We live in a fast-paced world where simultaneous sources of stimuli call for quick responses: Answer your phone, text your partner, email your boss, cross the street, read the signs, watch your step… are only a small percentage of the signals we need to process on an hourly basis. Children are even more over-stimulated as technology plays an essential part in their life. As a result, many of them display behaviors that often lead to an overdiagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and a wider prescription of psychostimulants to tune down these traits. In fact, 2.8% of children under the age of 17 worldwide have been diagnosed with ADHD in 2017.
Parents may tend to believe that disruptive, distracted or overly active kids have ADHD when it can simply mean they are tired, pressured, preoccupied, or bored. For this reason, understanding the manifestation and impact of ADHD by seeking professional insight is crucial to ensure that a diagnosis is not out of place.
ADHD is a neuro-biological condition that translates in overwhelming behavioral challenges such as distractibility, impulsivity, and hyperactivity but also in difficulties planning, organizing, remembering, and completing tasks. These traits need to be consistently and severely impacting major aspects of a person’s life to call for a formal diagnosis.
However, parents and caregivers have the capacity to direct children to manage their ADHD. To that end, parents will greatly benefit from adopting strategies that will allow their children’s brain to remain sufficiently stimulated to retain the skills they need to thrive.
Believe me, small tips ignite big changes:
- Make time for nature and physical activity as it decreases ADHD symptoms.
- Encourage hands-on learning such as role playing, manipulative material, 3D objects and feel books.
- Use visual reminders, colored supplies, and auditory tools such as songs to boost memory.
- Let them fidget or hold on objects such as putty, koosh balls, pencils, spinners because constant movement increases mental arousal the same way psychostimulants do.
- Channel energy into arts (music, dance…), sports (martial arts for self-control, team sports for social competency) or activities (cooking, building…).
- Use fields of interests towards other directions such as using a cooking recipe to teach mathematics.
- To keep interest high, make sure they get a chance to regularly show you what they learned.
- Be attentive to their physical state: Go low on carbohydrates as it raises the levels of Serotonin causing a person to feel sleepy and inattentive, integrate frequent breaks and motivational rewards, push for restorative sleep.
- Provide appropriate environments by tidying and organizing physical spaces.
- Use their high energy level times to teach more challenging subjects.
- Pop up each day with a novel experience such as schedule shuffling, gamification…
- Match your child with a mentor or an older child with common traits and can be a positive role model.
- Alternatively, ask your child to teach a younger child to boost his self-esteem and deepen his learnings.
When you become a coach to your children, you are paving the way to a positive learning experience that will motivate them to engage in more trials and collect successful outcomes!
Choose your words carefully to avoid them feeling labeled, give instructions in an attention-grabbing way and provide feedback that highlights their strengths and progress.
Believe in your children’s potential: They WILL do well IF you teach them HOW.
