The foundation for good behavior lies in learning three important life skills: reading social situations, managing emotions, and problem-solving abilities. Children with ADHD tend to be deficit in these skills but they can be learned and reinforced with a little help from you and a therapist.

Reading social situations

Reading social situations is critical to helping kids avoid trouble and getting along with others.  If your child can walk into a room, observe what’s happening, and interact appropriately, then he or she has no problem with this skill. If not, you can teach your child how to read social situations by observing people together at a restaurant or mall.  Teach your child the body language and expression of someone who is angry, bored, happy, or frustrated.  Once your child has gotten the hang of identifying other people’s emotions, you can start giving advice on how to deal with people according to their moods.

Managing emotions

The inability to manage emotions is one of the hallmark symptoms of ADHD and one of the reasons why they tend to get into trouble more than their peers.  It’s important for your child to realize that it’s not okay to hit people out of frustration and that it’s not okay to cuss at someone when they’re angry. Kids with ADHD have to learn that while it’s okay to feel upset or angry, this does not mean they can hurt other people.

If your child punches his brother, sit him down and ask, “What was happening that made you think you needed to do that?” Don’t ask how your child felt, because he won’t be able to articulate an answer; instead, as what was going on. You’ll find that the behavior has a self-centered reason – perhaps his brother wouldn’t lend him a video game he wanted to play with, or his brother wouldn’t give up the TV so he can watch his favorite show.

Don’t rely on consequences alone to improve this behavior. If you must use consequences, make sure that they challenge how your child views the situation or you provide your child with options on dealing with the problem in the future. Otherwise, your child will not learn from the experience; in fact, he will probably repeat the same mistake when you’re not looking.

Once you’ve figured out the reason behind your child’s behavior, ask him what he can do next time this happens.  Using this approach encourages your child to come up with healthier ways to cope with his feelings and think of more effective solutions to the problem.

Problem-solving

Sometimes, children who are labeled as “troublemakers” are simply children who have not learned how to solve life’s problems.  When faced with a difficult situation, they turn to ineffective actions like violence or verbal abuse because they don’t know how to handle the problem otherwise.  A key element to helping a child develop better behavior is to teach them problem-solving techniques. Help your child identify problems and discuss possible solutions to it, instead of focusing on what you child is feeling.

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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.

Does your ADHD child have a habit of cutting you off in mid-sentence? Do you find it difficult to carry a conversation on the phone or with your spouse because of constant interruptions? Interrupting is a common behavior among kids with ADHD because they have a hard time keeping their impulses in check and censoring what they say. But just because this behavior occurs naturally, it doesn’t mean that it’s right, nor does it become any less annoying! Here are some ADHD parenting tips on dealing with kids who interrupt.

It’s rude to interrupt

Children with ADHD should be old enough to understand that it’s rude to interrupt two people talking.  Remind your child about this, and explain that conversations involve a speaker and a listener. Two people cannot speak at the same time – otherwise, no one would be understood.  Emphasize that it’s important to listen to what other people say before bringing your own thoughts into the conversation.

Ignore your child

Discourage your child’s penchant for interrupting you simply by ignoring him or her. The most effective thing you can do at the moment is to look your child in the eye and calmly say, “Don’t interrupt until I’m done talking.” This should stop the behavior immediately; if not, simply turn and walk away, or resume your conversation. Practice this consistently and your child will be less likely to interrupt your next conversation.

Teach impulse control

Work with your child’s doctor or teacher and come up with ways to help them manage urges and impulses.  Doing so will not only prevent your child from interrupting conversations, but it will avoid other problems caused by impulsivity.   One technique that works on young kids is to use a timer and make a game of it – tell your child that he or she can’t speak until the timer goes off.

Be a role model

Children still learn best by imitating their parents, and one of the best ways to change bad habits is to avoid them yourself.  Make sure you do not interrupt your child or others, and apologize when you do.

