Huntington Connects
Showing 1-10 results of 12 articles matching "goals"
Simple Strategies for Helping your Child Listen and Follow Through
When your child has ADHD, getting them to follow through on seemingly simple requests can be frustrating and challenging. The way that you give your child instructions can have a huge impact on their ability to follow through.
Tips for Tackling Test Anxiety
For kids with ADHD, additional factors like low self-esteem, poor study habits, organizational difficulties, problems with chronic procrastination, and difficulty staying focused during class and during exams also contribute to test anxiety. While a mild amount of anxiety can help with focus and motivation during study sessions and exams, the high levels of stress, nervousness, and fear that accompany test anxiety will actually have the opposite effect.
4 Tips for College Success with ADHD
Successful college students with ADHD recognize that they will need extra support throughout college and work with their parents to get this support in place before they begin their freshman year. The following four steps will help students with ADHD get on the path to college success.
Rejection Sensitivity in Kids with ADHD
Not all kids with ADHD experience Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), and the cause of RSD isn’t well understood. Try these strategies which can help your child become mentally and emotionally stronger.
Setting Realistic Expectations for Kids with ADHD
Kids with ADHD need clear and consistent expectations in order to thrive at school and at home. Expectations provide structure and consistency and help kids strive to reach their full potential.
Tips for Managing ADHD in the Classroom: Helping Students Stay Organized
While it may appear that a disorganized child with ADHD is careless or sloppy, often these students care very much about their materials and wish they could have a neat desk like their classmates. The problem is that the executive functioning skills required for organization are underdeveloped, making it almost impossible for them to maintain an organized desk and work area on their own.
More Focused with Media?
Your child says that listening to music or watching television helps him or her concentrate when doing schoolwork. But is he or she right? Sitting down to concentrate on homework is hard when you have ADHD. Not surprisingly, kids, teens, and their parents are always on the lookout for ways to make homework less painful. For many families that I’ve worked with, arguments often erupt over whether or not the television, music, or other noise should be allowed during homework. Desperate to help their kids get their work done, many parents are willing to make more concessions during homework time than they would for other activities and chores throughout the day. But do things like television and music really help kids with ADHD concentrate? Or are they simply fun distractions? Let’s look at what the science has to say.
Creating Successful Free Play Time for Kids with ADHD
All kids need time each week to engage in creative play outside of their structured extracurricular activities. It’s during this time that kids develop important social skills, problem solving strategies, and independence while fueling their imagination and creativity. Even just 20 minutes a day during the week coupled with a few longer stretches of time on weekends can make a big difference. For many parents of kids with ADHD, who often rely on highly structured activities to help manage ADHD symptoms, however, the idea of allowing time for play without rules, structure, or adult supervision can seem intimidating. Ideas of free play quickly spiral into visions of a “free for all” filled with impulsive behavior and complaints about boredom! Fortunately, with a little planning and a modest amount of structure and support it is possible to create successful free play opportunities for even the most active kids with ADHD.
A Natural Treatment for ADHD
Have you noticed that your child’s ADHD symptoms seem better on days when he or she is more active? Is your child able to sit and focus on his or her homework more easily once he or she has run around and “burned off some energy” after school? Researchers have only recently begun studying the effects of exercise on ADHD, but results from early studies are promising. Engaging in moderate-to intense-exercise multiple days a week appears to improve ADHD symptoms, executive functioning (read more about executive functioning in my previous post), social skills, and motor control. A recent study by Dr. Betsy Hoza, published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, compared two interventions in elementary schools. The first was a 30-minutes exercise intervention that included moderate- to-intense physical activity through games like tag and “sharks and minnows”. The second intervention was sedentary, and included 30-minutes of classroom art projects. Both occurred before school every day for 12 weeks. At the end of the 12-week period parent and teachers rated the children on ADHD symptoms, moodiness, social skills and motor skills. Kids in the physical activity program showed improvement in each of these areas.
Tips for Teens: Can a Tomato Help You Get Your Homework Done?
You know that you need to stay focused when you are doing your homework or studying for a test, but sometimes it just seems impossible. If you’re like most teens with ADHD, you always have intentions but no matter how hard you try you always seem to get distracted. Usually, the longer you work the more easily distracted you become! Why? Because our brains are not designed to focus on a single task for hours at a time, even when ADHD isn’t part of the picture. Add ADHD into the mix and trying to focus for long stretches become truly overwhelming. Research shows that the average amount of homework assigned to high school students is 3 hours a night. So, how can you possibly complete that much work if your brain can’t seem to focus for a 3-hour stretch? Well, a tomato may be able to help!
