Self Esteem | ADHD Information

  I feel for him! It is heartbreaking for a child to not know how to socialize. I bought my son a "friend magnet". For him, it was a skate ramp which drew kids here to play with it. You could use anything which will attract kids and enable them to play at your house where you can keep an eye on them.

Kids with many kinds of disabilities, ADD being one of them, often have a hard time reading social cues. While most people learn by observation, our kids don't. They don't read body language and facial cues and don't understand tonal changes and speech patterns. They have to be taught, but the good news is that its possible.

What I was told, and worked for me, was to encourage my son to play with 1 or 2 kids at a time and to moniter their interaction. When you see your son acting inappropriately, make a note of it and discuss it with him in private unless it is something you need to deal with then and there. You could agree on a signal between the two of you which you could use to let him know when you think he may be annoying his friends. He would then be able to assess his behavior and stop before it got out of hand.

Many of the sites for ADHD have sections or articles which deal with social skills problems. Keep an eye out for them and read everything you can. Your common sense will tell you a lot about how to help him now that you know the problem is there. 

 

I feel your heartache from here! My son is almost eight and we are just beginning to see the definate differences in maturity between him and other boys his age. We have found a center that will have a group of kids who will learn through game play social skills and how to relate and play in a social situation. Maybe you can check around for a place like this near you. We haven't started it yet, but I have high hopes. You sound like you are handled it the right way though! I hope this helps:)

My 11 year old son has been doing fairly well lately... or so I thought.  He has been reporting positiviely about school, a few boys have been over and have invited him over, we have been encouraging good behavior, he even took his shower in 7 minutes this morning!    Believe me when I say that was a record!

But then he told me he needed some help with some homework before school - a writing assignment that consists of several pages.  He had completed most of them and as I read the first page, my heart practically broke in half.  It was titled "Time for a Change", and he wrote; "If I could find a way to change something about my self, I would stop getting on peoples nerves.  It is making me lose my friends.  I've already lost one.  If  I keep it up, I will be all alone."

I spoke to him about it, but I was so sad, it just wasn't a very good time, so tonight will be a better opportunity.  He told me that he just tries so hard sometimes, but it doesn't always work.  I asked him why he thought he got on peoples nerves' but he didn't really want to talk about it yet.  I told him to think about it a little bit and we would talk tonight and see if we could come up with some strategies to help.  When I hugged him and told him he certainly didn't get on my nerves, he just laughed and said 'Well mom, you love me, it's different'.

So, I need to find a way to get him to talk to me about what is going on here, and find some good strategies to help him out.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I wish had the magic wand right now.

Just an update - my son, husband and I talked at length about how he was feeling and what prompted him to write what he did.

He feels more comfortable in the neighborhood playing because we have basketball hoops set up at each end of the cul-de-sac (our own little magnet) and the boys (dads included) usually have a pick up game several times a week.  He feels more in control, probably because his dad is right there to touch his shoulder or find a way to lighten things up if they get stormy.

At school, he says that a lot of the kids do things he isn't very interested in, which makes him angry so he goes off to do something that he finds more fun, but he ends up being alone.  When we encouraged him to do what we felt was obvious - join in anyway because sometimes it's fun to do things with other kids even if the game wasn't your choice - he got upset and ended the conversation.  We brought it back around a couple of hours later, but he told us we were 'telling him how to live his life'.  We got quite a chuckle and told him to get used to that, and finally made him laugh about it.  He admitted that he tries so hard to make people like him that he messes up by exaggerating and being too loud.  Then he gets mad because the kids yell at him or make fun of him.  He also hates to lose because he says it makes him feel like a loser and he would rather not play than lose.

We gave lots of postive feed back on this, because he actually can recognize what some of the annoying behavior might be and that is the first step in getting it under control.  Big step. 

Today, we sent him off to school with a 'dare to be different' experiment.  We told him he had to be kind of like a research scientist, on the hunt for new ways to play.  He will play at least one game that he doesn't pick, like it or not, trying really hard to go with the flow and not get angry when he doesn't win.  He must find 3 things about the game that are fun.  During free writing time, he will write about how he felt about the experiment, and how he feels the other kids reacted to him and report back to us on the results this afternoon. 

Now, if he actually writes something down, I will be amazed, but he went off with his head held high and a smile on his face.  We shall see.  At least it will be interesting dinner conversation.

Everything everyone of you have said, I have felt too. I wish you all lived my town and we could get our wonderful kids together! I am doing everything I can possibly think of. We set up classes, we are looking into long-acting meds, I got all-natural foods and I ordered Omega 3 tabs! It is all consuming, how much we just want our kids to feel happy and accepted. It gets discouraging, but I think parents like us WILL find solutions, because we are commited by love. BriMom38153.0780787037

The whole social aspect of ADHD I find to be the most heart breaking to watch.  I have tried different subtle ways to help my son in social situations to tone it down, help him go along with the flow, or defuse a situation, & it only exasperates the problem.  I'll try motioning to not be so loud, but my hands on his knee or shoulder & all he does is call greater attention to it by going "WHAT"  "WHAT"S WRONG"  "I DIDN"T DO ANYTHING" & the like. 

We have talked later about how his father & I are trying to help w/o calling attention to what is going on, & how his reaction only draws greater attention, & he apologises, says he understands, but the next time the same thing happens.

I just wish I had the answer.  Watching his heart (& mine) get broken in social situations just makes us want to cry.

I hear that!   Sometimes I think it hurts me more than it hurts him.  I know how important good friends are, and he doesn't have that experience.

We are having him work with the school psychologist on social skills - they do a small group every tuesday.  The Dr. says how great he does and how wonderful he is, how he uses my son as an example and a leader with the other kids, but I'm not seeing it carry over outside of the sessions.  When I expressed this to the Dr., he told me to be patient.  I'm trying, but I want him to be happy NOW!  He deserves it.