While behavioral therapy and parenting methods can help kids overcome their ADHD-induced habits, books are still a powerful resource for tips on how to get things done, stay focused, and find motivation. Here are some children’s books that will inspire your child understand and overcome the limitations of ADHD without the use of medication. All of them can be found at your local bookstore or through Amazon.

The Survival Guide for Kids with ADHD by John F. Taylor Ph.D

Ages: 4-8

This colorful guide will catch the attention of your child with its bright red cover, large font, and cartoon-style illustrations. The writing is kid-friendly, short, and clear and organized into sections for easy reading and understanding. Although it does contain a section about medications, the bulk of the book covers topics like succeeding in school, making friends, and getting along at home. One of the most helpful suggestions involves how to do a homework routine and use timers and colored folders, but a parent’s involvement may be needed to implement this ideas. Read and reread this book to your child for best results.

Learning to Slow Down and Pay Attention by Kathleen Nadeau

Ages: 6-11

A book written from a kid’s point of view, Learning to Slow Down and Pay Attention is a handy tool to help parents guide children through their ADHD journey. The third edition of this book includes lots of fun activities and easy-to-read text, as well as tips for coping with schoolwork, friendships, family, and getting organized. Funny cartoons help send the message across and reinforce the offered tips.

See You Later, Procrastinator! By Pamela Espeland

Ages: 9 -12

Even children who don’t have ADHD have problems getting things done. It’s easy for their chores and homework to take a backseat to watching television, playing video games, surfing the Internet, or hanging out with friends. See You Later, Procrastinator uses full color cartoons and child-friendly humor to teach kids how to get motivated and stay motivated enough to get things done. The start of the book lists 12 reasons why kids procrastinate and 12 ways to overcome them, then moves on to tips on avoiding setbacks, 20 ways to kiss procrastination goodbye, and fun rewards to keep them on track. A must read for kids, even if they don’t have ADHD.

Attention, Girls! A Guide to Learn about ADHD by Patricia Quinn

Ages: 9 -12

Girls with ADHD struggle with gender-specific issues, and this guide to ADHD for girls addresses these differences. The author created fictional characters with ADHD to help the reader make friends, talk to adults about the condition, and help them overcome problem situations. The book doesn’t have to be read from start to finish; the author encourages girls to begin with the sections that cover their concerns.

Putting on the Brakes: Activity Book for Kids With ADD or ADHD by Patricia Quinn and Judith Stern

Ages: 9 – 12

This best-selling workbook is now on its second edition. Putting on the Breaks contains pages and pages of activities that teach kids how to manage inattention, maintain control of their daily activities, and set priorities. Younger children may need the help of a parent to put these new skills into practical use.

It’s quite shocking to see how eating the wrong food has such a profound effect on a child’s personality, outlook, and behavior. It’s just as amazing to know that getting rid of the allergenic substance was enough to turn a screaming, flailing child into a calm, peaceful one.

There are two ways to find out if your child’s ADHD symptoms are caused by allergies. The first is through a specialized allergy testing, which is only available among alternative medical practitioners. However, these tests have a serious limitation – although they can confirm any brain-based allergic reactions, they cannot identify exactly what food or substance your child is allergic to. The best way to go about doing this is to go on the allergy diet proposed by Dr. Rapp, also known as the rotation diet. It might be difficult to get used to the rhythm of a rotation diet at first, but you can stop it as soon as you have identified the food your child is allergic to. Start by rotating wheat products and dairy products as these contain gluten and casein, two proteins that are notorious for their impact on behavior and brain activity.

If your child is anything like the children you’ve seen in the video, and if nothing you have done made a difference in your child’s behavior, try to pick up a copy of Dr. Rapp’s book “Is This Your Child?”. This 600-page book is one of the comprehensive resources on allergies, ADHD, and other realistic solutions that will get rid of your child’s problematic behavior.

