Getting Children with ADHD to Entertain Themselves

1 Comment: Getting Children with ADHD to Entertain Themselves

1. Hi Kay,
   Thank you for sharing your journey with your daughter. As I was reading your blog, I noticed many similarities of my 9 year old daughter, Bethany. She has not been officially diagnosed with ADHD but her brother has and I suspect she has it too.
   My daughter does not seem to know what to do with herself when she has to entertain herself alone. She has some difficulty socially but she does have a few friends she plays well with. That is her ideal situation, much like your daughter. If Bethany is not playing with a friend, she craves attention from my husband and me. She can have boundless energy. She can also stir up her brother and sister.

   Here is something I tried at home so that my children can entertain themselves in a way that frees me to have my own space. I call it “stations”. The teachers use this in the schools and it is so effective so I decided to try it at home with play. I have 3 stations: “Art”, “Construct”, and “Imagine” (You could name yours however you like of course).
   In art, there are art supplies, coloring books, puzzles, play doh, etc. In construct, there are blocks, legos, gears, and I used to have train tracks. In imagine, there are Barbie dolls, make believe kitchen items, regular dolls, cars, etc. I have 3 kids so each kid goes to a station for 30 minutes. They may change activities but they must clean up the original activity first and they must stay within the station. For example, if they are in art and they are bored of watercolors they can clean it up and get the play doh out. Is it perfect, do they always want to do stations, no. But what I find is that at the end of the 30 minutes they have gotten into it and often ask for more time. I think that the structure that stations provides helps them to focus while giving them the opportunity to create and entertain themselves by getting to choose within the station. Each child also has the opportunity to play in their room for a station if they just cannot get into it that round. It helps to have an outlet. I also make sure that I go and “notice and praise” at least once per station how well the children are playing. I ask what they are doing and reward good behavior with 5 minute computer time increments. They are also very easy to redirect in this scenario because everyone has a specific station to be at and it is easy to tell who is and is not in their station. Hope this helps!

   Lindsey