Parenting and ADHD: Teaching Advocacy

Advocacy is something that we hear about more and more often as awareness of health conditions and their effects are on the rise. But what is advocacy? It is the act of being advocate for yourself or others to help express the needs or desires of others. It is understanding what you need and knowing how to ask for it. Since having children, especially children with special needs, I’ve become a loud voice for teaching advocacy to our youth.

ADHD symptoms show up in different ways

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is something that is being diagnosed more and more often, not just in children but in adults as well. Symptoms can fluctuate from mild to severe depending on the individual or situation. As adults we can typically work out what’s going on with us and figure out a work-around, or take that rest that we need in order to regulate ourselves. But in children, symptoms of ADHD can show up in a myriad of ways. Commonly it is portrayed as inattentiveness and excessive hyperactivity, but it can show up in anxiety, depression, stimming, or meltdowns. Quite often children or young adults do not know how to connect these two things: regulating themselves or asking for help from someone else to regulate them.

You understand your child best

As a parent, you are your child’s best advocate. You’ve been with them through their whole little lives and know the ins and outs of how they work. You know your child’s unique quirks. You know how they identify with themselves. You know how their big personalities work in their little bodies. So instinctively we can tell when something is not quite right with them. We can typically tell when our child is coming down with an illness before even the worst of the symptoms hit just based on behavior differences. The same can be said with ADHD in our children. Knowing your child like you do, you’ll be able to know if they might have trouble with a transition in plans, or that a potential situation might cause a meltdown. Knowing these things, we do what we can to mitigate the symptoms or outbursts so that our children can regulate easier.

How I teach my child to advocate for themself

While this itself is super important, it’s even more important that we teach our children how to advocate for themselves. After all we will not always be with them in order to help them should a situation or event occur where they need help. A child’s next best advocate is themselves. No matter what age your child is, begin teaching them how to recognize what’s going on and know what they need to help settle themselves.

Communication skills

One thing that I have always told my children, ever since they were tiny, is that I cannot help them through a situation if I do not know what’s going on. So, the biggest thing to teach our children is how to communicate. This is something that can be pretty difficult especially if you have younger children. Remember, patience is key. Kids experience big people feelings and do not know what they are or how to handle them. It is up to us to help them navigate their dysregulation.

ADHD awareness and education

One of the first things they need to learn is what they are experiencing. Educate yourself and your child about what ADHD is. Teach them what the symptoms of ADHD are and what to look out for as signs of an impending downward spiral. Pay attention to your child and LISTEN. Symptoms can show up in off the wall ways. Your child might complain about an upset stomach. If they are having some other signs of trouble, it could be that their tummy ache is actually anxiety or worry because they are having a particularly bad day.

Here's what I do in that scenario:

1. First, help calm my child and reassure them that they are okay.
2. Bring them back to a sense of regulation.
3. Use the situation as a learning moment for my child. Teach them that next time that they feel that way, they can stand up for themselves and ask for the help from a trusted person to regulate themselves.

Not only does this help them reach out to you in moments of distress but it will encourage them to have a sense of confidence in themselves so that they can learn to regulate themselves and not always need to reach for someone else to regulate them. Instead, they’ll grow in confidence and be able to stand up for themselves and their individual needs.

Raising an independent child

After all, this is what we want them to be able to do. We want our children to grow up and be able to stand up for their needs, not just in regard to their ADHD but in other ways as well. Being able to communicate your needs is a vital thing that we need to teach our children and young adults.