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[quote=Anonymous]Career nanny here (and I actually do playroom reorganization as a side hustle).  Your nanny can be a huge resource but you have to hire for that.

Here are some systems that I have found useful with ADHD charges:

1) Figure out their main sensory needs and meet those before you make demands.  For example one charge needed a lot of deep pressure so I would wake him in the morning by laying on top of him for a few minutes and chatting about the plans for the day.  That helped him start the morning in a better place.  Another charge needed lots of cardio and jumping and spinning so we would ALWAYS play outside after school before tackling homework (in literally all weather).

2) Create clear visual cues and enforce specific routines at key points in the day.  When they wake up, have a visual schedule with a list of what they need to do in the morning: pee, get dressed, brush hair, brush teeth, eat breakfast, get backpack, get shoes on.  When they arrive home have a visual schedule by the door: hang backpack, shoes away, wash hands. And another for their bedtime routine.  They will need a ton of handholding at first for these routines but if you and the nanny are consistent then over time it will be less of a struggle.  It is so worth it to invest in these transitions when they are small bc I have former nfs with ADHD kids where the parents didn’t want to focus on transitions and now the kids are 12 and still regularly lose their shoes or backpack or go to school without brushing teeth.

3) For toys/clutter, the answer is that they need to only have access to a quantity of “stuff” that they can keep tidy.  It helps to have a designated space that they can leave something they are still working on (I like those bed trays with foldable legs), but everything else should be cleaned up daily.  If that’s not happening, then they need fewer toys.  You can put the majority of their stuff in a closet and on a normal day they only have access to an amount they can manage.  Keep cutting back until they can handle keeping it cleaned up.  You can gradually add more back in once they get better at cleaning up, or you can just rotate out the stuff from the closet periodically, but most kids have too many toys and ADHD kids have WAY too many toys given how easily they get overwhelmed with tidying.

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