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Everyday life is a major challenge for parents. Many people ask how we may fail to discipline a child after being able to raise others appropriately. For other parents, if it is their first child, it questions their ability to raise a child. Parents feel very frustrated not being able to do what they think should be done: keep calm, provide reasonable explanations, not be authoritative, negotiate, and so on. Parents see themselves making mistakes in what they consider an adequate education. Children are able drive them crazy about a multitude of small things that they often know are not too important and certainly not enough to “make them like that”. But "they drive them crazy"
"Why is it so difficult to obey the first time? If you know that every day you have to brush your teeth, and will end up doing it, why in the end, after telling them 10 times, do you have to shout to get them to do it? "How is it possible to get them to do something with "because why" or "because I tell you to" or "because I am your father"? Why is it so difficult for them to figure it out?
All the difficulties caused by hyperactivity are also evident in the rest of the family activities. Sometimes even more than at school, and that is because they are often doing non-routine, less structured, more innovative activities. What parents want is that time at home should be for leisure, shared happily, quietly, enjoying each other, being able for parents to teach and learn things in life other than academic things, and the impossibility can become a torment. Parents have to be very concerned with this child, at the expense of paying less attention to others. The need for supervision is constant, in order not to lose the child, so something does not happen, to keep up with the others, so that he follows what the others do and accept the planned activities, etc..
Another aspect is that children desperately do not seem to have an appropriate time schedule. Some scholars on ADHD have come to think of ADHD as "time blindness". Parents can not understand why the child does not have a rough idea the time it might take for his birthday to come. It seems that they are living in a permanent present. Typically, they do not have a rough idea of how much time is left for his/her birthday, how much is left of class, or how long a vacation is. Actually we think they are jocking when they tell us that summer vacation lasts a week, at 7 years old, for example. This difficulty in understanding the concept of time causes many problems in everyday life. From the famous "wait" repeated continuously, to the failure to be ready in time to leave home or the difficulty for parents to motivate them with something that will happen in the future (over vacation, a birthday party, etc). It seems that everything has to be in the present and that the rewards, prizes, the consequences of their behavior in general (positive or negative) should immediately follow the behavior it seeks to enhance or change. If not, they will not work. In order to understand the concept of time, to take the measure of time, to defer the consequences, to regulate their conduct is a long, tedious, tiresome process. But it is necessary. Other children learn spontaneously. Hyperactive children learn it late and incorrectly and for that reason in everyday life they need many elements to create order, which divide their time. Calendars, clocks and agendas are essential. But these are very difficult for them to use so they ignore them. . But it is a worthwhile investment to help them use these tools.
We could tell you much more about the various aspects of life in which ADHD affects the child’s behavior and how it determines their personal relationships (family, social), their academic performance, career and professional choices, development of a proper concept of self and appropriate confidence in the world (through their relationships with adult mentors, parents and teachers), their own personal , unique and original development. However, we only want to provide a number of key points, to open the minds of parents to take an observational attitude about what their children are like, think about his capabilities and limitations, reflect on how they are helping them to develop in a responsible and happy way,and ponder on how thy accept the fact that their child is different. Also, to note what difficulties they may have as parents to help and not hinder, to achieve appropriate personal development. With all this, we aim to help parents to learn, to modify schedules, to know about preconceived stereotypes, to be creative and to have the humility to ask for help when they find themselves limited in educating their children alone.
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