The holiday season is often accompanied by a unique set of stresses and pressures. For families of children who have ADD or ADHD, these seasonal stresses can verge on the overwhelming.

To help families have the happiest possible holidays, BellaOnline's ADD editor, Erika Lynn Smith, offered the following tips:

• Choose carefully what you and your family is involved in over the holiday season. One does not have to attend or accept every invitation that comes along. Life is short, decide who or what is important and then graciously decline those invites you do not feel will do anything but cause additional stress and disorder in life.

• Keep it simple and low key whenever possible. Most people with ADD are sensitive to lights, sounds, textures. A busy, crowded shopping center may soon cause sensory overload, leading to irritability, and decreasing ones ability to focus on finding what he or she came for in the first place.

• If feeling overwhelmed, remember to take care of your needs first, everything else can wait. Often we place the most outrageous demands on ourselves, pushing ourselves to the brink of exhaustion, determined to make this the best birthday, holiday, party. The reality is we end up tired, irritable, and unable to enjoy what we worked so hard to achieve in the first place.

Labels: tips, stress, holidays

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It's that time of year. Kids are getting ready to go back to school and parents are getting ready to send them. For kids with ADD/ADHD, the transition back to school can be tough, so ADDitude magazine if offering a free back-to-school handbook.

"In this free expert booklet, ADDitude magazine has assembled its best academic resources including a back-to-school checklist for parents, a sample letter introducing your child to new teachers, daytime medication guidelines, and learning strategies for students with attention-deficit disorder and learning disabilities."

The 14-page booklet provides tips for working with teachers and administrators, managing ADHD symptoms in the classroom, and talking to your child about his goals, fears, and challenges for the upcoming school year. Source: PR Newswire

Labels: schools, tips, teachers

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Life is busy and hectic for every family. But for families of children who have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder children, organization and structure are even more important. A new website, Organizing For ADHD, aims to help parents by offers suggestions for keeping the house in (reasonable) order.

"The more stuff we own, the more difficult it is to find places to store it all. When this happens, sometimes our things enter spaces that they don't belong, and the kitchen becomes the playroom. One easy fix for this problem is to designate rooms or spaces in the house for each activity."

Sample pieces of the advice offered on the site include the following:

• If your child is young enough to have toys, consider sorting through the toys and putting them in plastic, see-through bins. This will make it easier for your child to find the toy he wants without dumping the whole bin onto the floor.
• For older children, start putting homework right in front of the door. That way, they are less likely to forget it.

Source: eMaxHealth

Labels: organization, tips, families

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Dr. Martin Kutscher recommended a lot of books to parents of children with ADHD, but few parents had time to read 300-page books. So Dr. Kutscher read several of them himself and boiled them down to a simple, easy-to-ready book titled ADHD - Living Without Brakes.

"In ADHD - Living Without Brakes, Dr. Kutscher gives four basic rules: #1 Keep it Positive, #2 Keep it Calm, #3 Keep it Organized, #4 Keep it Going. These four rules will help both parents and professionals negotiate many of the difficulties associated with ADHD."

Called "realistic and optimistic," Dr. Kutscher's book draws on his 20 years of experience with neuropsychiatric disorders and helping both parents and patients understand the complexities of ADHD. Read more at HealthNewsDigest.com.

Labels: parenting, tips, support

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Families that include a child with ADHD often have more chaos, more stress, and more frustrations. But there are many things family members can do to ease these emotions.

"It's important to remember that the child with ADD/ADHD who is ignoring you, annoying you, or embarrassing you is not acting willfully. Having ADD/ADHD can be just as frustrating as dealing with someone who has it. Kids with ADD/ADHD want to sit quietly; they want to make their rooms tidy and organized; they want to do everything Mom says to do, but they don't know how to make it happen. If you keep this in mind, it will be a lot easier to respond to your child in positive, supportive ways."

Make a point to recognize and acknowledge positive things. Chances are your child is already aware of his shortcomings. Help him see the good things, too. It's also important to keep things in perspective and remember that when your child acts out, he does so because of a disorder, not because he's willfully disobedient. Read more at HelpGuide.org.

Labels: tips, families, positives

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Teenagers are challenging. Teenagers with ADHD can be especially challenging. Not because they determine to be unusually difficult, but simply because of the nature of ADHD. Arthur, L. Robin, PhD offers some suggestions for effectively guiding your teen through these difficult years.

"The principles outlined... are meant to be general guidelines, not rigid rules. They will work some of the time but certainly not all the time. I would urge you to consider them especially when you are stumped by your adolescent's actions, and derive your actions from one of these principles rather than reacting impulsively."

Some of the suggestions include ways to maintain adequate structure, facilitate independence, and use consequences wisely. Read more at ADD.org.

Labels: parenting, teens, tips

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