ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is defined as someone experiencing significant difficulties with inattentiveness or hyperactivity and impulsive behavior or a combination of the two.
ADHD affects all aspects of a teenager’s life — from relationships with family and peers, to motivation and productivity, to overall self-confidence. As a parent, your first goal should be to talk openly with your teen and be supportive and accepting at all times.
Things you can do to help your teen self-manage their symptoms of ADHD:
- Provide clear, consistent expectations, directions, and limits.
- Maintain a daily schedule and keep distractions to a minimum.
- Minimize last minute changes; make changes in advance to allow your teen time to adjust.
- Support activities where your teen can experience personal success (sports, hobbies, music lessons, etc.).
- Build your teen’s self-esteem by affirming positive behavior.
- Set up an effective discipline system and respond to misbehavior with time out or loss of privileges.
- Help your teen with scheduling and organization.
- Keep a structured routine for the family with the same wake-up time, mealtime, and bedtime.
- Set up a reminder system at home to help your teen stay on schedule and remember projects that are due.
- Keep in contact your teen’s teachers to make sure he or she is on task at school.
- Stay calm when disciplining your teen.
You can help your teen with ADHD by setting firm rules for TV, computers, cell phones, IPods, and video game use. Make sure all of these are turned off well before bedtime.
It is important to set boundaries and to reward positive behavior and seek help for your teen that exhibits frequent oppositional behavior. If your son is having severe problems with ADHD and your current course of treatment is not successful, there is another alternative.
Triumph Youth Services offers a small, highly structured family environment for youth. In addition, the small class sizes provide more individual attention to students.
Our staff members are trained to handle issues with ADHD and other special needs students, including those with Individual Education Plans (IEP’s). The clinical staff has trained and licensed therapists that can provide a variety of therapy options and has been successful working with students with ADHD.
Contact Triumph Youth Services today for more information.
Reference: http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/adhd-teens?page=2
