How Do Parenting Help In Treating ADHD

ADHD is a long-term disorder that starts before the age of seven and can continue to show its effects through symptoms even in the teenage years. As ADHD leads to bad behavior, low attention span, hyperactiveness, and impulsivity; it has a critical impact on the relationships with your parents, siblings, family members, and friends. At this phase of life, the child suffering from ADHD actually needs care and support from these relationships, especially from parents, instead of hatred, frustration, and ignorance.

A child spends almost 50 percent of the day’s time with parents. A child with ADHD behaves inconsistently, i.e. what he/she does today while facing a situation might not be done the next time. Therefore, as a parent, you need to keep on experimenting the different tricks and techniques that is quite effective for your child.

Parenting Styles Responsible for Bad Behavior

Let me tell you that it is not only the internal disorders that lead to bad behavior, but somewhere your parenting styles can also be the medium in stimulating such behavior. This is because the way you handle your child always has an impact on how he/she thinks and behaves. In some way or the other, you might be responsible for further worsening your child behavior apart from medical conditions. Listed below are some ways through which parents can unintentionally support the bad behavior of the child.

• Your Childhood Experience in Dealing with the Child
  When you were a child, you might have faced negative comments on every small and big mistake or might not have been scolded even once on any mistake. Your child too might face such behavior from you, which in turn, further spoils the behavior. This is because too much scolding or no scolding at all are both the extreme ways of treating a child, which will only support bad things and therefore, should be avoided.
• Disagreement between Parents
  If one of the parents does not agree with a rule or opinion, this can lead to a battlefield. With this, your child is simply confused and would learn from you to be defiant or resentful.
• Lack of Discipline
  If you are tired after doing a lot work at hone and office or you do not get enough support, there are more chances of letting a rule slip. This is OK once in a while, but a consistent series of slippages will lead your child to behave badly to obtain focus.

Sometimes, you might tend to be too strict with the child. In such a case, you need to spend some spend some good time with your child. This could be playing some favorite game or things that you both enjoy doing together.

Now, let’s see what can be done to overcome the unwanted and aggressive parenting styles.

Set Rules

Rules are boundaries that help in controlling the behavior of a person. With rules, your child can get along with other people. This is because everyone knows what is acceptable, what is not, and what will happen if something that is not acceptable is done. For example, a simple rule can be, “Before speaking with the other child, think how you would feel when somebody was to tell you the same”. If this rule is known to the child, he/she would not start speaking suddenly, and if the child ignores the rule, he/she knows that the other person might be hurt and in turn, can hurt the child too.

Parents and other adults have realized that children change their behavior for better if they feel that they are loved, secured, and are been given due attention. However, if the attention is only given at their bad behavior, this will stimulate bad behavior even more just
for the sake of more attention.

A rule of thumb is praise the good behavior and ignore/punish/avoid bad behavior by applying rules. Good behavior is the one that you want again and again, whereas bad behavior is the one that you do not want anymore.

Rules must be consistently applied and discussed with the older children so that they can give their own opinions and ideas. With rules, there are three catch verbs:

• State
  Simply tell the rule.
• Remind
  If your child forgets a rule or challenges it, just repeat the rule and its consequences.
• Enforce
  In case you need to do so, do not hesitate!

Motivating Good Behavior

Listed below are certain tips to motivate good behavior in your child.

• Obtain your child attention by calling with his/her name often during a discussion and maintaining an eye contact without any force.
• Provide easy, but specific instructions wherein avoid confusion and be positive. For example, tell your child what is to be done, instead of telling what is to be avoided – “Do your homework now” and not “It’s not the time to watch TV”. Avoid vagueness – “Welcome your aunt with a smile” and not “Do a good welcome of your aunt”. Give instructions in a calm place; otherwise, your child will be distracted and will not be able to heed properly.
• Praise for every instance of good behavior, but should not be too much. Just tell your child that you are happy.
• Set rules clearly with mutual agreement on the same. For example, what will be the sleeping time, will it be 10 or 10:30 p.m.
• Apply rules consistently without fail.
• Schedule clear routines so your child knows what to do when. If there is any change in the routine, inform your child along with additional information or warnings, if any. For example, “We are going out in next 5 minutes, so be ready and do not forget to switch the lights and fans of your room”.
• Play with your child to show that you care for him/her.
• Give small rewards immediately on good behavior. For example, a hug, a kiss, extra time for play, or some materialistic thing – stickers or toy.
• Try to avoid harsh punishments such as loss of privileges. A punishment should make the child realize its bad behavior; instead of aggravating it further.
• Focus on really important matters to avoid fights.
• Provide options to your child by telling him/her about what will happen on implementing each of the choices. This will help your child in taking the responsibility of the actions.
• Be cool by applying counting methods and time out techniques. For example, say the rule, count to five in mind, and act. Alternatively, allow you or your child to go to calm down and think on a solution in another room for 10 minutes.

Other Sources

Listed below are the sources of help for your child.

• Health Visitor or GP
  Can provide advice and suggest ways to deal with such behavior. If there is no improvement in three months, a GP can refer a mental health specialist for better behavior of your child.
• Child’s School Teachers
  They are the ones who might have dealt with similar problems in school and possess experience in handling such children. Try to work in coordination with them for improvement in your child.
• Support Groups
  Include Parentline Plus, ADDISS, and Adders.

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