The ADHD Solution Deck offers effective strategies for reducing stress, building skills and fostering self-esteem. The cards provide adults with a unique window into what kids with ADHD are thinking, common problems they face, and how you can work with them to create lasting solutions.

Each card offers a quote from a child, teen or parent living with ADHD, a quick summary of a typical challenge, and a coping or intervention tool(s).

What is ADHD?

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a biologically-based behavioral condition that impacts the management systems of the brain called executive functions. These functions include impulse and emotional control, working memory, initiation, time management, planning, organization, flexibility, sustained attention, and self-evaluation.

How to Use the Deck

The ADHD Solution Deck gives you practical tools to help kids with ADHD improve their abilities for regulating words and actions, managing feelings, initiating, planning, organizing, staying on task, improving working memory, increasing focus, and learning self-awareness.

The deck is divided into five color-coded suits to reflect the 5C’s approach:

Self- Control – Manage your own feelings first so you can act effectively and teach your child with ADHD to do the same.

Compassion – Meet your child where they are, not where you expect them to be, with empathy and patience that’s appropriate to their stage of development.

Collaboration – Work together with your child to find solutions to daily concerns, using a “we” attitude instead of a “you should” approach. Make agreements about solutions with their input. Focus on changing one thing at a time.

Consistency – Do what you say you will do, as much as possible, without expecting perfection from yourself or your child. Aim for steadiness. Nurture your child’s efforts to do their best and focus on cause-and-effect learning. Notice and acknowledge what’s working by continuously offering words and actions ofnencouragement, praise, and validation. Identify traits, behaviors, or skills at which your child excels and nurture them.

Celebration – Notice and acknowledge what’s working by continuously offering words and actions of encouragement, praise, and validation. Identify traits, behaviors, or skills at which your child excels and nurture them.

You can select a card at random at any given time for guidance and support or work in a specific category for a period of time. Learning new skills takes time and practice, so plan to revisit the cards.

Order cards from PESI and Amazon

How to use the ADHD Solution Card Deck with Laura, The ADHD Mama

Testimonial from Louise Clarke (Author of Parenting The Modern Teen & Podcast Host of Parenting In The Thick Of It)

Check out Louise’s podcast episode featuring Dr. Sharon Saline!

Reviews

“Dr. Sharon Saline has created a wonderful, innovative, and user-friendly tool for parents and families with ADHD.  The ADHD Solution Deck indeed provides solutions.  The cards provide powerful strategies and skills to better manage ADHD, bolster self-esteem, enhance family connections, and reduce stress.  I love how the cards provide focus and assistance in five specific areas (Dr. Saline’s famous “Five C’s model” of ADHD Parenting: self-control, compassion, collaboration, consistency, and celebration).   Each card has a quote from a child or teen, defines a challenge, and then provides the tool to succeed in the area.  The cards are colorful, perfectly sized, and engaging to promote repeated reading so the information can be absorbed over time until the skill is mastered.  The cards are easier to read than a book, but still provide the vital tools to help families with ADHD thrive.  Highly recommended!”

— Gene Carroccia, Psy.D.