How to get an ADHD child to do what you ask them to do -- 2 hot tips.

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There are not many things in life that I would love to have but just can not  - and that is ok. As a Chrisitan , I know God is at work in me helping me to be content and that contenetment with godliness is great gain. One thing I would love to give our family is this opportunity.

In the USA Dr Barkley runs an ADHD clinic for families. Oh how I would LOVE to take our family off there and get some help.

If you have an ADHD family, you will totally understand this.

But, having said this, he has given some excellent and helpful talks via the Internet and so we have some help at hand.

This post is about getting the ADHD child to act.... to do... to follow instructions.

I write about this because following through with an action is very difficult for ADHD children and they often, more often than not, will 'fail' in this area. 

Here are some hot tips from Barkley that he shares with the families who visit his clinic. 

Turn off the telly or any other noisy object when giving an instruction.

Take the child gently by the arm - touch them in some way. 

Get them to look you in the eye

give short instructions

expect follow through

and praise!!!!!

Touch and talk. 

This is his advice and to be totally honest with you we have been trying this with our children this week and it has really worked.

It requires the adult to engage totally in the child's world and to step back out of the thing that captivates us most.

We have usually relied on the 'verbal sprinkling' kind of parenting . You give the instruction, out loud, and expect the child to get on the job. This has failed terribly with our ADHD, especially our one son, who is totally not motivated by his own goal or actually my goal. He is stuck in the moment , enjoying his game and actually seems totally not to hear me. But, now, if I touch and talk, then we shift things for both of us. 

Radical change. 

He HEARS me and know what I expect and then can act. 

ADHD children are NOT stupid. They have loads of knowledge. They just have struggle effectively executing it. A silly example is... I know how to brush my teeth. I do not need you to show me how to do it,. I do not brush my teeth NOT because I do not know HOW but I lack the ability to follow through with the action.

We, the adults, need to change the ENVIRONMENT to help the ADHD child work and succeed. This was revolutionary to me. I supose I have been doing this already.... We have as a family. But now, it just seems to make more sence. Changing the environment to help the child experience success is a win win way of opperating. 

He talks a great deal about increasing the frequency of consequences. Not as a punishment or as a means to change behaviour ( this is unlikely in ADHD children) but as a way to get them to behave appropriately and to do what needs to be done. 

The ADHD child does not have a strong internal motivation system. Time and goal setting does not motivate them. An interesting project will probably motive them. If these do not, then we, the parents need to set EXTERNAL motivations like rewards or something that helps the child keep going.

This makes total sense to me but is very difficult to set up and get going.It requires a lot of energy, thought and creative ideas. It requires God's grace!!

I hope that these ideas help someone. I know that they really shifted some ways of parenting and expectations for me as a mom of ADHD children.

The adventure continues.