MY CHILD HAS ADHD
Your child’s health care provider may have told you that your child has ADHD. A lot of the time, parents figure this out before any professional tells them about it! ADHD is one of the most common disabilities. ADHD can make it very challenging to participate and learn alongside peers.
It’s super-challenging to be the parent of a child with ADHD, especially if you or your child’s other parent also have ADHD. There are many excellent resources that you can read to learn more about ADHD. Here are some of the resources that we commonly recommend:
CHADD. Children with ADHD
Academic medical center websites, including Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, Yale Child Study Center, and others
essential skill: impulse control
The Essential Skill that’s missing or under-developed in children and youth with ADHD is the skill of Impulse control. Impulse control is the skill of acting before thinking. The essential skill that children and youth with ADHD need to master is the skill of impulse control. Instead of getting distracted by something exciting or new, the child with impulse control can maintain their focus on something that might be boring or hard to do. With impulse control, children and youth can maintain their focus, do not get distracted, and participate successfully in daily routines, social interactions, and learning.
key information about IMPULSE CONTROL
Impulse control is a skill that develops with brain growth and over time. Think about how impulse control is mastered in young children. When children are 2 to 3 years old, they do not have the skill of impulse control. Whatever might be interesting catches their eye. They focus their attention on that. If you ask them to do something boring, hard, or unfamiliar, it’s pretty likely that they won’t stay focused unless you are physically present to help them.
By the time children are 4 to 5 years old, they show some impulse control. They can make it through a boring task (such as getting dressed) and not get distracted by toys that might be lying on the floor. They can control themselves when they see a plate of delicious chocolate chip cookies on the table, and wash their hands and eat supper before they eat the cookies.
Impulse control is much more secure by the time a child enters into grade one. Their attention span is longer, and they don’t get distracted as easily. They can sit and do the hard work of grade one for 20 to 30 minutes at a time, something they were not able to do in preschool or kindergarten.
Impulse control continues to develop with age and is especially important when you have to function outside of your usual routines. The goal for the learner with ADHD is to master daily routines and activities without getting distracted- Or, to master strategies to address impulsivity whenever they notice that it’s getting in their way. Impulse control is the first step we take when we have to make a choice between two or more options. impulse control allows us to choose the best behavior for the situation.
goal: improve impulse control
The key goal for the child with ADHD is to learn about impulse control. This means that your child needs to become aware of their impulsivity. most of the time, they will need some coaching and support from you or from other adults. Help them to notice when they show good impulse control and are successful at completing tasks, can follow rules in social situations, and can learn successfully at school or when doing homework. Help them to notice when they do not show good impulse control, such as when they do not complete tasks, are not able to respect social rules, and are not able to learn successfully because of their distractibility. Just teaching them to notice will help them become more skilled at impulse control.
OBJECTIVES for improving impulse control
There are many objectives that you can choose, once you understand the goal of impulse control. Here are some example strategies that you can use to teach impulse control. Use the examples below to practice impulse control one to three times per day:
Familiar tasks. See how well your child does with daily routines at home. The objective is for the child with ADHD to maintain their focus, and get tasks done at home without getting distracted. The more familiar the task, the more likely your child will be successful in maintaining their focus. Familiar tasks are a good starting point for teaching your child about their focus.
Short tasks. Keep the task short. A task that’s 3 to 5 minutes is a good starting point to learn how to not get distracted. Over time, increase the time interval. By grade one, a child can focus successfully for 20 to 30 minutes. Most children with ADHD will not get to this level by grade one- at least, not consistently. You may need to settle for making most of the tasks shorter. Make sure the child notices that they are being successful. For example you could say: “You did 10 minutes of work and you did not get distracted. That was a success!”
Easy tasks. Your child will maintain their focus for longer if the task that you give them is easy. An ‘easy’ task for most children is to get dressed, or to put toys away, or to help with clean-up after dinner. These tasks do not require a lot of mental effort. If you keep tasks and activities short, they are less likely to get bored. In the classroom, an ‘easy’ task might be putting personal items where they belong, or doing worksheets that are not hard for the child to do. See if your can do tasks sch as these and not get distracted. Build upon their success. make the tasks a bit longer. ask them to do something that’s non-familiar. then, ask them to do tasks that require mental effort. Help them to understand how often they get distracted.
