Family vacations are a great opportunity to bond with the children, and with winter break fast approaching you’re probably deciding where to go. But some vacation destinations might not be suitable for kids with ADHD. Long lines at theme park rides and restaurants, rainy days spent in a hotel room, hours in an airplane seat, noise, crowds – these are difficult for anyone, but especially if you’re traveling with someone who has ADHD. Kids with ADHD are very distractible, restless, impatient, and sensitive to bright lights and loud sounds. Although you might have gotten used to helping your child manage these symptoms at home, handling them in a strange new place is a different story. Vacations mean change and if you already had a routine set up for your child, the lack of structure during the trip might make the symptoms return full force.

While there’s no guarantee of a smooth-sailing vacation, planning ahead is one of two keys to having a great time. The other key is to know what your children want – are they more comfortable with quiet surroundings or the bustle of a big city? Do they prefer the ocean or do they flourish in the fresh mountain air?

Choosing a vacation destination

Some kids thrive in a more natural environment. Open fields or a body of water to swim in are a great outlet for pent-up energy. Another reason why trees and fields make good ADHD medicine is that they provide fewer distractions than the bright lights and noise of a city. The tranquility of the great outdoors also relaxes and revitalizes crucial parts of the brain that handle concentration and attention.

However, not all children enjoy the woods. If your child is sensitive to heat, bug bites, and has low stamina, going camping or hiking might not be the best idea.

Wherever you decide to go or whatever you choose to do, just make sure the destination has something that interests your child. Kids with ADHD are bound to enjoy the vacation if they have a hand in planning, and will be more patient and tolerant about getting there.

Tips on traveling with ADHD children

Once you’ve decided where you want to go, try to keep these guidelines in mind so your child’s ADHD symptoms stay under control.

Stay consistent with diets

Vacations may seem like the perfect opportunity to indulge in a sweet treat or two, but the only way to keep symptoms at bay is for your child to stick with his or her diet. You probably noticed that your child is more hyperactive or irritable without the diet, and you certainly don’t want this to happen during the vacation. If your child is intolerant to gluten and casein, stay away from quaint stores that offer baked goods. If your child is on the Feingold diet, keep avoiding foods with artificial additives.

Bring ADHD-friendly snacks

Hungry children tend to be cranky and whiny, but even more so when they have ADHD. Chances are, the restaurants you’ll encounter on the road won’t have many ADHD-friendly foods. For healthy on-the-road snacks, bring a bag of walnuts or dried fruit instead of chips. Don’t forget to pack bottles of water or natural fruit juice in the car with you too.

Familiarize your children

Kids with ADHD may have some fears or anxieties about going to a strange new place. Get them excited about the trip by talking about your destination, how you’ll be getting there, and showing them photos of the vacation spot. If your child feels anxious about riding a plane for the first time, take a drive to the airport. Watch the planes take off and land to show your child how perfectly safe they are.

Maintain the structure

Children with ADHD need predictability and may be stressed or anxious by an overly-spontaneous trip. Stick to regular mealtimes and bedtimes as much as possible; ADHD symptoms won’t improve if they get too little sleep or forget to eat. You don’t have to keep a timetable of each day, but let your child know what activities to expect.

ADHD parenting can be particularly challenging when the weather turns cold and snow starts to fall. Kids have to stay indoors, and the four walls of the house might not be enough to contain their excess energy. Here are some activities that will help manage hyperactive behavior during the winter.

Plan several energy-burning activities

Kids with ADHD lose interest in one hobby or pastime too quickly. When thinking of ways to keep your child entertained, always plan more than one activity. Some great activities include:

• Taking a quick walk after dinner. If the snow isn’t too deep, take a quick stroll around the block with your child.
• Build indoor tents and forts. Stimulate your child’s imagination while staying cozy and warm. Use old blankets and comforters to create your indoor fort, and make sure this is done away from fire sources.
• Creating a jump-only space in the house. You don’t have to put a trampoline indoors; just designate a corner of a room where your child can jump around as often as he or she likes.

Enroll your child in indoor sports

Sports will not only burn off the excess energy your child might have; they will also harness your child’s attention span, impulse control, and focus. Consider signing your child up for ADHD-friendly indoor sports like gymnastics, kung fu, figure skating, or indoor wall climbing. Dance classes are another great way to stay fit and active indoors.

Accomplish winter chores

The snow might be fun to play in but they can also block driveways, doorways, and bury the car. Ask your child to help you shovel the snow and ice. The physical activity involved in doing winter chores have a calming effect on hyperactive kids and keeps them busy.

Walk the dog

If your child is old enough, he or she can be the family’s winter dog walker. If not, walk the dog together anyway; it’s a great way to get some exercise and have some alone time. Plan your route together and carry a few dog treats with you.

Create a homemade gym

Convert your garage or guest room into a homemade gym for the winter. You don’t have to buy expensive gym equipment for this; great additions to your homemade gym include exercise balls, a hula hoop, a tension band, and a yoga mat. Just make sure you place breakables and hazardous materials away from your child’s reach.

Many parents I’ve spoken to make the same observation about their ADHD children’s sleep habits: they have a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up in the morning.  When they don’t get enough sleep the previous night, they spend the rest of the day in an ADHD funk with their symptoms in overdrive. These observations are hardly surprising – sleep problems and ADHD are closely related because the regions of the brain responsible for attention also regulate sleep. While there’s not much you can do to change your child’s biology, there are a few things that can be done to help your child get enough sleep.

Establish a bedtime

Doctors recommend that school-age children get at least 10 hours of sleep every night.  Determine your child’s bedtime by subtracting ten hours from the time he or she has to get up at school (e.g. children who have to be up by 7 am should be sound asleep by 9 pm the previous evening).  Enforce this bedtime consistently, even on weekends. Allowing your child to stay up late on Fridays and Saturdays will disrupt the body clock; by Monday, he or she will experience something like jet lag.

