The Mind Vault – Unlocked

My child has just been diagnosed with ADHD and will eventually start using medication. But what is it? How do I help them? And where do I start?

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is common. But the way it affects people is more complicated than many people realize. It’s caused by differences in the brain, and it often runs in families.

There are three types of ADHD. Children with the inattentive type may seem “daydreamy.” (This type of ADHD used to be called ADD.) Some children mainly have trouble with hyperactivity and impulse control. 

Having ADHD doesn’t mean children aren’t smart. Most children don’t outgrow it. But with the right support, they can thrive in school and in life. 

Meet Kayla, a seventh grader with ADHD. She’s a smart, but it’s hard for her to stay focused. Hyperactivity and self-control are also major challenges. To understand some of the ways ADHD affects children., take a look at a day in Kayla’s life.

07:00am

Kayla has a really tough time waking up. ADHD makes it hard for her to fall asleep, and it affects the quality of her sleep too. She’s so tired she doesn’t notice her alarm blaring. When she finally gets up, she isn’t fully awake—she’s in a “twilight state” that can last for hours. Getting ready for school is a huge struggle for her and her family.

Researchers are looking into the links between ADHD and sleep. For now, the causes of sleep issues in children with ADHD aren’t fully understood. But the relationship between ADHD and poor sleep is clear. Many children and adolescents with ADHD have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up in the morning.

If your child with ADHD is having trouble with sleep, here are some things you may be seeing:

• He has trouble settling down at night.
• Even after he’s in bed, he says he can’t stop thinking about things when he’s trying to get to sleep.
• Throughout the night, he experiences restlessness. It disrupts his sleep or wakes him up.
• Certain tendencies among children with ADHD can keep them from getting a good night’s sleep.
• Children with ADHD can have trouble with self-regulation. That can keep them from shifting from active mode to wind-down mode at the end of the day.
• Children with ADHD are a more prone to nightmares, bedwetting and sleep disorders, such as restless leg syndrome.
• Children with ADHD tend to put off doing homework or other tasks until the last minute. That can create a later, more hectic evening in your home.
• Tweens and teens with ADHD may report feeling more productive during quiet nighttime hours. They can easily fall into the habit of staying up too late too often.
• Many children with ADHD also have anxiety problems. Their anxious feelings can emerge at night when there are fewer activities to distract them. This causes them to have trouble falling or staying asleep.

All of these nighttime challenges can create problems during day. They understandably can lead to sleepiness in the morning and trouble getting started and staying alert all day. And that often leads to irritability and more inattentiveness.

It can be a hard cycle to break. But there are things you can do to help stop it—or even keep it from starting in the first place:

• Monitor your child’s sleep schedule and routines. If he often appears tired during the day or has a hard time settling into sleep at night, keeping track of his patterns of getting to sleep, sleeping and awakening.
• Encourage physical activity after school. Kids and teens who don’t get enough exercise often have more difficulty getting to sleep at night.
• Start a bedtime routine. Begin the process early in the evening. Establishing a good bedtime routine can take a while, but it’s important in creating a healthy sleep cycle.
• Be consistent. Try to make a bedtime routine that follows the same order every night. For example, bath time or shower, pajamas, picking out clothes and packing his backpack for the morning, and then reading before bed.
• Reduce stimulating activities before bedtime. This is especially true of screen time, which should be limited at night. Set limits on how late your child is allowed to text or use a computer. Encourage calming activities like reading and listening to music and try to keep the house quiet as bedtime approaches.
• Avoid caffeine in the evening. That includes foods that contain caffeine, such as chocolate.
• Consider white noise or noise machines. Some kids find that it helps them tune out other sounds in the house or neighborhood.
• Help your child plan and prioritize homework tasks. More important tasks should get done first. Help him with organization skills 
• Ask about your child’s stimulant medication. Talk to your child’s doctor about the effects of his ADHD medication on sleep. Too much medication late in the day may keep your child awake too long. 
• Mention sleep issues to the person who’s evaluating your child. If you’re having your child evaluated for ADHD, be sure to discuss your child’s sleep habits with the person who’s diagnosing him. Also include it the written ADHD assessment and intervention plan.
• Deal with chronic anxiety. If your child often struggles to get to sleep or stay asleep, as him if he feels worry about anything.  He may be ‘stuck’ on something that has happened or might happen at school or at home. See if he can describe the worries so you can help him deal with them. If the problem persists, talk to your child’s doctor.
• Tell the doctor if your child snores a lot during sleep. Also bring up any breathing problems you’ve noticed. These can cut down on the quality of your child’s sleep, even if they don’t keep him awake.
• Look into relaxation training techniques. These can be useful for some kids.
• Ask the doctor about sleep medication. Children with chronic sleep difficulty can be prescribed safe medications to promote sleep. A sleep specialist and your child’s doctor can help you with this.

