Bad habits are so hard to break. I was a smoker for about 30 years and couldn't seem to break the habit no matter what I tried. Every now and then, I was able to quite for a few weeks, but then, when I started smoking again, I smoked far more than I did before I quit. It wasn't until I accepted the fact that my smoking was a real problem and reached out for professional help with quitting. I started going to counseling and learned a lot about my bad habits and why it was so hard for me to give them up. This blog is all about counseling to break bad habits.
If Dr. Suess were still alive, he might have written a book about ADHD that would be both educational and funny. It might even have a title similar to the one above. The good news about ADHD is that it is easily diagnosed, and once you know that your child has it, you can learn to cope with it using a little humor every day. Here are some of the usual signs of the disorder, how you can treat each symptom, and how to cope with each symptom using humor.
Motor Running, Never Stopping
Kids with ADHD cannot stop. Their brains are a tumultuous volcanic explosion of thought and energy. As such, so are their bodies. They want to comply with requests to sit in their seats and sit still, but they cannot. Worst of all, these kids have trouble going to sleep. Nothing puts them down that does not involve long stretches of loud white noise (to quiet the noise in their heads) and long walks daily. You can treat with medicines, exercise, and white noise machines.
Now imagine how exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally it must be for your child every day. He or she is used to it by now, but you almost have to laugh when other parents say they could put their ADHD kids in a hamster wheel and create electrical power for the entire house. You get that. Their little engines keep going, and the bunny on TV with the battery in its back has nothing on your kid. When you stop to think about all the things you could help your child channel that energy into, it becomes easier to care for him/her because you are smiling or laughing about it all.
Say WHAT Now? (Impulsive Statements That Do Not Connect)
Kids with ADHD say the craziest things at all the wrong times. It is as though their brains jumped two minutes into the future, and the rest of the world has not caught up to the conversation in the heads of the kids with ADHD. Initially, this may seem frustrating, but really, it can become very funny. One minute you are talking about what is for dinner, and at the same time your child will blurt out something totally unrelated. It is totally okay to laugh because it eases the momentary frustration you may experience at trying to understand what just happened. When you stop laughing, ask your child to explain what he/she was thinking. Medications can help slow down their thought processes so that communication and impulsive statements get better over time, but it helps to just laugh now at some of the funny things that come blurting out.
If you think your child might have ADHD, contact an organization like Associated Psychologists & Counselors to schedule an ADHD evaluation.
Share22 February 2019
