Month: October 2020
Re:Set: How Misrepresentation of Adderall in Pop Culture Impacts People With ADHD
Teens with ADHD Habits that Hurt their Mental Health and How to Change Them
In the course of the past few months, I’ve seen a few major habits in teens that seem to be hurting their mental health more than help them. Here are my recent observations and some tips to turn these behaviors around.
Too much time on social media
Social media not only seems to suck up time faster than you notice but it also is built so that people compare themselves to others. These comparisons are rarely favorable and people walk away with not feeling positive about themselves. As one adolescent girl told me, “No one ever posts pictures of their face mid-menstrual break-out or of their bombed test grade.” Teens especially feel pressured to keep up with friends, stay in touch and maintain an image that they’ve created. This creates more stress in their lives which interrupts their ability to reflect on themselves, what they think and create a sturdy sense of self. Tip: Schedule screen-free time during each day. Whether it’s during a meal or after-school to take a break, help teens create some screen-free time to give their eyes and their brains some much-need time away from technology to recover.
Eating fast food on the run
We are so much of what we eat and we eat non-nutritious food quickly, we’re not providing our brains or bodies with the appropriate fuel needed to think and function well. Sharing a meal is not only good for adolescent physiology but it also provides an opportunity for them to connect with people face-to-face and talk about our lives. During a sit down meal, our bodies slow down and properly digest our food so we can ::absorbe the nutrients and simultaneously take a much-needed break from the chaos of our lives. Tip: Create regular family meals in your routine. Set aside particular days and times when the family gathers together to share some nourishment. Engage your teen in cooking as well. This is a great opportunity for them to learn a useful and rewarding life skill as well.
Having arguments via texting or emailing
Nobody can take an emotional weather report via electronic communication. If you say something difficult or sensitive this way, there’s no way to perceive how your words affect the other person. You also may not perceive whatever feelings are brewing inside them. It’s easier to disengage and avoid accountability for your words and actions. Teens need to learn and practice interactional skills not only for healthy personal relationships but also for school, work and life situations where they have to deal with others. Tip: Assist your teen in dealing with issues more directly, either by phone call, Zoom or safely in-person. Help them come up with some phrases they can say and role play these conversations so they feel more comfortable and confident.
Giving up before they even start
Many teens with ADHD struggle with low motivation, negative outlooks and avoidance procrastination. They put off activities–homework, chores or hygiene–because they don’t enjoy them and may not see the value in them. Many kids have a history of not succeeding despite exerting themselves. They don’t believe that they can do anything differently now. An adolescent boy told me, “I’ve tried before and failed so why would it be any different now?” Tip: Break tasks down into smaller chunks. This will make projects more manageable. Help kids recall times when they made efforts and succeeded. Clarify what tools and actions they had used. Notice their efforting–their progress towards a goal and encourage them along the way.
ADHD Awareness Month Q&A: Why Should I Consider Parent Training?
22 News Mass Appeal: Help stop arguments with your children by using these 4 strategies
Message to Tween, Teens and Young Adults During Covid
This can be a tough time for emerging adults.
Seven months into the pandemic, and things are still “far from normal”. You’ve lost so much of what was familiar, valued and fun in your lives–being on campus and attending in-person classes, socializing with peers, working, romantic relationships, etc. It’s natural to feel sad, lonely, anxious, frustrated and disappointed. These are some comments I hear from my clients: “I can’t do anything!” “School is now only Zoom. ,All the good stuff is gone, and all we do now is work.” If your parents or other family members are pressuring you to do more, be happy and act grateful for what you have, it’s really important that you let them know how you feel. You’re struggling a bit. You need empathy not criticism. Consider saying something like: “This has been a hard time for me and most people my age. I’m doing the best I can to shift and accommodate the changes but some days it’s tougher than others.”
Don’t Struggle Alone
Contact your primary care provider or your college’s counseling services to get the names of mental health practitioners if you find that you’re:
- sad or anxious most days
- lonely and need someone to talk to
- your sleep or appetite are disrupted (too much or not enough)
- have trouble concentrating or taking pleasure in activities that you once enjoyed overusing alcohol or drugs
Ask for Help
Ask your parents if they can assist you in finding someone to talk to which can be intimidating and complicated for many young adults. Try telling them: “I think it would be good for me to find someone to talk to. I don’t want to worry you. I just have some things on my mind that I’d like to sort out.” Since untreated anxiety leads to depression and persistent depression is a debilitating condition, get some help now before things take a more serious turn.
Don’t give up. Something good is around the corner, promise! Learn more about School and Learning
ADHD and Anger: Tools for Reducing Family Conflict by Starting with Yourself
It’s amazing how a small spark of miscommunication or defiance can trigger an explosion in families, especially those living with ADHD. For kids who struggle with executive functioning challenges including working memory, behavioral control and emotional regulation, parents aren’t often sure how to prevent or subdue these fires, symptoms of ADHD and anger, consistently. Instead, you end up playing whack-a-mole–going from one crisis to another and feeling increasingly burned out by the stress from these intense interactions. How can you prepare for the unpredictable nature of angry outbursts, without also resorting to unproductive threats, fruitless punishments and yelling?
Step One: Understand the Root of the Anger
The first thing you need to do is look at the process of anger instead of focusing on its content. Your kids can push your buttons like nobody else. It’s almost as if they are wired to know what triggers you and sets things off. You do the same for them. Whether it’s conscious or out of our awareness, family members irritate each other. During this time of hybrid or remote learning with extended and increased family time, everybody’s fuses are short. As parents, we may forget that kids with and without ADHD annoy us and push back for several reasons:
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- To get what they want.