Good sleep is important to all kids. But when kids already have attention issues, lack of sleep only compounds the challenges. 

09:30 am

Ugh, a science lesson. Kayla is interested in the experiments, but she can never remember what she’s supposed to do. She already asked a classmate what the second step was. But she doesn’t want to be annoying and ask about the third step too. Kayla is also distracted by the way the safety goggles look and feel.

Sometimes, just being a child can make it hard to focus. There are so many distractions. Other children laughing out in the hallway when you’re in class. Friends texting when you’re cleaning out your backpack.So, if your child zones out at school or at home from time to time, it wouldn’t be unusual. But what if that happens a lot?

If your child has a hard time focusing, you might be wondering why, and whether it’s something to look into.

Trouble with focus can show up in many ways. And it can change over time. Kids might have a hard time:

• Knowing when to focus on small details and when to focus on the bigger picture
• Filtering out unimportant sights, sounds, or information
• Paying attention without getting distracted
• Holding a train of thought when they’re interrupted
• Following through on a task without needing to hear directions a few times
• Concentrating on one activity at a time
• Following directions
• Keeping up in conversation

Some children who struggle with focus may look like they’re ‘daydreaming’. Others may seem like they’re focusing even when they’re not. 

ADHD often runs in families. Are there people in your family who struggle with focus? Maybe they interrupt a lot or start projects and never seem to finish them. If you or another close family member struggles with focus, it wouldn’t be surprising if your child did, too.

No matter what’s causing your child’s trouble with focus, there are lots of ways to help your child improve.

·       Discover simple and fun ways to direct their focus

·       Find fidgets that help your child focus. 

One of the most important things you can do is let your child know that having trouble with focus is common and nothing to be ashamed of. Remind your child that everyone struggles with something—and that’s OK.

10:45 am 

The first question on the math test was easy, but the second one was hard. Now her mind is racing: “What if I fail? What will I tell Mom and Dad? What will the teacher say?” Her brain feels like it’s popping like popcorn. Then her mind kind of goes blank as she stares out the window

Anxiety is common in kids with ADHD. Many of the challenges that come with ADHD can make kids anxious. Kids with ADHD are also more likely to have an anxiety disorder than other kids. 

It can be hard to tell whether a child has ADHD or anxiety because there’s so much overlap in how they look in kids. Here’s what you need to know about ADHD and anxiety—and what you can do to help your child.

Children with ADHD have trouble with executive functions. These are the skills that help us get organized, plan, manage time, and follow daily routines. Struggling with these skills day after day can be stressful. 

Children with ADHD often have more trouble managing stress than kids who don’t have ADHD, too. That’s because ADHD effects how thy manage and regulate their emotions. Children with ADHD may get so flooded with emotion that they have trouble thinking clearly about how to cope with the situation.

So, having ADHD can lead to anxiety. But children with ADHD are also up to three times more likely to have an anxiety disorder than other children. Because ADHD and anxiety disorders often occur at the same time, some researchers think kids may be pre-wired to be both anxious and inattentive.

Here are some behaviours that may be signs of anxiety in a child with ADHD:

·       Clowns around too much in class

·       Seems irritable or argumentative

·       Lies about schoolwork or other responsibilities that haven’t been met

·       Withdraws from people, maybe by retreating to the bedroom or bathroom

·       Plays video games or watches TV nonstop

Here are some other ways to help:

·       Tune in to your child’s behaviour. Try not to chalk them all up to ADHD. Acting up more than usual or disappearing into video games can be signs of anxiety. Ask if something is causing worry or uneasiness. 

·       If your child talks about anxiety, validate those feelings. Rather than telling your child to “calm down,” work together to figure out next steps to take.

·       Be mindful of your own anxiety. Some parents of anxious children struggle with anxiety themselves. Remember that your child is learning how to respond to stressful situations by watching how you react to them. Children often have an easier time coping with anxiety if their parents stay calm and positive.

·       Try not to take things personally. It can be upsetting when your child comes home from school and says something rude or offensive. But when children have to do this, they’re often letting off steam after a stressful day. When things have calmed down, brainstorm ways to decompress, like offering quiet time before you start asking about school. 

·       Help your child see the big picture. If your child blows up when doing homework, wait for things to calm down. Then encourage your child to reflect on what caused those feelings. Talk about what you both might be able to do next time to relieve some of that anxiety.

