My husband has little patience with disciplining our daughter w/ ADHD. What is the best way to handle this?

Question

She is only seven years old and a very sweet little girl. However, when she gets excited, she has a tendency for impulsive behaviors (rarely any that jeopardize her safety) which aggravates him immensely, so he immediately begins yelling at her. She, in turn, becomes upset and starts crying. When she doesn't heed his order to stop crying, his tirade is further fueled which provokes her to cry harder, and on and on it goes. Already, her relationship with her dad is showing signs of strain, and I foresee the situation worsening as she begins to enter puberty. My husband and I have taken two parenting classes--one of which was designed specifically for parenting children with ADHD. Nevertheless, the situation has not improved. Are their any other resources within the community that might be able to offer guidance? Is there anyone who specializes in counseling parents of children with ADHD?

Answer 1

Well first of all, maybe your husband should go to an anger management class. His temper seems to be easily fueled and that may not be due to his fustration with his daughter's behavior. He needs to learn to control himself. That can help the situation a lot because even if the child is getting overly excited he will know how to hold in his anger and how to handle the situation calmly. He needs to be calm and understand that his child has a disability. His anger towards her behavior may actually be his anger towards her disability. He may need personal counseling and not family counseling in order to deal with the situation. Family counseling means that everyone has a problem that they are trying to deal with. But it seems like he has his own personal problem that he needs to handle by himself.

As far as handling your child: A team effort, with parents, teachers and doctors working together, is the best way to help your child. Children who have ADHD tend to need more structure and clearer expectations. Some children benefit from counseling or from structured therapy. Families may benefit from talking with a specialist in managing ADHD-related behavior and learning problems. Medicine also helps many children. Talk with your doctor about what treatments he or she recommends. Children who have ADHD may be difficult to parent. They may have trouble understanding directions. Children who are in a constant state of activity can be challenging for adults. You may need to change your home life a bit to help your child. Here are some things you can do to help:


Make a schedule. Set specific times for waking up, eating, playing, doing homework, doing chores, watching TV or playing video games, and going to bed. Post the schedule where your child will always see it. Explain any changes to the routine in advance.
Make simple house rules. It's important to explain what will happen when the rules are obeyed and when they are broken. Write down the rules and the results of not following them.
Make sure your directions are understood. Get your child's attention and look directly into his or her eyes. Then tell your child in a clear, calm voice specifically what you want. Keep directions simple and short. Ask your child to repeat the directions back to you.
Reward good behavior. Congratulate your child when he or she completes each step of a task.
Make sure your child is supervised all the time. Because they are impulsive, children who have ADHD may need more adult supervision than other children their age.
Watch your child around his or her friends. It's sometimes hard for children who have ADHD to learn social skills. Reward good play behaviors.
Set a homework routine. Pick a regular place for doing homework, away from distractions such as other people, TV and video games. Break homework time into small parts and have breaks.
Focus on effort, not grades. Reward your child when he or she tries to finish school work, not just for good grades. You can give extra rewards for earning better grades.
Talk with your child's teachers. Find out how your child is doing at school--in class, at playtime, at lunchtime. Ask for daily or weekly progress notes from the teacher.

Answer 2

My step-dad had the same problem, the first step is always bringing it up to him even if you think he won't be able to handle it. Tell your daughter about how she gets a little too over exited, and ask her if she could just stop and think about it for a minute. I know she has ADHD but the best way to handle this sis to talk it out. Don't just deal with the problem yourself and if all else fails take control and do the same thing to him when he gets exited about something like a big game. Plus you could get him involved in anything that your daughter does, like sports, so she sees that he really loves her.

Answer 3

Men patience for kids are very thin, and your husband more-so because of you daughters disability. The father of my child is very impatient and my daughter that doesn't have a disability. He yells at her and is very mean to her, but that all that changed when my love for her was her protection. I told him that this child is apart of him as well as me and if the mistreatment didn't stop he had to go. No child deserves the mental and emotional distress from their own parents. We are no longer are together and he sees his child with when I am present .He has lost that right to have her on his own because of his lost my trust. You are the protectent of your own child ,even though he is father women fell different about the child because we carry the fetus for 9 months. I don't know of any classes, but there is a anger management class that he can attend. You have to be stern about what you feel he is doing wrong and if he doesn't stop you will find another option that will resolve this problem. Your child is more important then anyone.

