It's taken a lot of practice but we've done it, we've come up with some proven
natural remedies for ADHD in children. You'll want to catch this.
As I've had the opportunity and privilege to work with families, kids, parents, ADHD has come
up a lot and it's something that can be really frustrating and difficult for a
family to deal with. I get asked all the time, what are some some things we can do
short of medication because we don't really want to go the medication route,
what else can we do? I've got some ideas for you today,
a quick disclaimer. I know from my clinical experience and from the
research that's been done, the treatment of choice for ADHD, when I say ADHD, I
think most of you know what I'm talking about, it's attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder, very common diagnosis for kids. The treatment of
choice for true ADHD diagnosis is stimulant medication which doesn't make
sense to a lot of parents because here they're kids bouncing off the walls and
you want to give them a stimulant? Well there's reasons why that work that get
into brain chemistry in fact, if you try the medication and it doesn't work or it
makes things worse, that's usually diagnostic. Probably means we're dealing
with something other than a true ADHD kind of a process. We're not getting into
the medications today, okay, that's outside of my area of expertise and
licensure and as a psychologist, I've been asked a lot, what can we do? Either
in addition to the medication or instead of the medication that will give us some
shot at making some improvements here so what I'm about to share with you is a
4-part process that you can use, this is coming from a parenting standpoint,
originally the ideas that I'm sharing with you today, I heard from
Foster Klein and Jim Fay and the good folks over there the love and logic
program, you've probably heard of them. If you haven't, connect with parenting, with
love and logic, that's the seminal book that came out by Foster Klein and
Jim Fay and they have since built all kinds of resources for parents to get
into. I'm basing what I'm sharing with you today off of a model that was first
introduced to me through the love and logic people so I want to give them full
credit for that and as we go into that, here are the steps. So step one is to
give them a task they can handle. Now before we get too far into this, part of
the problem with attention deficit disorder is that there's not a
connection going on in the child's mind between cause and effect, there's
sometimes a disregard for the natural effects of whatever their choices or
behaviors are so we want to help to connect those up. Here's another thing
that I've found that is very helpful. Think versus fight, think versus fight.
Even in a child's brain that has ADHD, there's still a higher executive
functioning that can override some of the things that are causing the problem.
We want to activate that part of the brain and get them thinking. Every
interaction you have with your child is going to invite them to do one of those
two things, either think or fight. What do you want them to do? Think because if
they're thinking, they're making better decisions. Fight?
Probably isn't going to get us where we want to go so keep that in mind as we
talk about this, we're inviting our kids to enhance their ability to think, to
make good decisions, regardless of what it is in their brain or in their
environment that's trying to distract them, we want them to make some good
decisions so that's what these 4 steps are all about, okay. It's probably
going to accomplish some other cool things from a parenting perspective
because you want your kid to be able to do some of these things that you want
them to do but that's only second. What we're trying to do is train their brain
to take a higher level of control so that they
can better monitor their own behavior with or without medication, okay. So
that's what the steps are for. Now going back to step one, give them a task they
can handle. How can you tell if your child can handle whatever it is that
you're asking them to do? Hmm, okay. Now there's some obvious answers to that,
right? Like if they've done it before, that's a dead giveaway so I go, yeah, they
can handle it, I've seen do it before. Can you trust their opinion about this?
Because sometimes your kids go, "I can't, that's too hard." Right? You're going to trust
that. Now motivation and ability are very different things, what we're talking
about here is ability. When I say give them a task they can handle so here's a
little test that you can apply, I call it the 5k test and what it has to do with
is motivation, okay, so you ask yourself, "Hey, if I were to offer my kid $5,000 to
do what I just asked them to do, would it happen?" Now maybe your kid's not
interested in money but substitute there whatever would motivate them, if you gave
them enough of whatever their price is, would it happen? That's how you can tell
if they can handle it or not so let's apply that. How about keeping the room
clean? Yeah, for five grand they're all over it. How about getting their homework
done on time and turned in appropriately? Oh yeah, they can handle that too. How about
replacing the roof on your home? Oh, not so much, right? Even if you offer them
motivation, it's outside of their ability, that's what we're talking about so give
them a task they can handle. Are we good? Alright, let's move to step 2. This
surprises some parents. Once you give them the task you're going to hope that
they blow it. I know that's not what you were expecting.
Normally, you give them a task and you're on them
you're like hey did you do that yet you're following up with them you're
reminding them, we call it reminding, they call it nagging, riding me. Yeah, and it
doesn't tend to help a whole lot, okay. Now I said blow it,
I didn't say fail because ultimately we want them to succeed. Why? Because our job
is to love them no matter what and even if and because we love them, we want them
to have a great experience in life, right? And because we know from our own
experiences that they're going to learn the most in life from their mistakes just
like you and I have. We're kind of hoping that they blow it now. Check this out, the
price tag on your kid's mistakes goes up every day.What I mean is that, it is more
expensive tomorrow. You think about a 5-year-old for example and the kind
of mistakes they might make and what the consequences would be for those. Now
think of a 15 year old, the kind of mistakes that they could make. You see
how the cost went up? It's higher stakes the longer your kid's on the planet so we
want them to blow it. Why? Cause we're sadistic and cruel? No, because we love
them and want them to have the most richful joyful experience they can possibly
have in life, that's why and we understand that they're going to learn
from their mistakes, we want that to happen at the lowest cost possible so
that they get to have a significant learning opportunity at the lowest cost
possible. You're with me? Now the other thing this does is brilliant because it
changes the psychology of you as a parent. I want you to just smile,
okay, smile. It's going to freak your kids out. When mom's smiling, kids are thinking.
