If you're new here you might want to check out our top recommendation for parents. You can get a copy of The Total Transformation Program for free for a limited time, and it truly is a fantastic resource.

When your child has ADHD, it can feel like nothing ever works – like every tactic you’ve learned for discipline simply isn’t effective, and indeed just seems to make things worse.

The frustration, for most parents dealing with childhood ADHD, is that long before you know what it is… you know that nothing you try works. You know that expert after expert, book after book, program after program is just plain not working. It’s not that you aren’t trying; you’re trying everything. You’re getting all the help you can, trying all the techniques you can, and working harder than you’ve ever worked before.

But childhood ADHD changes the rules. Many of the tactics you’re given for “normal” children don’t work at all, and many others do exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to do. For a child with ADHD, the disciplinary approach needs to be a little different, and you need to take this into account.

The most important difference in childhood ADHD is that these children crave positive attention far more than they fear negative attention.

Instead of recognising the negative behavior and attempting to correct it, the more effective way to handle childhood ADHD is to recognise positive behavior and praise it; in the psychological community, this is sometimes called “shaping” and can provide remarkable results in a very short time.

Another often-overlooked method with childhood ADHD is the use of teamwork. Much of the trouble a child with ADHD encounters is that being so unlike the other children makes it hard to find friends, and a great deal of this can be overcome with simple teamwork between parent and child.

By sitting and doing things together with your child, you provide a role model – an example of appropriate behavior, which is critical in childhood ADHD if the child is to learn how to behave appropriately. A little patience and time go a long way. Apply the shaping methods above, rather than correcting inappropriate behavior, and most children rapidly get the idea and follow along.

It can be difficult to learn all the tactics and techniques that work well with childhood ADHD, so many parents may prefer to get a predefined program from a professional. The danger with these programs, of course, is that several of them simply do not cover the needs of childhood ADHD at all; while a great many do work, there are even more that do not. James Lehman’s system, the Total Transformation Program, is one of many that provide an excellent series of disciplinary tactics and techniques that work well even with childhood ADHD.

Over time, the trials and hardships of childhood ADHD can be lessened, simply by applying a few basic rules and guidelines that are easily learned. Parents can improve their own lives… and, more importantly, the lives of their children… by adapting their approaches to the specific needs of childhood ADHD.

To learn more about childhood ADHD I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

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