What does a parent of a child with ADHD need to do?

[SewingBees]

On the back of a thread about someone receiving an adult ADHD diagnosis, and subsequent posts about how difficult it was for some being a child with ADHD, I'd like to know what I need to do for my daughter, who is suspected to have ADHD.

So many posters on the other thread have talked about their childhoods being difficult - not being able to meet parent/teacher expectations, judging themselves harshly, being judged harshly compared to peers etc. I'd like to know what I can do to make things easier for my child. Are there any good resources out there for parents like me?

My daughter is 8 and on the pathway for assessment, but it will be 18 months at least before she is actually assessed.

I think the key is parent the child you have not the child you expected to have.

You need to find out what works for her, and you as a family. Try to be consistent as much as possible

Invest the time in learning to understand the condition and then help her to understand herself.

As well as often being on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, ADHDers can be their own worst critics - “why did I mess that up? Why can’t I do things as easily as my friends? etc etc”. Helping them understand how their brains work in an age-appropriate way is really important.

My big work in progress is “prompt don’t nag” - i often have to remind about basic things which can be exasperating and it’s so tempting to fall into “for goodness sake get your socks on we’re already late!” rather than a more helpful “ok so you are nearly ready, socks next!”

Generally working out what scaffolding they need - what helps them focus? What stops them getting overwhelmed? What helps them organise themselves?

They say routines are important but I have ADHD myself and consistent routines are a challenge!

Look at diet, sleep, general wellbeing.

Russell Barkley has a lot of research and resources in different formats. It definitely helps to learn more about it imo.

Piggy backing on this thread as my DS is about to start the path to diagnosis and I'm feeling like we're not parenting him well at all. Love to hear about any resources.

My DH in particular is finding it a struggle. He's a fairly authoritarian parent at the best of times so he's really struggling with DS and letting what he sees as poor behaviour or choices slide or me "making excuses for him". I'm not excusing poor behaviour but the need for constant prompts and reminders is just necessary. I don't know how to get him to understand that we have to change our expectations and our parenting for DS.

It's so hard to know what the right thing to do is, OP. I hear you!

Keep them physically active. I was told by consultant to buy a trampoline. DC to bounce for 20 minutes before school. Walk not drive to school. After school do something physically active like swimming, running, football, tennis, cricket, anything to burn off their excess energy. I did find on wet days when they did no physical activity they were far harder to deal with. I signed my 2 DS's with ADHD up to swimming twice a week, and swimming club too, football and rugby. One also did BMX. The other did karate as it kelp him calmer. Both bounced on trampoline a lot. Not to feed them sugary food or food with the red colourant as it makes them far worse.

Both my DS's also found organising themselves very hard. This meant lots of lost clothes at school from coats to socks. I found it frustrating but learned to let that go. I did set form boundaries which was what our consultant told us to do. Clear boundaries and plenty of exercise where they didn't have to stay still.

I have seen online that a booked was released recently aimed at children with adhd. It’s called Ady & me. I haven’t read it (no adhd diagnoses in this house but I follow with interest as I often wonder about myself!). Anyway might be a nice thing for your child if you think the message would resonate with them.

This is a lovely question to ask.

My parents never shamed me. They never made me feel less than. When you have ADHD, there is so much shame. So total acceptance of the child you have.

Let her do as much of what she enjoys and/or is good at as possible.

For myself, I often think sensory first. Talking isn’t always the answer to problems. My teen dd has ASD and it’s same with her. If she’s had a tough day at school, then tea, telly and a hot water bottle is a better fix than working it through. My dd does info-dump, and obvs that’s fine and I listen. But my next moves would be hoping she does something that self regulates. Whatever that is for her. For me it’s vibration cushion, heat pad, and silence. But it will be something dif for your dd.

Advocate for her at school. I’m a primary teacher - I’ve seen the difference between children whose parents advocate and those who don’t.

I have similar DH issues!

RSD is such a big thing with ADHD, and emotional disregulation. When DS is struggling with something it’s not the time to criticise or make a big thing about it, even if DS’s behaviour isn’t good - he needs help to get out of the disregulated state, not a lecture. So sometimes it can be counterintuitive stuff like DS shouts at me and what he needs is for me to give him a hug. Then we will do a recap later when he is calm about the shouting and how he could have handled things better. Not trying to deliver life lessons at the wrong time has been a game-changer for me, but I am still working on DH.

Learn about RSD and don't be too hard on a child in meltdown because of a rejection that they can't explain.

Accept that your child will be sensitive to looks and tone of voice, and they'll almost supernaturally pick up on your mood, so be prepared to reassure them that you're thinking about something else and that's why your face changed.

Be prepared for a lot of pushback, and also for some lying.