Well-meaning relatives, friends, and magazine articles have probably given you lots of advice on how to parent your ADHD child.  However, the so-called “rules” of good parenting don’t always work, especially when many of these techniques are only fads. Here are the five most ineffective ADHD parenting approaches and how you can make them work for your child.

Building your child’s self-esteem will improve behavior

One of the most prevalent theories today is that if a child with ADHD feels good about himself or herself, then any behavioral problems this child might experience will go away.  While this might work in theory, the problem is when parents make it easy for their child to develop high self-esteem. Maybe they ask the teacher to go easy on their ADHD child, or they praise their child endlessly. However, self-esteem does not come from empty praise; rather, it is earned from doing things that are difficult, or things that your child can feel proud of.  In order to give your child healthy self-esteem, teach him or her to solve problems and how to function well.  Start by giving your child more responsibility at home, and then have them work their way up to bigger tasks.

Talking about feelings calms down an angry child

Whenever your ADHD child acts out, you first reaction is probably to ask why he is upset. The theory is that if your child understands what he is feeling, your child will calm down and have control over his behavior. Unfortunately, upset children are not very good at reflecting about their feelings, and children with ADHD often don’t have the vocabulary to express why they are upset.  Instead of asking your child why he’s upset, teach him the appropriate ways to express his feelings.  The goal is not to help your child understand what he feels, but to make your child understand the proper ways to behave regardless of what they feel.

Children with ADHD need different standards

It’s tempting for parents and teachers to uphold ADHD children to different standards so they don’t have an even harder time than they already do.  However, this is probably the worst thing any parent can do to their ADHD child. When your child turns 18 and enters the real world, no one will care what disorder your child has.  If your child cannot perform well and get along with others, he is going to fall behind.  While children with ADHD may not have the same academic proficiency as other children, they still have to be proficient in meeting behavioral expectations, performance expectations, and following cultural norms.  Instead of making it easy for your child, help him learn to be accountable and responsible for his behavior and performance.

It’s just a teenage phase

Adolescents and teens may sometimes experiment with dangerous behaviors like drugs, alcohol, or violence.  For many teens with ADHD, however, these aren’t just phases. They might start out as things they just want to try, but they end up getting used to the behavior as a coping mechanism to the stress or frustration they experience.   Make it clear that doing drugs and drinking alcohol are high-risk activities, not only because they’ll get into trouble with the law, but because they’ll impair your child’s judgment and ability to solve problems. The good news is that teens whose ADHD symptoms have been managed at an early age are less likely to engage in these high-risk behaviors.

Punishment has to hurt

Dealing with a misbehaving child with ADHD can be very frustrating, especially if they repeat the same mistakes.  It’s not uncommon for parents to feel the need to implement a bigger and harsher punishment in order to get through to their child. However, punishment does not translate into better behavior unless your child learns from it.  Instead of just grounding your child, give your child consequences with a learning experience – remove a privilege or impose an unpleasant task until your child performs a desired behavior. For instance, you want your child to treat his brother with respect. So say to your child, “You can’t use the PlayStation unless you don’t cuss at or hit your brother for 24 hours.”

Taking care of a child with ADHD is a 24-hour challenge. From getting your child out of bed in the morning to making sure he sleeps at night, it feels like you’re engaged in a tug-of-war all day long. While there are certainly many resources that can help parents cope with ADHD behavioral problems, it seems that the more they read, the more confused they become as to how to discipline their child. The key to ADHD parenting is to realize that your child’s brain is wired differently from his peers. One-size-fit-all parenting approaches won’t always work with your child, but here are five secrets that do.

Adapt your parenting techniques to ADHD

There’s a reason why discipline techniques that seem to work for all kids aren’t quite as effective among kids with ADHD. Research discovered that the socio-emotional development of these children is slightly delayed.  A six-year-old boy with ADHD has the emotional development of a four-year-old.  If this is the case with your child, try to find parenting techniques that work with his stage of development rather than his biological age.