It's a pretty good rule of thumb because they're like, "Oh what does she know that I
don't?" Right? Remember, think versus fight. We want to invite them to think. For you
to think back and smile because you kind of hope that they blow it, is going to
totally change the dynamic and the psychology with which they're
approaching this issue, it's brilliant, okay. So we're going to back up, we're going to
hope that they blow it. No reminding, alright?
No reminding and kids, if you're watching the video, I want you to comment below if
your parents remind you about stuff and I'll column out, alright. No reminding,
that's just nagging in a euphemism, alright. No reminding, that would go against
what you're hoping for cause you kind of want them to blow it. Now why? We don't
want them to fail, we got two more steps left after all. So let's go to step 3.
Step 3, you let consequences and empathy do the
teaching. Quick note about each of those. Consequences, the word itself,
consequence with some kind of a pattern or order, alright. It's something that
follows something else, it's a natural result of whatever just happened, that's
what a consequence is. We don't want to rob our kids of the consequence because
that's what creates the learning. You think about the mistakes you've made. Now
why are those so powerful to you in your personal learning, it's because it costs
you something, it hurt where it was expensive and
somehow cost you, right? What if we take away the cost? Well then you don't get
the learning either. Do not rob your children of their significant learning
opportunities by taking away the consequences. Sometimes we want to go
back to the three R's of parenting, rant, rave and rescue.
Rant, rave and rescue, that's where we ball 'em out and then bail them out and it's
not working because it sends the wrong message. What that tells your kid
is, oh you probably aren't smart enough to learn from your experiences, I'm going to
have to bail you out but I'm going to chew you out in the process so that you know
I'm unhappy. Really? Is that what you want them to learn? No, step 3,
let consequences and empathy do the teaching. Consequences is kind of
understandable, let's go to empathy. Empathy is where you understand and care
how someone else feels. You understand and care, you got to have both elements so
instead of bawling amount and bailing them out or saying something like, well
if you would just listen to me, this would never happen and next time you
better.. Forget about next time. We're doing it this time, okay. The consequence
happens this time and then instead of anger, we go to where we really feel. We
don't want our kids to have these consequences, do we? No, we're benevolent
loving generous parents so we really want them to not have consequences and
usually we take away the consequence to help our own feelings about this and
then we bawl them out to make sure they know they're in trouble. Let them have the
consequence and then feel up with them, feel it with them. I had a mom I was
working with, her daughter wanted to go to the prom, her daughter needed a dress
for the prom. The agreement was, and I'll just take you through the first three
steps here, mom gave her a task she said she could handle, okay. She was having
some problems in school, she was skipping out and smoking something out behind the
shop. Mom said, I want you to be in every class on time with your homework,
assignments turned in for a full week. If you can do that, I will take you out and
buy you a prom dress. Okay, she already had a date. What do you think happened?
Now first of all, do you believe that that is a task that this teenage girl
could handle? Step 1, oh yeah, check, done. She can handle this. Step 2, back off,
okay. Hope that she blows it. Why? Well this is going to be hard if she does, right?
So it's kind of hard to hope that but remember, the price tag on her mistakes
goes up every day and she's already experimenting with some pretty costly
stuff so now is good. Later is more expensive, earlier is not an
option. So we're going to do it now. Mom did it beautifully, she backed off, she didn't
remind her, she wasn't checking in every day, she was simply tracking and
monitoring to see what her daughter chose to do. Guess what. She didn't attend
every class that week. Awesome! That's step 2. Okay, that's a little
counterintuitive because you're like, oh I wish she wouldn't.. No, we want her to
blow it. Why? Because she gets to have a little significant learning opportunity
at the lowest cost possible, this is good news but then step 3 is hard cause mom
wanted to bail her out and go buy that dress. I was so proud of her the way that
she handled this, she put her arms around that daughter as daughter was crying, "Mom,
what am I going to do? I already have a date, I don't have anything to wear." "I know,
honey. I know, sweetie." She put her arm around her and she said,
"I know but you're just so smart. I know you're going to figure this out."
Consequences and empathy. Let's go to step 4. Give the same task again.
This is so affirming because the message you're sending now is you know what, you
are brilliant, you are bright, you are smart enough to learn from all of your
experiences. Here, let's try it again. See how it goes?
Think versus fight. What we're doing with this process is inviting the brain to
handle things differently and whether they have a formal diagnosis of ADHD or
not, what we're inviting them to do is use the powerful amazing resources that
are available to them in their own mind to focus and concentrate, hook up cause
and effect so that their choices can be better moving forward as well. This is a
powerful natural remedy for something that a lot of people are struggling with.
Well there you have it, 4 simple steps that are really powerful. This is part of
your parenting library. I'm glad you subscribed.