Top 5 Do's & Don'ts For Parents Of Kids With ADHD

hi I'm Ryan ADHD dude this is my dog flora and I want to start off by telling you my top five don'ts for parents of kids with ADHD number one don't just go by the recommendation that your pediatrician or school counselor or whomever gave you here's the reason why most professionals are not familiar with the American Academy of Pediatrics treatment recommendations for ADHD those treatment recommendations include for children over six medication Management in conjunction with parent behavior training that's a I do and that is offered in the ADHD dude membership site as a result of a lot of professionals not knowing the treatment recommendations they often refer families to individual therapy for kids which is not a recommended treatment for ADHD and as many families who I've worked with have shared is not really effective in addressing ADHD related challenges as well so make sure to check out the American Academy of Pediatrics treatment recommendations again for children over six medication Management in conjunction with parent behavior training for children under six the recommendation is start with parent behavior training and then look at the medication management piece as well number two don't do things for your kids that they can do themselves you know one of the things I often see with parents of kids with ADHD is because they get in the habit of doing a lot of prompting and because a lot of kids with ADHD are very skilled at learn helplessness and emotional manipulation of their parents what happens is parents start to overcompensate by doing things for their kids they can do themselves and they actually start really kind of treating them like a much younger child so what happens is when you do that number one you're enabling overdependence on you but more importantly you're denying them the opportunity to develop their executive function skills and most importantly you're denying them the opportunity to develop the self-confidence that comes from recognizing you can do something on your own so please do not do things for your children they can learn to do for themselves please do not make them over dependent on You by doing too much for them number three please don't take advice from random people in Facebook parent to parent support groups or ADHD parent support groups and here's the reason why I see a tremendous amount of misinformation being spread in Facebook parent support groups and Facebook parent ADHD groups and I especially don't like seeing parents who are not licensed medical professionals give medical advice to other parents and even if they were a licensed Medical Professional that's still not something you're supposed to do look there's a lot of people who are trying to be helpful in those groups and I appreciate that but there's also a lot of people who just love sharing their opinions and telling other people how to parent and who really don't know any more about ADHD than you do number four please don't buy into all these gimmicks that are marketed to parents of kids with ADHD look there's a lot of kids with ADHD out there and there's a lot of parents who are looking for quick fix or an easy way to deal with this so as a result there's a lot of gimmicks out there a lot of different programs that really just try to separate parents from their money and say we're going to cure your child's ADHD or we're going to fix fix it or do whatever or here's a gimmick that you know you can use and they don't have to take medication here's what I want you to know none of these gimmicks have really shown efficacy sure some have Illustrated some data showing that they can help increase attention span for a little bit but at the end of the day is that really your biggest struggle is your child's attention span or is it their laging executive function skills or their behavior or their social skills so please do your research first because I see so many things advertised on Facebook and Instagram for parents of kids with ADHD and the vast majority of them are just gimmicks or quick fixes that really don't work there's a lot of medications out there for kids with ADHD and you have to talk with a licensed Medical Professional and it might take months or even a year or longer to find one that works so if one medication or even two didn't work out that doesn't mean there isn't one that's going to work beautifully for your son or daughter so please keep that in mind and always consult with the licensed Medical Professional about this here are my top five dues for parents of kids with ADHD number one please follow the treatment recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics and again those treatment recommendations are for children under six parent behavior training first followed by medication management for children six and up their treatment recommendation is medication Management in conjunction with parent behavior training the part that I do that is offered in the adhc dude membership site the reason I feel strongly about the AAP treatment recommendations is because the parent behavior training piece provides the scaffolding that kids need to develop skills and the medication piece just supplements that they really work beautifully when worked in conjunction with each other so please keep that in mind number two do change the way you use language to help your child build their self-directed talk what I call Brain coach with kids and to help them build executive functioning and also improve Behavior you know the way we use language is something that is not addressed in the mental health Field's approach to ADHD it's not something I think most mental health professionals are aware of but it is critically important to helping kids improve their executive functioning and their behavior so let me give you an example if you want your child to move from prompt dependence prompt dependence meaning you have to say do this do that remind him of everything you know when your child is prompt dependent on you that means you are acting as their executive functioning the way we move kids from prompt dependence towards independence is Shifting the way we use language using declarative language in order to help build their self-directed talk or their internal dialogue and when you do that what happens is you're building that internal dialogue which is lagging anyway so you're really not just helping them build executive functioning you're helping them build one of the skills that is lagging in kids with ADHD Shifting the way you use language is something that is covered in the ADHD dude membership site in webinar one of executive function crash course for parents that's the subject of that webinar and I also cover it in scaffolding better behavior and self-confidence number three do put Scaffolding in place to help develop skills parents often reach out to me asking me if I can work individually with their child and what I explain to them is that's really not the most effective thing to do and because I follow the American Academy of pediatric treatment recommendations what I explain to parents is the majority of work I do is with parents or parents and kids together to help parents understand how to put that Scaffolding in place to help their kids build skills I created the ADHD dude membership site because I wanted all families to have an affordable way to be able to help their child build skills without meeting with me individually so please make sure to check that out because it's really going to give you the scaffolding you need to help your child build skills which in turn is going to help them build their self-confidence Ence number four Connect past successes with things in the present or near future to help build confidence and teach your kids their abilities one of the things that kids with ADHD struggle with is something called episodic memory episodic memory is the way we recall past events and the emotions associated with those events and apply that information to the present or the future let me give you an example let's say your son or daughter is really nervous about doing a new activity they've never done before what you can do is use language like this say you know remember last year when you tried I'm just going to make something up when you tried basketball and you were really nervous at first and you didn't think you were going to like it well after you went the first time you really like the kids and you had fun this is going to be the same but different it's a new activity volleyball but it's just a different sport when we connect past successes with things in the present or near future what we're helping kids to see is that they're able to do things even if they're a little bit nervous or hesitant and that's really important because really for kids with ADHD they tend to not remember these things unless there's a strong negative emotion attached so you might think well why aren't they remembering things that they felt good about or did well with the reason is they just really don't and that's why we have to help them build their episodic memory to help them realize their strengths and their abilities number five and this one's really important to me please make sure your kids have time for unstructured play and hanging out where you're not hovering or directing things the reason why is the way kids naturally build executive function skills and social skills is through unstructured play and hanging out where adults are not directing things that's really important the other part of this is please make sure your kids are involved in some type of activities whether that's youth group an activity at school whatever it may be because being able to engage with other kids in real life and do something fun and build memories is so important what I teach kids is that you can't go through life just playing video games and you can't go through life just interacting with people through video games because as you get older what's going to happen is people are going to want to spend time with you in real life and if you say no to that well they're eventually going to stop asking so please really push at activities you know whatever it may be in real life with other kids their age because that's really important all right I hope these dos and don'ts were helpful and feel free to leave any questions or comments and I will speak to you soon take care

Channel: ADHD Dude

Views: 2,066

Keywords: Adhd, adhd social skills, ADHD Dude, Ryan Wexelblatt, adhd dude membership site, ryan adhd coach, adhd dude social skills, adhd coach ryan, add dude, adhd guy, ADD dude, ADD guy, ADHD and ODD, adhd dude membership, adhd in boys, adhd dude brochachos, adhd social skills lessons, brochachos, oppositional defiant disorder, adhd social problems, explaining adhd to kids, adhd kids, adhd children, adhd kids treatment, adhd boys

Id: ivPoCBbL4pc

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Tue May 28 2024