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New to this/Questions

Question:

Selena, I am a newbie to the group and have only been lurking for a little while.   I have been looking into ADD because my nephew.  I was wanting to do some research for my brother and get him some information.  I don’t know if this will help at all, but I found a good site/resource about ADD.  It helped me answer some ?’s and got me started.  It may have some useful information for you.   It’s at http://www.betterhealth.com just click on the side menu and away you go. I got this little article on the site today.  Hope it helps. 10 Strategies for Adults  1. Warning, Warning!!! Children with ADD have a tough time  transitioning, or moving from one task or activity to another. Try  giving advanced warning about changes (for example…"you need  to be ready to go in ten minutes").  2. Provide Check Points For long term projects or tasks, try  breaking it them into small attainable goals with transition aids.  Rewards or interventions by someone acting as a coach help the  child move on to the next task. Help the child learn to plan a  project with built in check points along the way. Then the child  can focus on one small thing at a time. Eventually your child will  be able to plan an execute a project on her own.  3. Clarify Rules and Consequences Begin by setting clear  rules and then be sure to enforce them. Help the child understand  what the rewards are for good behavior and what consequences  there are for bad behavior. Time outs and removal of privileges  are commonly used consequences for inappropriate behaviors.  4. Provide structure and consitency Children with ADD do  better in a predictable environment. Many people thrive with a  comfortable amount of structure, so it isn’t surprising that this  would help. 5. Work as a team with other adults Teachers  and parents can work together on specific goals reinforcing  specific strategies.  6. Create a positve environment Create and maintain an  environment that helps your child to succeed. Experiment to see  what works. Sometimes a quite place in a classroom or at home  can help a child concentrate. Sometimes (believe it or not) a radio  or TV going will help tune out distractions and the student can  stay on focus.  7. Keep Time Using a timer can help keep a child on task by  providing a reminder of what they are supposed to do. Sometimes  just the ticking of the timer will work. It can also be used to help  manage time so that specific tasks are accomplished within a  certain time period. A watch with an alarm can be set to provide  reminders to do certain tasks.  8. Take Time Realize that your child might just need more time  than other kids. Allow extra time for them to find and get on their  shoes. Talk to teachers about providing reasonable extensions to  due dates. Let your child live at their pace! By allowing kids to  take some extra time now and then you can significantly reduce  some stress around your house!  9. Take Time Off Allow for down time. Kids with ADD (like all  kids) need time to burn off steam. They need time to play, run,  and laugh. Engaging in sports and physical activities can help  children to harness their energies and learn to focus it when they  need to.  10. Don’t Forget to Laugh. With all this talk about structure,  rewards, and consequences it can be easy to get caught up in all  the rules and regulations. Don’t forget to keep a sense of humor  and remember that your kid is just a kid who will enjoy a good  laugh with you now and then! Bonus Tip! Connect with others  who understand! To join one of our "live," "real-time" online  self-help and mutual support groups such as some of the  scheduled ADD chats, or health professional networking  meetings, keyword Better Health and click on the Events and  Mutual Support Chats Button.

Response:

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions.  We’ll try to implement what we can and see what happens. Selena – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Selena, You’ve already gotten some really good ideas for dealing with mornings with your ADDer, but here are a couple of my thoughts about our experiences as well.

Response:

Our 9 year old son is now on Ritalin to help him stay on task at school.   He gets two 5 mg. tablets in the morning and one at noon.  School work is now done on time or even early, and he’s not having any problem with side effects.  However, we are struggling at home with some other things.  He is having a problem getting ready for school in the mornings.  He can’t seem to stay focused long enough to get completely ready.  He’ll start but get sidetracked by toys, magazines, whatever.   It has been very frustrating to get him out the door in time for the bus and get ready for work ourselves.  Is there any methods that will help keep him on task getting ready?  We have always dealt with this, but it seems worse now, perhaps because I’m more aware of it.   Rewards/incentives/bribes and/or punishments don’t make any difference.   At the moment we’re timing him to see how fast he can get dressed.  It’s working so far, but I’m sure it won’t last long. Does having trouble making decisions go along with this?  He can’t or won’t make choices without a parent there to choose for him.  He is also very impulsive, talking out of turn and so on.  Are there ways to work on these things at home when he’s not on the Ritalin? Thanks. Selena

Response:

Our 9 year old son is now on Ritalin to help him stay on task at school. He gets two 5 mg. tablets in the morning and one at noon.  School work is now done on time or even early, and he’s not having any problem with side effects.  However, we are struggling at home with some other things.  He is having a problem getting ready for school in the mornings.  He can’t seem to stay focused long enough to get completely ready.  He’ll start but get sidetracked by toys, magazines, whatever.   It has been very frustrating to get him out the door in time for the bus and get ready for work ourselves.  

