Parent Training #4 - 4/1/08

Topics covered:

• Difficulties picking up social cues commonly seen in children with ADHD. Failing to notice when peer is bored or when peer is upset or uncomfortable. We discussed some games that parents could play to help the child understand how to know when their friend is bored or uncomfortable.
• How children join others at play. ADHD kids just rush in and try to jump right into playing with the other kids. Joey does this and is so excited to play with someone but he is rejected a lot and is always heartbroken and can't understand why they won't let him play. We talked about some ways to encourage our kids to try to join in and ways to react when other kids say no.
• We talked about how we can encourage our child to join an organized activity/sport to meet new friends. We also discussed how organized sports and activities can often be difficult for ADHD kids. We should not pressure them into participating but it is good if we can find a good one. It was suggested that we the parents try to make friends with the other parents so that our kids would be invited to events and be included in playdates. This concept intimidated a couple of us. I am not good at making friends myself and usually end up making things worse. However, I will try anything for Joey and I plan to make a better effort. (I wish there was a friendship clinic for ME - haha)

**at the beginning of this session, I arrived early and was able to speak with Prof. Mikami and Casey for a while without the other parents. They told me that the last playgroup went well and they thought that Joey seemed very receptive to the feedback I gave him during the session. They said I was doing good. That almost made me cry since I always seem to feel like I'm failing somehow. I am not a good judge of how I am doing. After all that was said, I started thinking..."I wonder if they are just praising me to encourage me like I'm supposed to be doing to Joey?? I wonder if they would even tell me if I needed to do a lot better??" Hopefully, I am just being too hard on myself.