Answer 4

Okay my son is 5 and has ADHD and I myself am a yeller.. I saw a episode on nanny 911 where the dad was a yeller cause that was the only way he felt the kids would listen to him. So the nanny did a roll play with the father and herself to show the dad what the child feels like when you are yelling.. The nanny stood on a chair and the dad was on his knees on the carpet and the nanny started yelling at him.. After this the nanny asked the dad how it made him feel and he said that he felt really small and was kinda scared.. very intimidating.. So just image you / your husband over a child yelling at them about a mistake they made.. they are not going to be focused on what you are yelling about, they are going to be full of fear and feel like they are small.. (Kids have to feel like they are the world, you don't want your daughter not to be confident and you want her to be able to talk to her daddy without being scared).. so maybe if you explain this roll play to him it will show him that yelling is not going to help anything. That the most effective way to get something across to a child is the set down with them.. get on their level and explain to them what they are doing.. what they should be doing and why.. so that next time they will be like, Oh, I am suppose to do this.. Not wondering what they did to set the parent off, and not being able to understand everything the parent is saying because they are yelling..

Answer 5

Your husband is the adult.
Your husband should be modeling the appropriate behaviour.
Your husband needs to manage his frustration.

Your daughter needs to try hard to manage her behaviour.
Your daughter needs the love and support of TWO mature parents.
You daughter can not help the way she is.

You are in a tough spot.
You have done the right thing by taking the parenting courses.
You need to get yourself into ONGOING parenting / family counselling immediately.

I appreciate the pain you are in every single day, and I wish you the very best with this problem..

A part of me just wants to put your husband on Ritalin or Concerta, but that would be the bad part of me..

Good Luck

Answer 6

I have a daughter who was diagnosed with ADHD at 7 ( among other things) If your husband can not control himself, perhaps he need not be the one to discipline her. I am sure any good therapist will be able to help you and your husband find a happy medium. He needs to realize that she has a medical condition and yelling will not help her. Perhaps he needs to learn more about ADHD and how if effects your daughter. BTW, you did not mention if she was on medication, but my daughter had tried a number of them. If her impulses are not improving with a medication, it may be time to try another.

Answer 7

I believe more counselling is required. This sounds like it needs more than what you both were given. Whenever we get agitated in our house our first thought is that we also model what our future daughter's mate might be like. So we (do our best) not to go the yelling route but try to discuss it with her first. So tell your husband this - would he like it if she married a man who always behaved that way to his daughter when her future husband gets stressed out? If you love your child, you will do your best to model the best behavior. If you don't know how to master youself, get more counselling. If you think she's not worth it - what about your grandkids - this behavior is always passed down although the reasons for it may not.

Good luck.
Teacher S.

Answer 8

"Time out" when the child becomes too unruly or out of control often works well for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children.

Another highly effective way to modify the behavior of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children is through a system of praise and rewards. A comment as simple as "I really appreciate the way you asked for the toy instead of grabbing it" highlights successes instead of failures. The more positive response from successes that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children can experience, the more likely they will put an extra effort into repeating that behavior.

Parents can also structure situations to allow their child to succeed. This may include allowing only one or two playmates at a time to avoid over stimulation.

Parents can divide a large task into small steps if the child has trouble completing tasks, then praise the child as each step is completed.

If at all possible, parents should try to place their Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children in smaller classroom settings to allow for more individualized attention.

Parents can also learn stress management methods so that they can respond more calmly to their child's behavior. Meditation, relaxation techniques, and exercise all work to decrease frustration.

Sports and other high-energy activities help channel excess energy. A walk around the block, a tromp through the woods or laps around the yard do wonders for burning off bouncy behavior.

Parenting Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children takes more work and effort than parenting non- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children. The ADHD symptoms absolutely demand extra work and effort but this effort does offer its own rewards.

Many parents of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children report that the positive parenting skills learned to handle ADHD symptoms with their Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder child better prepared them for parenting their non-Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children.

Parents who spend the energy managing their home environment instead of ignoring or ineffectively dealing with the ADHD symptoms typically report less stress and better relationships with their Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ADHD children.

Answer 9

yes there definitly should be support groups for this. has your doctor not provided any information? if not, you ought to enquire. i do voluntary work with kids and have worked with a girl, also 7 years old, who suffered with the same problem. i really do empathise with you. its not easy at all. call me nuts, but i'm soon giving up my designer job to do my childcare work as my career!
i dont know if its much help but here's some websites i've come across during my work...
www.addiss.co.uk
www.tochparticipation.co.uk
there's also local ones available, but you'll have to research these as i dont know where you are from. i found it hard to learn at first, but there are certain ways of how to handle children who suffer from adhd. i also think you ought to ensure both of you get time out from looking after her occasionally, just to make sure you have some 'you' time as well.

Answer 10

Buy a book in the Parenting Section at your local bookstore about How to Raise a Child With ADHD/ADD. I've seen it before. Sit down with your husband and read it. It should help alot more than "I don't know."


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