At the heart of the struggle for the learner with ADHD is a deficit in organization skills. This struggle is daily, and it often spills into all aspects of life.
As a parent, what can you do to help?
Keep in mind that no matter how hard you try, you might not be able to achieve the ideal level of organization that you aspire to. As with all things in child rearing, you just have to do your best and hope for the outcome you intended.
As you tackle this issue, remember to start small. The fastest way to shut down your child’s brain is to just start throwing the tasks at her.
Focus on little things at first. For example, if you are tackling her bedroom, start with just the desk. Then address the pile of clothing shoved under the bed. Continue on to the nightstand overflowing with books.
DON’T DO THIS ALL AT ONCE!
Remember, start small and spread the work over days/weeks depending on how much needs to be done.
Make organization part of the daily routine. Once the desk is clean, it needs to stay that way. Have her make the desk an early priority daily. Not only will she wake up to a clean desk (which seeing each morning will make her feel accomplished), she will be reminded that she can do it.
This sense of accomplishment will spill over into other aspects of the day including school work. As the entire room is cleaned, a daily tidy is in order to keep it that way.
This strategy applies to school work as well. If you keep up with the work daily, it doesn’t ever become a problem of overwhelm because the tasks don’t build up.
If you think that you are behind in schoolwork, just pick up where you are and trudge through slowly. Don’t try to play catch up because in the end you will both be stressed and in a child with ADHD, that kind of stress tends to shut down productivity completely.
You might not finish that math book this school year, and that is ok. Pick back up with it next year.
Keep lists of tasks and keep the list manageable. As a task is completed, cross it off the list. It is amazing to look at a list and see that most of the things are crossed off as you progress through the day.
Sometimes the entire list won’t get done, but be sure to keep the list reasonable so that most days it does. If this is a new process you are tackling, maybe attach a reward to keeping up with the task list at the end of the week.
If she is keeping up, it is a big deal. Make sure she knows that!
As you read this, you might be thinking, “I can’t do this!” It can feel overwhelming. Well, yes you can do this!
Attack this issue in small chunks and quickly you will start to see progress. Ironically, you will be putting yourself through the same process you are putting your child through.
That should give you some insight into the process and help you understand what her experience is.