Tips for parents to help their children with ADHD
“What I tell my patients — and a lot of experts in pediatric medicine will support this kind of information — is the best thing that you can do as a parent is to create a supportive foundation for your child,” says Dr. Ritchie.
Here are Dr. Ritchie’s tips for doing this:
- Come up with a routine. You need to have a daily routine that everybody is on board with so that everybody knows how the day works. You wake up and you go to sleep at a regular hour, and you have planned activities that you know are going to be the same, so they’re going to school and being picked up at the same time every day.
- Make sure their school is supportive. Their school needs to create a structure for the child so that things are going to be very regular, very calm, and very organized. That can help support a child with ADHD.
- Keep your home organized — everything should have its place. At the end of each day, you clean up and reset the environment. You want it to be a calm, inviting environment because a chaotic environment can exacerbate ADHD symptoms.
- Keep a family calendar so you all know when an event is going to happen and the child can mentally prepare for it.