5. ADHD: You Are the Only Thing You Can Control

I know from years and years with my own ADHD children that there are plenty of situations when you will desperately be trying to control them. Sadly, you don't control them. As a matter of fact, there is only one thing in these situations that you can control - and that is yourself. It's hard to keep in mind that you have to stay calm and in control -  but if you don't, you're only adding fuel to the fire. When you are so desperately trying to control your out-of-control child, you could make the situation infinitely worse when you are not in control of yourself.

The reason it gets so bad so fast when both of you are upset is because of a natural tendency to copy other people's behavior and emotions. The brain has what are called “mirror neurons" which cause us to attempt to imitate the people around us. That is why crowd behavior is so much more extreme than individual behavior. If you watch the crowd at a football game or a soccer game, or even at a political rally, you see people who are more emotional and more demonstrative than they would be individually.

It's like Tommy Lee Jones noted in the movie Men in Black, "Individuals are polite, kind and calm - crowds are edgy, irritated and dangerous.” (This is not the exact quote, but it is the best I could remember.) 

So if your  child is having a temper tantrum or is extremely agitated  the worst thing you can do is get into the situation and lose your temper yourself. Then you've got two people that are overly emotional and feeding each other's emotions. If you add your spouse or a sibling to the mix, that can get totally out of hand.

Additionally, we all have a favorite bad emotion. That is, an emotion that we will have more frequently than all the other emotions. In general, men - particularly men of my generation who served in the military - have a tendency to jump straight to anger in any situation. Then, we have a tendency over time to calm ourselves down and actually respond to what's really happening. So going into any situation with my children, I realized that my tendency was likely to be anger - but that was also the worst thing I could do in that situation.

Other ADHD parents may have anxiety, sadness or depression as their favorite bad feeling. This is a less explosive situation with an ADHD child who is out of control, but it still increases the general level of emotion in the situation. As an ADHD parent, you're in a tricky situation where you have to try to set some limits, but this is a situation that is caused by a neurologic condition where control is limited. So pretty much whatever you do, not being calm will cause difficulties in the situation.

"So all right, Dr. G, how do I stay calm when I want to scream at my kid?" 

There are some specific steps that you can do to maintain control. Some of these steps take a while to take effect because you're basically training yourself to have a calmer response. This requires eliminating or reducing the more natural response for you. 

So the first step is to increase awareness of your emotions. One thing that you can start doing is keeping track of your favorite bad emotions. You can do that on your phone or a notebook, or on a 3 x 5 card, but what you're really doing is tracking your emotional responses.  When you are aware that you're emotional, recognize what is the emotion and just figure out your own coding system. Note something like, “I was angry here, I was angry here, I was angry there,” so you know how you are responding to the situation. It's easier to start controlling things that you're measuring. So that's the first step. 

The second step is learning how to calm yourself down. People frequently are having strong emotions all day long without being aware of them. They don't know that they've been angry all day long or stressed out all day. They're just not paying attention to how they're responding. The simplest method is breathing focus and relaxation. Nowadays, it's popular to call it meditation, but it's all the same procedure. The idea is to close your eyes, pay attention to your breathing, inhale slowly and (the most important part) exhale slowly. What many people do is they exhale too fast and that's how they get panic attacks which are basically just hyper-ventilation attacks. This self-calming is a skill you should practice regularly. It is a very important  skill - although it seems very simple, it is very effective and you will see changes fairly quickly. 

The other major thing you have to do is understand ADHD. You have been given an extra job as the parent of an ADHD child. In the long run, this may make you a better parent altogether. You have to keep reminding yourself that this is not a behavior problem, this is not just willful behavior, instead this is the result of a neurologic condition. Or more simply, his or her dopamine is screwed up again. You have had to constantly remind yourself that your child is not being bad, but has a neurological condtion that makes it harder for him or her to control his/her emotions. When you can analyze the situation calmly, you frequently find that you can overcome the feeling of being overwhelmed or afraid of your child. You then see there is no indication of willfulness in being “bad.”

So the best way to handle emotional outbursts in your ADHD child involves awareness of your own emotional response. It is vital for you to remain calm and recognize that you can control your emotions. Decrease the intensity of your emotional response with breathing focus exercise. All the while, you must maintain awareness that you're dealing with a medical issue, not a behavior problem. As you continue to control your emotions when dealing with your ADHD child, you will find that his or her behavior improves dramatically. 

Visit my website at terrygingrasphd.com to learn more about Dr. G and my ADHD coaching services. 

Feel free to give me a call  to see if coaching is something you want to do.