How to Parent a Child With ADD

In a recent National Institute of Mental Health study, researchers found when children with AD/HD live in a household that practices authoritative parenting were able to sustain "normal"--or non-ADD--behavior without the use of medications, and they actually did better than ADD children on medications. In this article, you'll learn about the 4 different parenting styles, the secret to authoritative parenting, and you'll discover how to parent your AD/HD child for the best results. Different parenting styles yield different results with children. Research shows that parenting styles affect children's well-being, school achievement, and their social relationships and development. It also affects whether they are likely to get in trouble or engage in drug and alcohol abuse. Researchers have identified four styles that parents use with their children: Authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and neglectful. Some parents fall between the styles, but most families tend to use primarily one of these approaches.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

The Authoritative Parenting Style

1. Bath time examples Authoritative parenting without physical punishment produces the most positive results and the fewest problems for children in today's world. Children who have been raised in authoritative homes score higher on competence, social development, self-image and mental health. Academic achievement, psycho-social development and better behavior moderation all evidence the difference.
2. Authoritative parenting sends a positive message. It says: We trust you, we know you'll make good decisions, and if you don't, we are behind you, we will be there when you need us, you can talk to us no matter what, and we know you'll do your best.
3. Some people will still stand by corporal punishment, but it isn't necessary to raise great kids. Besides, it can have harmful side effects. Physical punishment appears to be more for the convenience or needs of the parent than for the good of the child. Parents, however, often know no alternative. Punishment, when needed, should be age-appropriate, and should concentrate on giving your child better alternatives for handling problems.
4. The bottom line is that an authoritative style of raising kids leads to competent kids with healthy skills and attitudes. It's also fun and rewarding for both parents and children.

The Real Steps to Authoritative Parenting

5. Be demanding, but responsive. For example, it is time to do chores but your child wants to make a playdate instead. Be flexible, but still make sure the jobs get done. The conversation might look something like this: Chores have to be done sometime today, you can go to your play date, but if chores aren't done today, no play tomorrow until it is done. You'll allow your child to exercise their choices, and you'll be teaching them about time-management at the same time. No punishment is involved.
6. Teach your child to have autonomy by being Controlling, but not restrictive: Give them a choice between two similar activities, and if they both need to be done, ask which one they would like to do first. For example: Do you want a bath before of after a cup of tea? "Shall we go swimming or for a hike in the woods?" "Would you like peas or carrots for dinner tonight?" "Shall we take your bath before or after dinner?"
7. Be involved. If you're a single parent, show your child their value! Don't think you have to do it all yourself--include your child or children in your chores. Go shopping together and send them on an aisle mission to find the best deal on a particular item. Open the mail or make dinner together. If you bring home work, do it with your child during homework hour. Use the time together to talk about important values and life's fun or not-so-fun surprises. A good conversation opener is, "tell me the coolest thing you saw somebody do at school today…" You'll probably be able to take it from there.
8. Show your child that you are interested in their life. You can't start doing this too young. Try not to miss school and extra-curricular activities and events. Check their homework. Open the evening's dinner conversation with "what is the most interesting thing you learned today." When we're adults we really appreciate and value when people go out of their way to do something nice for us, or to show they remembered something special to us. Go out of your way for your children. Have the courage to choose parenting over convenience. They will notice, and the results will show at school and at home.
9. Show your child how to work to their potential. Discuss problems and find solutions together. Talk about how you are making decisions when you're in the process. There's nothing like hands on applied learning to make a lesson stick. For instance, you can reveal your thoughts as you negotiate homework vs. playtime. Tell you child you want to come to a fair solution, tell them what must be done and when the deadline to finish it is. Ask them how they will accomplish the goal, guide their decision process, and then simply remind them when it is getting close to the time for changing activities.
10. Keep the communications channels open. Make sure your topics aren’t limited! Around the age of 3, children are starting to notice that life has a cycle, and that different people and different places have different rules. You can tell they're at the stage when grammar starts to appear in their speech. Once they start constructing words into sentences, they're brain is studying and developing the capacity to understand and self-regulate rules, not just of language, but of everything else around them too. Listening to children's viewpoints and letting them explain why or how they did something or are thinking of doing it, builds communications that will last a lifetime. If their explanation or reasoning doesn't fall into your acceptable behavior rules, you can help by presenting them with a better choice for the next time. It helps to explain--when you did this, this happened, and as a result we now have this. What could we do better or different next time?
11. Teach you child how to focus their passion. Once children start learning the rules, they spend the rest of their childhood testing them. Be alert to the rules being tested as they occur, and help your child build trust, acceptance, and a great self-image. Help them to explore new things. Some of the new things can be your choices, some should be theirs. As your child gets older, more and more of the choices should be theirs. Don't lock them into long term commitments on these new activities. You won't be teaching them to stick to something, you'll only be teaching them that they must do things they don't want to do. They'll rebel eventually, and the rebellion gets worse the longer they are required. Agree ahead of time that you'll both invest a little trial period, and make a date in a month to review together whether everything is working and everyone is interested in trying it for another period of time. Remember that if the arrangement isn't working for you--it's too hard to get them there, or schoolwork is suffering--you have a right to set limits as a parent. You should be able to offer a substitute or a solution if possible. If not, double up the time you can spend together because things are going more smoothly without the additional activity.
12. Show your child how to respect him/her self and others. Personal safety is a reasonable requirement. That includes always knowing what someone was wearing, where family members will be, how they can be reached, and what time they are expected to be at home. Modern communications devices make this pretty easy. Why not start a routine of leaving each other a digital picture and message either on the home computer, or the cell phone on the way out the door.
13. Live what you say. Don't discuss how you just pulled one over on your boss and expect your child to understand and stick to the rules about cheating or lying. The lesson a child learns as he gets spanked because he hit someone, is: You can only hit someone if you are bigger or if you are big or powerful enough to get to break the rules. They'll soon be making their own rules. When you are faced with a difficult choice, share why you followed your path, and help them see the moral and ethical decisions you made along the way. Talk about the movies and the songs you listen to together, and discuss lyrics and content that show models of both good and bad decisions, and what makes them that way.