A significant amount of your success in raising your ADHD child depends on
your acceptance of the reality that she has a disorder. Your acceptance will
determine everything you say and do with your child. If you have a negative
attitude and are skeptical of ADHD being a real disorder, or if you think your
child is misbehaving on purpose or is being lazy or manipulative, you will not be
able to parent your child effectively. If you have a positive attitude and accept
that your child has a disorder, then you will be able to be helpful, empathic,
patient, and nurturing. If you resist accepting your child for who he is, if you
keep searching for a pill to make him different or a therapy to fix him, you will
forever be frustrated and you will miss the joys of the uniqueness of your child.
If you accept the basic facts of ADHD, you will be able to accept your child,
with all her behavioral, social, and academic challenges, and you will be able to
raise her in the unique way she needs to be parented.
Accept that your child has ADHD. Your job now is to learn the best ways
to parent your special child.
Do not waste your time feeling guilty, wondering if you caused your
child’s ADHD. It is impossible to cause ADHD.
Recognize that while ADHD may look like a disorder of laziness, research
is finding that it is a disorder of the brain’s inability to regulate emotions,
impulses, activity level, and attention.
Do not blame your child. We do not know much about the causes of
ADHD; therefore, we should not be blaming the child for his symptoms that
we do not understand.
Know that ADHD lasts at least until adolescence starts, oftentimes until or
even throughout adulthood.
There is no cure for ADHD—end of story.
Focus on improving the quality of life for you, your child, and your family
instead of trying to “fix it” or find a cure.
Stop looking for some magic solution; there is none. The solution is in
your parenting.
The goal is to make daily life go well more often, not to make your child
change.
Focus on what is going right, rather than what is going wrong.
Take a strength-based approach, rather than a deficit approach by focusing
on what your child does well rather than what he does poorly.
If the surrounding environment is a challenge, change the environment, not
the child.
If the current schedule is a challenge, change the schedule, not the child.
If you find something that works, keep doing it. Do not start looking for
something else until you need to.
Set your expectations for your child based on how he functions now, not
on how old he is.
Understand that ADHD children lag behind their peers on average two to
Delete “She will never…” from your vocabulary. Most likely, she will eventually be able to do what you are expecting of her, just years later than a non-ADHD child.
Your child’s ability to regulate himself will vary from day to day, hour to
hour, so expect to have good days and bad days.
Remind yourself that just because your child did something well yesterday
does not mean she can automatically do it well today.
Be exceedingly patient with your child.
Focus on preventing problems from happening in the first place.
Realize that simply teaching your child a skill is not going to make her do
it. ADHD children need years of support and accommodation before a skill
becomes their own.
Repetition is the name of the game with ADHD. To help your child learn a
skill, he must repeat it over and over and over and over.
Offer as many supports and accommodations as necessary to make your
child’s daily life easier. 1000 Best Tips for ADHD is filled with hundreds of
supports and accommodations.
Enable your child by patiently guiding and assisting him in tasks so he
eventually learns to do them on his own. Do not disable him by doing
everything for him.
Do not believe others when they criticize accommodations and support as
coddling and overprotection. ADHD children need extra support and
accommodations until they are able to perform tasks and skills independently.
To deny them assistance is to set a foundation for failure.
Believe that the support and accommodations you provide will allow your
three years in many areas.
child to achieve success today so that she has the necessary skills and enough
self-worth to move to the next challenge tomorrow.
Find solace in knowing that eventually, over the years, your child will
learn how to put the supports and accommodations in place on his own and
will require less of your help.
Find the delicate balance between helping your child flourish and
thwarting her independence.
Help your child to swim in life by letting him experience consequences,
but don’t go so far as to let him drown.
Remember that your child will often be able to tell you what she is
supposed to do, even after she has failed to do it. She may have the
knowledge, but not the ability to put it into action.
Avoid placing too much emphasis on immediate and short-term goals, such
as getting homework done and earning high grades, so that you do not miss the
bigger goal of helping your child learn lifelong skills so he can function well
in his adult years.
Balance providing assistance with letting your child learn from experience.
She may have to lose recess twenty days in a row before she finally decides
that she will let you help her with her homework.
Understand that the bad decisions your child makes can be opportunities to
test out her decision-making abilities and learn from them.
Separate your child’s successes and failures in his life from yours as a
parent. His D on his essay is not your D in parenting.
Failures are opportunities to learn what is not working.
Your child’s ADHD is an explanation for her behavior, but never an excuse
Do not be defensive about your child’s inappropriate behavior. If you are
defensive, you will find that both you and your child will experience social
rejection
Apologize if your child acted inappropriately. Apologize appropriately and
fully: “I am sorry Lewis spit at your son. He gets frustrated very easily and has
not fully learned to express his anger correctly. I will have him apologize to
your son. Is there anything else we can do?”
Do not use ADHD as an excuse. It’s okay to tell others that your child has
ADHD, but do not stop there. Tell them what you are doing to help your child
with the problem they witnessed or experienced. “Gabby has ADHD and her
impulsivity sometimes results in aggressive behavior. We have enrolled her in
a kids’ anger management group to help her with this.” People will be more
tolerant and sympathetic if they know you see the problem and are doing
something about it.
You may think it is none of anybody’s business if your child has a disorder
and whether you are doing anything about it. You are correct. It really is
nobody’s business. However, if you want support, acceptance, and
understanding from others and want your child to be included in social and
family activities, a little bit of disclosure will go a long way toward achieving
these goals.
Avoid parents who are not supportive. If disclosure has failed to result in
an adult being kinder and more tolerant of your child, then that adult is best
removed from the company of your child.
Seek out like-minded parents. You will find support, understanding,
empathy, and good ideas from parents who understand the disorder and/or
have a child with ADHD
Avoid placing your child with adults who are rigid, impatient, and
intolerant. This will only frustrate everyone involved, including your child.
Do not try to have adult time with your friends and relatives when you
have your child with you. Schedule adult time when you do not have to be
worried about your child’s behavior and safety.
Schedule time away from your child. You deserve it and you will be more
patient with your child after you have had some fun, adult time.
