Raising a Child with ADHD: Strategies and Insights
Personal Stories of Struggle and Triumph
Penny Williams of Asheville, North Carolina, shares her journey of raising a child with ADHD, starting from the challenging early days when her son’s behavior posed difficulties in a school setting. Her journey of acceptance, learning, and empowerment led her to become a source of support for other parents in similar situations.
Similarly, Erin Snyders from Minneapolis, MN, details the chaotic experiences before her son’s diagnosis of ADHD and how a combination of strategies and treatments helped them manage symptoms and navigate daily life.
ADHD Medications and Treatment Options
Explore the various medications available for managing ADHD symptoms, including psychostimulants and non-stimulant options. Learn how finding the right medication and dosage can make a significant difference in a child’s ability to focus and function effectively.
Diet, Exercise, and Lifestyle Changes for ADHD Management
Discover the role of diet, exercise, and lifestyle modifications in alleviating ADHD symptoms. From incorporating physical activity routines to dietary adjustments, find out how these changes can positively impact a child’s overall well-being.
Parenting Strategies and Mindset Shifts
Understand the importance of managing parental expectations, reactions, and mindsets when raising a child with ADHD. Explore how reframing behaviors and recognizing ADHD as a developmental delay can lead to a more compassionate and effective approach to parenting.
Practical Tips for Daily Management
Gain insights into practical strategies for supporting a child with ADHD in daily tasks and responsibilities. From utilizing reminder systems to establishing consistent routines and providing motivating incentives, learn effective ways to empower your child and promote positive behaviors.
Embracing Difficult Days and Self-Care
Discover the importance of self-care and acceptance on challenging days when managing a child with ADHD becomes overwhelming. Learn how letting go of societal expectations and prioritizing family well-being can lead to a more sustainable and loving parenting approach.
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Penny Williams of Asheville, North Carolina, still remembers the day she received a call from her son’s kindergarten teacher. It was the second day of school and the teacher requested a meeting for that same day.
“He was always a very rambunctious child, but also very sweet and loving,” says Williams, an author, podcaster, and parenting coach for neurodiverse families. “And then he went to school and everything went off the rails. He…he was so wild, active and unfocused that he really had a hard time following the classroom system.”
About a year later, her son was diagnosed with ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Back then, she struggled to find resources and information on how to raise a child with ADHD. So, she immersed herself in reading books and began blogging about her experience.
Now, 13 years later, her son is 19 and she is helping other parents raising children with ADHD navigate a neurotypical world.
“As I was obsessively researching, I wondered why no one was posting this to help other parents,” she says. “I felt like I had spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure it out. “I wanted to share it so no one else would have to go through such a long ordeal.”
Erin Snyders, a mother of three in Minneapolis, MN, and ADHD parenting coach, had a similar experience with her son.
“Life before the diagnosis was very chaotic and confusing,” he says. “As a father I felt like a total failure. I knew he was very intelligent and a very kind boy with a big heart, but his behavior did not match that.”
Williams and Snyders, like many parents of children with ADHD, have found that a combination of strategies, treatments and medications have helped them manage symptoms, teach new skills and manage daily life.
ADHD Medications
There are a variety of medications, including psychostimulants (such as Adderall and Ritalin) and non-stimulant medications (such as Intuniv, Kapvay, and Strattera), that can help children manage their ADHD symptoms. These symptoms include things like impulsivity, hyperactivity, and inability to concentrate. The type of medication (or whether it is used or not) is a personal preference. It’s something every parent should discuss with their child’s doctor. Much depends on the severity of the child’s symptoms, the child’s sensitivity and reactions to different medications, and other factors.
Williams says her son started taking medication shortly after his diagnosis, when he was in first grade. But it took some time to find the right medications for him and the right dosage.
In the end, he had to take some medicines together. Williams says the medication helped him calm down and concentrate for longer periods of time. But he has since stopped taking medication in his late teens due to side effects.
“It wasn’t great right away, it took a bit of trial and error,” Williams says. “For several years he was quite stable with a stimulant and another medication added.”
Snyders says her son tried stimulant medication for the first time, but it increased his anxiety. He is now taking a non-stimulant medication.
But both women emphasize that medication is only one piece of the puzzle.