A popular example is the “time-out” technique, a discipline tool recommended to help ADHD kids overcome impulsive behavior like hitting or talking back.  Parents are told to look at a child’s age, then add one minute of time-out for every year.  Hence, your six-year-old should spend six minutes calming down in timeout. However, your six-year-old also has ADHD and will react more like a five-year-old.  So five minutes in timeout may be more appropriate.

Motivate with rewards

Tempting as it may be to punish a child who constantly misbehaves, studies show that children with ADHD respond better to rewards instead.  Going back to the timeout example – if your child refuses to stay quiet during timeout, say that the timeout will be twice as long, but he can reduce it to the usual 5 minutes by staying quiet. By placing the focus on reward rather than punishment, you speak a language someone with ADHD can understand.  Another tip is to help your child correct mistakes by showing the proper way to accomplish the task, rather than getting hung up on what went wrong.

Work on motor skills

Make a habit to work on your child’s motor skills. Studies show that many children with the disorder also experience delays in motor development, which can explain poor handwriting or “clumsy” behavior. Fun games like playing catch helps develop motor skills while enhancing you child’s ability to follow directions.

Focus on your child’s strengths

There’s a silver lining to having childhood ADHD. Current research reveals that children with the disorder tend to be more creative and have a knack for finding out-of-the-box solutions. Encourage your child’s hobbies and talents, and teach him to use these to compensate for the shortcomings of the disorder.  Give your child a smile or hug when you see him working on his hobbies, and be present during your child’s games or recitals.

Stay consistent

Exhausted parents want a quick solution to their children’s hyperactive behavior, so they tend to experiment with different strategies every other day. Just as it takes time for ADHD natural treatments to take effect, so do disciplining techniques need time and consistency before you notice any results. Remain consistent with household routines, rewards, and punishments.   The first week or so is the hardest, but children eventually learn to adapt to these strategies as time goes by. Just make sure that your child continues his or her ADHD treatments in the process.

Join a support group

One of the best ways to cope with the diagnosis is by joining an ADHD support group. Fellow parents of children with ADHD are more than happy to give you tips and advice on managing your child’s symptoms and dealing with the challenges of the disorder.  At the very least, a support group will provide you with a sympathetic ear when things get especially stressful.

When counseling parents of children with ADHD, one of the most common questions I receive is whether or not their child is ready for a sleepover.  Parents are only happy to help their kids build friendships, especially when their child has had difficulties doing so in the past. At the same time, they worry that their child’s ADHD symptoms might be too much for the host to handle, that they might cause trouble, or that their child might feel homesick.  While these instances are certainly plausible, your child can enjoy a fun sleepover at a friend’s or relative’s house with a few preparations. Before saying yes to the slumber party, consider these issues first.

Control of symptoms

Your child’s ability to regulate his or her behavior has to be the most important consideration of all.  Kids whose ADHD symptoms are out of control may end up being a burden to the host if they accidentally break items, run around the house, or talk out of turn.  Wait until your child has a better grasp of his or her behavior before agreeing to sleepovers. In the meantime, you can get your child used to being at someone else’s home and respecting another parent’s set of rules by allowing play dates at friends’ houses.

Experience

Not sure if your child is ready to sleep over even if his or her symptoms are under control? Consider his or her previous experiences first.  Kids who regularly spend time with uncles, aunts, or grandparents are used to being away from home and will probably fare well staying over a friend’s house. But if your child has rarely been away from the house without you, start with overnight stays at relatives’ homes before he or she sleeps over with friends.

Flexibility

If it’s your child’s first time away from home, think of a back-up plan in case your child does prove to be a handful for the host or if he or she gets homesick. Provide the host with your phone number and make sure that you have a way to pick your child up if necessary.

Provide information

It may help to talk to the host beforehand and inform them of your child’s ADHD so that they know what to expect.  If your child needs to take any treatments during the stay, give them clear, written instructions.  Mention any dietary concerns or allergies your child might have, and be clear about instances where you should be called.  You might also want to give out details about any unique quirks, how your child reacts to certain situations, and what discipline strategies work.