·       Consider outside help. If your child’s anxiety gets in the way of functioning or enjoying life, talk to your health-care provider. Or contact us and will take you through step by step and design a bespoke programme that fits you and your family. (www.hertsschoolsoutreach.org.uk) 

12:30 pm 

Kayla wants to fit in, but she keeps breaking social rules. Her friends complain: “Kayla, stop interrupting!” “Stop being so nosy!” “Stop telling the same story AGAIN!” Her mood swings from very happy to deeply worried that she’ll become a social outcast. She also tends to snack a lot when she’s upset—even past the point where she feels really full.

Kids with ADHD have trouble with focus and impulsivity and, in some cases, hyperactivity. But for many children with ADHD (also known as ADD), there’s another symptom that often isn’t mentioned is difficulty managing emotions.

Researchers and professionals who treat kids with ADHD often report that emotions play a big role in the daily difficulties’ children face. 

What’s different for many kids with ADHD is that these feelings seem to be more frequent and intense. They also seem to last longer and get in the way of everyday life.

Children with ADHD, more than most children their age, might also:

·       Be quick to get frustrated by minor annoyances

·       Worry too much or too long about even small things

·       Have trouble calming down when they’re annoyed or angry

·       Feel wounded or take offense at even gentle criticism

·       Feel excessive urgency to get something they want now

Picture this scenario:

You hear your 11-year-old screaming at her younger brother. She comes running to find you and shouts about what he’s done. It turns out he’s made some comment about her hair. She wants you to punish him, and she gets mad when you don’t react. Then she complains all night long about how unfair that is.

Here’s another scenario:

Your 15-year-old has a ton of homework. But he doesn’t sit down to do it. Instead, he spends the afternoon texting with friends. You’ve already tried using consequences to try to motivate him to do his work. He just says its ‘boring’, and acts like he doesn’t care. Nothing makes him stop what he’s doing and get moving on the homework.

The basic temperaments people have at birth influence how they behave from the start. Temperaments may change quite a bit—or not that much—as children grow up.

Like other children, individuals with ADHD aren’t all alike in their temperaments. Some are more laid-back or timid. Others are more reactive, outspoken, and sometimes even aggressive.

But often, they don’t have the same capacity to manage their emotions as other kids their age. They have less ability to react to their own emotions using their brain’s reasoning powers.

When children are struggling with their feelings, it may seem like there’s no way to get through to them or to stop negative behaviours. But there are things you can do to help kids get control of and manage their emotions.

Start by acknowledging how they seem to be feeling. “I can see how disappointed you are about coming in second in the science fair.” Don’t argue about whether they should be feeling this way. That usually just escalates the problem.

Once children are calm, offer to help them figure out some better way to deal with that emotion—one that might help switch their thinking. For example, you could say:

·       “I know you’re upset and just want to leave the science fair and go home. But I’m proud of what you did.”

·       “I know you worked hard on it and a lot of the people who looked at it seemed impressed. Even though you feel really disappointed about getting second place rather than first, you still have good reason to be proud of what you did.”

4:30 pm 

Flag football! Kayla has fun—even though she’s always late. She knows all the plays really well. And she knows that exercise will help her focus on her homework later. It’s also nice being around kids who don’t go to her school. This is the one place where she doesn’t feel like a failure.

Self-esteem is how much people value themselves and how important they believe they are in their world. You might hear people talk about the importance of self-esteem in children, and “positive self-esteem” in particular. But what exactly is it? And why does it matter so much?

Simply put, positive self-esteem is when people feel good about themselves. 

Children with positive self-esteem feel confident and capable. They value themselves and their abilities. They’re proud of the things they can do and want to try their best.

When children are confident and secure about who they are, they’re more likely to have a ‘Growth Mindset’. That means they can motivate themselves to take on new challenges and cope with and learn from mistakes. They’re also more likely to stand up for themselves and ask for help when needed. 

When children have positive self-esteem, they:

• Feel respected
• Are resilient and feel proud even when they make a mistake
• Have a sense of control over activities and events in their life
• Act independently
• Take responsibility for their actions
• Are comfortable and secure in forming relationships
• Have the courage to make good decisions, even in the face of peer pressure

Many children have trouble building and maintaining positive self-esteem, for lots of reasons. One common reason is when children struggle in school.

If children experience failure in school, they probably don’t get a lot of positive feedback from adults or their classmates. The feedback they do get is often negative because they’re constantly hearing about the things they didn’t do well.

In some cases, they might get positive feedback that’s not sincere. This can make them mistrust the adults who are supposed to be helping them. Or they might become wary of the kids who are supposed to be their “friends.”

