Reply to Help. Help. Help. I need help parenting my ADHD kid

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "Help. Help. Help. I need help parenting my ADHD kid "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Big hugs, OP.   I know it's hard.  And you are NOT ALONE.  I've been through that often, although not consistently.   I will say that life has gotten much better since my son went on Concerta.   We don't fight.   He is much more compliant.  So I don't know if medication is an option that young or not, but please consider it if he does in fact get a diagnosis.

I also asked the therapist for some parenting techniques because I was yelling too often.  I don't want to yell at all.  Let me find the resources and I'll try to post them here.

One thing she told me was to keep in mind that it's like a disability.  That's a strong word, but I think she was trying to make me remind myself that they will need multiple reminders, and it's not because they are disrespecting you or don't care.   They just inherently need multiple reminders.  I need to tell my kid about 5 times in the morning to get dressed.   He's almost 11.   I just make sure I ask nicely and don't lose my patience, and he eventually gets dressed.

There are other tricks and supports that can help.   I bought a huge clock timer that counts down, and set it on the bathroom sink so that he knows when he has to finish up his shower, for example.  He didn't like it at first, but it turned his 40 minute showers into 15 minute showers, which was the goal.   And now he doesn't fuss.

With my kid, positive feedback, rewards, and tons of praise really help.  I catch him being good.   The simplest things, and I mean the simplest things, get praised.   "Way to put on your shoes without my asking!"   "You are getting so grown up and mature!   Look how you remembered your homework for the weekend!"

And find a support network.  If you are married or partnered, split up kid time between you.  You need a break to care for yourself, too.

Let me see if I've got the links the therapist gave me.

[/quote]

Could not agree with this more. We too have a 4.5 year old son who I suspect will be diagnosed at some point with ADHD. He has impulse control issues and can sometimes be overly physical - sometimes not even out of spite, but because he is overly excited.

First of all, I absolutely believe the lack of routine in the summer was BAD for him. And for us. He is a kid who thrives off of routine, and when he has it, down time becomes much easier for him and for us since he can play more independently. Now that he is back in school, I have noticed a big difference in his behavior.

We also started him in karate in early August. I could give a crap about the belts, but man, is it ever working for first time listening and self-control. He goes twice a week and actually looks forward to it. It's expensive, but in my opinion, worth it. And it's cheaper than paying for therapy.

I also started doing a thing called "special time" each day where he gets around 15 minutes of my/my wife's complete and undivided attention doing exactly what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. This also helps when it's time for him to play independently while we make dinner, clean up, etc.

And as PP above said - and this is tough - try to be as positive as you can. We found ourselves yelling at him all the time over the summer. It only exacerbated the bad behavior. We hated ourselves for parenting that way, and that's when I started reading The Explosive Child. It really resonated with me, and I'd recommend it. Makes you think of that kind of behavior in a whole new way, and also makes you feel like you're not alone. Trying to understand why they get physical or have outbursts is key, because they lack the skills the deal with change of routine/circumstances or unexpected obstacles in the same way that other kids do. We are still working on this kind of positive parenting, but the more you see it pay off, the more you want to do it. I still have my bad days - yesterday was one - where I fuss and yell, but I find often that's me bringing my own issues from work or other stress home with me. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics