According to the American Psychiatric Association, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects many people all over the world. In Singapore, it affects about 1.6% to 17% of the Singapore population (Lim et al., 2019). Some signs of ADHD “include inattention (not being able to keep focus), hyperactivity (excess movement that is not fitting to the setting) and impulsivity (hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought)” (American Psychiatric Association N.D.)”.

As ADHD is a common neurological disorder among children, it is important as parents and educators that we understand the symptoms of ADHD and how to manage children/students with ADHD in both classroom and at home. Thus, we have compiled some tips to help our students with ADHD.

1) Unable to complete work in time?

Do you see children with dyslexia and/or ADHD working on a problem sum for a long time, yet are not able to complete it? They may be fiddling with their stationery or droning away until an adult snaps them back to doing their work. Why so? It is because children with dyslexia and/or ADHD often have difficulty organising and managing their time and tasks well.

They need explicit instructions to organise and manage their time and tasks (Mullet and Rinn, 2016). As educators, we use a variety of techniques to help our students stay on tasks and better manage their time. Here are some strategies that we found useful for them. Do give it a try!

A. Break down the tasks into smaller chunks.

It is difficult for ADHD students to  take part in boring and repetitive tasks while sustaining their attention (Mash and  Wolfe, 2016). Why not break down the list of work into smaller chunks? You can sit  down with your child and create a to-do list together. Give him/her the autonomy to  decide which few tasks he/she would like to do first. Allow 10 to 15 minutes break in  between chunks of tasks for the child to relax and regain their attention before  moving on to the next chunk of tasks.

B. Timer.

The use of timer has shown to be an effective  way for ADHD students to  better manage their time. You can consider incorporating a timer in your child’s study  routine. Timer provides an obvious visual cue for children to monitor their progress.Timers come in different forms.

To start off, you can introduce to your child the sand hour glass timer. It is less intimidating for younger children. Moreover, it is more interactive as it challenges children to compete against the time to finish their tasks. This way, children sustain their attention only for this short period of time to complete their assigned tasks. In addition, timer can serve as reminders for them to take short breaks before they move on to the next task.

2) Power struggle

We all know and appreciate that every child, posed with a learning difficulty or not, is unique and different in their own special way. Not all children can follow classroom rules or boundaries the first time they are set. Children with ADHD often tend to blur boundaries set in classrooms and challenge those who set it. You may even find yourself questioning who the teacher is. Why am I having to argue with my student about a simple task? Why is my authority in class being challenged?

These situations can be viewed as power struggles. They may be about various situations but the nuance of the matter is simple: there is a struggle of power between the task setter and the task completer (teacher and student). It is important then to understand what works to diffuse such tedious situations in the classroom without exhausting oneself emotionally.

Remain Calm when challenged
One of the things to always remember when dealing with a potential power struggle situation is to always remain calm. It helps to understand that the child is not necessarily challenging you and questioning you but is trying to push his or her own boundaries and experimenting with the rules set forth. Learning to differentiate that the behaviour is separate from the child can help to diffuse tension both mentally and physically almost instantaneously and allow oneself to gain the mental capacity to think clearly to help the child through the situation.

Provide an active listening ear
Active listening is positively engaging another in a pattern of listening (Cuncic, 2020). It can be shown by paraphrasing what one has said to ensure understanding. It can also be shown in the body language and nonverbal cues given off. An engaged and positive mind would perform active listening with a calm composure at the student’s eye level and aim to absorb the information presented. Sometimes active listening is substituted by passive listening because of time constraints or need for attention by other students in the classroom. However, without truly listening actively, one cannot firstly understand the struggle faced by the student and secondly, build a trusting relationship with said student.

In most situations of power struggles, the reason why the child is trying to push his or her boundaries is because they deem a task or situation set forth too challenging. In preserving his or her own wellbeing or ego, they may try to instead push the boundaries. Helping them to appreciate the safe space they are in and getting them to calm down would then be a priority for the adult in that situation.

Embrace the power of negotiation
When helping students we always need to pick our battles. If the child is struggling with the workload, set simpler goals. Simplify tasks if necessary. Help them view the mountain in front as a hill and give them the confidence that they can cross it. Step by step guidance and motivation may be required but wholly necessary in ensuring the next power struggle situation does not get too difficult to overcome because the adult is in power of the negotiation.

Revisit and Praise
Always look back and take a moment to review the challenges of the day with the student. Praise and compliments should be honest and detailed so that the student appreciates the comment and feels like it is personal. Help them observe that they had managed to pull through the struggle and come out the other side in a win-win situation instead of a win-lose.

The next time a situation arises in the classroom, try following through with the steps and observe the length and intensity of the challenge posed by the student. With the right mind-set and lots of positive thoughts, the challenges should become easier and you may even form much needed trust and rapport with the student (Mordasini, 2014).

3) Overly excited and active children

It is normal for children to run around and move in a classroom setting. However, the inability to sit still for a prolonged “period of time” or having a short “attention span” when working on a task could be indicators of ADHD (American Psychiatric Association N.D.). This could result in the child struggling to “wait for his/her turn” to speak or play games, “fidget” or run around and play with objects in the class for example (American Psychiatric Association N.D.).

As such, a great way to manage ADHD children is through physical exercise or movement. An ADHD student of mine is a huge fan of basketball and prefers to work on tasks while playing with a ball at the same time. According to him, being able to manipulate and move around with the ball not only helps him to focus on class activities but also gives him some motivation to complete the tasks assigned to him.

Some examples of physical exercise or movement could be just walking around a room, playing sports such as soccer or volleyball, dancing or running. It is important that we work with the child to identify the types of physical activities they enjoy and are willing to participate in. Incorporating their preferences into their routines would be a great way to help children manage their energy levels at home and in class.

Another great way for children to manage their energy levels would be to challenge their minds. Working on puzzles, solving riddles or even memory games could be a good and fun way to burn off excess energy. Not only are these activities fun and engaging, it also provides opportunities for children to develop their cognitive skills

Activities that could help burn off excess energy and provide an opportunity for family bonding:

4) Having conflicts with peers? Impulsivity in social situations

Having an ADHD student in class can pose you with situations such as managing challenging behaviour while handling students of different needs, personality and types of learner. Have you ever experienced a situation in which ADHD students may make inappropriate comments that resulted in conflicts and causing offence to the other classmates?

Impulsivity, hyperactivity and inattention associated with ADHD can affect a child’s social interactions with peers around them. They often react without thinking through consequences and not having a clear understanding of how their reactions and words may provoke others. As a result, they might face difficulties making friends, being accepted in a group or feeling alone and isolated. Other difficulties include taking turns in a conversation, speaking in an appropriate tone and volume, being able to resolve conflicts amicably or maintaining a conversation.

Here are some strategies to help you teach and develop competence in social skills!

Social Skills Training: Role playing

• • Define the social problem:  Understanding the issue  and problem faced by  the student. For example: Feeling angry when being teased by his friends for  being a slow learner.
  • Acknowledge and validate feelings.  Listen attentively  to the student and tell  the child that it’s normal to feel upset by teasing. Let them know that its okay to learn at their own pace. However, reaffirm the student that being teased is NOT OKAY.
  • Discuss alternative ways to respond.  Brainstorming  together various ways of responding and explaining that some ways might not be so good.
  • Re-enact the social situation.  Once the student is  equipped with socially acceptable ways to respond, let the student play the role of being teased  while the teacher or parents can be the teaser. The roles can be switched  around! You may explore different scenarios and change the script accordingly!

Social Skills training: Using Social Stories or Videos 

• • Teaching and reminding ADHD students about appropriate social  behaviour in normal day to day situations.
  • Practising Empathy:  Empathy is being able to take  the perspective of others by putting one selves in another situation. For example, exploring what they are feeling, thinking, likes/dislikes and interest.
  • Having an interactive and engaging discussion by talking about different situations and scenarios:  Differentiating between expected and unexpected behaviour and exploring verbal and non-verbal cues of communication

Identify the behaviour that you would like to see in class.

• • Providing immediate and frequent feedback about inappropriate behaviour or  social miscues in class.
  • Use visual rewards or behaviour charts in classrooms
  • Acknowledge progress and small positive changes made by students by giving praises

We hope these tips help with managing an ADHD child in a classroom or home setting.

Written by:

Nadhirah, Associate Fellow
Darishna, Associate Member Plus
Yun Mei, Associate Member Plus
Kiran, Associate Fellow

References

American Psychiatric Association n.d. What is ADHD?, from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/adhd/what-is-adhd.

Carol Brady, P. D. (2021, December 14). Social Skills training for kids with ADHD . ADDitude, from https://www.additudemag.com/developing-social-skills/

Cuncic, Arlin (2020): „Practicing active listening in your daily conversations“. Verywell Mind . Verywell Mind, from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-active-listening-3024343.

Mash, E. J., and Wolfe. D. A. 2016. Abnormal Child Psychology. 6. Cengage.

Mordasini, Don (2014): “Power Struggle”. In: Wild child: How you can help your child with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and other behavioral disorders . Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, pp. 15–20.

Mullet, D. R., & Rinn, A. N. (2016). What parents should know about ADHD. Parenting for High Potential , 5 (2), 10.

Lim, C. G., Poh, X. W. W., Fung, S. S. D., Guan, C., Bautista, D., Cheung, Y. B., … & Lee, T. S. (2019). A randomized controlled trial of a brain-computer interface based attention training program for ADHD. PloS one , 14 , e0216225.