Parenting the ADD Child: Can't Do? Won't Do? Practical Strategies for Managing Behaviour Problems in Children with ADD and ADHD (8 page)

The key to building up positive resources in your parenting lies in finding
powerful motivators that work for you and using them often, revising them
and making up new ones as you go. The exercise that follows encourages you
to take the time to find out what motivates you.

Motivators exercise

Write down three powerful motivators - three ideas that you are
absolutely committed to and that will drive you to carry on when the
going gets tough.

Now, on your own, where no one can overhear you, say your motivators out
loud. Put feeling and emotion into the words and feel the power of the words
inside you. Once you have repeated them a few times, stop saying them out
loud and start saying them inside your head. I know that this may feel silly,
but it works. It works because you are anchoring, or fixing, these beliefs into
your mind and you are reinforcing them by generating the emotion they
produce within you. Do this anchoring exercise, and these new beliefs will
become part of how you think. Call on your motivators as often as you like;
at least daily at first, and then whenever you feel you need a boost. Here is
another exercise to boost your positive feelings as you begin Step 2:

Building-the-positives exercise

The positive and loving feelings that you have for your child are always there, but at times of stress they slip beneath the surface. This
exercise gets you to focus on these positive feelings and how much
they mean to you. On your own, take a pen and a pad or write below the thoughts that come into your mind in answering the following questions:

• What things are great and unique about my child?

• When I think about her, what do I feel grateful for?

• What are all the things I love and value about her personality?

While you are writing, pause occasionally, and just reflect on how
you feel when you think of your child in this way.

You can use the power of these emotions to motivate yourself to
create changes in both you and your child. It's also a good way of
making contact with those all-important motivating phrases or
statements that we just covered.

Welcome to Step 2. Let's get started on the relationship between you and
your child.

You want her behaviour to change. The way you are handling it is not
achieving your goal. Agreed? When you try to change your child you try to
control her behaviour in some way. You become the boss! All parents have to
struggle with control when relating to their child. Since you are the parent of
a child with ADD, you will struggle more than most. Control in a
relationship can have some very negative side-effects. It can drive a parent
and child apart. You will hear more about this in a moment.

Step 2 gives you a fresh approach to this whole issue. It is based on
improving the understanding between you and your child. It will be fun. You
will enjoy it and so will your child.

During Step 2 you will:

• set up regular `play times' with your child which will make her
more cooperative

learn to avoid escalating rows where you and your child are angry
or aggressive with each other

anticipate problems in advance and feel ready for those challenges
when they crop up.

The issue of control

ADD children are different when it comes to doing as they are told. Most
children dislike being told what to do, but ADD children tend to show their
displeasure in intense and extreme ways. They learn the skills of self-control
and compliance more slowly. They often resort to severe tantrums and
explosive outbursts when they can't get their own way. This comes from the
hyperactive and impulsive aspects of their condition. If the question of who
gets his or her way is a frequent source of conflict between you and your
ADD child, then you need to create more times when the issue of control is
absent. A holiday from the struggle for control is what Special Time is all
about.

Julie and Molly

Julie is a single parent with a five-year-old daughter, Molly. Molly was
diagnosed as having ADD a year ago. She has been prescribed 20m1
Ritalin a day, which has improved her ability to listen and pay
attention to what is said to her. As a result, her reading and writing
skills are better and she is doing more chores around the house. But
tantrums are still common. The following row between Julie and her
daughter shows how bad things were getting before she started the
programme:

Julie and Molly continued

Julie has daily rows with Molly at breakfast. Today she asks Molly
to put her cup in the sink before she plays in the garden. Molly says no.
Julie raises her voice: `Put it in the sink.' Molly screams at the top of her
voice, 'NOOOOOOOO!' Julie has been here many times before, but
she is shocked by the volume and the aggression in her daughter's
voice. She is stunned into silence. Molly stomps by her into the garden.
Julie tells herself, `Forget it ... Anything for a quiet life' (not exactly
the most inspiring motivator!). She lets it go.

Five minutes later Molly is banging hard on the window: `I want a
biscuit.' Julie feels Molly has already had her own way about the cup,
and decides 'no biscuit'. She ignores Molly's banging. Soon it grows
louder and louder. In a rage Julie flies out of the door, grabs Molly by
the arm, marches her to the kitchen, points at the cup and shrieks, `Put
it in the sink now! You stupid, horrible girl!'

Molly breaks from her mother's grip, screams, `I hate you!' and
throws the cup on the floor - it smashes - then runs from the house
into the garden.

Julie is furious. She thinks: `She's running my life. Like she's the
boss.'

But she doesn't chase after her daughter. She knows that if she
catches her this morning she will hit Molly and won't be able to stop.
Anyway, she cannot face another row. So Molly runs into the garden.
Julie calms herself down - this may take 10 or 15 minutes. But the
resentment goes much deeper. All day Julie feels `I really hate her. I
know I shouldn't but sometimes I do.'

On the surface it might look as if Molly has won this battle. In fact, both
mother and child have been the losers. The anger that smoulders inside Julie
lasts for three days and, as Julie told me, 'It affects how we relate to each
other. When I feel like this I don't want to get close to her.' Clearly, there is a
growing distance between them. Molly will pick up these feelings - all
children do - and in turn feel angry and insecure. The chances are that if
Julie and Molly find themselves in a similar situation tomorrow another
`battle' will ensue. This time Julie may appear to win. Or maybe Molly.
Whoever `wins', their feelings towards each other are growing more
confused and angry.

So is the answer more of the same?

You might be thinking, `Why doesn't this woman just put her foot down and
put an end to all the tension that is building up between them?' Well, Julie
would be the first to admit that she may not have been as firm or consistent as
she could have been with Molly in the past. But the questions now are: Should
Julie continue to concentrate on who is being the boss? and Is more discipline the answer
at this stage? In my view the answer is `no'. If your ADD child acts as Molly
does, then banging away at `Who's the boss?' can often turn out to be at the
cost of your relationship.

What is really needed at this point is more time when the issue of control
is absent from the interaction between mother and child - not better ways for
Julie to get control over Molly. This is where Special Time comes in.

Special Time for young children

Special Time is a unique play time shared by one parent and one child.
Special Time is about setting up short periods during the day (say, twice a
day) when positive feelings can flow It is useful for all children between the
ages of two and seven. (For older children, Special Time requires some
adaptation to reflect their more mature interests and ways of playing. See
Appendix 2, but read this section too for the general principles.)

Play is one of the most important ways that children learn.
Therefore play time is one of the best times to influence how a child
behaves.