Dealing with ADHD-related behaviors in kids — Ryan Wexelblatt (ADHD Dude)
The “noise”>learned helplessness>emotional manipulation and “noise”>emotional manipulation sequence of events is something I hear about from families on a weekly basis.
I’ve never heard these concepts explained in any ADHD literature, which is why I feel the need to explain it and address it in Raising Great Dudes, my upcoming Parent Behavior Training program.
What I can tell you is that some of the more well-known parenting approaches encourage “noise”, learned helplessness and emotional manipulation. I have regularly heard heard from parents who tried counseling/talk therapy for their child how much time was spent in therapy unintentionally reinforcing these behaviors.
Kids can feel heard without parents reinforcing “noise”.
This may come as a surprise because it goes against the child psychology field: Not everything your child says is important or needs to be reflected back to them.
Learned helplessness can be unlearned, and kids don’t like that. It’s putting more demands on them.
When parents stop enabling learned helplessness, many kids will quickly resort to emotional manipulation.
When expectations are raised, many kids take emotional manipulation to the next level.
I see a very strong correlation between these things and what I call “high giving/low expectations” which I have a video about at the ADHD Dude YouTube channel [Link in comments section.]
When kids with ADHD are given a lot and little is asked of them in return they are much more likely to engage in these negative behaviors. Please check out my video in the comments section about this.
Strategies to change these behaviors will be covered in Raising Great Dudes. Sign up for priority registration at the mailing list. [Philadelphia & South Jersey mailing lists available at adhddude.com]
