Parent Training
Parents can attend group or individual parent training to help their child. Often, the training is set up like a class focused on educating the parents and providing information related to proven psychological interventions to lower symptoms. The training may focus on types of conditioning and reinforcement schedules to increase the frequency of desired behaviors your child performs.
For example, if you child resists homework at all costs, the training would teach you how to provide incentives for improving homework behaviors. This may sound simple, but many parents fall into a trap of punishing the unwanted behaviors rather than rewarding the wanted.
Parents will yell louder and threaten to take away all toys, video games and privileges in an attempt to create change. Usually, the only outcome is the child becoming frustrated and angry with the parents. No one wins in this situation. Parent training is a way to gain some needed control of the situation.
School Modifications
Though not actually a type of therapy, changes made by the school can lead to noticeable differences quickly for a child with ADHD. If your child has been diagnosed, take the information to the school psychologist to request further testing and behaviors plans.
Depending on your child’s level of need, the school may be required to have a formalized individualized education plan (IEP) or a less formal plan to be used by teachers in the classroom.
Either way, the plan will have suggested modifications like where the child sits in the classroom, how much time they have to complete tests and where the tests are completed. Some children are allowed to take home an extra set of books if homework is problematic. Other children are able to have a fidget device during class or leave their seat more regularly.
The point of these modifications is to put your child in a better place to be successful. With the school on board, these changes will assist your child and you.
Social Skills Training
Kids with ADHD have notoriously poor social skills. They often interrupt others, struggle to listen until the end of a conversation, and are often more interested in playing video games or watching TV than interacting with friends. This is usually due to the sustained attention and concentration needed to carry on friendships. Friendships are too valuable to ignore, though.
Social skills groups are therapy groups that help children with ADHD engage with one another in a safe, structured environment. The children are grouped by their age or abilities and complete activities with guidance from a therapist.
The therapist will model appropriate social skills and shape the child’s social skills from inappropriate to appropriate. The therapists do this through a series of reinforcements in the form of a reward point system or actual rewards to give out when a child displays desired behaviors.
