Raising a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) isn’t easy. You may experience moments where you feel frustrated and overwhelmed with parenting responsibilities.

Still, your parenting techniques play a major role in your child’s ADHD symptoms. ¹ Proper parenting in the early stages of your child’s life gives them a better chance of controlling their symptoms later in life.

We understand if you don’t know how to make the best of your child’s condition. Throughout this article, we’ll look into five tips for raising a child with ADHD.

What Are Some Initial Steps to Take?

Before practicing parent techniques, it’s important to understand how ADHD affects your child. Children with ADHD will develop the following signs: ²

• Difficulty completing tasks
• Inability to plan ahead
• Issues with organization
• Trouble controlling impulses

Due to these habits, children with ADHD have trouble controlling their behavior. As such, parents may feel their child is purposely ignoring, annoying, or embarrassing them.

This is anything but true. Children with ADHD desire to sit patiently, clean their rooms, and please their parents. However, ADHD makes it difficult to comprehend how to make these things happen. ³

How Does an ADHD Child Affect the Family?

Does your child’s behavior cause problems for the whole family? Do you become more frustrated when your child doesn’t listen to you?

Children with ADHD can impact the entire family by: ⁴

• Becoming a physical danger to themselves and others
• Causing damage around the house
• Having trouble falling asleep
• Impulsively behaving at inappropriate times (can result in embarrassment)
• Starting projects and not finishing them

Likewise, siblings without ADHD have their own set of problems. These include: ⁵

• Garnering less celebration when successful (accomplishments are taken for granted)
• Getting into more trouble when problems arise
• Receiving less attention

Some parents may have siblings acting like assistant parents, leaving them with important responsibilities (i.e. an ADHD child’s supervision). These characteristics of non-ADHD children in an attention-deficit household are dangerous. They may look at their ADHD sibling with envy and indignation.

As you can see, everyone is involved when it comes to raising a child with ADHD. Therefore, we’ve laid out five tips to help you better parent your children:

1.) Develop a Structure and Stand By It

Children with ADHD are more likely to figure out specific tasks when they’re provided a predictable pattern. ⁶ Preferably, these patterns should be consistent and in familiar locations.

There are several ways parents can make sure their ADHD child develops this structure, including:

Following a Procedure

When sorting out the tasks you expect of your child, ensure a strict time and place. This allows for better comprehension and follow-through. ⁷

For example, you can require your child to finish homework before dinner. Over time, your child will eventually become used to this requirement. The same can be said for playtime and bedtime. It may help to write down your expectations as you discipline them.

Make Sure the Procedure is Simple

It’s no secret that children with ADHD can become easily distracted. You cannot put too much on their plate or give them a complicated task.

To compensate for distractions, ensure your child has plenty of time to complete their tasks. Give them a full hour for homework assignments that only take half an hour. Provide them with an extra twenty minutes to wake up in the morning. Or, to go to bed at night.

Use Clocks or Timers for Procedure

As your child becomes accustomed to these procedures, it helps to place clocks or timers throughout the house. These provide visuals of how much time they have to complete a task.

Keep the Environment Organized

To keep your child’s thoughts organized, keep their environment organized. ⁸ This shows your child there’s a place and time for everything. Just remember, it’s important to maintain this organization.

Offer a Private Space

Whether it be their bedroom or a playroom, your child needs to have a space to call their own. This is where they will continue to put together the skills they’ve been learning. This private space SHOULD NOT be the same as a time-out space.

2.) Set Rules and Remain Consistent

Do you have house rules that your child fails to follow? One of the biggest parenting mistakes is not being consistent with these rules.

You’ll want to write down these rules and place them in a readable location. This is to provide you and your child with daily reminders.

You’ll also want to develop a reward and punishment system. This ensures your child desires to obey your rules. It’ll also reveal the importance of these rules. ⁹ Don’t be afraid to explain this importance to your child and ensure you follow through with your rewards and punishments.

Keep in mind that children with ADHD become used to criticism. If your child shows good behavior, it’s key to praise them for it. This praise will make your child want to continue following the rules.

So, how should you apply rewards and punishments?

Rewards:

• Always follow through with your rewards.
• Reward your child with privileges, praise, and/or activities rather than objects.
• Change these rewards frequently as children with ADHD grow tired of the same rewards.
• Keep a chart out for good conduct. Children with ADHD work better with a visual reminder.
• Make rewards immediate rather than promises of the future.

Punishments:

• Always follow through with punishments.
• Discuss punishments with your child beforehand and immediately upon bad conduct.
• If certain environments or circumstances trigger misbehavior, keep your child away from these places and situations.
• Instead of taking away toys, withdraw privileges and activities.
• When you punish your child, ask them what they’ve done wrong.

3.) Keep Yourself Healthy and Constructive

Remember that you are your child’s role model for emotional and physical health. With that, you want to influence constructive and healthy attitudes. ¹⁰ These may include:

• Always keep a positive mindset around your child
• Believe in your child and keep an optimistic view of their future
• Don’t expect your child to complete every little task, be proud of what they do get done
• Remember your child’s ADHD and keep it in perspective

You also want to maintain a healthy life for yourself. This includes:

• Finding support from other parents raising a child with ADHD
• Maintaining care of yourself (eating well, exercising, decreasing stress)
• Take breaks when you need to

4.) Encourage Your Child to Work Off Their Energy (and Sleep it Off)

Children with ADHD have an overabundance of energy. ¹¹ You need to allow your child to burn off this energy rather than trying to contain it. Luckily, there are healthy ways to go about this.

For example, you may want to enroll your child in an organized sport. This is a great way to get their energy out and allows them to develop teamwork ethics. In fact, enrollment in physical activity have been proven to do the following for children with ADHD: ¹²

• Benefits brain growth
• Promotes concentration
• Reduces anxiety and depression

On top of this, you want to ensure your child receives enough rest every night. Children with ADHD often have sleep difficulties and these can lead to: ¹³

• Further difficulty falling asleep
• Less attentiveness
• Overstimulation

5.) Encourage Friendships

Unfortunately, your child may struggle with simple social interactions. This can result in: ¹⁴

• Aggressive social attitudes
• Conversation interruptions
• Frequent talking
• Missing social cues

Such circumstances can make your child a victim of bullying. With this in mind, there are several things you can do to promote healthy social interactions, including:

• Allow them to interact with other ADHD children (or children who behave similarly). This includes those who’ve developed the same language and physical skills as your child.
• At first, only invite one or two friends over at a time and keep a close eye on them. If your child misbehaves, follow through with established punishments.
• Create time and space for your child to play and reward them for good conduct.
• Discuss areas where your child faces challenges and promote ways to make changes.
• Don’t be afraid to role-play certain social situations with your child. Especially those where they struggle most. To keep it interesting, trade roles frequently.

References

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² Magnus W, Nazir S, Anilkumar AC, Shaban K. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 2023 Aug 8. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan–. PMID: 28722868.

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¹⁰ Dawson AE, Wymbs BT, Marshall SA, Mautone JA, Power TJ. The Role of Parental ADHD in Sustaining the Effects of a Family-School Intervention for ADHD. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2016;45(3):305-19. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2014.963858. Epub 2014 Dec 13. PMID: 25496523; PMCID: PMC4466093.

¹¹ Mueller TF, Brielmaier S, Domsch H, Luyckx VA, Ehlers T, Krowatschek D. Increased resting energy expenditure in children with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder. Eat Weight Disord. 2010 Sep;15(3):e144-51. doi: 10.3275/6888. Epub 2010 Mar 8. PMID: 20212347.

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