10 Surprising Recommendations for ADHD Parents

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Many parents dealing with ADHD in their family are surprised to learn how the research findings on child development apply to their parenting practices. Although it's harder to parent kids who are more energetic, disorganized, impulsive, creative, and chaotic than other kids, the same principles apply as in other families. I discuss the research findings behind these recommendations in Imperfect Parenting: How to Build a Relationship with Your Child to Weather Any Storm.

1. Take good care of yourself. You’re in a much better place to respond to your ADHD child if you get enough sleep, eat reasonably well, and get some exercise and outdoor time. By taking care of our needs for play or leisure, good nutrition, exercise, time in nature, and enough sleep, we improve our capacity to accept our imperfections, and our children’s. We enhance our ability to enjoy our lives, and to be present to others in our lives, very much including the children.
2. Prioritize your connection with your child. That connection is more important than schedules, good behavior, academic achievement and everything else that can get in the way of that connection: Good parenting, at its heart, is as simple and old-fashioned as the relationship you build with your child.
3. Breathe and be mindful. You’re not too old to change your brain’s programming. No matter your circumstances, you can learn some mindfulness techniques that will help you enjoy your life more, become happier, and respond more positively to your child.
4. Don’t even try to be perfect. You’ll fail, and it won’t be good for your kid. By releasing the pressures on yourself to be a perfect parent and deciding instead to be good enough, you and your child are freed to enjoy each other and to thrive.
5. Be patient with yourself. Remember that you’re learning on the very challenging and complicated job of parenting. The biggest gift of neural plasticity is the possibility of learning in every domain, and across the lifespan.
6. Let yourself be creative. There’s nothing I can think of that requires more creativity than dealing with the everyday obstacles, calamities, and surprises that being a parent brings. True for everyone, but so much truer if you have a kid with special needs, including ADHD.
7. Keep your academic focus on solutions (not problems). Things go better for all special needs kids—very much including ADHD—when parents focus on finding a good match for their child’s unique learning needs. Ask yourself and others, “What does this child need in order to engage with learning, and be successful at outcomes the child finds meaningful?” When parents and teachers ask that question, many of the problems associated with neurodiversity fall away, and learning can become fun again. It turns out that intelligence is not a gift of genetics, but rather the result of complex and interacting developmental processes in which a baby, child, or adult actively engages with ideas, environments, people, and circumstances.
8. Welcome problems as learning opportunities. No matter your child’s age, it is never too late to see their problems as opportunities to figure out how to fix them and do better going forward.
9. Remind yourself every day that what you’re doing as a parent is important. With any child, not every day is a good day, but every day is an important day for you and your child. It is child by child that we create a family, and build a strong neighborhood and a healthy world.
10. Don’t listen to the experts. Not me, not your mother-in-law, not your best friend. Your family’s situation is unique, as it pulls together your various and dynamic resources, experiences, attitudes, and temperaments. That means your challenges and your solutions are unique to you.

Parenting a child with ADHD is challenging and exhausting, but the same basic principles apply as with parenting any other child. Take good care of yourself, and keep your focus on finding the love in your heart that allows you to be kind and patient with your child as you nurture them toward a fulfilling adulthood. Nothing else really matters—not their table manners, not their academic success, not the rough edges you'd like to smooth over for them.

Parts of this post were excerpted from Imperfect Parenting.