Practical Tips for Supporting your Child with ADHD

As someone who has dealt with ADHD my entire life and has gone on to work with parents and children with ADHD, I am often asked a lot of the same questions. One of the most common questions I get is “What can I do to support my kid with ADHD”.

Let’s look at some of what the books say children should to do to help cope and how it relates to parents.

1) Develop Clear Goals. Have a big goal followed by smaller more attainable goals. One of the first things parents should do after finding out their child has ADHD is to think about what goals they have for themselves.

For example, let’s say you decide your big goal is to get them into a private school with smaller class sizes to help them focus. Your smaller goals should be day to day. Things like providing them with encouragement. This may seem really basic but when facing what may seem like huge challenges, even the basics become more difficult.

2) Count your Blessings. It is easy for any person to get overwhelmed when faced with a situation like the one your child is in. However, let’s put this in perspective. ADHD is not a life-threatening condition. Your child may have trouble and need extra help but by no means does ADHD mean your child is abnormal or less intelligent than other kids.

3) Believe the Best. Your child looks up to you and they can tell when you are upset. If you get it in your mind that regardless of what you and your child may face that you will come out on top, then that confidence will be infectious. This is especially important during early diagnosis. Everything appears the worst when you just find out and don’t yet know all the facts.

You and your child are going through the same process

One of the most overlooked parts of making a diagnosis, is what parents have to deal with. Their child may have a problem, but no parent wants to admit that. For some it can seem like a failure on their part. They have to accept that their child may need significant extra help and continue to deal with ADHD for the rest of their lives.

In an ideal world you as a parent would have time to cope with your child’s diagnosis before your child ever found out. However, in the real world the parent and child go through this at the same time. So if you ever thought to yourself, “I can’t even imagine what my child is feeling,’ remember you really do.  

Dan Roth is a mentor at ClubXcite, a youth mentoring and tutoring program in San Diego.