ADHD - Hot tips for parenting that we have learnt along the way -and are still learning.

I love the ADDITUDE sub title for ADHD…

It is Living Well with ADHD. 

This is the deep desire of my heart for my husband and my children.

The question around discipline always comes up on ADHD issues.

So, 

What about discipline?

       I am writing a bit about disciple here BUT really pleading with you to hear me . I can not tell you how and what to do. You will have to figure out what works for you and your family. As a Christian we know that it is our job as parents to disciple our children but not to exasperate them.

However I have learnt some hot tips with ADHD…. Dr.W. Dobson add to these ideas and re-enforced what we have experienced in practice.

Children off medication have little or no impulse control . Children off meds can be very difficult and their behaviour can be tricky to manage. This needs to be taken into account when disciplining ADHD children. They can be angry, argumentative and unco-operative. We have experienced that the old fashioned TIME OUT really does work. Dobsons encourages ALL involved to take some TIME OUT until emotions calm and then we can deal with the issues at hand. This is totally our experience. 

Some things we have learnt along the way...

love  boldly and often

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Do not expect your family to look like anyone else's

Pick your battles.

Remember who is in charge.

One size approach does NOT fit all children

Take time to cool off.

Plan for outings

Talk about expected behaviour

never stop talking and sharing

adjust and change when things do not work

apologise

forgive 

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love madly and completely

 

 Planning for outings

 

Here he was so very helpful …. He went on to encourage parents to plan times that might be difficult for ADHD children. A large gathering of people like at a party can be sensory overloading for ADHD children and behaviorally tricky. These are opportunities for friction and bad behaviour which will mean that the experience is overall negative.

The aim of these occasions is for the family to have a good time. These points of stress have often been times of extreme stress for our ADHD children.

Dr Dobson’s suggestion of…

1.    planning

2.    talking about possible problems

3.    setting goals or I would say expectations – realistic

4.    make sure that the child is rested and has eaten

5.    plan ahead of time an exit strategy

These are probably things we have been doing one way or another but it was so good to hear it and note that these are indeed good things to practice..

 Do not expect your family to look like others

One of the things that was very painful and indeed futile was trying to get our discipline and indeed parenting to fit someone e style and way of doing it. This was frustrating and damaging. I decided not to read self help parenting books where people do not have to deal with ADHD. It is far more helpful to get hot tips and try things written by those who understand and know how tricky it is to deal with an oppositional child. 

That we must deal with him is a fact but HOW we do it is really up to us. People who have walked this road before us have lots of helpful suggestions. Those who have not often write about a one size fit all approach and quite frankly this does not work when dealing with ADHD children.

Remember who is in charge

The social struggles of children with ADHD can sometimes rule. What I mean by this is if our ADHD child has 'had enough' and wants to go home he can become very annoying in his desperation to go home. While we understand sensory overload and boredom , we also can not be ruled by his need to leave. So we plan and we meet him half way. 

The other night we were going out. Our youngest son hates transition and change. He really can not cope with it. So he did not want to go out with us. It was a family outing to dinner and he really needed to come with us. To be with us was important. He could not rule the decision to go and he could not stay. I understand he does not like all the noise and there are too many people so we took some games with us that we could play together. we spent the whole time playing UNO and the like with him. Despite the noisy restaurant he coped well. We made it a short visit .We can not be ruled by the struggles ADHD children have but we CAN work with them to help them have a good time within a safe space.