Practical Parenting in the Treatment of ADHD

By Robert William Locke

Medication for ADHD is now coming under a more critical examination by wised up parents. That has caused the pharmaceutical companies to redouble their efforts in presenting a biased and less critical view to serve their business purposes. They have even launched profiles on the social networking scene and are poised to present their views of ADHD. But practical parenting in the treatment of ADHD is much more challenging and difficult than getting a doctor’s prescriptions for psychostimulants which are still based (believe it or not) on amphetamines!

Parents do not want their kids on ‘speed’ but instead are looking for other types of ADHD medication which are safe and free of risks. One such treatment is a homeopathic one which can alleviate some of the more pressing ADHD symptoms like restlessness and lack of focus and restore balance to the troubled child’s mind.

There are lots of experts now who are playing down the role of medication as the only possible treatment of ADHD and advocate a combination of behavior modification combined with proper attention to nutrition and exercise. Behavior therapy basically means acquiring practical parenting techniques which can be applied to the treatment of ADHD without compromising their children’s health or their own mental sanity !

First question on practical parenting concerns how you respond or react to a child’s bad behavior. Have you ever considered that this is a symptom of something wrong in the child’s subconscious which we will probably never understand. Punishing the child rather than explaining why it is wrong and what the consequences of such behavior can be, is often the easy but wrong way out.

What messages are you conveying when you have to deal with bad behavior? Are there consequences in place and are you able to separate the child from the behavior? Concentrate on why something is wrong instead of calling the child ‘naughty’ or other uncomplimentary names.

Practical parenting involves being able to deal with your own anger as well as the child’s. What are you going to do to stand back from that situation ? Time out may be one solution but there are lots of others.

Practical parenting also involves such issues as support during homework, breaking tasks down, setting up routines, especially pre bedtime routine, supervision of media exposure and how you can protect your child .

These are just a few of the techniques that parents can learn when they decide to adopt behavior therapy in the treatment of ADHD. Once you have mastered these techniques, you will be able to deal with defiant kids, teenagers who are out of control and beginning to lie and steal not forgetting argumentative and aggressive teenagers as well.

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See Also Parenting Articles by Dr. Randy Cale at

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