Parenting the ADD Child: Can't Do? Won't Do? Practical Strategies for Managing Behaviour Problems in Children with ADD and ADHD (5 page)

ADDapt contains tried and tested methods. It aims to proceed from
strength to strength and from positive outcome to positive outcome. It builds
on successes and on a growing confidence in you and your child, and aims to
keep the conflict between you at as low a level as possible. ADDapt never asks
you to set goals that are unrealistic for an ADD child to achieve.

The backbone of ADDapt is reward, encouragement and explanation. The programme works on finding new ways of enjoying time together as a way of reminding you all how much you still care for each
other and enjoy each other's company. Improving your relationship with
your child is an important part of ADDapt, which goes hand in hand with
improving her behaviour.

ADDapt gives you practical ways of helping your ADD child to know and
remember exactly what she has to do.

ADDapt develops the art of praising and rewarding. Praise and rewards
are the single most importantfactorsin turning around the behaviour problems of
ADD. Praise is your secret weapon.

The programme is not about harshness or rigid control. Punishment is
not a major feature of the ADDapt approach, although it recognises that
there are times when you have to be firm and assertive - and it empowers you
to be firm and assertive when necessary. ADDapt gives you lots of ways of
giving yourself support and of standing firm when your child resists change.

Most important, ADDapt gives you ways to make the whole process fun.

You've got what it takes

You don't have to be an Einstein to follow ADDapt. Nor do you need a
qualification in psychiatry, psychology or psychotherapy. You have all the
qualities and qualifications it takes to create change and achieve success.

If you are a loving and committed parent, keen to see your child's
prospects improve, eager to get closer to her and determined to get her
behaviour under control, then you have all you need and more. My advice is
to believe in yourself and trust your ability to bring about change.
Remember, if you have coped with your child so far you can cope with
ADDapt.

ADDapt works!

ADDapt is a challenge, but I can promise you that the rewards of
perseverance will be worth the effort. However unalterable your child's
behaviour has seemed till now, change is possible. The past does not equal the
future.

What ADDapt expects from you

The key to success with this programme is based on four Golden Rules. You
need to start thinking about these before you begin ADDapt, and then you
need to stick to them while following the programme's 12 steps.

The four Golden Rules are:

1. Don't be hard on yourself!

2. Be prepared to change.

3. Stick with it and be patient.

4. Be consistent.

These are important factors, so let me cover each in detail. My aim in doing
so is simple: it is to get you thinking in the right way so that you can start on
the right foot and make the most of ADDapt.

The Golden Rules

Chapters 5 to 8 are intended to set you up to succeed with ADDapt. They set
out the four Golden Rules that are crucial to success. Feel free to return to
these chapters any time, but especially if your morale starts to flag or you feel
you are losing your way.

Golden Rule No. 1: Don't be hard on yourself!

Blaming yourself and feeling guilty and a failure will not help you on this
journey. ADDapt is a demanding enough road without carrying a rucksack
full of guilt. Every time you need reminding of this, read this section again.

Guilt - there's a lot of it about

I have yet to meet a parent of an ADD child who has not at some point felt
guilty about his or her parenting. Parents tell me that they often blame
themselves and have also felt blamed by others for their child's behaviour
problems. They often feel the problems stem from them even to the point
that they worry that they may have `passed' the ADD to their child.

Feeling guilty won't help

If you feel at fault it doesn't help your morale. On a programme like ADDapt
where you need to believe in yourself and believe that you can succeed, these
guilty feelings get in the way of taking action and impede your ability to
follow through. The biggest danger when it comes to self-blame and guilt is
that they may prevent you from generating the determination and
singlemindedness it takes to put a programme like this into action and go the
distance.

False messages

So where do the guilt feelings come from and how can you neutralise them?
There are a lot of myths and negative ideas around about the parents of ADD
children. It is these that generate a lot of the self-blame and guilt. Here are
some common false beliefs about ADD:

1. The parents of ADD children have no idea how to control their
children.

2. Children have ADD problems because their parents cannot work
together as parents.

3. The parents of ADD children always blame their child, never
themselves.

4. The parents of ADD children have no insight into the things they
are doing wrong.

5. The parents of ADD children probably experienced bad parenting.

6. The parents of ADD children look for ADD because they haven't got
the skills to parent properly.

Anyone who believes any of the above myths is not living in the real world.
Every one of the families I have worked with has had one or more of the
above said about them - sometimes dressed up in professional jargon that
basically means the same thing: `You are to blame!' How, I ask myself, are
parents meant to feel when they hear this misinformation? Is it going to
make them feel empowered and give them faith in themselves and in their
abilities to change their child? Of course not.

Few people who have not been faced with the problem can appreciate just
how disruptive and difficult an ADD child can be. An ADD child can make
you tired, irritable, frustrated and on a permanently short fuse. These
emotions are brought on by the demands of the child's behaviour. They in
turn may affect your behaviour towards your child. You and your child may
both then become stuck in a vicious circle of confrontation and conflict. All
this can produce guilt - particularly when you see yourself saying and doing
things to your child which you know you shouldn't.

But this does not makeyou a bad parent- just a normal parent under extreme stress.
Being snappy and negative about your child is symptomatic of the ADD
situation, not the cause of it.

You are not to blame

In my clinical work I have found that the truth is precisely the opposite of all
these myths.

The parents I see are good, capable people who have their child's interests
at heart. They do not differ from other parents in their level of skills,
tolerance or patience. They are simply facing tougher problems than most
because ADD can be a parenting nightmare. Parenting an ADD child can place
extreme stress on a family. Parents don't experience the rewards of seeing
their child do as he is told, learn by example or respond to normal praise.
Over the last ten years I have been amazed by the tenacity and patience that
parents have shown with children whose behaviour would test a saint!
`Normal' good parenting just doesn't work on ADD kids. Their parents need
extra-special skills to manage their behaviour, but it is not the parents' fault if
they don't have them. I look at it this way ... when your baby was born you
were not to know that you were going to have to learn all you now know
about ADD. An ADD child's tendency to be overactive, to do things without
thinking, to require constant reminders, to appear not to listen, to forget something that he was told two minutes earlier, to act on his impulses even
though he has been told a hundred times not to, make it impossible to use
the usual ways of parenting in a positive way.

Typical parent of an ADD child

How to stop feeling guilty

What parents need to hear is what they are doing right.

Think about all the things you are doing right. First, you love your child. I
believe that the battles between ADD children and their parents are almost
always an expression of love on the part of the parents. For example, parents
insist on things like talking quietly, not fidgeting and not running about so as
to ensure their child's acceptance in the world of adults - where, rightly or
wrongly, people will judge children by such things. Giving children an
experience of discipline and limits is a way of helping them develop
self-control. It is a loving act. A child needs to know that showing respect for
others gets respect in return.

Second, you have stuck by your child. Because few people understand the
full extent of ADD behaviour they judge too quickly. Very few parents of
ADD children are ever given the credit they are due for having coped as well
as they have; for not having given up - though they may well have been
tempted to. In difficult circumstances, you are still battling to make changes
for the sake of your child and your family.

Third, you have taken a major step forward by reading this book and
being motivated to `have a go'. You will have done even better if you take
action and persevere and make real progress. The programme will help you
to achieve this.

Last, you are equipping yourself to become an expert on handling ADD.

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

• Believe in yourself.

Trust in your ability to bring about change.

Remember that you have all the qualifications you need to turn this
problem around. Your motto from now on should be: `The past
does not equal the future.'

Need reminding of this? Read this section again whenever you
catch yourself giving yourself a hard time.