Distance learning is not ideal for all students with ADHD. Surviving the coming school year will mean reducing anxiety and tension at home while also maintaining realistic expectations, providing appropriate supports, and advocating for our children with eyes wide open.
Embrace the unknown. This is the first, incredibly difficult step for families making the school transition this year. Flexibility is key. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build a predictable structure at home.
Plan activity periods or blocks. Divide the remote school day into periods that work for your child. This can look like morning, afternoon, and evening blocks, divided by breaks in between. Use reminders – alerts on phones or computers (children tend to pay more attention to these) – for class time, rest periods, and other tasks. Ask your child what a productive, engaging learning day looks like.
Include timed breaks with specific options. Work in times for snacks, physical activity, chores, screen time, and screen-free activities. Offer kids short and long breaks, and provide a list of activities they can do during those times. If you’re working from home and have younger children, use screen time to your advantage and to meet your own needs. Try to schedule their screen time, for example, during your work meetings.
Plan for safe socializing with peers. Before the colder months approach, help your kids safely see their friends as much as possible. Review the latest guidelines on social distancing, and make sure your kids have masks and hand sanitizer with them at all times. Talk to your children about how to handle scenarios where others may not be engaging in safe behaviors. Remind them of the real ramifications for themselves, their friends, and others in the household of not being safe.
Help kids connect with their teachers. Talk with your child’s teachers about setting up weekly check-in sessions by phone, text, Google Classroom, Hangout, or Zoom. One-on-one contact is especially important for teens.
Steadiness over perfection. Be open to revisions if plans aren’t working. Ask your kids, friends, family or the web for suggestions. Be transparent and offer brief explanations when making changes to expected tasks. Not doing so may lead children to believe that they can be flexible with arrangements and avoid sticking to the plan.
Many children are taught to be ashamed of mistakes. Adults who teach blame for mistakes mean well. They believe that shame will motivate children to do better. It might, but at a heavy cost to their healthy sense of self-worth. If you were raised this way, it may be time to “re-parent” yourself, so that you can create new beliefs about mistakes.
Respond to mistakes with compassion and kindness instead of shame, blame, or lectures.
When appropriate, use curiosity questions to help your child “explore” the consequences of their choices.
During dinner time invite everyone to share a mistake they made during the day and what they learned from it.
Focus on values, not rules. When you have clearly defined what’s important to you as a family, your child internalizes your values and can use them to guide their behavior in any situation. Remember that it takes time and practice before your child will internalize some values and live by them. Be patient and be hopeful.
The more conscious parents are of the values they wish to pass on to their children and the more they know about effective ways of transmitting these values, the more likely it is that their values will be communicated and adopted.
This process occurs over time, as children are not able to understand or incorporate some values for a long time. But children will benefit from having parents who work to transmit their values in a patient and nurturing way.
As parents, we spend a lot of time making our kids comfortable. No matter where your kid’s starting point may be, it’s important to explore the concept of being uncomfortable and, as parents, learn to tolerate that discomfort when our kids feel anxious, nervous, or afraid. It’s not easy. Parents’ instinct is to protect their kids from any pain.
How will you get comfortable when your child is being uncomfortable?
It would help if you learned to coach your children to tolerate their discomfort. If you allow them to figure out coping strategies, they will be better able to respond the next time an uncomfortable or painful situation arises. For your kids to develop their grit and learn to expand their comfort zone, you need to be supportive, engaged, and empathetic without immediately swooping in to ease their discomfort.
When your child is in the middle of frustration, sadness or disappointment, and you are very centered and confidently supporting with understanding, you are modeling it right. Your words and body posture tell them, “ I am here for you, and I am strong enough to support you and help you.“
Parent regulation is often more important than correcting your child’s behavior. Certain behaviors from our kids can be very triggering for so many reasons, so your calm state is even more important.
How do you begin to better regulate yourself as a parent, so your kids can be better regulated?
Start by saying kind, gentle, and calm words.
Tell your child how much you adore them (be specific, be genuine, be transparent).
Validate their experiences.
Empathize with their emotions.
Join them in talking about their struggles.
Normalize their experiences.
Watch how that warm parenting transforms your child and ultimately the parent-child relationship.
Our words have power. Use them to BUILD UP and CONNECT.
This is some serious food for thought, but NOT meant to make you, as a parent, feel like you are failing or guilty of not doing better. No one is perfect. No parent is perfect. You strive to do your best and make changes and adjustments along the way. If this quote helps you strive to do better, keep it close to your heart.
We as humans are very good at meeting our physical needs to ensure that we are fed, clothed, watered and have sheltered. However, we also have emotional and spiritual needs which we tend not to be so great at fulfilling.
When kids are acting up it’s usually because a need is not being met. Whether that be that they’re hungry, tired or cold etc. remember it could also be that an emotional need is not being met.
So next time they’re pushing your buttons remember not only their physical needs but also the emotional ones that are crying out for connection.
