Recently, a reader asked how she can help her child with hyperactivity without losing her temper.
This is quite a good question. It can be very frustrating when your
child acts impulsively, doesn’t listen to you, and keeps making the same
mistakes over and over again. There is no easy answer, but there are a
few things which I have found that can help.
First of all it is important to make sure that your child is getting
proper treatment. ADHD is a neurological disorder. Medication is an
essential part of the treatment. When the medication coverage is
adequate, the ADHD problematic behavior should reduce in frequency and
severity. Counseling also is beneficial.
Second of all you need to differentiate between purposeful misbehavior
and ADHD behavior. By telling yourself over and over again that certain
anger provoking behaviors are part of ADHD and not just bad behavior,
you can somewhat reduce your anger.
Thirdly you need to remind yourself that the more angry you become, the
bigger the problem becomes. Becoming really angry frequently does not
reduce the frequency and severity of the problems and often can instead
lead to an increase. Self talk and reminder signs to remind yourself of
this fact can help.
Next it is better to act than to react. A lot of problematic behavior is
cyclical. In other words the same problems happen over and over again.
Once you realize this, you can develop in advance a strategy for
responding to the problem the next time it occurs. Then you can
determine whether or not this new strategy is helpful. If the new
strategy doesn’t work, come up with a different plan.
Finally, it is beneficial to have an incentive program in place. Reward
programs for appropriate behavior can help. They allow you not only to
reward good behaviors but also to have immediate consequences for
inappropriate behaviors. If the child acts inappropriately, the child
does not received the reward.
Years ago my son used to miss the high school bus almost every
morning. A consequence for this behavior was that I had to get up really
early to take him to school. This made be quite angry. Eventually I
began to pay him $0.25 every time he caught the bus. Two things
happened: first of all, he began to catch the bus much more frequently.
Secondly, when he missed the bus, I wasn’t as angry. Apparently knowing
that he didn’t get the lousy quarter helped reduce the severity of my
anger.
Anyway, I hope that this is helpful. If anybody else has other
suggestions, please feel free to write.
