Hi,all: My 5.5 y/o is veryveryvery ADHD, medicated and an only child.

He is bright, creative, and amazingly high-maintainence. Unless he has screen time (TV or computer games), he cannot be without supervision. At all. Two minutes alone is very hard for him. Five minutes alone and he creates all sorts of terrific experiments- purple goo-ed the dogs, glued my business card to the floor, created soapy/spicy mixes and throws them around...you get the picture.

We truly get his ADHD, need for stimulation, trouble focusing- but- we are exhausted. We have read everything we can, been in and out of therapy for the last 3 years, and are overall happy with the current med regime.

(Catapres patch q4 days and 300 mcg /3 mg melatonin at night to help sleep- worked wonders- went from 2-3 hours until sleep onset to 2o minutes. Really!)

He is almost-but-not-quite reading. We really think reading will open up a new venue for him and another way for him to self-entertain.

We get that screen time is intrinsically rewardiing but try to limit it to a combined total of 1-1.5 hours day.

He builds with legos, draws, dances, all those things- but for maybe 5 minutes then either breaks his creations or just "needs help".


My husband is a stay-at-home dad and I work f/t. We spell each other as able, but, still, there is virtually no breathing room here!

We are trying to get in-home help (wrap-around services) and maybe even respite care. He is currently in morning camp, social skills group and play dates as he can manage.


As you well know, it is hard to keep babysitters with ADHD kids. We don't have reliable family nearby.


Has anyone, anywhere found anything *other than screen time* that their ADHD child will enage in alone?

We're looking for maybe a 20-minute break once or twice/day..seriously- that would change our life.

Any input is appreciated-
Thanks
Amy in PA

You sound like a terrific mom! I totally relate to the "experiements". We have all manner of strange creations in our freezer at the moment.

When our son was 5 - 6 years (he's 7 1/2 now) he liked to listen to books on tape or even just cd's with stories. Your library probably has these. I had bought a couple for a car trip & it worked well. His favourite for awhile was "Beethoven Lives upstairs".

You sound like you've got it pretty much covered though. We have 2 kids so, for the most part, our son has ready company. Although that does get out of hand too.:rolleyes:

If I think of anything else, I"ll come back & post. I totally agree with your view on "screen time" & we do the same. GOOD LUCK!!

Karen.

My 7 year old has a hard time playing alone too. He has to show us what he's built or colored every 10 minutes! My son's big problem is just being alone. If there are other children for him to interact with, he doesn't seek approval from us. Does your child have neighborhood friends? Can you take him to the park to play with other children?

If he has to be alone, have you done massive reinforcement of his alone time? "Taking Charge of ADHD, " by Dr. Barkely has a really good behavior management plan that could help with this. I won't go into the whole thing, but the very first step is to purposely reward your child for doing what you want as much as possible. And a reward can simply be an aknowledgment of his "good" behavior. So every few minutes that he plays independently, you could simply say, "Great job playing alone!" or "When you play alone, I can get my work done and I like that" or "I like seeing you have fun when your playing by yourself" or "I like it when you play alone without getting into trouble."

Thanks for the input! We do praise him for behavior that begins to approximate what we're looking for and have recently started giving him extra points for playing alone. He trades his points in for computer or TV time, so he's trying, but, it ain't easy!!!

We read and read Barkley like he's the bible and it helps, then we get back into that awful burn-out place and re-read it and try again..

We don't have many kids around us but we try to get out to parks and playgrounds..seems he is really unable to stay out of trouble without our constant supervision. He does need very frequent approval and wanders off-task (and into trouble) soooo easily.

What else do your ADHD kids do to entertain themselves???

cacaeb, have you considered having your son take medication for his ADHD?

Hi- thanks for your reply- he IS medicated for his ADHD..(I quoted those parts from my original post below)though some days it sure doesn't seem that way! He started on stims at age 4 and got horrid tics. We then went to clonidine oral and eventually moved to the patch which works really well, overall..somewhere in my old posts I wrote the whole med storyline.

Thanks again for your response,
Amy

: My 5.5 y/o is veryveryvery ADHD, medicated and an only child.

(big snip)

We truly get his ADHD, need for stimulation, trouble focusing- but- we are exhausted. We have read everything we can, been in and out of therapy for the last 3 years, and are overall happy with the current med regime.

(Catapres patch q4 days and 3 mg melatonin at night to help sleep- worked wonders- went from 2-3 hours until sleep onset to 2o minutes. Really!)

Cacaeb, clonidine is not an ADHD med.

case what kind food dose he eat what drugs he on??? dorm

Cacaeb, clonidine is not an ADHD med.
Clonidine is a third-line tx for ADHD when stims or wellbutrin/similar are not possible. Because he got complex tics on stims, and cannot swallow pills, we got creative and got lucky. He has been dx for 3 years and medicated for 1.5 years and we have an awesome ADHD specialist working with us. Clonidine isn't as common, but is very helpful with his impulsivity and aggression.

here's something from NIH:
While this study focused on children with both ADHD and tics, the differing effects on ADHD symptoms in children treated with methylphenidate or clonidine alone suggest that clonidine may be an alternative to methylphenidate for children with ADHD who primarily have hyperactivity, says Dr. Kurlan. It also may be helpful for children who have a combination of symptoms, he adds. For children whose primary symptom is inattention, however, methylphenidate appeared to be a better option.

Perhaps you meant to say that Klonopin isn't an ADHD med?
Anyway, Thanks. I do appreciate your reply.

take care,
Amy