Supported tasks. You can help your child maintain their focus if you stay near to them. Your presence will help them to maintain their focus. Over time, you can gradually pull back. For example, you can help your child start the task, and then tell them: “I’m just going to step out for a minute. You keep on with that task, I’ll be right back.’ Leave your child alone for slightly longer periods of time. Start with one minute, then build up from there. teacher check-ins in the classroom can be set up the same way.
Training. Practice one or a few of the objectives every day. Total teaching time can be short- 5 minutes per task, three times per day. We’re talking marathon here, no sprinting. In fact, it’s best to teach your child to slow down. Rushing will usually not result in the best outcome.
Teaching / developing awareness. Communicate about the task and about your child’s attention span and focus. Notice when they get distracted, and then notice when they get back on track. As they get back on track, celebrate their success. You could say: “You got distracted, but now you’re focused again. Keep up the good work!” .
Teaching about careless errors. Error detection and error correction. Sometimes, your child might not be distracted, but they are not carrying out all of the steps of the task successfully. they are being impulsive by rushing through the task. do your best not to provide corrective feedback right away. don’t tell them that they failed or make mistakes right away. take your time. wait until they think they have finished. then ask them to check their work. you can make them check their work
Build up your objectives
Building up. if you think your child is ready, you can take them to the next level. Here are some ‘next steps’ you can consider practicing impulse control in the following situations:
Work on impulse control while doing novel tasks— Ask your child to do tasks that are new or that do not occur every day
Longer activities or tasks. Instead of asking your child to stay focused for 5 minutes, try 7 or 8 minutes.
Give your child tasks to do that are harder- for example, that might need some problem solving skills. Worksheets from school can be a good place for practicing.
Spend less 1:1 time when your child is practicing imulse control. Give them a task, and then leave them alone for short intervals (e.g. a minute or a few minutes). then, leave them alone for longer intervals (e.g. 5 to 10 minutes)
Communicate to the child about their successes- especially their successes, not their failures (they already know all about their failures)
Prompt them to do an error detection/ error correction procedure when needed. Children with ADHD will often say that they are ‘all done’ or ‘finished’ but when you look at what they did, you’ll notice that they left out too many steps. this is referred to as making careless errors or forgetful errors. Take a deep breath and ‘just notice.’
HOW TO TALK WITH YOUR CHILD ABOUT IMPULSE CONTROL
Your child will not make good progress if you don’t have a way of describing what they need to practice and why. The most useful type of feedback is to notice their successes. Your child will not learn very successfully if you only ever show them what they did wrong. What they really need to notice is when they are doing things right. It’s super-important to make sure that they know exactly what it feels like and looks like when they are being successful.
Provide feedback about your child’s successes 70 to 80% of the time. If they are hardly ever successful, set the bar lower. You need to give them a lot of feedback about their successes and a smaller amount of feedback for when they are not being successful.
You might find the above advice very frustrating, because you might notice that your child is not being very successful a lot of the time. Take a deep breath, stay calm, and carry on. Use some of the examples sentences below:
We are going to work on being successful at focusing. Being successful means that you stay focused long enough to get your work done. Let’s see how long you can focus for work. we’ll practice this every day for 10 minutes. If we keep practicing, i bet that you’ll b focusing for longer and longer.
let’s see how many times per day you can focus for 5 minutes.
You are being successful. You kept up your focus for one minute! you kept up your focus for 5 minutes! You kept up your focus until the timer rang! good work
You are being successful. I noticed that you got distracted three times. But, each time, you re-started your task. That’s great
You are being successful. You got most of the dressing routine right. Now, can you take a look at your work and make sure you find other things that you can still get right?
You are being successful. You got the whole worksheet done. Now, take a second look at your worksheet. There’s even more things you can get right if you find them.
You are getting things right a lot of the time. i think you are getting things right more often than last week. that’s being successful.
I’m going to let you do this work on your own, but I’ll be back soon. If you can, get everything done and then check your work. I wonder how many things you’ll find that you can get right the second time around, even if you did not notice the first time around.
Ready for a deeper dive?
Are you ready for a deeper dive? If your child is making some progress with impulse control, consider teaching them about some of the other Essential skills that learners with ADHD need to master: Working memory and planning (sequencing) skills. Click on the button below