While it goes without saying that we all love our children, today’s busy family lifestyle can make it tricky to ensure everyone gets their required dose of Love and Connection. As we bustle through the day, getting everyone ready, out the door to their daily activities then back again for dinner, bed and bath, it can be hard to make time for quality connections. Unfortunately, unmet needs for connection can result in uncooperative behavior.
Connections don’t need to be timed; they just need to be meaningful to your child. Every child has a different level of need for love and connection, different things will go towards filling it.
Some suggestions to their daily activities:
One-on-One time – this could be date days, special activities for just the two of you or even just a quite chat at bedtime.
Read them a story
Play a game
Be playful – join in their silliness rather than reprimand it
Develop a ritual – this could be a special way of saying goodbye, a bedtime routine, or a secret handshake.
Many parents intuitively know why play is important to children, but despite its many benefits, we rarely associate play with learning. For most people, learning involves acquiring a specific new skill, such as memorizing alphabets, counting, writing, etc. They often believe that playing is only for fun and involves no actual learning. However, according to studies, playing is learning. Children learn through playing.
The importance of play in early childhood cannot be underestimated because playing is essential to a child’s growth.
Here are some pointers for parents who are not sure how to play with their very young children.
1.Relax and enjoy the activity. Do not try to take charge, but allow your child to take the lead. Your role is to show interest and approval and provide encouragement. If your child begins to behave unacceptably, it is important to let him know what he is doing wrong and teach him what he can do differently next time.
2. Make sure that the toys or materials are age appropriate. This is often taken care of by the child’s interest.
3. Learn to ask open-ended questions while you play, such as:
What do you think will happen if _____________________?
Can you think of another way to ______________________?
What else can you build with those blocks?
Where else could that puzzle piece go?
4. Encourage further exploration.
If your child seems to be getting frustrated, you can make suggestions for another way to look at the problem. For example, to the child who is upset because his tower keeps falling over, you can show him how to use bigger blocks at the bottom.
5. Model good sportsmanship.
When children get old enough to begin playing competitive games such as races or board games, you can model good sportsmanship.
Be a good loser by expressing how much fun you had participating in the activity and by congratulating the winner. Equally as important is to be a good winner by not gloating or being too competitive with young children.
6. If you and your child are not enjoying the activity, stop it. Play should be something that is enjoyable for everyone involved.
This is not as obvious as it may sound. Adults often expect children to accomplish tasks for which there has not been adequate training. Parents may expect children to clean their rooms, but never teach them how. Children go into their messy rooms and feel overwhelmed.
Taking time for training means being very specific about your terms and expectations. Taking time for training does not mean children will ever do things as well as you would like. Improvement is a lifelong process.
Don’t expect children to know what to do without step by step training. What do you mean by clean?
Kindly explain the task as you perform it, while your child watches.
Do the task together.
Have your child do it by herself while you supervise.
When she feels ready let her perform the task on her own.
When they are at that line, deciding whether to retreat to safety or move forward into bravery, there will be a part of them that will know they have what it takes to be brave. It might be pale, or quiet, or a little tumbled by the noise from anxiety, but it will be there. And it will be magical. As parent your job as their flight crew is to clear the way for this magical part of them to rise.
To do this, you first need to let them know you are with them, that you will see their world the way they see it. Let this be with so much love and warmth – the relational connection is everything.
Whenever you can, speak to that bravery part of them and usher it to into the light. You’ll be doing this every time you acknowledge their strengths, the brave things they do, their effort when they do hard things; and their tiny shuffles or big leaps towards brave.
This isn’t always easy. Their anxiety will trigger yours – when your children feel unsafe, often so will you. So you have to hang on hard to the truth of it all – that you know they can do this. If you feel yourself believing in their anxiety more than their bravery, remind yourself that they will believe in themselves when you do. Then, breathe, find calm, remember the truth of it all, and let your courage lead theirs.
Being a parent is a major responsibility. You are in charge of raising an individual to the point of adulthood with the goal of turning him or her into a valuable member of the community. This undertaking requires care, love, understanding and the ability to keep the children on the right path. If done right, it is one of the hardest things you will do, but it also will be one of the most rewarding.
By maintaining your duty of care as a parent, your child is more likely to put their trust in you and realize the love, care and affection you have towards them hence creating a stronger relationship with you.
Setting limits
It is your responsibility as a parent to set limits and guidelines for your child to follow. Using guidance is much more useful than severely punishing your child as that only distances them further. By setting limits, you’re allowing your child to know what’s expected from them, learn about fairness and respect others.
Children grow up and are mostly around their parents and so teaching them correct behaviors and setting out expectations in regards to how they should behave both around the family and in public is essential.
Discipline
This is not always about punishing your child after they’ve done something wrong. Instead, discipline should be about guiding your child’s behavior. Establishing clear rules that are understood by your child is an easy way to discipline your child. As mentioned earlier, your child will often tend to do the same thing you do and so by being a good role model, you are showing your child the correct way to behave. However, in order for your child to learn to the right thing, there should be consequences for poor behavior.
Correct discipline can lead to building a positive relationship with your child as they may understand that you’re only doing what’s best for them and have their best interest at heart.
EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS COACHING 