In this video, Dr. Jim, ADHD specialist and founder of FastBraiin, answers the question,

“How do I fix my ADHD child?”

The following is a basic transcript.

I get that question all the time. How do I fix my child? You know, this isn't a flat tire. Your child doesn't need fixin' first of all. Your child needs understanding. Your child needs to be me where they are and where they are coming from. You know they are all over the place. Yeah, is that bad. No.

I had one mom that was just so exasperated, the child kept going into the trash can. The child was probably 4-5 years of age and kept going into the trash can. And I said you know what? I can stop that. She said, okay, I'd like to see you do that.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the child comes over into the trash can, and she's looking at me to see how I'm going to chastise this child to stop it, and all I did was cross my arms and stare at the child. And within 20 seconds do you know what happened? The kid got bored and went on. And she said that's not fair!

Kids are jumping around. They are moving around. Let them go around. If I don't want them to go into the trash can, I'm going to remove the trash can. If I don't want them jumping on the couch, they go into the other room.

The issue is not them. The issue is us. You know I love thinking that the enemy is us. We as parents need to understand their behavior and how to train them towards better behavior. We need to understand how to react to them, and we need to help them learn to be positive about themselves.

Fixing them? No, we aren't fixing them. Helping them understand themselves? Yes, we need to help them understand themselves. For the child that has trouble doing their homework, we should consider when is the best time to do your homework? Can you sit for an hour?

If you say no and really have a hard time sitting still, well how about sitting for 15 minutes and after 15 minutes with just doing these few problems, why don't you get up and then go shoot some basketball for 5 minutes, or go do some jump rope, or situps or pushups. If you can do that! Good! So do that. Working in short bursts is very effective.