Back To School Strategies For Parents With Children With ADHD
- Clear consistent concise direction- What you say has to be the golden rule all the time no exception. Make it simple and easy to understand what you want.
- Time management-Teach your child how long things take by having them time themselves. Have them guess how long they think something will take and then have them time themselves to see how accurate they are. Practice increasing accuracy by increasing time on task by using a timer to remind them to return to the task
- Organizational Skills-Practice the rule everything has a place and create a clear system for organizing school, home, and recreational materials.
- Emotional Regulation- Teach your child what to do when they feel overstimulated. Try to help them to recognize their triggers (the things that make them upset) and their trigger reactions (face flushes, temples throb). Give them choices of ways to wind down, go to their room and use their anxiety box filled with items that calm them, work on an art journal, do some pushups or sit-ups, dance around your room, listen to music
- Initiation-Teach your child how to get started on a task. Set up the environment, go to the bathroom, get a drink and a snack, get in comfy clothes, set a timer and get to work
- Shifting-Prepare your child to shift activities and teach them to prepare themselves. Begin a 30 minute count down when they have to disengage from a preferred task and have them start a timer as well. Remind them every 10 minutes. Never move from a preferred task to a disliked task. Make sure there is a transition activity. Example-Video games-dessert-then bath
- Maintaining Focus- 25/5 rule No more than 25 minutes of sustained activities and no more than 5 minutes of a break until the task is done
- Don’t ask questions when you know the answer-Often kids with ADHD are called liars. This is often because the parent asks a question when they should make a statement. If you know they ate the cookie tell them you know and state the consequence
- Positive reinforcement They have to be able to earn things back. If you take everything away they have no reason to try. Create many opportunities for rewards throughout the day with some being things you know they will do right so they feel the joy of being good and getting rewarded for it.
- Let Them State Their Case-Children want to be heard so if they tend to argue with you give them a chance to state their case. Let them state their full point and don’t interrupt even if you don’t agree. When they are done let them know you heard them by paraphrasing what they said. Then make your verdict and don’t allow a further discussion
- Can you say that again?-Sometimes children know what you don’t want but not what you do. So give them the opportunity to self-correct. If they say something the wrong way ask them to try again. If they do it wrong again model the right response and have them repeat it back