Most parents are at a loss as to how to discipline their ADHD child. Your warnings go unheeded, the house rules are ignored, and threats seem to make no difference to their behavior. Managing the behavior of kids with ADHD definitely has its challenges, especially since traditional parenting skills do not usually work on them. But with a little help from experts on ADHD, you might become more effective at helping your child overcome ADHD while keeping their behavior in check. Below are five books that offer handy hints on parenting kids with ADHD.

Parenting Children with ADHD: Lessons That Medicine Cannot Teach

This book offers easily digestible information on how nutrition and certain therapies can improve the concentration, attention span, and behavior control of kids with ADHD. Although the book sometimes advocates the use of medication to treat ADHD, it also offers practical advice on behavior management. The author provides a well-rounded approach to teaching essential life skills, improving school success, and building compassion for others. There are also questionnaires, checklists, and homework at the end of every chapter for easy application.

From Chaos to Calm: Effective Parenting for Challenging Children with ADHD and other Behavior Problems

This book was written from three points of view – a parent, a therapist, and a child – to provide readers with the most helpful guide on raising an ADHD child. If you want to learn how to be a pro-active parent who provides consistent and constructive discipline, this book is for you. The ideas presented in the book can be applied to very young kids up to teenagers.

The ADHD Parenting Handbook: Practical Advice for Parents from Parents

Written from the point of view of parents, this book provides guidelines, advice, and suggestions to help parents interact and help their children. While the early chapters deals with general information on ADHD, the bulk of the book focuses on managing and preventing bad behavior, providing a healthy and stable environment for the child, and working with teachers to overcome learning problems. Counselors, teachers, and pediatricians have also contributed helpful recommendations and parenting tips.

School Success for Kids with ADHD

Who doesn’t want their children to make the most out of their education? Children with ADHD are very bright and clever, but the traditional school system is incapable of honing these skills. This book discusses ADHD in the context of how the symptoms appear in school and strategies you can use to help your child overcome the setbacks of inattention and turn them into strengths. The advice included can be applied to kids as young as the middle school years up until college and beyond.

How To Reach And Teach Children with ADD/ADHD: Practical Techniques, Strategies, and Interventions

This easy-to-read book is a user-friendly guide for teachers and parents who want to help ADHD kids succeed in school and life. There are research-based tips on how to manage ADHD in different academic areas like writing, reading, and math, as well as detailed advice on teaching your child impulse control and study skills.

Getting your kids started on a gluten-free casein-free diet (GFCF) or the Feingold Diet can be difficult. After all, these diets forbid children from eating candy, cookies, pizza, and other foods they love. ADHD diets make cooking and doing the groceries difficult for parents too; gone are the days when you can just buy bags of potato chips or whip up a plate of pasta to ease your children’s hunger pangs. But you don’t have to come up with gourmet dishes to cook for ADHD kids, and implementing an ADHD diet does not mean restricting your children to bland, uninteresting food while their friends feast on tasty morsels. With the help of these ADHD cookbooks, your kids can eat delicious, nutritious meals without becoming uncontrollably hyperactive and inattentive after.

The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet

This book is an excellent primer for parents who are new to the gluten-free casein-free diet. Not only do the pages contain kid-friendly recipes without milk or wheat, but the authors also explain how and why the diet works. The ingredients used in the recipes are also explained, along with tips on how to find them.

The Autism & ADHD Diet: A Step-by-Step Guide to Hope and Healing by Living Gluten Free and Casein Free (GFCF) and Other Interventions

Yet another useful guide for parents who are unfamiliar with the GFCF diet. This book also contains advice on where to buy GFCF foods, tips on avoiding cross-contamination, understanding ingredients labels, and how to make the GFCF diet work for your child and your family.

The Low-Carb Cookbook: The Complete Guide to the Healthy Low Carbohydrate Lifestyle

If your child is on the low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet, then this book is for you. The Low-Carb Cookbook contains 250 delicious recipes your child will love, including appetizers, side dishes, sauces, and desserts. Although it wasn’t designed for ADHD kids per se, this book also contains advice on how to make healthy food preparations (e.g. the importance of buying organic meats when possible) so your child will stay well-nourished while enjoying these tasty dishes.

