Children with ADHD often fail, despite their best efforts to meet the expectations of those around them. Things that are easy for “normal” children with good self-control are sometimes impossible for children with ADHD.
As a result, their self-confidence is often destroyed. Therefore, you need to help your child through success stories to regain more self-esteem despite their ADHD.
How do you Manage Children with ADHD?
Promote your child’s strengths! For example, if they are very helpful and help younger children/siblings in the playground, you should encourage your child to do this more often and tell them that you think they are very nice.
Set realistic goals that your child can achieve too! For example, don’t let a child with ADHD keep quiet for half an hour, but give 10 minutes as a goal.
Encourage your child (“I know you can do this!”) And praise them for little improvements. There will be slowness in completing set tasks, don’t worry, you simply have to learn to endure to a certain extent.
Skin contact is also important for children with ADHD, although stimuli are sometimes too strong for them. Carry your child in your arms often, put your hand on their shoulder, or stroke their hair. But please always make sure that your child is comfortable to touch.
My Tip for Dealing with ADHD
Some boys (and girls) with ADHD exhibit a dislike for cuddling and being cuddled, even when skin contact would benefit them.
Try a “dry bath”. Soap each other pantomime and then rub yourself dry with a (played or real) towel. You can massage your child very well and also treat him more intensively.
Clear Rules and Limits for ADHD
Children with ADHD can navigate life more effectively when they receive understanding and special care. Because of their condition, you need a lot of patience to cope with their inadequacies.
Such children need a regular daily routine, predefined meals, bedtime, and other activities such as going to kindergarten in the morning or the playground in the afternoon. Heapally advice. Children with ADHD often find it difficult to deal with unforeseen changes in their daily routine and then react badly to them.
If possible, inform them about changes as early as possible and repeatedly.
An orderly environment, including a child’s room that is as tidy as possible, in which it is better to have too few than too many toys, helps children with ADHD to concentrate better on a game and to stay more focused.
- He would be distracted by the stimuli in a cramped nursery school.
- Do not set too many tasks that your child cannot handle.
- Ensure well-programmed daily tasks for the child. Introduce specific tasks to be completed at set times, such as cleaning up before lunch and dinner.
- Consistently enforce rules and limits for the most important aspects that are significant to you.
This is exhausting for you as a parent, but the only really promising method for children with ADHD.
The top principle in ADHD when rules
- Instead of repeatedly admonishing your child, promptly approach them after repeating the instruction and ensure that they follow the advice.
- For example, hold your child’s hand when they “don’t know” how to put away their shoes or books.
- Collect the toy from him that he has just forcibly snatched from another child or thrown around the room.
- If he annoys or beats his siblings all the time, disturbs them, or talks non-stop while you are on the phone, then just be calm with him and correct him privately.
- Take your child out in a friendly but clear and firm manner or, if necessary, carry them out if they can not do that independently.
Parental Guide on ADHD Children Psychology
Many children with ADHD are grumpy about the morning, and getting dressed in the morning often leads to the first fight of the day. With the regular passing of instructions, you can help children from three years of age who can dress themselves almost on their own.
With your child, lay out the clothes for the next day in the evening and line them up in the correct order (underpants, undershirt, stockings, sweater, pants) face up on the floor or on a couch so that your child can “work through” themselves.
Implementing this approach makes the experience of getting dressed more relaxed, and it undoubtedly instills a great sense of pride in your child when they dress themselves entirely. If your child complies with a request without any “drama”, you should praise him immediately.
Try to recognize goodwill alone, even if the result of the effort is often far from perfect!
Suppose your child comes into the house with completely dirty shoes but has properly put them in the shoe cupboard after they have already lost a number of pieces of dirt in the hallway. In that case, you should look over the dirt or put the vacuum cleaner in your child without reproach.
Strengthen the positive, and pay less attention to the negative (if not particularly tragic)!
A Sensible Reward System for Children with ADHD
The “reward snail” system creates additional incentives for your child to show the desired behavior.
Reinforcing correct behavior in children with ADHD through praise or, ideally, a small reward increases the likelihood of them displaying such behavior more frequently in the future. This system is recommended for tasks or requirements that pose particular difficulty for your child.
For example, suppose there is a monkey show every evening and it takes forever until your child is finally in bed. In that case, they could receive a reward point for every evening they are in bed within a specified time (possibly using the “egg alarm method”).
Agree with your child on what the reward points are “worth”. For example, if they have received four points, they can choose a smaller reward (e.g. an additional bedtime story, half an hour of extra playtime with mom or dad).
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Achieving eight points unlocks a greater reward, such as a visit to the ice cream parlor, swimming pool, or even a long-awaited toy (which doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive!).
If your child has received a reward point, they can either color a point in the snail shell with a colored pencil or stick a colored adhesive point (better still: a small sticker with a picture).
Depending on your child’s wishes, you can design one or more of your own “reward pictures” to color in, stick in dots, or draw from a coloring book or a template for window pictures.
Well, suited are, for example, the following motifs: snake, caterpillar, train (with many wagons), mother goose with chicks in single file, etc. Give the reward point immediately after successfully completing a task! For children with ADHD under three years of age, it makes more sense to reward the instruction they have followed with something they’ll find interesting.