Snyders says if you try a medication and it starts to work, that’s the time to start teaching coping skills and mechanisms, like time management, emotion regulation, prioritization, how to transition between activities, and more.
Diet, exercise and lifestyle changes
Many families also try a variety of other treatments to help with their child’s ADHD symptoms.
Snyders says that over the years, his family has tried many different treatments and therapies, including chiropractic care. They have also made changes to their diet and exercise habits.
“We definitely see changes with diet and exercise; those have been the biggest ones for us,” he says.
Snyders says helping her son walk or run on the treadmill for 15 minutes before school, as well as genetic testing, which put him on vitamin supplements, has made a big difference for his son.
But some treatments didn’t have a big enough benefit to require time, energy and expense. Warn other parents not to try to do everything at once or perfectly all the time.
“Parents raising children with ADHD expect them to do all the things themselves all the time,” he says. “You can’t expect to have a perfect diet, exercise every day, etc. That just sets you up for burnout and failure.”
Parenting Strategies and Mindset
While medication and support at school helped their children, Williams and Snyders say managing their own expectations, reactions and mindsets has made the biggest difference for them and their families.
“The most important piece was our own upbringing and our mindset around ADHD and behavior,” Williams says. “That’s when things started to get a little easier for us and I worried less because I understood what was going on under the surface.”
When she works with new families, she says she tells them, “It’s about 90% for us as parents and 10% is skill development and coping mechanisms for the kids.”
Snyder says one of his biggest breakthroughs was recognizing that ADHD is a type of developmental delay.
“The biggest moment for me was understanding executive age,” he says, which is the age of the child based on how their brain is functioning. “Your child’s executive function, impulse control, processing speed, all of that is delayed by about a third of his age. So instead of thinking about how it should work at 9 years old, I think, ‘How would I have helped him get through this when he was 6?’”
She says reframing helps her meet her son where he is and not where she thinks he should be.
Williams agrees. She says that she tries to think of a child’s behavior as her way of communicating. So when a child throws a tantrum or yells, she sees it as her way of sharing that something is wrong.
“A parenting mantra that has helped me is, ‘He’s not giving you a hard time, he’s giving you a hard time,’” he says. “That gives you the perspective for greater compassion and a better relationship. So problem solving is better and it is a much more comfortable and pleasant way to interact as a family.”
Practical tips for doing things with ADHD
One helpful trick Snyders uses daily is performance point reminders, or reminders that occur when a child needs to complete a task or remember something.
“If you remind them too soon or after the fact, they are less likely to be successful,” he says. She uses technology, such as cell phone alarms, and sticky notes to remind her children of daily routines or handing in homework, a common struggle she sees in children with ADHD.
He also says that children with ADHD need help to motivate themselves to do the things they need to do.
“Writing a to-do or to-do list is not enough. You will have to motivate your child to make it to the list,” she says.
Snyders says consistency is key. She suggests doing difficult tasks at the same time every day or setting an alarm to know when her child needs to start. And, when your child is learning or working on new skills, she recommends frequent rewards or quick wins to encourage him along the way.
“Our children experience many more negative comments every day. So trying to help generate some positivity and success often means starting very, very slowly,” she says. “Don’t try to make a big to-do chart for the week, start with one day. For example, ‘I cleaned my room today, so today I will receive a reward.’”
Tips for difficult days
Williams says sometimes the best way to get through a bad day is to “let go and take good care of yourself.”
“Sometimes you just have to say: today is not the day because sometimes it just isn’t,” he says. “When our children have a lot of difficulties, they can’t do their homework. They can’t have a conversation and plan something. It is simply not possible. Take a step back to say that homework isn’t that important tonight. We’ll work on it tomorrow. We’ll catch up over the weekend. Sometimes, it’s a reason to do nothing. “Just for being.”
Snyders agrees.
“You have to accept letting go of society’s expectations and society’s expectations of motherhood and doing what’s best for your family,” she says.
Snyders says the most important thing for parents to remember is that everything will be okay.
“Be confident that this will get better, you will mature and grow, just in due time,” he says. “The most important thing you can do is build a relationship with your child. They need a loving father. “They need that person who they know is on their side.”
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