Create a bedtime routine

While enforcing a strict bedtime may be enough for the average child, kids with ADHD may need more than this, especially for those who end up tossing and turning well after midnight.  An hour before going to bed, create e a routine filled with calming and relaxing activities.  Read a book, listen to music, or do yoga together. The important thing is that these activities slow your child’s brain down and help ease any anxieties he or she might have about sleeping at night.

Keep the bedroom dark

Darkness is not only the perfect cue for bedtime; it also gets rid of any visual distractions that keep your child from falling asleep. For instance, if your child has no light to read, she’s less likely to stay up reading all night.  If your child is afraid of the dark and needs a light to calm his fears, provide a very dim light and shut it off once your child is asleep.

Use white noise

If the slightest sound stirs your child from sleep, try using white noise – a type of noise made up of different sound frequencies, enabling it to mask disruptive sounds without interrupting a person’s sleep.   White noise is normally emitted by household appliances – the whirring of an electric fan or the hum of an air-conditioner count as white noise.  You can also find white noise in CD recordings or in white noise machines.

Consider melatonin

Is your child still tossing and turning all night? Consider giving a melatonin supplement before bedtime.   Melatonin, a hormone secreted by the pineal gland, is responsible for maintaining our body’s internal clock; studies suggest that children with ADHD may have problems with melatonin secretion. Supplements are available in health food stores – try giving your child a small dose an hour before going to bed to induce sleepiness.

We’ve discussed how squirming, fidgeting, and moving around can actually improve the focus of kids with ADHD, but were you aware that hyperactivity can also boost working memory? Although hyperactive behavior is normally associated with restlessness and boredom, a new study by Mark Rapport and colleagues in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology suggests a link between fidgeting and improved memory.   Unlike previous research on the subject, which used  flawed methodology like subjective ratings from parents, Rapport’s study used objective methods for measuring hyperactivity and its impact on working memory.

The study required the participation of 12 boys with ADHD and 11 boys without; all were between the ages of 8 and 12.  Each participant engaged in the control activity and the experiment activity. The control activity required children to make drawings of anything they like using Microsoft Paint – a task that requires little working memory.  The experiment activity involved playing two memory games. In the first game, the boys were shown a random series of numbers and a capital letter for 800 milliseconds. The boys were then asked to recite the numbers and letter. The second game involved nine squares. In each round, red and black dots appeared on random places on the square for 800 milliseconds at a time. At the end of the round, the boys had to identify the position of the dots in the order they appeared.

Throughout both activities, each participant wore an actigraph – a watch-like device that measures intensity of movements and acceleration. The actigraph was worn on both ankles and the wrist of the nondominant hand. As the boys accomplished both tasks, the actigraphs took samples of their movement 16 times per second.

In both tasks, boys with ADHD were more physically active than those without. However, both groups displayed a two-fold increase in hyperactivity when they performed memory tasks (relative to their activity level when using Microsoft Paint).  They swiveled around in their chairs and fidgeted more in general.  The researchers suggest that hyperactive behavior might be necessary to stimulate central executive processing, and becomes excessive when children try to compensate for under-arousal. More research is needed to see if increased physical activity also improves performance quality. Of course, girls with ADHD should be included in future studies as well.

So if your child fidgets often while doing homework and other tasks that need focus, let him be. Provided that the actions aren’t destructive, hyperactive behavior can actually improve the concentration and working memory of kids with ADHD.

Source

In this study, Psychology Professor Mark D. Rapport discovered that children with and without ADHD can sit relatively still when painting on a computer or watching a star war movie.

However, when asked to perform a more complex task, all children became more active. But children with ADHD became significantly more active, moving around in their seats and fidgeting with hands and feet. Children with ADHD became significantly more active – moving their hands and feet and swiveling in their chairs more – than their typically developing peers during those tasks.

The study suggests that children with ADHD become hyperactive to stay alert while doing complex tasks, such as using their memory.

“We’ve known for years that children with ADHD are more active than their peers,” said Rapport, the study lead researcher, whose findings are published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. “What we haven’t known is why.” “They use movement to keep themselves alert,” Rapport added.

“They have a hard time sitting still unless they’re in a highly stimulating environment where they don’t need to use much working memory.”

This study is very informative. For more than a decade, in the field of chiropractic neurology, we have suggested that ADHD is a result of improper stimulation or activation of specific brain areas. Our brain is mainly stimulated by signals coming from the postural muscle and the spine. So, to activate our brain, we need to activate (move) our body and muscles [the pull of gravity forces the postural muscles to constantly adapt; this is the primary source of information to the brain].

So when all children need to concentrate or stay alert, they increase movement. But since children with ADHD have parts of their brain that is less active than “neurotypical children”, they need to move more!

This is the same as an adult who has been driving for a long time. When fatigue starts to kick in, they move around, fidget or even sing to stay alert.

As chiropractic neurologist, we use the body to increase stimulation to rehabilitate the underfunctioning brain areas and strengthen them. Once those areas are stronger and function better, kids do not need to move as much to activate them. Their hyperactive behavior decreases.

By the way, adhd medications do the same thing, except that they do not truly rehabilitate the brain. This is why their effects stop and the child needs to take medication all the time.

Dr. Rapports suggests “When they are doing homework, let them fidget, stand up or chew gum,” he said. “Unless their behavior is destructive, severely limiting their activity could be counterproductive.”

That’s good advice. But a better advice is to seek help with a chiropractic neurologist so that your child’s weakened brain areas can be rehabiliated naturally once and for all.

To find a chiropractor specialized in chiropractic neurology, go to:

www.acnb.org