Proven Strategies To Empower Your Child With ADHD To Tackle Peer Pressure

Children’s peers significantly shape their choices, thoughts, and actions as they grow up. As the young buds slowly move out from the protected nests of their parents and start to mix with the outside world, they feel an inherent need to fit in. However, this can be particularly challenging for children with ADHD.

Such children often feel restless and have mental outbursts in class, resulting in unexpected behaviors. They also tend to barge into others’ conversations despite not being invited. This can have a detrimental effect as peers start to maintain a distance from such kids and stop inviting them to social gatherings. The child with ADHD feels left alone because of such peer rejection, which stalls their mental development.

If your child faces similar problems in school, it’s time to be proactive. Today, we will share some tips for parents of ADHD children to guide their young buds properly and make more friends at school. But first, we will look at some examples of behavioral issues in children with ADHD, which tend to dampen their peer relationships. 

• Children with ADHD are more aggressive than their peers. Often, teachers complain that such children engage in physical fights with other pupils and tend to interrupt their activities. If a prayer session is going on before school, then you are most likely to find ADHD children running around, talking, and yelling. Such children possess a dominating attitude and often tease other children, which can make them a red flag for other pupils in the class.

• A high level of unattentiveness leads to poor academic performance of these children. This results in inappropriate social behavior, and children tend to disrupt classroom assignments and irritate other pupils. 

• A short attention span causes children with ADHD to get quickly bored in class. As a result, they are most likely to disturb their peers and the teacher. 

As an ADHD child behaves in a particular way, they start getting social rejection as their peers perceive such children to be dissimilar to themselves. But at the end of the day, we are all social beings. While adults possess a level of maturity that can help them tackle being left alone, children feel incredibly lost in such scenarios. Research has revealed that 60% of children with ADHD complain of peer rejection. Now that we have learned about the behavioral issues of children having ADHD let’s take a look at the different ways in which you can tackle the same as a parent.

• The foremost thing you can do is establish clear communication with your child. It’s obvious to feel uncomfortable discussing such issues with a young child. But there are high chances that your child has meant to talk to you about the same but couldn’t open up.

• Whether listening to your child’s side of the story or explaining how to behave, it’s pivotal to maintain a calm stance. You are here to lend a listening ear rather than correct them from the very onset. Your attitude shouldn’t set them off; instead, they should understand that they can rely on you and talk to you whenever they face rejection in the outside world. 

• Discuss peer pressure and peer rejection with your child so they can understand whenever the same happens to them. 

Conclusion

Being a proactive parent will ensure you can take adequate safeguards for your child before they have to deal with peer pressure. You can share your childhood stories and meet your child’s friends and families to establish a deeper connection. Remember to remind your children that friends are like families, and they need to respect the boundaries of their friends for a healthy friendship. You can seek an online adhd treatment to resolve these issues with professional guidance.