The Coach Approach to Parenting Children with ADHD
Do you have a family member with ADHD? Do you feel that chaos is a fact of life in your home? Trying to parent a neurodiverse (ADHD) child the same as a neurotypical child frequently results in frustration for everyone involved. ADHD brains just don’t work the same as neurotypical brains!
Taking The Coach Approach, a neuro-informed approach, will help decrease the judgement everyone is experiencing, build relationships and self-determination. The first step to The Coach Approach starts with the adults. They must shift their perspective and actions because experience has shown that 90% of conflict is driven by adults.
The 3 Tools of The Coach Approach are: Naughty or Neurological? Meet Them Where They Are and Focus on Collaboration & Support.
Naughty or Neurological?
Children with ADHD can be delayed as much as 30% in cognitive development. The result is that children with ADHD can be up to 5 years behind, and adults up to 10 years behind in some self-management tasks! These delays are inconsistent, some skills are being learned, but not others. And some days kids can reach expectations but other days they can’t. This is the reality for everyone living with ADHD.
This inconsistency of skills is part of why your child isn’t meeting expectations, why you feel you need to fix your child, and why your child reacts when you try to ‘help’.
Ask yourself, “Are they choosing not to (naughty) or are they not there, yet (neurological)? By starting with the assumption it is neurological, parents can adjust expectations and approaches which help children feel the parents are on their team instead of judging them.
For example, if your child keeps getting distracted doing their math homework, start assuming there are too many problems to tackle at once, instead of that your child is intentionally trying to play. Rather than tackling all 20 problems at once, splitting them into groups of 4, 5 or 10. Take a 1-minute break after each group is completed, until all 20 problems are done. Now your child gets to see success after each group is completed!
Meet Them Where They Are
The goal is to support your child, to help them grow and develop instead of “dragging them along” and demanding they do it your way. This guidance must happen at home, because change happens where the behavior happens. Sending kids to a therapist doesn’t work because the therapist isn’t at home being demanding! The parents must learn a process to change everyone’s behavior.
For example, ask your middle schooler, in a matter-of-fact voice, “What is your homework plan?” and let them inform you of what they need to do instead of asking how much homework they need to do and how long it will take.
Focus on Collaboration & Support
There are 4 phases of parenting support:
Direct: toddlers- parents fully support
Collaborative- elementary school- parents support as needed
Support- middle/high school- parents assume that support will be requested
Champion- parents point out actions that support student success
Parents often withdraw support too early, their kids crash, then parents overcompensate to direct parenting instead of to collaboration, the kids feel like they are being pounced on, and they react!
Collaborative Support encourages the parents to share the agenda by modeling organization, providing acceptable choices, probing to see if concepts are understood, and slowly sharing responsibility in small steps over time.
Support in middle school is where parents encourage student ownership of responsibilities, and asking for help, “You seem to be on top of this. Do you need any support from me? Maybe a snack/reward, or maybe for me to be a body double (be in the area but not interacting unless the student is off task)?”
When parents change their perspective and approach to parenting, kids feel parents are on their side and they begin to understand, accept, and believe in themselves, feel empowered, take ownership, and self-advocate. They cooperate, engage, and strive for their own potential. All of this results in everyone’s confidence improving, home life becoming more peaceful, and relationships flourishing on mutual trust and respect.
Parenting a child with ADHD can be difficult at times, but taking the time to attack problems from another angle can be rewarding for the parent and the child.