The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children

The Feingold Diet is one of the first ADHD diets ever created, and The Feingold Cookbook will give you a broader understanding on how artificial additives cause behavioral problems in childhood. Although it seems fairly easy to avoid foods with artificial coloring, flavoring, and preservatives, this book contains up-to-date information on forbidden foods, as well as recipes for meals free from additives and salicylates.

Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet

The specific carbohydrate diet is one of the trickiest and most restrictive ADHD diets. However, avoiding grains, lactose, and sucrose is critical to kids whose digestive problems aggravate their symptoms. This cookbook provides a delicious and diverse collection of SCD-friendly recipes, 80 of which are dairy-free. All the recipes are easy to make and include many culturally-diverse foods like hazelnut vanilla pancakes, gingerbread cookies, and chicken satay.

Special Diet Solutions: Healthy Cooking Without Wheat, Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Yeast, or Refined Sugar

This cookbook will allow your kids to enjoy the foods they can’t eat, minus the harmful allergens that aggravate their symptoms. Special Diet Solutions contains a critically acclaimed gluten-free pizza recipe, as well as recipes for condiments, salad dressings, and desserts. Ideal for kids who have many food intolerances or who are on the GFCF diet.

Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free Cookbook

Your kids probably feel frustrated about being denied cookies, cakes, and sweets because of their ADHD diet. Why not surprise them with a recipe from Bake Deliciously? From apple pie to cheese crackers, this useful cookbook allows you to transcend dietary limits and give your kids infinite food choices that they will love. Includes beautiful photographs, step-by-step instructions, and a list of alternative ingredient comparisons.

Mother Necessity Gluten Free/Casein Free Recipes

All the Mother Necessity recipes recreate childhood favorites without soy, gluten, casein, eggs, refined flour, or refined sugar. The ingredients used are also very basic, eliminating the need to buy hard-to-find specialty items.

Cooking with Coconut Flour: A Delicious Low-Carb, Gluten-Free Alternative to Wheat

Did you know that you can make bread, cookies, cakes, and pies using gluten-free coconut flour? Coconut flour has low carbohydrates, high fiber, and rich in protein. Learn how to use this important ingredient in Cooking with Coconut Flour, which contains a number of recipes for baked goods, desserts, even main dishes. The recipes in this book are also free of trans-fats, artificial sweeteners, and soy.

Gluten-Free Italian

What kid doesn’t love a plate of pasta or a slice of pizza? Unfortunately, most of Italy’s most popular dishes contain wheat flour, making them off-limits to anyone on a GFCF diet. Gluten-Free Italian allows kids to enjoy gluten-free Italian dishes that taste just like the ones made with wheat flour! Includes cooking tips, a shopping guide, and a list of grain and flour alternatives.

Although articles and blogs on the Internet have helped many parents find alternative treatments for ADHD, books are a more comprehensive resource for drug-free ADHD treatments. Here are some titles on ADHD natural treatments that parents read and find helpful. Some of them provide a general overview of why medications are bad and what natural therapies work, while others focus on a specific drug-free treatment. All of them can be purchased on Amazon.Com.

Ritalin-Free Kids: Safe and Effective Homeopathic Medicine for ADD and Other Behavioral and Learning Problems by Robert Ullman ND and Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman ND

This book by naturopathic physicians provides excellent arguments against using Ritalin and stimulants to treat ADHD. Besides that, it offers a concise, easy-to-follow guide on homeopathic treatments for ADHD. Homeopathy is no quick fix for ADHD; in fact, it takes months of trial and error to find the right treatment that will work. Parents who are looking to provide their children with holistic, natural ADHD treatments can familiarize themselves with homeopathic approaches using this book. Buy it here.