Gosh, Selena, this sounds so familiar.  My daughter has been this way since she started 1st grade.  I remembered having similar difficulties, so I called Mom to see how she got me to hurry in the morning.  She said she never was able to do that. (That was not the answer I was looking for.) Janette is 12 now and doing much better, partly because she is in junior high and enjoys it so much more than she did grade school. When she was younger, some of the things we did were:         Lay your clothes out the night before         Have your school stuff right by the door         If you’re late to school, you have to go to bed 15 min. earlier that night                 (the logic was that you must be too sleepy to get ready)         You’re leaving for school at X:XX, and if you’re still in your pajamas, you get                 to go to school in your pajamas.  (The worse we had was with                 unbrushed hair, thank goodness) Hope these help some. — *Kay*  (It’s an ADD thing.  You wouldn’t underst-  hey, look at that!)

Response:

While I was dwelling on the fundamental interconnectedness of all – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Our 9 year old son is now on Ritalin to help him stay on task at school.   He gets two 5 mg. tablets in the morning and one at noon.  School work is now done on time or even early, and he’s not having any problem with side effects.  However, we are struggling at home with some other things.  He is having a problem getting ready for school in the mornings.  He can’t seem to stay focused long enough to get completely ready.  He’ll start but get sidetracked by toys, magazines, whatever.   It has been very frustrating to get him out the door in time for the bus and get ready for work ourselves.  Is there any methods that will help keep him on task getting ready?  We have always dealt with this, but it seems worse now, perhaps because I’m more aware of it.   Rewards/incentives/bribes and/or punishments don’t make any difference.   At the moment we’re timing him to see how fast he can get dressed.  It’s working so far, but I’m sure it won’t last long. Does having trouble making decisions go along with this?  He can’t or won’t make choices without a parent there to choose for him.  He is also very impulsive, talking out of turn and so on.  Are there ways to work on these things at home when he’s not on the Ritalin? Thanks. Selena

Some people have reported success in this area by giving the first med of the day while the kid is still in bed, maybe 10 minutes before he gets up. Don Stauffer | Email is welcome except solicitation, which | | will be forwarded to domain Administrators. |

Response:

We set up a detailed check list (I think another post mentioned this also).  We started with "Wake Up", and DETAILED everything needed to do in order to leave the house.  This included Wash your face, Brush your teeth, brush your hair, etc.  We also had the rule about leaving at X:XX time because we had to catch a bus that crossed town to the school.  She wore the PJ top as a shirt many times. After the list, many things became habit.  This year, she has been VERY good and independent.  She is now in 8th grade and wakes and gets ready by herself.  She puts out her clothes and asks for lunch money the night before.  She has taken to washing her own laundry because I can’t seem to get it all done. BTW, Kay, I LOVE your sig. file.  It’s ME!!!!!  (LOL) — Cindy Murray "The wise admit their ignorance,the foolish understand everything too soon."  – Vilani proverb

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -*  He is having a problem getting ready for school in the mornings.    Is there any methods that will help keep him on task getting ready?   At the moment we’re timing him to see how fast he can get dressed.  It’s working so far, but I’m sure it won’t last long. Does having trouble making decisions go along with this?  He can’t or won’t make choices without a parent there to choose for him.  He is also very impulsive, talking out of turn and so on.  Are there ways to work on these things at home when he’s not on the Ritalin? Thanks. Selena ***Dr. Goldstein has some good ideas in his film, WHY WON’T MY CHILD

PAY ATTENTION.  Listing "every" behavior that your child needs to complete each morning i.e. get up at ?, pull your covers over your bed to the pillow (as opposed to ‘make your bed’), put on your socks and shoes (as opposed to ‘get dressed’) are suggestions.  Placing a set of behaviors in a time frame, and setting a timer, and having the child place an ‘X’ next to a picture of the behavior (i.e. brushing teeth) or its description to show completion.  Some kids make tapes of their morning behaviors i.e. ‘brush your teeth’ and the tape plays a song for a certain amount of minutes.  Getting the child up earlier if there is non-compliance.  Allowing no TV, etc. until after all ‘getting ready’ behaviors completed.  Rewarding am behaviors with TV, after-school fun (after homework is completed).  Placing all needed school items in a box by the front door.      Medication alone is not a recommended treatment for ADHD.  Has the person who prescribed meds. enrolled you in an educational class to teach you everything you need to know to parent/assist/and advocate for your child?  I would ask the practitioner for information on the meds., the disorder, the behavioral changes parents can make, and the educational planning (laws and school assistance available).         donna, a counselor specializing in ADHD