As a result, they feel less sure of themselves and their abilities. They may not feel motivated to try things that are hard for them, and have a tough time dealing with mistakes. Deep down, they may not believe they’re worthy of good treatment or success.

Children who have negative self-esteem may also:

·       Feel frustrated, angry, anxious, or sad

·       Lose interest in learning

·       Have a hard time making and keeping friends

·       Be more likely to be teased or bullied

·       Become withdrawn or give in to peer pressure

·       Develop self-defeating ways to deal with challenges, like quitting, avoidance, silliness, and denial

Friendship is a big part of building positive self-esteem, too. That doesn’t mean kids have to have tons of friends or be popular. Just having one friend who accepts you for who you are can make all the difference. 

6.00pm 

After flag football, one of Kayla’s teammates asks to walk home with her. She’s thrilled because he’s a cool kid who always makes her laugh. While they’re waiting at an intersection, he surprises her by spray-painting a wall. Then he hands her the can so she can add to the design. She doesn’t stop to think about whether they might get in trouble.

Teens are at an age when they naturally start to become more independent. But they may not always make the best choices. Teens with ADHD may be especially likely to take risks. It can help to be aware of this possibility and to understand what risky behavior can look like.

It may seem like your teen is misbehaving just to be difficult. But this isn’t always the case for teens with ADHD. They may understand the risks of driving recklessly or failing school. But they may not be as able to regulate their behavior as children who don’t have ADHD.

Teens with ADHD may have poor judgment, immature thinking, and trouble with impulse control. For example, a teen with ADHD may not want to start smoking. But to fit in and look cool, he says yes when a classmate offers him a cigarette—and then continues smoking.

There’s a lot of research on risky behavior of teens who have ADHD. That’s because ADHD is often tied to behavior issues.

Keep in mind that children who don’t have ADHD but who have other learning differences can have trouble making good choices, too. They sometimes struggle with thinking about and planning what they want to do. And like children with attention issues, they may have low self-esteem which can sometimes lead to risky behaviors.

10:15 pm

Kayla’s big essay is due tomorrow. She always has trouble getting started, but she also thinks she works better under pressure. She’ll stay up extra late to finish and will be a total zombie tomorrow. But right now, her deadline is helping her focus like a laser beam. She doesn’t even hear her mom yelling to get her attention.

Most children have things they’d much rather be doing than homework and chores. But they also have the ability to put those things aside and buckle down to do the task at hand when they have to.

That’s not the case for many children with executive functioning issues which includes many children with ADHD.

 For them, starting a task that’s not highly interesting can be tough. And in some cases, it’s next to impossible without extreme effort and incentive.

Here are some reasons why children with executive functioning issues may have difficulty with initiating tasks.

Let’s say your child has both attention issues and dyslexia. She gets an assignment to read a chapter in her history assignment and answer questions about it.

Not only is she faced with a task that’s already a challenge for her, but she also has to pay sustained attention to start it and see it through to completion. That can be a painful prospect.

The same thing goes if your child has trouble with social skills. She may put off calling her grandparents to thank them for her birthday present because she’s not sure what to say. She avoids doing it because it’s hard for her to do.

Children often avoid starting tasks if they think the experience or the outcome will be bad. If their work is always seen as inadequate, or if it never seems to get easier, why keep trying? Without even thinking about it, they avoid the task just to avoid more disappointment or failure.

You may not be able to make the task easier or more interesting. But there are ways you can encourage your child to get started on it:

·       Acknowledge that the task may not be something she’s enthused about even though it’s important.

·       Ask if you can help her get started 

·       Showing empathy teaches her that we all do things we don’t want to because the consequence of not doing them can be worse.

·       Avoid nagging or arguing about her doing her task. Try to keep emotion out of it.

·       Provide an incentive when there isn’t a natural one. After she’s sat down and started working, bring her a snack. Tell her you’re glad to see her doing her work, and that you know it’s hard for her.

·       Normalize the behaviour. Tell your child about your own struggles and desire to avoid certain things.

So there you have it, The Mind Vault – Unlocked first article on ADHD. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it for you all. 

To summarize, ADHD affects us all uniquely. Whether its your child, your grandchild or a child looked after, there is help out there –www.hertsschoolsoutreach.org.uk. 

And in the wise words of one of my favorite artists, Adam Levine, “Remember you are not alone, there are others out there going through it too”. 

Peace and Love to you all, 

Michaela Johnson Msc

Herts Schools Outreach Ltd 

18 Boundary lane 

Welwyn Garden City 

Hertfordshire, Al7 4DY 

Phone 0333 577 9053

www.hertsschoolsoutreach.org.uk

[email protected]