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8. WHAT PARENTS CAN DO? (Cont'd)
8.4. Teaching Social Skills:
- Incidental Teaching of Social Skills
- Lesson starts when a poor social skill is observed
- Describe the poor social skill and what should have been done
- Social Skill Autopsy - for more difficult social skill problem
- Step 1: Discuss what the child did
- Step 2: Discuss what happened when the child did it
- Step 3: Discuss whether the outcome is positive or negative
- Step 4: Discuss what the child should do next time
- Emotional Coaching
- Be aware of the child's emotion
- Recognise an emotion as a teaching opportunity
- Validate the emotion by listening empathetically
- Help the child to label the emotion
- Set limits and help the child problem solve
- Problem-solving skill:
- Define problem
- Identify 3-4 possible solutions
- Consider the outcomes of each solutions
- Decide on which solution to implement
- Implement the solution
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the solution (start again if solution is not effective).
8.5. Better Organisational Skills:
- Teach the ADHD/ADD child how to better organise his things
- put the same things in the same/designated place
- coloured folders to keep track of pending homework and completed homework, etc.
- Help the ADHD/ADD child to organise his school books, files and stationaries (e.g. by colour-coding)
- Make use of checklist / permanent reminder list
- Teach the ADHD / ADD child how to perform double-checks at critical time (e.g. before leaving a place and completing an activity)
- Break big assignments into smaller tasks, each with its own deadline.
8.6. To improve the handwriting of a ADHD/ADD child try:
- Wheelbarrow walk (holds the child's legs with the body horizontal and have the child walk using his arms
- Monkey bars to exercise and arm and wrist muscles
- Any other exercises that help the child to improve his arm/wrist muscles (e.g. badminton, dumb-bell exercises, etc.)
8.7. Handling Assignments:
- Allow the child to have regular breaks when doing homework (about 10 minutes break after 30 minutes of homework for the older child)
- Have fixed and suitable timing for homework
- Encourage the ADHD / ADD child to estimate and monitor the time required for each assignment. This helps the child to better focus on the required assignment
- Break big assignments into smaller tasks, each with its own deadline
- Highlight & mark up books; Prepare summary of what you read (this is a more active form of reading)
- Read the summary, title, first/last sentence/paragraph before you read the entire article
- Give yourself a reason for pay attention or being interested in a particular topic/subject.
8.8. Ten (10) Tips for "Surviving" your ADHD/ADD child are:
- a) Have realistic expectations on what your can or cannot do
- b) Have routines that helps the child get his work done
- c) Simplify your life - your ADHD/ADD child needs more of your time, energy and attention than other normal child
- d) Accept your child's situation and focus on his strengths and interests
- e) Be fair, firm and consistent with your discipline
- f) Teach incompetent behavior and punish rebellious behavior - need to know / distingush the difference between incompetent or rebellious behavior by looking at his intention, rather than what he has done
- g) Avoid allowing either you or your child to become fatigued
- h) Only take your child to places where he has a chance to be successful (e.g. open park or carpeted floor where he can run around and fall, etc.)
- i) Watch less TV, not more
- j) Take good care of yourself too (e.g. enjoy sunsets, go for walks, etc.); Otherwise you may not have the energy or patience to properly guide and teach your ADHD/ADD child when he need you to do so.
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