Three parenting tips on supporting kids with ADHD symptoms

New research by Emma Sciberras, Anna Jackson, Glenn Melvin and Louise Brown looked at children with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during lockdowns to understand what home learning was like for them. They reported on this in The Conversation.

100 Australian parents of children with ADHD took part in the survey. They were asked about the benefits and challenges of home schooling and what strategies they used.

While this provided insights into pandemic schooling, there are lessons here for learning beyond lockdowns. Many parents are considering home schooling but the findings of this research can be used to help with homework and teachers may apply them in their classrooms as well.

Symptoms can include difficulty maintaining concentration, controlling impulses (including being able to pause and think), planning and organizing tasks, and managing time and belongings.

Children with ADHD experience greater school and learning difficulties, compared to their peers without ADHD.

Medication can help with reducing inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity difficulties. But to succeed at school, children with ADHD also require other supports.

Their findings

The symptoms of ADHD include difficulties maintaining concentration, controlling impulses, planning and organising tasks and management of time and belongings. These caused challenges for parents during lockdown.

Of those surveyed, 25% reported difficulty keeping children on task during home schooling. Similar numbers also reported children lacking motivation (22%) and difficulty with the format, structure, and delivery of online learning (19%). If a child had trouble paying attention and anxiety symptoms, these were most likely to make home schooling difficult.

But there were also benefits.

Of those surveyed, 20% of parents reported their child had lower anxiety and stress. Similar numbers also reported they got a better understanding of their child’s learning style and needs (20%) and greater flexibility around how and when their child did school work (19%).

These benefits may be due to children receiving more one-on-one support and more ability to personalize learning for their child.

What strategies helped?

According to the study, the most common helpful strategies used during home schooling for Australian children with ADHD were:

having routines/organization and time management, including waking up at a set time each day and then following a schedule
parents being actively involved in their child’s work—keeping track of what work needed to be done and what work had been done
having a suitable space for children to work, that was quiet and free from distractions.

Tips for parents of children with ADHD

The researchers’ suggestions can be used during any future home schooling or for parents helping their children with homework. They can also be easily adapted by classroom teachers.

The key thing to remember is children with ADHD are not intentionally trying to be naughty, impulsive or distracted. For that reason, discipline will not be effective but the following strategies may help:

focus on your child’s strengths and positive attributes—this is essential for them to build and maintain self-esteem
give plenty of praise and encouragement
ask your child about their struggles and then listen to their responses, acknowledge their feelings and don’t judge or just leap to give advice. You could say, “I can see that you’re really upset. Do you feel like talking about it?” Recent research shows that childrenwith ADHD want to have positive social connections.
provide gentle redirection if your child gets distracted—you could say, “Wow! What a great job you’ve done so far. Keep going!” instead of “Back to work!”
limit distractions—turn off TVs, silence phones and have siblings work or play elsewhere
work with your child from the start of an activity to ensure they understand it and to help them plan the next steps
give your child one to two instructions at a time
provide time management assistance—this could include a visual schedule of the steps/tasks required
enable your child to expend energy whilst listening—this could include fidgets, doodling or bouncing on a Pilates ball—to assist with their concentration
ensure your child takes regular learning breaks. The frequency of these will depend on your child, it could be helpful to start with more frequent breaks, then adjust as needed.

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.