Surviving ADHD During Christmas

Surviving ADHD During the Christmas Holiday
Handling ADHD and Behavior Disorders During the Holidays
Frank Barnhill M.D.

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We all know how stressful holidays can be, but when you add the stress of an
ADHD child or adult, your holiday spirit can rapidly become overwhelming, frustrating and exhausting. No small wonder it’s easy to lose your patience and feel like pulling your hair out by the roots when Thanksgiving passes and Christmas is just around the corner!

The busy, fast moving, attention demanding and time focused holiday season actually stimulates and accelerates an ADHDer’s basic needs for immediate gratification, and unfortunately usually makes behavior problems much worse.

Bright lights, vibrant colors and fast moving crowds are examples of things that over- stimulate an ADHDer to the point of being unable to control his or her behavior.

Both more and more demands for social interaction and pressure to meet holiday time deadlines cause even more anxiety and increased impulsivity as we get further and further into the season.

Here’s what you can do to decrease impulsivity and behavior problems in your ADHD child, spouse, or friend during the holidays:

1. Just as you did when starting the school year or a new job, you should involve your ADHDer in as many aspects of holiday planning and shopping as early as possible. Be sure to include him or her in charitable events, such as helping the deserving poor or elderly shut-ins. This will give him or her satisfaction and feelings of self-worth as a person and will help give meaning to the season and the changes that occur in their emotions as a result of the season. I like telling my kids, “The good feelings are part of the season”.

2. Allow your child to buy presents for other members of your family. Give him or her a specific amount of money for the task and show him how to budget for items of holiday value. Try to happy it a happy stress free event. Make a big deal of respecting their choices instead of criticizing everything they choose. When I was ten years old, my mom took me to a larger local town and let me shop for everyone’s Christmas. I usually had five dollars I had earned doing chores and she helped me split my list into how much to spend on who. Then she left me to do my shopping by myself. Unfortunately, most parents fail to give their ADHDer that level of confidence. They want to be “sure he buys something useful” with the money. My mom had the answer for that one too. We always discussed what my grandparents and Aunt Mabel could use, before I went shopping. It may only be perfumed powders and shoe shine stuff, but when they opened it, they always seemed thrilled to get such a valuable present from me. Of course, I was a very proud to have chosen the gifts so wisely.

3. Let your ADHDer “host” (or for younger children help you give) a Christmas party for his or her friends and help decide about food and drink to be served. Of course, sleepovers work well for girls and football or other sports parties tend to do the same for boys. This social event will help your child learn social skills you can’t teach and help him or her gain confidence and respect from their peers. Plus, since kids are usually out of school for the holidays, it’s easy to “throw” one of these parties.

4. Involve your child in as many aspects of your church or chosen religious experience as possible. Even if your religion doesn’t celebrate Christmas, your child can learn much about other cultures and become more tolerant of others beliefs and feelings by doing so. If you wish your children to understand others and be understood by others, then this experience will be a good first step. Remember, religion is a part of every person’s life regardless of beliefs.

5. Let your ADHDer and each of your other children make suggestions about interactivity time for your entire family, such as trips to the mall, movies or restaurants. Once a child is credited with making a “good decision” about family events, he or she will develop more social responsibility for the entire family. This usually helps an ADHDer interact better with brothers and sisters, thus leading to fewer arguments and fights and of course less stress on the entire family.

6. Avoid shopping at times when there are large crowds or your ADHDer may feel overwhelmed and react by becoming very hyper or unfocused. In general, the noisier and busier an ADHDer’s surroundings, the more distracted, impulsive and hyper they become!

7. Do not pressure your ADHDer to make snap decisions about presents, what to wear, and social events. To do so just begs for a crisis during your holiday. As is true with all of us, when pushed to make an unprepared decision, we’re more likely to say “no” or resist participation.

8. Try to make social gatherings as stress free as possible. Avoid alcohol and loud, fast moving parties. These just make ADHDers even more hyper and impulsive. Do no force him or her to meet a lot of new people as the unfamiliar can cause a lot of anxiety. Likewise, meeting and interacting with a lot of people, especially new “friends” requires advanced social and conversation skills. Everybody likes to go to New Year’s Eve parties, because they attract a lot of other people and are loud, fun and satisfy our need to celebrate another year of life. Be sure to prepare your ADHDer for these events.

Hopefully, these tips will help decrease your family holiday stress levels. Above all remember: ADHD kids are usually very talented and can display a lot of creativity during the holidays if you will give them a “chance”. Often, this ADHD creativity will further enrich your overall family holiday experience.
Dr. Frank

These health tips are offered for your common sense use and are not intended to take the place of a visit to your doctor. Your use of the materials implies your understanding that nothing herein contained represents individual medical advice.

drhuggiebear, drhuggiebear.com and contained materials are the copyrighted and/or registered properties of Frank Barnhill, M.D. and may not be reproduced for profit without the express written permission of the author. All materials may be photocopied in whole for educational use. For information please contact us at drfrank@drhuggiebear.com.

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