Parents know how difficult it is to get help for their kids with ADHD. There are many scenarios when parents don’t even realize if their children have this mental condition. Only when the kids start showing symptoms do they look for guidance and support.
Kids with ADHD or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder have a hard time focusing. Even to do the easiest of things, they lack focus and attention. If the symptoms are not resolved in the initial stages, they can take a serious turn as they grow up.
Any child gets distracted easily. But, the case is extreme for kids with ADHD. Even easy tasks like homework, chores, and eating may seem difficult. Attentiveness is a skill that children with ADHD need to be taught.
Various focus activities help kids with ADHD learn in a positive environment. Old-school methods will not help them learn to focus. Engaging in kid-friendly activities and games can improve children’s attention span and cognitive skills.
This blog will explore the effects of ADHD on children’s focus and attention, and explore focus activities for kids with ADHD that can help them enhance their focus and attention.
Understanding how ADHD affects children’s focus
ADHD is a growing concern for parents. Research states that 7 million children in the U.S.A. are diagnosed with ADHD. Understanding the effects of this condition is hard until the child starts showing symptoms.
However, if these children are left undiagnosed, they may have problems in their later years of life. Kids with ADHD, as they grow up, become more impulsive and hyperactive. These children also have trouble focusing on too many things, even if they are as simple as listening to someone.
Children with ADHD will experience low self-esteem. Since their attention span is too low, it affects their academic life. The condition may result in poor grades in school.
There have been cases where the symptoms were reduced as children grew up. However, there are also instances where individuals were unable to outgrow their ADHD symptoms with age.
It can be difficult for parents to understand the effects of ADHD. It is, therefore, important to educate them on the topic. As parents, you should know that this condition can make your children’s lives difficult. However, with interactive focus games for kids, you can help improve their condition.
ADHD Impact on Learning
The main symptoms of children with ADHD are a lack of focus and attention. Kids with this condition have lower attention span and focus than their peers. Staying focused for too long on a task seems daunting for them.
Learning something means focusing and paying attention. Any person needs to be attentive to learn a new subject or topic. Kids with ADHD lack this quality. Because they fail to stay focused, they can’t register new concepts and subjects in their minds.
In school, while learning a new lesson, your children may seem lost or distracted. This doesn’t mean that the kid is disinterested. Rather, it indicates that the kid is not able to focus on the lesson.
While other kids in your child’s class will move ahead with their courses, ADHD will lead your kid to fall behind. To ensure your children learn focus and new life-changing concepts, you can integrate focus activities for kids with ADHD.
Speech Problems in ADHD
A kid with ADHD may face difficulty in communicating with people. Also, they may have speech and language problems. ADHD can lead to speech delay in children. Furthermore, kids with ADHD may find it hard to articulate their thoughts, or they might face challenges with fluency.
Children who have ADHD have a hard time remembering the right words fitted for the situation or context. This often makes them hesitant to speak, making them socially awkward.
When you ask your kid a question from a lesson or in general, you may notice the kid is taking too long to say something. It is because their condition hampers their reception skills.
Children with ADHD also have difficulty staying on the topic. Their minds seem to flutter, and they diverge from the topic.
To keep them engaged, you can introduce focus activities for kids with ADHD to build skills, such as speech development and fluency.
Forgetfulness in Children with ADHD
A common ADHD symptom is forgetfulness. If your children are diagnosed with ADHD, they may have difficulty remembering things, especially if they’re just words heard or sentences read out to them. In academic life, this is a major drawback and can lower their confidence.
Parents can utilize visual-based learning techniques to combat forgetfulness in children diagnosed with ADHD. For example, when you teach your child different colors, you could use color charts. This way, they would learn what the color looks like.
Hyperfocus on Preferred Activities
You may notice your children overdoing something that is in their interest or preference. For instance, if your kid loves to dance, they will put all their time into it, sidelining other things. This is what hyperfocus looks like.
In school settings, kids are expected to balance academic learning and extracurricular activities. Kids who have ADHD are likely to be driven solely toward extracurricular activities, especially if they involve movement.
It is challenging for kids with ADHD to stay still for a very long time. As parents, you will observe your kid fidgeting or wiggling. That’s basically what hyperfocus or hyperactivity looks like. These children show extreme restlessness as they grow up if the ADHD symptoms are not taken care of.
Trouble Following Instructions
People need to focus on following instructions. It has been established that children with ADHD face challenges in focusing on something or bringing their attention to a topic. Often, that results in not following the instructions properly.
ADHD can trigger impulsivity in kids, which can also prevent them from following instructions. When kids become impulsive, they act without thinking. Impulsive children do whatever they like without proper planning, which sometimes leads to finishing a task in a rush.
Since ADHD kids have short attention spans, they face problems retaining information. Thus, when they are given instructions, it becomes difficult for them to remember them and apply them in practice.
How to identify your child facing ADHD?
Identifying ADHD symptoms in children is hard. Most parents don’t understand if their kids struggle to focus or are just fussy. When you frequently see your kids having difficulty paying attention, following instructions, or sitting still, it can be ADHD.
However, to be sure, you can seek help from a child therapist or psychologist. They may implement their skills and methods to evaluate kids’ conditions correctly. Nevertheless, to identify your child facing ADHD, here are the signs you should look for:
Impulsive
Kids with ADHD tend to be impulsive in many cases. They do or say things before thinking. They might interrupt when someone says something and find it challenging to wait. In other words, they can be extremely impatient.
There are even instances where kids have done some work without seeking anyone’s permission or acted in a way that can be risky. Furthermore, kids with ADHD may have extreme emotional reactions to situations.
