ADHD and Your Child
Parenting Tips and Tricks…
Understanding ourselves, understanding our ADHD child . . .
“Handling our ADHD children’s anger can be puzzling, draining, and distressing for adults. In fact, one of the major problems in dealing with anger in ADHD children is the angry feelings that are often stirred up in us. It has been said that we as parents, teachers, counselors, and administrators need to remind ourselves that we were not always taught how to deal with anger as a fact of life during our own childhood. We were led to believe that to be angry was to be bad, and we were often made to feel guilty for expressing anger.
It will be easier to deal with ADHD children’s anger if we get rid of this notion. Our goal is not to repress or destroy angry feelings in children–or in ourselves–but rather to accept the feelings and to help channel and direct them to constructive ends.
Parents and teachers must allow ADHD children to feel all their feelings. Adult skills can then be directed toward showing children acceptable ways of expressing their feelings. Strong feelings cannot be denied, and angry outbursts should not always be viewed as a sign of serious problems; they should be recognized and treated with respect.
To respond effectively to overly aggressive behavior in children we need to have some ideas about what may have triggered an outburst. Anger may be a defense to avoid painful feelings; it may be associated with failure, low self-esteem, and feelings of isolation; or it may be related to anxiety about situations over which the child has no control.
Angry defiance may also be associated with feelings of dependency, and anger may be associated with sadness and depression. In childhood, anger and sadness are very close to one another, and it is important to remember that much of what an adult experiences as sadness is expressed by a child as anger.
Before we look at specific ways to manage aggressive and angry outbursts, several points should be highlighted:
We should distinguish between anger and aggression. Anger is a temporary emotional state caused by frustration; aggression is often an attempt to hurt a person or to destroy property.
Anger and aggression do not have to be dirty words. In other words, in looking at aggressive behavior in ADHD children, we must be careful to distinguish between behavior that indicates emotional problems and behavior that is normal.
In dealing with angry ADHD children, our actions should be motivated by the need to protect and to reach, not by a desire to punish. Parents and teachers should show a child that they accept his or her feelings, while suggesting other ways to express the feelings. An adult might say, for example, “Let me tell you what some children would do in a situation like this…” It is not enough to tell children what behaviors we find unacceptable. We must teach them acceptable ways of coping. Also, ways must be found to communicate what we expect of them. Contrary to popular opinion, punishment is not the most effective way to communicate to children what we expect of them.
Good discipline includes creating an atmosphere of quiet firmness, clarity, and conscientiousness, while using reasoning. Bad discipline involves punishment which is unduly harsh and inappropriate, and it is often associated with verbal ridicule and attacks on the child’s integrity.
As one fourth-grade teacher put it: “One of the most important goals we strive for as parents, educators, and mental health professionals is to help children develop respect for themselves and others.” While arriving at this goal takes years of patient practice, it is a vital process in which parents, teachers, and all caring adults can play a crucial and exciting role. In order to accomplish this, we must see children as worthy human beings and be sincere in dealing with them.”[1]
“Neurofeedback is designed to help the brain regulate itself better, it is often used to help people with rapidly shifting moods, or intense moods, such as anger and rage. This is usually done in a way that helps lower the arousal or activation level of selected parts of the brain, or helps two parts of the brain change their way of working together.”[2]
“Proponents of neurofeedback claim that this form of self-regulating training is better than using prescription medication which comes with a host of issues of their own. Neurofeedback for ADHD children appears often in the form of video games that help moderate brain activity in the child. These therapy sessions are therefore seen as fun.”[3]
“Computer-based neurofeedback can produce significant and lasting improvement in attention and focus in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and is superior to computer-based cognitive training (CT), new research shows. Results from a randomized controlled trial showed that children who received computer-based neurofeedback made faster and greater improvements in ADHD symptoms, which were sustained at the 6- month follow-up, than their peers who received computer CT. “Sustainability of improvements after a behavioral intervention is not usually found, and an important finding,” Naomi Steiner, MD, of the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, told Medscape Medical News.”[4]
Read Peter’s Play Attention success story. His behaviors improved incredibly through the Play Attention training. He was actually able to graduate from a self-contained behavior classroom to the regular classroom! http://www.playattention.com/adhd-success-stories/pj/[5]
How to Teach Positive Behaviors to Your ADHD Child
“Some children, especially those with severe ADHD symptoms, benefit from behavioral therapy along with medication; for others, the training may make enough difference to enable them to succeed in school and function well at home without medication.
