As your children have gotten almost two months into school, some challenges with ADHD may be arising (or may have been around for some time now). These tips are outlined as some ways to help manage symptoms as well as structure your child’s day and environment.
One of the best ways to support children with ADHD is to set a routine and structure to your day. This sets up everyone for success in that it provides clear expectations. This might look like having a visual schedule or calendar, chore or goals lists, or having objects get in a specific spot. Having these in place helps with transitions, organization, and having everyone on the same page.
Another helpful way to manage ADHD related behaviors is physical activity. This can help with regulation, concentration, and managing stress that might occur throughout the day. Another benefit is that it helps with sleep at night! Often times sleep or winding down in the evening can be tough, so having some exercise earlier in the day might reduce some of that energy later in the day.
Utilizing positive reinforcement such as praise, sticker charts, external rewards (e.g., special dinner, fun activity) can also be extremely helpful. These strategies increase the likelihood of desired behaviors, e.g. focusing, completing chores, occurring more frequently. In particular, using an If-Then plan (Sometimes I call it “Grandma’s Rule”) helps facilitate this process. For example, you might say something like, “If you eat your peas, then you can have your ice cream”. The idea is that if you want a problem behavior to decrease, you want to choose the opposite behavior to reinforce. Positive opposites could be playing quietly, sitting still, asking politely. My best advice is to catch kids when they are doing things we want them to do. Being specific with praise is also crucial. We want to really emphasize what we are looking for.
Something that I have often found to be helpful is making learning and teaching fun. This allows for better engagement and allows for bonding within the family. For example, when trying to work on impulse control I often play Red Light, Green Light. The idea is to teach how to stop, take a breath, think about actions, plans, and consequences, and after choosing a productive course of action, then going. This can be done with other games such as Jenga, Chess, or Battleship.
Some coping strategies or alternative behaviors you could try are:
- Muscle Relaxation
- Tense and release muscle areas.
- Squeeze the lemons to make lemonade e.g. Squeeze hands together, count to 3, then release/drop the lemons.
- Tense and release muscle areas.
- Deep breathing
- Smell Birthday cake (inhale through nose), Blow out candle (breath out through mouth)
- Exercise
- 10-15 minutes of cardio
- Plan a dance party, do jumping jacks, race outside.
- 10-15 minutes of cardio
- Use your senses to calm the mind and ground thoughts and feelings.
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- Name 5 things you can see.
- Name 4 things that you can touch (touch them)
- Name 3 things you can hear.
- Name 2 things you can smell or 2 favorite smells.
- Name 1 thing you can taste or your favorite taste.
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