Helping an ADHD Child in the Family: What are Your Options?

A child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder may take medication and treatment prescribed by his doctor which can help him control some of his behavior problems. However, the needs of a child with ADHD do not end there. The family plays a vital role in the adjustment and development of the child. The family can do a lot to help the child forego of all his feelings of frustration and anger that may have accompanied the disorder.

Your Options in Managing Your Child’s ADHD Contidion

Counseling is one way by which both parents and the child can grow and learn how to deal with the disorder. The counselor, usually a mental health professional, can help them both develop new skills and attitudes which could help them better relate to each other. For the child, the counselor can help him learn how to feel better about himself. This is essential because a child with ADHD cannot but feel that he is not like other children and therefore inferior. The counselor can help the child in his problem by helping him find his strengths and adjust to his everyday problems. For the family, however, their need may consist in helping them develop a better attitude towards the child and ways of handling the child’s disruptive behaviors.

Aside from counseling, psychotherapy is also an option. This will work best with people who have ADHD but who accept themselves as having that disorder. Thus, in psychotherapy, the therapist will no longer address issues related to non-acceptance, but only those relating to coping with the disorder. Thus, the patient will learn how to discover his own self-defeating patterns of behavior and how to better handle their emotions.

Parents can also opt to join support groups which would allow them to connect with other parents who have the same problems regarding their own children who also have ADHD. These groups can be helpful in providing them avenue for sharing similar thoughts and experiences and newly discovered ways of combating the disorder.

Finally, chiropractic care, which involves improving the nervous system and removing any damages that affect mental, emotional, and physical health of the person, can be engaged in by a child suffering from ADHD. As ADHD involves a condition in the child’s brain function, a regular spinal adjustment can help in slowing down the degenerative properties of the brain.

Whichever option you choose, it is important that you make your child feel that you are doing this not because you don’t like him or cannot tolerate his actions. Make him feel loved at all times, and explain to him that these procedures are necessary to make him a better person as he grows up. But what if ADHD remains till his teenage years? Read my point of view.