If they have the inattentive type (it's the only one I'm familiar with so it might be the same for hyperactive type) then they might be really creative, in secret, in their head. My dc would tell me all sorts of stories that they wish had happened, some of them identifiably fiction but not all. No shaming them for that.

Anything you can do to help them build life skills in organising themselves will be wonderful, from my experience. Teach them to make to do lists, to discharge mental stress into a notepad so they can forget it and come back later. Teach them to use a calendar, write lists, read them back.

This would have made life very different for me.

Losing things. Please don't make a big deal of it. Help them with strategies such as same, obvious spot for keys, bags, shoes etc. Try to keep things at point of use. Out of sight really is out of mind.
To this day, if I can't find something, I experience all the telling offs of my childhood.

The biggest thing is to get thelm diagnosed and treated. Just like you would any other illness or condition.

Treated with meds do you mean?

Of course, as we know, ADHD isn't an illness and doesn't necessarily need meds. Rory Bremner made an interesting comment on this - he tried meds and said it lessened his creativity. I'm not taking meds.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I don't seem to have done too badly so far, based on what you've said. I do get frustrated when she gets sidetracked in doing a simple task, but try to make a light-hearted joke of it rather than a big deal.

Any tips on dealing with procrastination/reluctance to start a boring task like homework?

What works for me is bite size chunks with a reward. So I say to myself so 20 minutes of this then you can go sit in the sun for 5 minutes. I also sometimes use an app called Forest which puts my phone out of action for the set time, and if I go ahead and override it my little plant dies!

As others have said, the losing things. Mostly advocate for them if school don’t believe you about their ADHD. But be prepared to replace everything constantly.

Our DS(7) was diagnosed privately last summer and we are still struggling to find the best way to parent him. Different parental approaches, as you describe, are definitely an issue. It may help to see if your local authority offers the New Forest ParentIng Programme for parents of children with ADHD. If both you and your DH attend, you may find it helpful and eye-opening for both of you. If you can do the course in person rather than online, it is even more useful.

Im late diagnosed ADHD, ds (9)is on diagnosis pathway, dh is definitely a flavour of ND. What works for us (after much trial and error..)

• Echoing a pp on parent the kid you have. Once i mostly let go of what I thought we should be doing for him (extra curriculars, ‘improving’ days out etc) it became so much easier. Realised he needed more decompression time, liked certain types of hobbies et. and was never going to be into team sports or riding a bike etc
• Logical repeatable solutions for getting out the house, making things tidy etc. dh and ds are basically object blind unless they fall over it. Shoes and coats are by the front door, school bags are in kitchen etc. I also use a lot of see through storage in the fridge etc as it’s easier to see things
• accept they may have a weird attachment to lots of random shit. ds has a photographic memory so getting rid of anything is hard, and i need to do that as it makes my adhd worse if i don’t. We’ve come to an agreement a clear out every 4-6 weeks of old papers, craft materials etc
• Accept in some cases that adhd can make kids 2-3 years in emotional maturity behind their peers. this is key for me as ds is advanced in some areas but in others i have to scale back and simplify especially when it comes to peer connections
• Try not to shame them for not doing stuff if they’ve tried - we know we should have done it, being berated for it doesn’t help

Interestingly (as other pp have mentioned) dh was also refusing to acknowledge some of the challenges and doubling down on the ‘it’s just shitty behaviour’ concept. Until I was diagnosed and then that didn’t wash anymore 😂

This! DH and I attended it when DD was put down as "small traces of ADHD" when she was 7. We decided to go ahead and learnt a huge amount of valuable information.

DD is now fully diagnosed at 17, when the assessor saw the name of the original person seeing her, she only shook her head and said " another one with years wasted". It seems the guy had a habit of underdiganosing girls.

@SewingBees
Ignore "normal" parenting strategies. For example a sticker chart is useless. Consequences need to be in line with what happened to make an impact.
Work with your child, don't dictate. They have to find a way to organise, this can and most likely will be very different to your views.

We found a huge visible calendar helpful to organise her life, slots for school, family, days out etc. She learnt to add things herself, even started putting "notice periods" on it like " buying a gift for a party in 1 week".
Be prepared for lost items to have replacements at home to avoid meltdowns but then teach them to tell you when they take the last glue stick or opened a new set of pens.

Girls often don't fit the typical view of an ADHD child, you may find that she will say something about "bees in the brain" or "not being able to shut the thoughts down". Their hyperactive part is more internally than externally.
We managed a couple of years with meditaion CDs at bedtime to give her a relaxed time to fall asleep and to help her putting her brain to rest.

You may have to find you need ot battle school as she may not be that obvious there. Find fixed spots and set up a time table for her to do homework.

Oof what a question OP! Following. I have no idea, I find it very hard not to come down hard on DS’ behaviour a lot of the time because it’s totally unacceptable.

This, actually. DS needs the walk to school, and he only has one day a week where he doesn’t do a physical activity.