If there is one ADHD symptom that creates awkward social situations and hurt feelings, it has to be the lack of tact. It’s normal for children of all ages to say what’s on their mind, but those with ADHD are even more likely to have no sense of control over their speech. Regardless of whether or not your child was speaking the truth (and chances are, he or she is probably right), every parent needs to deflect these inappropriate statements. Once the words have been said, someone is bound to get offended and you, the parent, might feel helpless or embarrassed.

Teaching manners and tact to children with ADHD is just as important as helping them manage their symptoms.  Social skills do not come naturally to children with the disorder, and it’s a parent’s job to teach them what to say and what not to say. By doing so, you’re helping your child become appreciated and liked. Here are ways to teach tact to kids with ADHD.

Let your child know what to expect

Children in preschool and early elementary are expected to know how to behave in public and around society, but these skills have to be taught. If your child is not prepared to handle these situations, he or she is not going to know how to behave.  Experts in etiquette and parenting suggest anticipating problem situations and talking to your child about it to avoid hurt feelings and embarrassment. Let your child know what might happen and how he or she should react.

For instance, you’re about to go to grandma’s house. Grandma likes to cook healthy food, which your child is not too crazy about. Tell her, “Grandma is going to make dinner and she can get very sad if she makes a nice meal and you say yuck.” You can then suggest that your child keep quiet about what she thinks and avoid eating what she doesn’t like.  Similarly, if your child is receiving presents, let her know that the giver may be hurt if she says, “I don’t like this” or “I already have this toy.” Tell her to just smile and say thank you.

Let your child spend energy

For solemn occasions like weddings or funerals, tell your child that he or she will be expected to stay on their best behavior during the event. Of course, your rambunctious little one won’t sit still just because you said so; help your child along by suggesting that he or she let off some steam before you head out.  Let your child run around the park and scream while doing so, using up all his energy before getting ready for a serious occasion.

Role-play a situation

One other way to help your child understand what went wrong is by role-playing the situation. Experts suggest using stuffed animals and make a game of it to help younger children learn social skills in a fun manner.  Normally, adults get very tense when their child says something inappropriate. When we explain what went wrong while we’re tense or angry, the lesson doesn’t sink in very well. The child will then get confused or scared, and fail to understand what went wrong.

Using stuffed animals relieves this tension around the lesson you’re trying to impart.  For instance, have one stuffed animal say rude and hurtful things – “You’re so fat!” The other stuffed animal can interject and say, “That’s not a nice thing to say.” The first stuffed animal can insist, “But it’s true!” You can your child will probably giggle about the silliness of the conversation, and you can reinforce the lesson by adding, “It’s important to be careful about what you say about other people’s looks. If you see someone who looks a little strange or funny, try not to say it out loud. Whisper it into my ear or tell me about it when we’re alone.”

Be direct with adolescents and teens

When dealing with adolescents and teens, parents should be direct about the tact and behavior they expect.  Bad behavior should be confronted when we see it, and we need to be firm about our values. No putting other people down or hurting their feelings for being different.

Next to questions about ADHD treatment, many parents turn to me for advice on how to discipline ADHD children effectively.  Although natural treatments will help reduce behavioral problems in the long run, parents have to contend with their children’s stubbornness, hyperactive tendencies, and other misbehaviors today.  Parenting an ADHD child is no easy task. Even the most patient parents end up dropping their compassionate approach for a cycle of nagging, yelling, and punishing, which only seems to make their children misbehave even more.

So how do you get an ADHD child to behave?  As with ADHD treatments, there is no magic bullet or formula to better discipline; each child responds to different techniques. There are a few general guidelines you can follow to keep your child’s misdeeds in check.

Understand that discipline is not punishment

Before anything else, you must realize that there are differences between discipline and punishment.  Most parents assume that discipline involves punishing a child, but they could not be more different from each other.