- Because it can be fun to see you get upset.
- In an effort to create space or separation
- When they feel upset and can’t contain their feelings
- To demonstrate independent thinking or actions
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Kids with ADHD, because of their slower-to-mature executive functioning skills, may engage in these behaviors with more frequency and intensity than their neurotypical peers. We have to help them learn to manage better by monitoring ourselves first.
Step Two: Know the Parents’ Role
As parents, our job, regardless of how provocative our children and teens may be, is to stay steady, centered and neutral. Of course, it’s tough to be calm when your son is cursing at you because you told him to stop gaming now or your daughter is crying because she’s exceeded her time limit on her phone and wants more. Most of us just want the arguing and tears to stop. So we do whatever it takes to make that happen–even if it means giving in to their demands, backtracking on what we say we were going to do or screaming louder to dominate and frighten them. These solutions will not improve your situation.
Step Three: Give Kids the Tools to Manage Emotions
Kids with ADHD need tools to manage the big, tidal waves of emotion that threaten to swallow them up. Sometimes, they will keep on arguing and pushing you even though they know things will end poorly.Marla, age 14, told me: “I don’t want to give in or I can’t give in. Then I’ve lost.” Letting go seems like another failure. Delay tactics, avoidance, and denial are all methods to distract you from holding onto yourself and choosing a different response.
When young male deer or elk come of age, their antlers are covered in velvet. These bulls need to remove this velvet and they rub against trees to do this. They eat, drink, frolic with comrades and continue to come back to the tree for respite and aide.
They need assistance taking off their velvet and transitioning to adulthood. Our children do the same. We are the tree: we stay rooted, we weather storms, we offer protection, we may be punctured by a sharp poke from an antler. But we are steady, dependable and strong. The tree never yells at the elk and tells them to back off and go away. The tree may lack the necessary bark to help with the removal of the velvet and may not be able to meet the buck’s needs. That is okay. The bull can roam elsewhere, eventually returning for another attempt to rub away the remnants of adolescence with the bark of that familiar tree.
Now I’m not saying parents should be silent trees, absorbing abuse from their children. Rather, I’m advocating a position of self-Control rooted in self-awareness and patience. Of course, you have to set limits about inappropriate language, aggression and harmful behaviors. You are still responsible for the health and welfare of your son or daughter and your own sanity matters. What I’m suggesting is that you use this example as a metaphor: to actively say to yourself when your child is having a meltdown (as one of my clients does), “I’m being the tree. I’m being the tree instead of exploding.” You use it as an affirmation, as an image of strength, as a comfort that this too will pass.
Step Four: Practice the 4 P’s.
Kids have told me over and over that they don’t like conflict in the family any more than their parents do. This is your golden ticket to reducing arguments with them. Follow these steps to change your approach and respond differently when anger rears its ugly head:
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Predict:
Although each situation may vary, the process of how your child or teen responds when they are angry is more consistent. What are the types of responses you notice? How were these issues resolved? Jot down some of your ideas. Then schedule a calm time to discuss the anger pattern with your son or daughter using neutral statements such as “I’ve noticed…” or “It seems like…” Share a few observations about your reactions too.
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Prepare:
Preparation leads to success. No, you can’t plan for every situation or eventuality but you can have a basic, consistent approach for when someone is showing you with their bodies, words or actions that they are triggered and losing it. Use Stop, Think, Act (see resources) and plan for a Time-Apart until things cool down. Together, make a list of soothers (activities that settle someone down) to assist with this process.
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Practice:
Collaborate on how you’ll decide to call for a Time-Apart and which activity to use. Set a time-limit for this period of regrouping. Remember that it takes the nervous system at least twenty minutes to recover from an acute stress reaction which includes intense anger. New skills and patterns require a lot of repetition and scaffolding for them to take hold. Stay patient and take the long view.
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Pivot:
If what you are doing in a given moment to respond to a face-off isn’t working, pivot and try something else. Think outside of the box and leave yourself reminders on your phone or Post-its so you don’t have to come up with something when you’re stressed. You want to let your child or teen know that you mean business without yelling or escalating. To that end, make sure you’ve agreed to a fall- back plan that everyone agrees to. The aim of the agreement is collaboration towards changed family dynamics. Set up a non-cooperation clause from the start.
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Good luck, breathe deeply and remember: stay rooted to rise up.
Read more blog posts:
- Tone of Voice Awareness in Neurodiverse Families: How to practice self-regulation in family conflicts
- ADHD and Anger in the Family: Manage Outbursts with STOP-THINK-ACT
- ADHD and Negativity: Why ADHD kids and teens say “No” and how to help them communicate
Watch on YouTube:
- ADHD and Oppositional Defiance (ADDitude Mag Q&A with Dr. Saline)
- Anger Management with ADHD (ADDitude Mag Q&A with Dr. Saline)
- How to Get Your Teens to Open Up (WWLP 22 News interview with Dr. Saline)
Deeper Dive: Anger Management and ADHD https://drsharonsaline.com/product/home-seminar/
22 News Mass Appeal: Four ways to support students doing remote or hybrid learning
- Acknowledge the ups and downs of the current time and validate their feelings.
- Brainstorm new approaches to get what your student needs for success
- Schedule off-screen time to help alleviate online burn-out
- Make time for family fun
Click logo below to read more.
VIDEO: Going Back To School w/ Dr. Sharon Saline & Debbie Reber
My friend Debbie Reber and I discuss going back to school during this unprecedented time with ADHD children.