Submitted by Brindle on 03/05/2018.
Almost every child in our family has ADHD. My stress level with the fighting amongst them is so high. One of the children who doesn’t seem to have ADHD is copying the behavior she sees them exhibit.
Someone PLEASE give me some ideas. I’ve tried so many things already, and every article I can find online only addresses if one child has ADHD.
Parents?
Submitted by bowlofpetunias on
Do you or the other parent(s) have ADHD as well? Our kids fight a lot, and my ADHD wife can't take it. I expected conflict, but she actually used to tell me that it would be EASIER to have two kids because they would "entertain" each other. (She denies every having said this, of course.) I think the first step is to work on having the parents control their tempers in reaction to the kids fighting. Things get much worse when my wife gets angry--she either joins in the fight with the kids or she decides to take it out on me. Also try working on having the parents control their anger at each other.
I would also suggest finding something that they are really interested in to keep them busy--separately. Part of the problem is that my wife assumes that a brother and sister should be the best of friends! I know from my childhood that my sister was (and in many ways still is) my worst enemy. My wife tries to force our kids to do things together. So, for example, she insists that the entire family, including our 15-year-old son, watches the movies that our our 9-year-old daughter picks out. These movies are often torture for me to sit through, and I am not a 15-year-old boy with untreated ADHD. (Examples include RoboRex and Mulan II.) Give the kids time to do things APART from each other. If they aren't together, they can''t fight. Pushing them together doesn't make them into friends.
Also, try to have each parent spend some quality one-on-one time with each kid. One-on-one meaning separately, of course.
(Explanation of my sister being my worst enemy--She blackmailed my parents into cutting me out of their will, claiming they would never see their grandchild again if they did not. She was totally dependent on them for childcare, so this was the emptiest threat ever. She was so dependent on them that she once attempted suicide because my mother stopped doing her laundry when she was 27. I found out about the will after my mother died because my father got guilty. After a lot of back and forth, he wrote me back in, but I believe that part of the reason he committed suicide was because she was pressuring him to cut me out again.)
There is things you can do.....
Submitted by c ur self on
I wouldn't treat them any different than any other child...Love them, whip those little butts, lose of privilege's for disobedience....Make the one's fighting hug necks and apologize....I also believe in forcing children to have quiet time (reading) each day....And do all this wise parenting completely calm, knowing it's just part of training them up in the way they should go.....
C