Punishment is the act of doing something unpleasant to a child who breaks the rules or behaves inappropriately. This is usually done in the form of spanking or yelling. When it comes to children with ADHD, punishment is the least helpful way of encouraging proper behavior. First of all, ADHD children are more anxious and nervous than other children, and punishment only makes these emotions worse. A nervous child cannot learn from the experience and will end up repeating the same mistake. Since punishment is generally unpleasant, it will also encourage your child to tune out on your yelling and lecturing. Finally, punishment encourages aggression, especially when a parent hits a child. Punishment teaches a child that it’s all right to yell and hit someone when you feel frustrated about something that person did.

On the other hand, discipline teaches proper behavior by showing a child the natural consequences of deviating away from social norms or responsibilities.  Discipline forces the child to look at what went wrong and how his or her behavior made an impact on others, thus providing the child an incentive for avoiding that behavior in the future. Discipline also teaches children to deal with their frustrations in a calmer, more rational manner instead of promoting aggression.

In other words, discipline teaches children how to learn from their mistakes instead of suffering for them.  Punishment, on the other hand, is all about the parent being responsible for controlling the child’s behavior, rather than teaching the child to control his or her behavior.

How to discipline an ADHD child

According to Dr. Jane Nelsen, the author of the book Positive Discipline, there are Four R’s to disciplining a child.

Reveal

Make sure you reveal the consequences of certain behaviors in advance so your child knows what’s coming when he or she chooses to misbehave. Let’s say your child just got a new bike and you’re worried about her safety.  You can say, “If you want to ride your bike, you have to wear your helmet or I’ll know you’re not ready for a bike yet.” This wording is more effective than just saying, “Don’t ride a bike without a helmet, or I’ll take your bike away.” The latter sounds more like a challenge for the child to test the rule. The first statement, on the other hand, places the child responsible for her own safety and behavior.

Related

The consequences should always be logically related to the deed. For instance, taking away TV privileges has nothing to do with promoting bike safety.

Respectful

Give your comments respectfully rather than in a threatening matter. This helps your child realize that she has a choice about her behavior. You can say, “When I see you on your bike without a helmet, I know you’re not ready to ride it safely and need to keep it in the garage first.” Observe how this statement is less likely to encourage balk-talk than, “I’m taking your bike away! You could get killed riding it without a helmet!”

Reasonable

Finally, provide a reasonable solution that will help your child correct her behavior in the future.  You can say to your child, “You may ride your bike again with a helmet in the afternoon.” Stay consistent with the consequence of riding without a helmet (time away from the bike), but keep the time limit as short as possible to make your child pay attention to the lesson. If you keep your child away from the bike for a week after her first offence, she’ll spend more time feeling resentful than learning from her mistake. But if your child repeats the violation again, increase the time limit away from the bike to a day.

Children with ADHD need to practice behaving, and we need to give them second chances. Dr. Nielsen says that if any of these R’s is missing, the technique becomes punishment, and your child will react through another set of R’s – resentment, revenge, rebellion, and retreat (e.g. lying, running away). If your ADHD child shows any these responses, there’s a possibility that one of the four R’s of discipline was missing from the technique.  The good news is that you too have second chances to help your child achieve better behavior in the future.

A colleague once remarked that in his experience working with families and children with ADHD, fathers rarely participate in behavior modification programs. This phenomenon has more to do with cultural forces than anything else; generally speaking, topics covered in these programs fall under the mother’s domain (time management, organization, and self-control). Such traditional parenting programs seem more relevant to mothers than fathers.  However, the success of a holistic ADHD treatment program requires the involvement and active participation of both parents. Fathers have just as much influence as mothers when it comes to a child’s academic achievement and self-esteem.

University at Buffalo assistant professor Dr. Gregory Fabiano recognizes this and designed the COACHES program for his dissertation. For his research, he recruited kids between 6  – 12 years of age and separated them into two groups – a group of fathers and children who received traditional treatments for ADHD families. This traditional program involves training on how to deal with behavioral problems and other symptoms of the disorder. Another group received the same traditional treatment plus a sports program called COACHES (Coaching Our Acting-Out Children: Heightening Essential Skills).

