ADHD Wisdom from parents

[RhondaN]

First of all ... I am new to the community and have commented and gone through many posts and comments. WOW what a forum, over 8000 members deep. There is a wealth of knowledge and experiences on this site. Thank you so much for sharing you struggles, pain, insights. unconditional love so generously. I'm sure many of you have helped many struggling children and parents. Sometimes all we need to know , that some one has been there and done that. That things can and will get better. So for me know I am choosing to pay it forward. I am looking to start a support group in my community in Canada. Reaching out to families, sharing stories, materials and hopefully getting my ADHD Adult son involved in Q and A. I have contacted members of CHADD for info for a start a up group. So here is my question for all of you. Do you have support groups in your communities? Do you attend for fellowship, resources? What kind of guest speakers have you had?. Have your experiences been positive? Favourite topics that may help others? And if there was one thing you could share with a parent that was struggling what would it be? What words of wisdom would you share. And I shall leave this excerpt from one of my favourite reads,By Dr Ross Greene .....The vast majority of challenging kids already know how we want them to behave. They know they’re supposed to do what they’re told. They know they’re not supposed to disrupt the learning of their classmates or run out of the school when they’re upset or embarrassed. And they know they’re not supposed to hit people, swear, or call out in class. So they don’t need us to put lots of effort into teaching them how we want them to behave. And while this may be hard to believe, most challenging kids already want to behave the right way. They don’t need us to continue giving them stickers, depriving them of recess, or suspending them from school; they’re already motivated. They need something else from us.”

― Ross W. Greene, Lost at School: Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them ... XO

[Pennywink]

That's a great quote!

And I do believe we have a local CHADD group that meets up, but I have never attended, so I cannot comment on that. Probably because in the early days when I was most looking for support / knowledge, their information / meeting schedule was hard to discern - webpages weren't updated, and other sources of info were conflicting. I couldn't figure out when & where they met. So I guess my advice would be to keep all websites / FB pages / anyplace anyone might learn about your group, etc. up -to-date!

[anirush]

I went to a NAMI support group years ago but the moderator would mostly talk about her kid and no one else had an opportunity to share.

We see a behavioral therapist who tries to teach my now teenage grandkids to think about how they handled a situation, what they could have done differently, what their triggers are etc. It has been a work in progress but they are slowly learning. Wish we had done this years ago.

[AndreaD011312108]

I absolutely love this idea I wish we had something like this where I live my son was tested at the school I had no idea ADHD was that bad I did not even know there was types or different servarity of this I had to do all the research on my own then i had to have him retested to learn the type and severity and what I need to do to help him so I would say a list of resources that parents can use this is so difficult for both child and parent I watched my son have some pretty bad meltdowns because he had no idea what was going on with him I believe a big key factor to helping a child with ADHD is to remain calm easier said than done children with ADHD can not regulate their emotion so they look to you ( the parent) as their way of coping I have witnessed my son repreat the things I have said to him and in difficult moments when he was having a meltdown but it has to be consistent one step directions worked really well for my son as well. Was also sent to me but I have a list of things you can say if you would like those as well I think they would really help sorry this is so long but I hope it helps