Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common Neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood when it is first diagnosed, and can persist through to adulthood.

Typically, an individual with ADHD has difficulties with attention, is often distractible, day dreamy, impulsive, and hyperactive. Other symptoms that are not as well known include, difficulty with following instructions/directions, being forgetful, struggling with organisation, losing things, talking excessively, and feeling restless.

Children with ADHD can also have great difficulty with regulating their emotions where their feelings are more frequent, intense, and longer lasting. As such, they will often need much more support in regulating themselves and often take longer to calm down. In addition to this, children with ADHD can act impulsively on their emotions, often reacting before thinking about their actions. For example, they are much more likely to respond to a classmate pestering them, or an annoying noise that’s bothering them, in a big explosive way. Due to this, children with ADHD often spend a large amount of time trying to control themselves and not “give in” to their bodily responses. Unfortunately, as they try to hold it together, this can cause big “meltdowns” later in the day, and as a result they will often experience more punishments and corrective feedback compared with other children.

How do I help my child with ADHD calm down?

There are lots of ways to help respond to your child’s emotional needs during their time of distress, every child responds differently and may prefer different strategies, as such we recommend trying a few and seeing how your child responds. Some of my favourites include the following:

Provide your ADHD child with positive vs negative feedback

First off, children with ADHD may be used to negative feedback or being labelled the “naughty” child, which can bring a lot of shame and guilt, causing big emotional reactions. As such, it is important to increase “positive attention” to the things they are doing well and to try and reduce the attention towards the undesirable behaviours. Ensure you are specific about what behaviours you like and want to encourage. For example, giving praise for playing quietly, putting their school bag away, helping a sibling build Lego, being respectful when parents are talking and not interrupting. No matter how small the praise is, it will make a world of difference for your child, where they may reduce their reactive behaviour as less focus is on this, and additionally can improve their self esteem.

ADHD child need extra emotional support through co regulating

Children with ADHD can take a lot longer to calm down, and may require additional support to do so. As they can become quite easily overwhelmed, have trouble knowing when “enough is enough”, and are sensitive to overstimulation, it can cause havoc for their brain, and leaving them to soothe themselves may be significantly difficult. If you find your child needs extra support to calm down, helping them to do so can make a big difference.

Listen to your child with ADHD with empathy

Often, your child just wants to be heard, validated, and empathised with. Though sometimes it can be really hard if they have done something that has bothered you, by giving your child the space and time to voice their emotions without judgement or critique, can help them to process their feelings, feel understood and valued, and help them to think more clearly and rationally.

Ensure to validate your ADHD child’s emotions

Sometimes we want to explain to our child straight away why their behaviour was inappropriate and reasons they cannot do it. With a big emotional response, it is likely this will fall on deaf ears and you may find yourself constantly repeating the same sentence. Though is it important to help your child understand where they went wrong, it is best to save this for another time when your child is calm and is better able to hear what you are saying, and instead first approach it with validation. Validating your child’s emotions can help them to see you understand why they are upset and they may be more likely to discuss what they could do different next time. For example you may say “it can be really frustrating when something goes wrong, I can see why you are upset” “I know it’s hard, big feelings can be overwhelming”. Once you start offering the space for validation, and can see your child start to calm, you may add in “What do you think you could do next time when you are feeling frustrated?”

Other strategies may include sitting with your child doing a quiet activity until they calm down, or just sitting near them if they would like to be alone. If you notice your child is starting to become overwhelmed/over excitable, they may benefit from proprioceptive input activities where they use their muscle against resistance to calm their regulatory system. This may include any push, pull, or lift movement such as pushing a wheelbarrow, a vacuum cleaner, furniture, or carrying heavy objects such as a laundry basket, grocery bags, and boxes. Pull activities may include tying a rope to a tree, a door knob, a swing set, or a fence. Any physical activity can be great to regulate your child’s nervous system, including bouncing on the trampoline, running around the house, crab walking, squeezing a stress ball/putty/play dough, carrying something heavy, or chair push ups.

Deep breathing for ADHD children

Sitting with your child and helping them to regulate their nervous system through deep breathing can be a great way to calm their whole body. Sometimes your child may be happy to do this on their own, however, it is likely they will respond better to it if done with a parent. Some easy ways to do this include;

Box Breathing

breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, hold for 4, repeating until relaxed

Balloon Breathing

place one hand on chest, one hand on stomach, imagine you have a balloon in your stomach and you want to blow it up really big, push all the air into your stomach, breathe through your nose, counting to 3 “blow up the balloon”, hold your breath, slowly breathe out through your nose counting to 3

Triangle Breathing

Take a slow deep belly breath in for 4, hold for 4, slowly breathe out for 4 deflating your entire belly, repeat until feeling calmer. This exercise is a great way to slow down your child's breathing, and heart rate! It's an invaluable skill to teach your children in times of heightened anxiety, if they find themselves in a stressful situations, or simply a great way to relax the mind. (And it's not only for kids, adults will benefit from this as well!)

The smiling minds app is also a great tool for helping to regulate your child and includes mindfulness and deep breathing exercises. https://www.smilingmind.com.au/

Final words

Whilst it can be difficult to navigate your child’s emotions, and sometimes it can feel like you are getting no where, don’t give up! Any support you give your child during their difficult times is helping them to build upon their skills to regulate themselves and in the long run is really beneficial for a child with ADHD who does need that extra support.

It is equally as important to look after your emotions too. If you are feeling distressed when your child is experiencing big emotions, they will likely pick up on this and both of you will feel even more stressed, making it difficult for everyone to calm down. Before helping your child, first centre yourself with a few deep breaths and then once your body is feeling more relaxed, then you can go in and help your child to regulate too.