Twelve Effective Ways to Help Your ADD/ADHD Child: Drug-Free Alternatives for Attention-Deficit Disorders by Laura J. Stevens

Written by a mother with firsthand experience in raising a child with ADHD, this no-nonsense book offers a series of natural alternatives for ADHD treatment. Laura J. Stevens also offers problem-specific narratives and solutions, step by step instructions, and common sense practices to parenting an ADHD child. Buy it here.

No More Ritalin: Treating ADHD without Drugs by Dr. Mary Ann Block

Another helpful book that argues against using Ritalin to treat ADHD, Dr. Block focuses on environmental factors like allergens, hypoglycemia, and food sensitivities that can trigger hyperactivity and inattention. This slim volume provides well-researched yet easy-to-understand facts on ADHD medication, their side effects, alternative treatments, and other practical advice. Buy it here.

Stopping ADHD by Nancy O’Dell and Patricia Cook

If you want to understand how to eliminate hyperactivity, then you should read this book. In Stopping ADHD, Dr. O’Dell and Dr. Cook talk about the causes of hyperactivity (their new research shows that baby swings can contribute to the development of ADHD), the drugs used to treat ADHD, and Ritalin’s negative effects. The real value of the book can be found in the chapters on the Crawling Exercise Program, a drug-free treatment you can do at home to eliminate hyperactivity from your ADHD child. Buy it here.

ADD/ADHD Drug Free: Natural Alternatives and Practical Exercises to Help Your Child Focus by Frank Jacobelli and Lynn A Watson

This book focuses on treating inattention and distractibility in children with ADHD. The authors are the first to focus on enjoyable yet practical approaches on strengthening brain functions based on specific learning styles. Great for parents and teachers who want to help children overcome the limitations of ADHD. Buy it here.

The ADD Nutrition Solution: A Drug-Free 30-Day Plan by Marcia Zimmerman M.Ed. C.N.

Get this book if you’d like to understand how nutrition and diet can help treat ADHD symptoms. Clinical nutritionist Marcia Zimmerman talks about her research on the relationship between diet and brain function, as well as a 30-day diet plan to help eliminate ADHD. Includes recipe ideas and food charts to help you get started, and a useful guide on what kind of foods to avoid. Buy it here.

The ADD Book: New Understandings, New Approaches to Parenting Your Child by Dr. William Sears and Lynda Thompson

If you think neurofeedback can help your child, this book is for you. Pediatrician Dr. Sears together with Lynda Thompson talks about the benefits of neurofeedback as a natural treatment to helping a child with ADHD. They emphasize how neurofeedback can transform the potentially negative traits of ADHD into positive traits with its interactive brain retraining techniques. The book also gives tips on dealing with problem behaviors like lying, how to set your child up for success at school, and implementing an ADHD diet. Buy it here.

Brain Exercises to Cure ADHD by Amnon Gimpel

According to psychiatrist/neurologist Dr. Amnon Gimpel, ADHD is not a behavioral disorder. It’s a thinking disorder that can be treated without ADHD medication. This unique book looks at the latest research in brain function to sketch out a multi-disciplinary program that stimulates brain development, memory, concentration, attention, and improve hyperactivity control. These simple brain exercises are an excellent complement to holistic ADHD treatments. Buy it here.

Dr. Bob’s Guide to Stop ADHD in 18 Days by Dr. Robert DeMaria

This book focuses on the importance of eliminating junk food, sugary foods, dairy, and refined carbohydrates when treating ADHD naturally. Parents who have applied the book’s principles have noticed significant positive changes in their children’s behavior where medication seemed to have no effect. Buy it here.

10 Days to a Less Distracted Child: The Breakthrough Program that Gets Your Kids to Listen, Learn, Focus, and Behave by PhD. Jeffery Bernstein

Although this book offers a parenting program more than information about natural ADHD treatments, its completely original take on handling ADHD children has provided parents with practical solutions on helping their kids do better at school and at home. Buy it here.