Getting a Child with ADHD Ready for School

There is a time in every parent’s life that is dreaded, and that is the school run. For normally, without the use to a tranquiliser gun and a shot that would rival even the most experienced of hunters, kids have a pretty unnerving skill of dodging every single one of your attempts at bundling them in the car and into the school gates! Actually, unless you have the mafia on your side, even bribes don’t tend to work!

Now couple this with ADHD and you’re morning troubles double. Twice the energy, twice the kick offs, and twice the cunning ways they can try to avoid school.

However, you can make things a lot easier for yourself by adopting a more calm and informal approach that doesn’t involve you taking copious amounts of valium! Simply change the routine slightly to make life a bit more stable in the mornings.

Having a single staple breakfast, for example corn flakes is a good idea, also a cup of tea, which will make them feel more grown up. If you have to, you can opt for the big guns and a cup of decaff coffee, kids, regardless of age, like to be seen as more grown up.

After breakfast, chuck them in the shower, explaining that all adults have to be clean and presentable for work, and there’s no reason why kids shouldn’t be for school.

A very good bribe for this one is a spritz of deodorant or aftershave, especially if they’re hitting puberty. As ADHD tends to affect boys more than girls, it should also be noted that by introducing these routines from an early age, you’re less likely to be plagued with bullying because sweaty teenagers aren’t exactly the most pleasant thing on the earth!

After showering, doing teeth and the likes, you should technically have about 30 minutes before getting them to school. Get them to check their homework and their timetable, make sure they have all of their books and required textbooks, run through any English Literature they’ve done (we’ve all misspelled ‘box’ before!), and finally, slam the door behind them, and have yourself a well deserved cuppa!

If your child is on medication but it’s proving to either not work, or you aren’t seeing the effects, speak to your doctor, you know your child better than they do, and it may be a question of the dose not being strong enough, or simply at the wrong time of day. Because something works better in one person at 9am, doesn’t mean it will work in another due to the fact our biological clocks are all different.

One of the biggest things I can recommend is routine, and if medication is involved and it’s making things worse or not improving matters, stop administering it and speak to your local GP. As they say there is more than one way to skin a cat, and because one drug doesn’t work, doesn’t mean they all won’t work.