Parenting the ADD Child: Can't Do? Won't Do? Practical Strategies for Managing Behaviour Problems in Children with ADD and ADHD Read Online Free

perseverance will be worth the effort. However unalterable your child's
behaviour has seemed till now, change is possible. The past does not equal the
future.

    What ADDapt expects from you
    The key to success with this programme is based on four Golden Rules. You
need to start thinking about these before you begin ADDapt, and then you
need to stick to them while following the programme's 12 steps.
    The four Golden Rules are:
    1. Don't be hard on yourself!
    2. Be prepared to change.
    3. Stick with it and be patient.
    4. Be consistent.

    These are important factors, so let me cover each in detail. My aim in doing
so is simple: it is to get you thinking in the right way so that you can start on
the right foot and make the most of ADDapt.
    The Golden Rules
    Chapters 5 to 8 are intended to set you up to succeed with ADDapt. They set
out the four Golden Rules that are crucial to success. Feel free to return to
these chapters any time, but especially if your morale starts to flag or you feel
you are losing your way.

     

    Golden Rule No. 1: Don't be hard on yourself!
    Blaming yourself and feeling guilty and a failure will not help you on this
journey. ADDapt is a demanding enough road without carrying a rucksack
full of guilt. Every time you need reminding of this, read this section again.
    Guilt - there's a lot of it about
    I have yet to meet a parent of an ADD child who has not at some point felt
guilty about his or her parenting. Parents tell me that they often blame
themselves and have also felt blamed by others for their child's behaviour
problems. They often feel the problems stem from them even to the point
that they worry that they may have `passed' the ADD to their child.
    Feeling guilty won't help
    If you feel at fault it doesn't help your morale. On a programme like ADDapt
where you need to believe in yourself and believe that you can succeed, these
guilty feelings get in the way of taking action and impede your ability to
follow through. The biggest danger when it comes to self-blame and guilt is
that they may prevent you from generating the determination and
singlemindedness it takes to put a programme like this into action and go the
distance.
    False messages
    So where do the guilt feelings come from and how can you neutralise them?
There are a lot of myths and negative ideas around about the parents of ADD
children. It is these that generate a lot of the self-blame and guilt. Here are
some common false beliefs about ADD:

    1. The parents of ADD children have no idea how to control their
children.
    2. Children have ADD problems because their parents cannot work
together as parents.
    3. The parents of ADD children always blame their child, never
themselves.
    4. The parents of ADD children have no insight into the things they
are doing wrong.
    5. The parents of ADD children probably experienced bad parenting.
    6. The parents of ADD children look for ADD because they haven't got
the skills to parent properly.
    Anyone who believes any of the above myths is not living in the real world.
Every one of the families I have worked with has had one or more of the
above said about them - sometimes dressed up in professional jargon that
basically means the same thing: `You are to blame!' How, I ask myself, are
parents meant to feel when they hear this misinformation? Is it going to
make them feel empowered and give them faith in themselves and in their
abilities to change their child? Of course not.
    Few people who have not been faced with the problem can appreciate just
how disruptive and difficult an ADD child can be. An ADD child can make
you tired, irritable, frustrated and on a permanently short fuse. These
emotions are brought on by the demands of the child's behaviour. They in
turn may affect your behaviour towards your child. You and your child may
both then become stuck in a vicious circle of confrontation and conflict. All
this can produce guilt - particularly when you see