Response:

Selena, You’ve already gotten some really good ideas for dealing with mornings with your ADDer, but here are a couple of my thoughts about our experiences as well. 1. An awful lot of kids just aren’t getting enough sleep, for lots of reasons (but that’s another thread). My ADDer daughter has always been a morning person. If allowed to wake naturally, she’s so cheerful it drives me (a night-owl) nuts. But in order for her to maintain this during the school year, I’ve had to keep her bedtime waaaayyy earlier than some of her friends. She has to get up between 6:30 and 6:45 on school mornings, so we aim for lights out at 8:00. Sometimes it’s closer to 9:00, but by aiming for 8:00, she gets enough sleep most nights. All it takes is a couple of "short" nights, and her morning behavior deteriorates badly. 2. As is so often the case in parenting, you really have to know your kids and pick your battles. With my kids (one ADD lark, one non-ADD night-owl), sometimes it’s just easier if I dress them myself. Some kids would probably fight it, but mine don’t. Yet I have no doubt whatsoever that they won’t be relying on me to dress them by the time they’re teenagers. A little babying now and again never hurt anybody. 3. My ADD lark definitely deteriorated with her morning routine AFTER she began Ritalin. ESPECIALLY if she’s taken any kind of cold or allergy medication at bedtime. Haven’t figured out if they cause her to need more sleep or what; just noticed the difference. 4. Daughter now takes 5mg Ritalin upon awakening (I leave it in a cup in her nightstand drawer), does her "morning routine", and then gets her 20mg Ritalin-SR at 7:30, just before we leave the house. Helps a bit at home, but also makes sure her meds are at therapeutic levels when she GETS to school, so she can accomplish her morning routine there, too. 5. I made a Checklist for my daughter’s regular tasks. Used MS-Word to set up a chart, with the tasks on the left and then a column for each day. I grouped the tasks into Morning Routine, Afterschool Routine, Other Chores & Responsibilities, and Bedtime Routine. Each item gets checked off when done properly. By "properly" I mean per my expections, as in "Downstairs by 7:10 on school days" (fully dressed, that is) or "Practiced recorder for 15 minutes" or "Went upstairs when asked the first time (7:00 school nights)". At the moment, just checking them off is enough. But incentives have been and may at times be attached to how many checkmarks get accumulated. 6. At one point last school year, when things were REALLY going poorly in the morning, I borrowed an idea from someone on the ADD Parents email list and adapted it for this situation. On Sunday night before bed, I put 5 $1 bills on the refrigerator, held up by a magnet, and told her they were hers to earn or not. For every morning that she was completely dressed, downstairs, and ready for breakfast by 7:15, she got one of those $1 bills. If she was even one minute late or neglected one element of the expected routine, I kept it for that day. We did this for about a month. She earned at least $3 each week, earning $5 once or twice. But the biggest improvement was in her attitude. My plan had been to add a second expectation (homework finished by 5:30 or whatever) after a month or so, but she became more cooperative all around, so I didn’t need to. Since money/allowance isn’t a big issue with my daughter, this worked well for us. 7. Our nightly routine is VERY consistent, has been for years, even though certain elements have changed as they’ve grown up. I really think this is part of why I DON’T have more trouble with bedtime. My daughter’s checklist currently includes: Go upstairs when asked (7:00 school nights) Go to the toilet Take bath or wash up as asked/needed Brush and floss teeth (okay, the flossing doesn’t happen EVERY night) Put on pjs or nightgown Put dirty clothes in hamper Put clean clothes in closet or dresser Pick out clothes for next day Get in bed when asked (7:45 on school nights) Read for at least 15 minutes Lights out when asked (8:00 on school nights) One element not reflected here is our 5 minutes or so of talk and cuddle time. Another is that backpacks and anything that needs to be taken to school the next day is packed up and hung on the coat hooks by the back door, but this is done as part of the Afterschool Routine, not the Bedtime Routine. We also (most days) make lunch for the next day and stick the whole lunch box in the fridge. Sometimes I even make several sandwiches at once and freeze them individually. 8. The television doesn’t get turned on in the afternoon until all homework is completed (by both kids), music is practiced, and any other chores are done. Television is usually turned off during dinner. Many a night goes by with no TV watching at all. My kids would rather play most of the time anyway, but this eliminates one strong attention-grabber. Guess that’s about all I can add from our house. Kat

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