Hello, Our oldest child has adhd . He just graduated from Elementary School this past week and I am terrified of the thoughts of him going to Junior High in the fall. He is very bright, athletic, caring, sensitive, dry witted and good looking. He made the triple AAA hockey team in our area this past winter and what should have been a wonderful experience turned out to be anything but … He was bullied in the dressing room by some of his team mates because he talks too much and about immature subject matter. He does not do well socially and as his peers grow older the gap between him and them widens. The phone never rings for him and when we do contact friends they usually already have a friend over. If they do come over “JAKE” usually plays on the computer or watches T.V with them or wants to play something a 8 yr would want to do. I worry about our other younger children and how all the family stress affects them. He constantly bothers them, picking, commenting etc.. My husband says just love him and everything will turn out all right. But I know that its not enough. He has low self esteem and appears very awkward around his peers. He can see what others are doing to affect their friendships but can not see anything wrong with him. He’s taking Concerta which has helped with school work but nothing social I’M TIRED AND STRESSED AND AFRAID OF HIS FUTURE AND NEED SOMEONE TO TALK TO THAT UNDERSTANDS…
You are right - there is no medication to teach your child social skills! Both of my “ADHD-type” kids have had challenges in making and keeping friends. The main thing that I noticed is that there is a lack of empathy for how others may react. I did two basic things that seemed to help. First, I spent some energy giving my kids very STRONG feedback about how I felt when they acted in a certain way. I had to state these things in a rather emphatic way in order to make an impression, but as I let them know that I felt VERY ANGRY when they left something on the counter, or when they interrupted, or whatever, they seemed really surprised and somewhat disturbed that they were having such an effect. I combined this action with asking them how the other person felt when they did whatever it was that they did, and they gradually learned that other people have feelings, and that those feelings affect how they react to us. At first, the oldest (on whom we started much later) had a lot of difficulty with this, as he assumed that everyone else felt the same as he would in the same situation. But as we talked about what might be going on that the other person wasn’t sharing with him, he started to get the picture.
I should note that this took a number of years to really get in place. It is a slow process. But I always believed that my kids could understand anything given enough time, patience and creativity. I think it is important for them to know that. It is also essential for them to believe that 1) it makes a difference how you act (if you want friends, you have to learn to be a good friend), and 2) you CAN change your behavior to help be more likable, even if it is hard for you. I used to tell my oldest, “You are good in math. Some people find math hard - for you it is easy. Some people find getting along with other people easy. For you it is hard. We all have things that are harder and easier for us to do. It just means you have to work harder in that area.” He didn’t like to hear that at first, but eventually he got it. He’ll never be the most polite and empathetic person around, but he gets along pretty well with people now (at age 20). And my younger is only 8 1/2 and has plenty of friends now, even though he struggled as little as 2 years ago. So don’t give up, believe in him, and start letting him know that HE can control how people feel by changing his behavior.