Healthy Habits You Should Help Your ADHD Child Embrace

The challenges of parenting a child with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be difficult, particularly with the ongoing need to focus and direct your child’s energy and thoughts. Parenting with consistency and patience is a simple concept that’s often hard to put into practice. 

Our pediatricians at Abdow Friendship Pediatrics in Rockville, Maryland, specialize in treating ADHD, making us valuable partners for you and your child. We can provide the medical perspective you sometimes need to stay on point. 

Building healthy habits into your child’s routine provides a stable foundation to reinforce their positive actions, behaviors, and decisions. Repetition helps moderate behavioral extremes. 

To help you help your child, we gathered some healthy habits for your ADHD child to embrace so they can develop their own positive behavioral foundations. 

Self-care

Establish a list of chores designed around things your child can do to care for themselves. This may start with something simple like pointing out the clothes they want to wear. Advance to laying out their clothes with your supervision, and slowly remove yourself from the process when they make consistently appropriate choices. 

This technique can work with other self-care tasks too, like brushing their teeth, observing regular bedtimes, or preparing their backpack for school. Start simple and build complexity as easier tasks become routine habits. 

Homework

Provide your child with a time and place to complete their homework. Build positivity into the process by starting small in terms of time and task while rewarding successful completion. 

You may need to start with only a few minutes of focused time. Building on successes is easy and rewarding and becomes its own reinforcement with regular practice. 

Diet and nutrition

When it comes to eating, routine is again a shortcut to building habits, so look for ways to help your child buy into the process. Start with simple this-or-that choices, like an apple or a banana for a snack or water with or without ice to drink. 

As their habits establish themselves, expand their involvement to choosing meal items. Feeling like they’re involved in the process rather than simply eating what’s given to them makes eating an interactive process. 

Physical activity

The challenge every parent faces today seems to be screen time. Consider the healthy fundamentals of a child’s day, which should include 8-12 hours of sleep, time at school, and an hour of physical activity. 

When your child has a choice between screen time and playing outside, it’s likely their levels of physical activity will fall. It may be wise to create a relationship between activity and access to electronic devices. 

Every child is unique and has tendencies that need to be worked into the healthy habits they develop. Keep in mind that an ADHD child is more likely to embrace a process in which they play an active role, so keep them involved in age-appropriate ways so they don’t feel overwhelmed. 

As always, Abdow Friendship Pediatrics is here to help. Call or click to book your appointment whenever you need encouragement, information, or moral support for your child’s journey.