One important reason for kids to participate in behavioral therapy (whether or not they also take medication) is that ADHD medications stop working when you stop taking them, while behavioral therapy can teach children skills that will continue to benefit them as they grow up.” [6]
Play Attention integrates feedback technology with cognitive skill training and behavior shaping. http://www.playattention.com/solution/behavior/[7]
“Take the High Road – Be Positive –
By the time a parent is sitting in that chair in front of me, they are usually at wit’s end. That end usually comes when they are threatening to pull their hair out and are so angry that they yell at the kid and make demands. Sometimes, they are so angry, they admit to feelings of wanting to “just hurt him, because of the hurt he’s caused me”! Of course, the more demands made and the more threats promised, the less likely the child will cooperate. A vicious cycle is usually set when a child becomes “resistant” to his or her parent’s threats, yelling and screaming. That’s when they seem to just “tune you out” or develop what I call the “duh syndrome”. Tuning you out is the way an ADHD child remains in control.”[8]
“Always start your conversations with an expression of your love and concern for your child’s safety. For example, “Billy, I was really worried when I heard the front window break.” “Did you get hurt when your ball went through the glass?”
Displaying a positive caring and non-judgmental concern into any negative circumstance tends to make the “pill” of telling the truth a lot easier for the child to swallow. Indicate your primary concern is the child and not the event.
Don’t accuse your ADHD child of wrong doing before you clearly first obtain his or her side of the story and only then secondly get everyone else’s. You teach the positive attitude of fairness and justice for all, when you set this example.
When it’s obvious they have “tuned you out”, don’t argue with them. Instead, allow them a cool down period and once they are receptive to further discussion of “whatever set them off”, just calmly point out that you understand their need to think about what happened before talking about it.
Let your child catch you saying nice things about others, instead of derogatory remarks. I often hear parents say, “Take a look at that kid with the long hair and ring in his nose.” “That makes him just plain ugly and I bet he’s dumb as a mule, too!” How can your kid hope to be unique individuals in the face of such unproven, unfounded accusations? Nothing impresses an ADHD child more than to hear a compliment about one of their “cool friends” or someone they value coming from you, instead of criticism. This really teaches that they can form non-judgmental opinions about others, without “buying into” their attitudes or culture. You are in essence teaching the positive attitude of respecting other’s rights.
Set the example you want your child to follow. If you smoke, expect they will probably smoke. The same is true of alcohol and drugs, and cussing, and promiscuous sex, and you get the picture. You must be the pattern that you expect your children to follow. Or, would you rather they follow someone else’s lifestyle and attitude mindset?
Children with ADHD tend to be weak in what we call “executive functioning.” Executive functions are the self-regulating skills that we all use to accomplish tasks, from getting dressed to doing homework. They include planning, organizing time and materials, making decisions, shifting from one situation to another, controlling our emotions and learning from past mistakes. “[9]
“Dr. Naomi Steiner[10], an expert in this field, states that individuals with ADHD have a problem with executive functioning skills, of which Emotional Self-Regulation is a key component. This, along with a lack of will, says Steiner, contributes to the “blow ups” and outbursts individuals with ADHD display.”
Dr. Steiner was recently interviewed on CNN, of which, Play Attention was the intervention she used: http://www.cnn.com/videos/living/2015/10/05/brain-training-to-help-with-anxiety-and-adhd.cnn[11]
“Play Attention was developed to deal with these kinds of difficulties in the executive functioning areas of the brain through the development of cognitive skill sets. To learn more, peruse our website and check out our cognitive games[12] Play Attention integrates feedback technology with cognitive skill training and behavior shaping. You may learn more about Play Attention at one of our upcoming Speed Webinars,[13]At the webinar you can learn how Play Attention can help your child develop coping skills that will last a lifetime.”
“Parenting kids with ADHD can feel like a frustrating—and sometimes unfeasible—task. But “Don’t let ADHD rob you of the joy of being a parent,” Palladino says.
When parents are at their wits’ end, they can do a few things to help. For instance, she suggests a parent “cradle your arms and remember what it felt like when your child was born.”
If you’re “correcting your child too much, turn your ring or put your wristwatch on your other hand, and don’t put it back the right way until you’ve thought of and said something positive or caught your child being good,” she says.[14]
Your attention experts are at playattention.com[15]. Chat with us from that site, or call us at 800.788.6786 to learn how Play Attention can help develop coping skills, reduce disruptive behaviors, and improve impulse control.
[1] http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/how-to-be-a-parent/angry_child/
[2] http://jacobsassociates.org/id27.html
[3] http://www.help-your-child-with-anger.com/neurofeedback-for-adhd.html
[4] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/821113
[5] http://www.playattention.com/adhd-success-stories/pj/
[6] http://www.childmind.org/en/posts/articles/2014-1-21-behavioral-treatment-kids-adhd
[7] http://www.playattention.com/solution/behavior/
[8] http://adhdbehavior.com/index/?p=170
[9] http://www.childmind.org/en/posts/articles/2014-1-21-behavioral-treatment-kids-adhd
[10] http://www.additudemag.com/RCLP/sub/11451.html
[11] http://www.cnn.com/videos/living/2015/10/05/brain-training-to-help-with-anxiety-and-adhd.cnn
[12] http://www.playattention.com/play-attention-cognitive-games/
[13] http://www.playattention.com/speed-webinar/
[14] http://psychcentral.com/lib/parenting-kids-with-adhd-16-tips-to-tackle-common-challenges/2/
[15] http://www.playattention.com/