child and then your attention went elsewhere. They noticed. Go back now: "I got distracted. Where were we?" Returning to the task and finishing it is more important than explaining what happened. The return is the repair.
What your brain just did
Your body
You started helping your child and then you were somewhere else. On your phone, on a thought, on another task. The half-finished help sits between you.
Your brain
ADHD attention is interest-driven, not importance-driven. The task of helping your child lost the novelty signal partway through, and your attention followed the next interesting input. This isn't a choice. It's the dopamine system selecting for novelty over sustained effort.
What this did
Your child experienced being abandoned mid-help. They know you started. They watched you drift. The impact isn't the unfinished task. It's the message: you weren't interesting enough to hold my attention. Name what happened. 'I got distracted. Let me come back to this properly.'