Summer Sports, Part 3
Everything in modification
Despite the pitfalls of team sports, many kids with ADHD are strongly motivated to join them for social reasons as well as athletic interest. Indeed, learning to be a part of a team is a thrilling and therapeutic experience for kids who are up to the task.
But whether they choose to pursue team or individual sports, an understanding professional coach or gym teacher who is trained to make adjustments and modifications for ADHD kids can make or break a sports experience for your child.
Modifications in team sports should be designed to keep your child active and engaged in the sport with strategies that minimize downtime and boredom. Using baseball as an example, such measures might include:
- Changing drill patterns frequently to keep the child from becoming desensitized to the drill. In baseball catching and throwing practice, this might mean having the children alternate throws to simulate grounders, line drives and fly balls.
- Changing field positions as frequently as every five minutes to decrease boredom and re-stimulate the child's attention to the game, particularly if the child is posted in the outfield.
- Putting the ADHD child in an active field position as much as possible to keep him or her busily involved in the game.
- Using multiple practice stations, and alternate them often, to keep kids constantly engaged.
- During the game itself, giving the ADHD child a coach's assistant job while waiting turn at bat. Keep the task simple to keep the child engaged and out of trouble, while building a sense of purpose and self worth along the way.
Even individual sports may require modification by coaches. Mauro Hamza, a fencing coach in Houston, Texas, employs visual cues to keep ADHD kids engaged. "When I give instructions, I always ask him to look me in the eye to make sure I've got his attention," Hamza says of one eleven-year-old with ADHD. "And if he's not looking at me, I physically take his chin in my hand and point his face at mine."
Because fencing is so intense a sport, Hamza also allows the child frequent breaks in routine. The fencing club rents space from a rec center, which enables the child to break for checkers, tv, snacks, or even an occasional ping pong game during the two hour fencing club practice. "It takes the pressure off," says Hamza. "And that way he doesn't get so frustrated."
Giabardo says individual sports that are taught in groups often require modification too. In tennis, for example, instead of having ADHD children sit around while others drill and practice, give the child a ball to practice serves and rallies while waiting his or her turn.
It's one thing to ask professionals to make these modifications. But to expect the same thing of parents who volunteer as coaches in league sports is perhaps a little unfair. To help their ADHD kids survive the season, parents frequently volunteer themselves as coaches-a plan that can work fairly well unless it leaves the other players feeling short changed. Parents probably would do much better to steer their ADHD kids toward sports thatare more appropriate in the first place.
Age inappropriate
Finally, keep in mind that ADHD children usually are about a third younger emotionally and socially than they are chronologically, which explains a lot of their troubled interactions with peers. If you can think of your eleven-year-old child as really being eight, it makes it more easy to accept and understand his or her behavior on the playing field and elsewhere.
The difference between the playing field and elsewhere, though, is that you can use the sports arena to your child's advantage by placing him or her with a younger age group, something you can't do realistically at school.
Quinn advocates holding your child back in sports by two or more years whenever possible. "Make the way smoother for them by putting them with younger children," Quinn suggests. "They'll have a chance tohang around with peers they can relate to, and to be in a position wherethey can shine."
Let the smiles begin.
Some names have been changed.
1 Comments: 
