Hi, As a parent with a son who has adhd, I want to first commend you on trying to help your daughter's friend. Most parents wouldn't be so understanding and wouldn't encourage their child to continue the friendship. It's not uncommon for adhd kids to not pick up on social cues, I know my son sometimes doesn't. So, they can be challenging and outright annoying for other kids to be around. However, the aggressive behavior you're describing in the friend makes me wonder if the friend is on the proper medication. Are you close enough to the friend's mom to have an honest discussion with her, explaining that your daughter truly likes her daughter but is upset by the behaviors you described? My son is somewhat impulsive, even on the medication, but doesn't typically have aggressive behavior. However, my daughter has a friend that used to. In elementary school she befriended a girl that had difficulties in her friendships with other girls. I found out from the mom that "Mary" was adhd, had some other health issues, and that medication didn't work well for her. My daughter would often get irritated with Mary because of how rough she'd be. Mary would "tickle" (dig her nails into my daughter's stomach) to the point where it really hurt. My daughter used to be somewhat of a tomboy, could hold her own, and was way more tolerant of this behavior than most other girls. She understood Mary's issues because of my son's issues and I encouraged her to find a way to stay friends with her. She was able to stay friends with Mary by doing short, structured activities with her. They'd meet to go see a movie, go swimming, or for a quick trip to the ice-cream store, etc. I set it up so that the playdates never lasted more than an hour or two. The friend was able to control her behavior better during the short get togethers vs. sleepovers and long stints at somebody's house. And if Mary did get aggressive my daughter would let her know she didn't like it and would leave the situation as soon as she could. There were still times my daughter would get angry but having short get togethers worked well for the most part. They've managed to stay friends for many years now and are both high school students. And Mary has been a good friend to my daughter and has been supportive and there for her when some of her other friends haven't. Thankfully, all the aggressive behavior went away several years ago as Mary got more mature and able to control her actions. I hope that your daughter and her friend can also find a way to work things out.

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Thanks for the reply. The short-term visits is a very good idea. Instead of inviting her over for extended periods hanging out in the house, a two-hour excursion somewhere might be more manageable for everyone. I thought of talking to her parents, but I've been afraid to give them any more grief after their prior experience in seeing their daughter ostracized. They think things are fine now that they've switched schools. Perhaps I owe them some feedback. I didn't think about the possibility of her meds having been changed. She wasn't so aggressive earlier in the year, so perhaps the feedback would be helpful. My daughter seems most upset by the apparent lack of empathy or caring on her friend's side, after an argument or altercation, though I told her it is part of not getting the social cues correctly. Anyhow, thanks for the suggestions, they are helpful.

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I too would like to thank you for bringing up a daughter who includes this girl instead of going with the crowd. That takes a lot of guts and a great amount of caring, that many of these ADHD and other children with challenges seldom see. Another suggestion might be to talk to a teacher who has a good relationship with either your daughter or her friend. (maybe even a special needs teacher if the friend gets services or if you know and feel comfortable talking to him/her. ) The teacher could use a similar type of situation, or one in a story, and allow the class first talk about the great qualities someone like your daughter has, as well as have the kids come up with ideas of what they could do in a similar situation, hopefully using role playing so everyone can see both sides of the situation. Then in private the teacher or even your daughter could talk with the other girl about a personal/specific incident to help make it real for the other girl. It also would give your daughter some different ways to handle these uncomfortable situations. I did this in my classroom with problems that would come up with not only my special needs students but all of the kids in my class. By the end of the year we seldom had problems between kids and more students played with kids they would never play with before. I wish my daughters teachers would have done something along these lines because she is going into 7th grade and has never been asked over other kids houses and no one has ever come to ours, and it was not due to us not trying. Other kids especially the 8th. graders always include her which is great but they are not the ones she spend the majority of the school day with.

I hope this might give you another possibility. Once again thank you for bringing your daughter up to accept all people for who they are. God bless!

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