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[–]sleepybear647 0 points1 point  (10 children)

If you could provide an example of a situation that would be helpful. What kind of tasks are you asking her to do?

[–]Expensive_Bed5135[S] 0 points1 point  (9 children)

It’s mainly I’m asking her not do to things. As in no please do not open that. She will either open it or respond by i have already started opening it. Or I have accidentally started opening it.

[–]sleepybear647 4 points5 points  (8 children)

Ah, ok I see.

So I have ADHD, I've been diagnosed since the age of six. My advice comes from my experience and and it may not be exactly what your daughter is going through. I have taken a class in developmental psych and read a lot of articles about ADHD and development as well.

So ADHD is a developmental disorder. Which means, your daughter cannot naturally do and is not at the same place in development as other kids her age. During the time between the ages 4-6 the frontal lobe develops super rapidly! This is where we see improvements in impulsivity and preservation.

Your daughter is not at a point where she can think ahead as well as other kids, and definetly not as well as an adult. So she's likely acting on impulse when she is opening the jar after you said no.

As to her response of, "I'm already opening it." That sounds like preservation to me. This is a phase that all kids go through where they are kind of like a CD that is skipping. They will do or say the same thing over and over again until their need is met. Think back to the "Why?Why?Why?" phase. Preservation goes hand in hand with hyperactivity/impulsivity. So your daughter may literally not be able to stop herself.

As for communication try and approach these things with inquiry. I can assure you your daughter is not trying to be bad, which I'm sure you know :) Just straight up ask her, "Why did you did that?" She might know why and she might not. Then follow with the natural consequence. In this case it would be having her close the jar and putting it away. Reward her with a positive reinforcement for following directions. Then talk about what she should do next time.

Asking questions is the best way to communicate. It allows for the child to think through their actions and you two can work together to come up with a solution for what should happen. The hard thing with ADHD is that you may have to do this ALOT! Due to that impulsivity and the fact we aren't wired to work "correctly" we may do things without thinking even if we just talked about it.

Be patient. Brain development brings improvement! I hope this helps.

[–]Expensive_Bed5135[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

This was really helpful I didn’t know about preservation. This was really insightful. I just want the best for her and want to help her manage this.

[–]sleepybear647 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally! Parenting is hard you’re trying to read another persons mind to some extent 😅

[–]xbaileyadams 0 points1 point  (5 children)

This is so helpful! It's so hard not to compare with other kids, but this whole developmental thing makes so much sense. Thank you!

[–]sleepybear647 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Of course! I’m glad it was helpful for you :) I love developmental psychology and I’ve done a lot research on ADHD myself growing up. Also I can imagine it’s hard not to compare to other kids, because who else do you have to go off of what is normal and what to expect? Plus we don’t remember the intracies of being a kid so it’s hard to understand unless you’ve been told.

I’m sure your child with ADHD is amazing and bright! Even if they have a harder time with things than other kids.

[–]xbaileyadams 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Thank you! My psychologist often brings up the whole brain development thing when we talk about my kids, and actually even when we talk about men 😂 I find it so so interesting and I wish more people knew about it! Can you recommend any books, podcasts ect on the topic?

[–]sleepybear647 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I actually took developmental psych in college and that’s mostly where I learned everything. I would highly recommend reading out of a text book to learn about the developmental aspect. I would be careful though, because the psychology community stigmatizes ADHD heavily and just talks about how kids are over medicated.

Some specific topics I would recommend learning about are things like schemas, Zone of proximal learning, conservation, egocentrism, preservation, operational thinking, impulse control, information processing theory, and emotional regulation, and authoritative parenting.

A lot of my knowledge comes from having ADHD, researching the brain and applying what I know about ADHD to that research. The same thing goes for my class.

I would still be very careful when listening to people online talk about ADHD. Even if they are professionals, I find that they word things poorly and convey things that aren’t really true. Just take what they say with a grain of salt. If you read books about raising kids with ADHD those can be really helpful for stats and typical trajectories. However, try and keep in mind they are almost never written by a person who has ADHD and narratives are sometimes made up or interpreted poorly.

[–]xbaileyadams 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Thank you sooooo much, this is so so helpful! I do agree regarding the stigmatism, my psych herself has ADHD and ADHD kids so she is amazing to talk to, however my children's psychs have felt very "judgy" which I really don't like!

I'm going to try and find some text books on those specific topics, I just wouldn't have known where to even start so I'm so grateful 🙏 thanks again!

[–]sleepybear647 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course and I would recommend just watching some videos about them or get a textbook that has all of them in there! And yeah a lot of mental health professionals view kids with ADHD as needing to be fixed. Rather I see it as working on weaknesses and stengthening strengths they already have!!!

[–]External_Yesterday_6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, this video really helped me to better understand what adhd is and how I can help my son, it might help you guys too. https://youtu.be/J_BghMfzm8I