In the COACHES group, fathers and their kids participated in daily activities for eight weeks. During the first hour, fathers stayed in a group training meeting while their kids worked on soccer drills.  After that, fathers and kids played soccer together as a way for them to apply what they learned.  To make sure that they’ve made the most of the program, fathers are given a homework assignment to practice in the context of the game.  Then dads get to share what they learned to other caregivers at home and continue to implement these techniques.

Dr. Fabiano noted that dads in the COACHES group had lower drop-out rates, were more likely to complete their homework assignments, and rated it as a better treatment. Additionally, dads felt a stronger sense of community in the program and lost their sense of isolation after meeting fellow fathers of ADHD kids.  Instead of feeling defensive about having children with behavioral problems and challenged in sports, they steered things towards a positive direction and helped their child build self-esteem and self-restraint.

You can find out more about the COACHES program at the University at Buffalo Center for Children and Families website. Meanwhile, here are other ways to get fathers more involved in ADHD treatment.

Do activities together and apply parenting skills here

You can actually replicate what the COACHES program does by joining your child in a physical activity he or she can do well – running, martial art, bowling, etc.  This is a great time to cheer you child on and correct any misbehaviors he or she might make. Additionally, the nature of the sport also promotes certain skills like self-control and good sportsmanship.

Teach basic skills

Is your child not fond of sports? Another way to spend time with your child is to teach him or her a skill or hobby you know, such as carpentry, fishing, or rebuilding cars. Even if this hobby is as simple as cooking, take your child with you and use this as a way to bond and boost his or her sense of self-worth.

Support your child’s treatments

Attend doctor’s appointments with your child and find out as much as you can about your child’s condition and treatment. Ask the doctor what you can do to support your child’s treatment plan.

As a parent of a child with ADHD, you’ve probably noticed something I observe among my patients: kids with ADHD don’t do well in the winter.  As fall turns to winter and a blanket of snow covers the streets, kids with ADHD tend to:

• Become more hyperactive or impulsive as they grow increasingly restless. In the winter, they have fewer opportunities to burn excess energy or do activities they enjoy outside of school or at home.
• Become more argumentative and oppositional due to the inability to use their regular coping skills, such as outdoor activities or sports, to help them vent their feelings and burn off excess energy.
• Become more distracted and inattentive, resulting in difficulties doing homework or completing errands and chores.
• Experience more disciplinary or legal trouble as their frustration, restlessness, impulsivity, and hyperactivity increases.

Does this sound like your child?

Like everyone else, children with ADHD develop habits, skills, or behaviors that enable them to cope with their feelings, highs, lows, and the obstacles caused by their symptoms. Perhaps you’ve helped your child develop some of these healthy habits.  While the average child can easily cope with the changes caused by the seasons, most of those with ADHD do not handle change well.  They overreact to these disruptions because they perceive a threat underneath the change. Because of their symptoms, their reactions to change tend to involve the behaviors described above.

What can you do to help your ADHD child cope with the winter blues?

• Keep the house as well-lit and cheerful as possible. In the daytime, draw back the curtains and bring in as much natural light as you can. At night, use lamps or light up the room with a string of Christmas lights. Dark, dreary environments can aggravate ADHD symptoms or trigger seasonal affective disorder.
• Enroll your child in a gym or a winter camp. These programs will provide your child with enough activities to keep him or her occupied, happy, and fit.
• Turn a spare bedroom or garage into a homemade gym for days when your child has no choice but to stay indoors.  You don’t have to buy state-of-the-art exercise equipment for this; your homemade gym have a hula hoop, exercise balls, a tension band, a trampoline if there’s enough space, or a television with a Wii sports console.
• Spend some quality time with your child. Ask about how your child’s day went and what he or she is feeling.  Make it a real bonding session by sharing similar stories from your childhood.

Most children with ADHD will show significant improvements with these interventions but if your child’s symptoms continue to persist, check with your health care provider immediately.  Kids and teens with ADHD are more likely to experience depression during the cold winter months.