Tips for De-stressing the Holidays!

The characteristic ADD behaviors, especially hyperactivity and impulsivity, make the holidays very difficult for children with ADD. Typically these children become overly excited and seemingly more emotional during the holidays. Waiting to open presents is often a torturous exercise of self-restraint. In addition, their impulsivity and impaired sense of time contribute to their difficulty "delaying gratification”. Since they don’t accurately judge the passage of time, it seems like the holiday will never arrive. When you have ADD, time creeps.

Below are tips on successfully getting through the holidays.

•   Difficulty waiting to open gifts: take steps to make the waiting easier to handle.

1. Rent movies or video games to occupy the hours and help time pass more quickly.
2. Give several smaller gifts before the big day. The week before, buy several inexpensive gifts for your child to open. Some parents allow their child to open one package each night. Others may open only one present on the night before, or open gifts from grandparents early.
3. Give one half of gifts early.
4. Give your child visual clues to help him judge the passage of time more accurately. One parent has a calendar with pockets. She puts candy in each pocket so the child gets a treat each day. Sometimes rings or other items are hung on a calendar and removed as each day passes. He can see each day as it passes and realize how many days remain before the big day.

• Increased excitability and emotionality: anticipate that this will be a problem and control their environment to some degree. Over stimulation and excitement are often problems plus he may easily become more hyperactive and irritable.

1. Make certain he takes his medication on a regular basis.
2. Plan structured activities during the holidays.
3. Plan several fun activities, for example baking cookies, building a gingerbread house, cooking special meals, having sleep-overs, or, going to a movie at the theater. Try to avoid activities that may be over-stimulating, thus resulting in greater hyperactivity and excitability. Keep him busy but possibly in smaller group activities. 
Establish family traditions such as: decorate together, make rafts/ornaments together, involve children in sending cards as part of a family assembly line, or review names of cards received at the dinner table. 
4. Don't give him too much advance notice of planned activities. Give him a 1-2 day warning notice of upcoming activities. You may not want to tell him everything that is planned for the whole month. The plan may overwhelm the child or excite him even more because “he can't wait until ten days from now when he goes to see the holiday display lights in the park”. 
5. Don’t put all of his packages in plain view.

• Boredom, after holiday “let down”: plan family activities.

1. One parent plans their vacation immediately after a big holiday
2. Travel to visit extended family members or send them to visit grandparents.
3. Plan special trips to museums, fun concerts, light exhibits, or something like the Biltmore Estates in NC.

• Difficulty developing his own gift list. He wants everything: help him set priorities.

1. Help him make a list.
2. Ask him to list gifts in priority ranking order.

• Stressful shopping trips may deteriorate into a major disaster: plan ahead for your shopping trips to minimize stress.

1. Don't try to take him shopping later in the day when he or you are extremely tired.
2. Limit the scope of his shopping trips. Take him shopping to buy his gifts for others, but don’t take him with you for general shopping trips.

• Forgetting to buy gifts for others: help him develop a plan for buying gifts.

1. Depending on his age, help him list the names for his gift list, or make a list of names for him.
2. Brainstorm ideas for gifts for each and help him develop the gift list.
3. Take him shopping, or have a friend [coach] take him.
4. Have Dad come up with suggestions for Mom and take the child shopping. Mom can do the same thing for Dad’s gift.
5. In single parent families, take the child to the store and give him money to buy your gift, or have a friend or grandparent take the child gift shopping for the parent.
6. Buy 2 or 3 miscellaneous gifts as back up in case someone is forgotten.

• Telling secrets: don’t tell younger children any secrets you don’t want known. Their excitement and impulsivity make keeping secrets extremely difficult.

1. If he is younger, don’t tell him what you bought for your spouse or his siblings, he may inadvertently blurt out the secret.

• Distractibility when opening gifts so that the system is disrupted: give him flexibility to open his gifts at his own pace. Sometimes these children want to play with each toy when it is opened, while the rest of the family wants to continue opening gifts, or he may rush through all his gifts.

1. Let him open his gift and play with it, then when he is ready to open another one let him back in the family rotation of opening gifts.

• Difficulty participating in extended family activities: make modifications in family plans. Sometimes extended family members do not understand ADHD. Consequently, they may not be accepting of your child and may be judgmental and disapproving of your parenting techniques. The family activities may actually be a very negative experience for the child, rather than the intended loving family experience. Find a way to make it more positive or don't subject him to this negative experience.

1. Limit the amount of time spent at extended family functions.
2. For a teen, allow him to make an appearance and then leave.
3. Avoid stressful situations that you know will prove difficult for your child, such as a sit-down dinner for 20 at a formal restaurant, or set up a children's table away from the adult family members in the dining room.
4. Allow him to take along a friend.
5. Work out a compromise on points of conflict in advance. For example, he will remove his earring while visiting his grandfather.
6. Don't require him to attend events that are boring, lengthy and require sitting for long periods. For example, don't require him to attend his sibling's concerts, or limit the number of lengthy religious programs he attends.

• Difficulty maintaining efforts on schoolwork: expect decreased productivity at school and monitor work more closely.

1. Monitor homework assignments and provide positive helpful support.
2. Adjust expectations and be flexible. If it becomes extremely stressful, accept completion of work even though it may not be done perfectly.

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