Hi! I am Elizabeth John. A passionate child and adolescent counselor. I have been helping children to come out of their behavioral, mental and psychological struggles for the past few decades. Encountering with an increased rate of ADHD issues in children, I would love to talk aloud regarding the situation. My social commitment motivates me to educate the parents through informative blogs detailing practical solutions for a lot of common child and adolescent issues.

Children suffering from ADHD find it difficult to pay attention and to control their impulsive behavior. They are constantly active or restless and struggle academically, socially, and emotionally. They might seem forgetful or disorganized. The primary step to help children fight their difficulties is the informed compassion for ADHD children from their parents and society. Instead of isolating them from society, they deserve an informed empathy. I talk to inspire, motivate, and educate parents and society to support these children to develop into happy and responsible individuals.

The 5C’method for handling ADHD children involves,

• Self-control
• Compassion
• Collaboration
• Consistency
• Celebration

to make them capable of fighting the difficulties and grow up as happy adults.

1. Self-control

Bringing up an ADHD child demands high patience, compassion, and self-control. Do not let the situations take control of you. Practice mind training techniques or yoga to have better self-control and let the children observe you and learn it unconsciously. Take control over the adverse situations and efficiently manage the emotions. Ensure that you make the child feel “well-cared and loved”.

2. Compassion

I counsel parents to practice compassion and make the kids feel the beauty of feeling it. Accept your child as he/she is and this can make a huge difference in your attitude towards children is and their’s in turn.

3. Collaboration

To be simple, collaboration means just ensuring more participation from the child. Never try to impose hard and fast rules, but spend more time with children to develop strategies that serve as a solution to their problem. The core value of the proposed plan should be exclusively to support children and make them feel better.

Have a session together with your child to identify the area to be worked upon. While concluding the solutions, keep in mind that the ADHD children find it difficult to practice them alone. Being parents, stay with them initially, and help them to carry out the solution step by step and develop a skill set for the concerned issue, say lack of organization.

Help them out to organize the room step by step, do it together initially, and then call out the misplaced things and teach them to keep it organized. Stay patient and compassionate as it takes time for them to come up to the expectations.

4. Consistency

Consistency is just focusing to be steady, not perfect. Follow a regular routine to help them adapt to that gradually. Be credible and reliable with your children. Gain their trust. Take enough care to only say only what you can do. They cannot tolerate the other way round. For eg., if you say you will get him something this evening, be certain that you will get it.

5. Celebrate

Be ready to celebrate each and every sincere try of your kid. This helps them to gain confidence and retry until steady. Most of the ADHD kids fail to concentrate on their strengths and easily feel “lost” from their failures. Being caring and lovable, parents have to boost confidence and help them gain the confidence to try until winning. Projecting or pointing out the failures can have a very adverse effect on their behavior. “You matter a lot to them. Much more than what you think.” I share my experience from talking to a lot of ADHD kids.

All these simple and practical solutions can be much complementary to the medicines and therapy from an experienced child and adolescent counselor.