Inattentive
When you see your kid is easily distracted or inattentive, they face difficulty concentrating, focusing, and staying on a task for long. Kids already have short attention spans, and with ADHD, they might miss out on essential details and follow instructions correctly.
Children with ADHD tend to daydream or dawdle more than their peers. Usually, most of them with this condition often lose track of things and stay absent-minded.
Hyperactive
If your kids are diagnosed with ADHD, they will show signs of fidgeting. Since they can’t focus on things for too long, these children tend to get easily bored. Their behavior shows restlessness. You may often find your kid is having trouble sitting quietly for too long.
There will be instances when kids with ADHD will do things in a rush and end up making careless mistakes. These children tend to act in ways many people find irritating or disruptive.
To combat such situations, you can incorporate fun games to handle toddler meltdowns and tantrums.
How to Treat Kids with ADHD at Home?
There is no definite treatment for ADHD. However, correctly applying the proper methods can help reduce their symptoms with time. As parents, you need to make a safe space for kids with ADHD. They shouldn’t feel that something is wrong with them.
If treated indifferently, children with ADHD might act in ways they shouldn’t, and it can flare up their symptoms.
ADHD-diagnosed kids and other children love engaging in activities. Parents can incorporate fun and engaging focus activities for kids that will help them improve their attention span and boost confidence.
At home, the following are the techniques you can use to help your children fight ADHD.
Let’s start!
Celebrate their winnings
Kids with ADHD face too much criticism in society. Moreover, they are misunderstood by even their close ones. When a child shows signs of ADHD, many people think that they are having behavioral issues.
Due to such criticism, their self-esteem, motivation, and self-confidence break down. Furthermore, they start believing that they are bad.
It is pretty evident that as parents of kids with ADHD, you also go through a lot. However, using harsh words and disciplinary methods cannot resolve the condition.
Parents shouldn’t scold kids with ADHD when they fail to memorize a poem. Instead, they should notice how hard the kids have tried to remember the lines. Parents should consider the hard work and efforts of ADHD children.
You should also make genuine efforts to praise your children’s other successes. For instance, if your kid has completed a task without help, you can simply appreciate them.
Ensure you give your children the reasons for appreciation. That way, they will know they have done something good and may continue to do it.
Celebrate their wins, even as simple as eating, doing homework, and arranging their toys. Appreciating them in these situations creates a positive environment for your ADHD children to learn and grow.
Provide a healthy diet and good sleep habits
Eating healthy is essential for everyone’s body and mind to function effectively. It is more crucial for ADHD children. A healthy diet can calm hyperactivity in children with ADHD. It also helps them lower stress and anxiety and boost optimal brain function.
Plan a balanced diet for your children, with at least three meals daily. Include proteins, vegetables, fruits, Omega 3-based foods, healthy fats, and whole grains.
Since kids with ADHD are hyperactive most of the time, they have trouble sleeping. As parents, it is your responsibility to ensure they get a good night’s sleep. You can set a sleep routine for your kids to wind down.
Before tucking your kids into bed, you can encourage them to play games that enhance mindfulness. This will help them channel their focus into positive things, thus leading to blissful sleep. You can use the best habit tracking app and also ADHD Apps for Kids to ensure your kids are getting enough sleep.
Stay positive
Giving care to children with ADHD can get parents on an emotional and stressful ride. Along with helping your children, you should care about yourself, too.
Being parents to a kid with ADHD is challenging. But if you stay positive, this journey may not be so difficult. Make efforts to understand the condition and how it affects the mind and movements of children.
When you make efforts to understand the effects of ADHD on your kids, you will be able to create a positive bond. The positivity you share with your children with ADHD can encourage you to thrive together.
Understand that ADHD has no solid cure. It is not a disability that can be fixed. Instead, it is a brain that functions slightly differently than others. Initiate open communication with your children. It will allow them to open up to you (parents), and you can understand things better.
Develop routines
When you are parenting kids with ADHD, ensure you develop routines. You can use a specific strategy to allocate different tasks to your children. For instance, if you want your ADHD kids to learn through a vision board, add colors and pictures aligning with daily routines like doing homework, eating, sleeping, etc.
Staying in routine can be a challenging task for kids with ADHD. Their mood swings, anxiety, and frustration might make them act differently. Thus, you must incorporate emotional regulation games to condition their moods to the routine.
ChomChom’s MoodQuest is an interactive game that boosts emotional awareness in kids with ADHD. Backed by therapists, the game has a colorful, user-friendly design that helps kids better identify and understand emotions.
Teach your child with ADHD how to make friends
The inattentive mind and impulsive behavior make it hard for children with ADHD to make friends. It makes them lonely and breaks their self-confidence. Parents can make positive efforts to ensure their kids develop social skills.
Kids with ADHD have a hard time following social cues. In many cases, their lack of understanding of instructions and social cues disrupts peer relationships. These children tend to talk and interrupt when someone else is talking.
Of course, when an ordinary person sees it, they will find it bad behavior. But that’s not the kid’s fault. It is how ADHD makes them behave.
As parents, you can promote a supportive environment at home, which will ease your relationship with the kids. When kids share a healthy relationship with their parents, it gives them the confidence to share positive bonds with their friends.
Participating in clubs and activities often can help kids with ADHD bond with peers. Encouraging them to participate in group activities can lead to a healthy and developing mind.
Make Expectations Clear
ADHD-diagnosed children can’t follow instructions or commands. As parents, you are responsible for letting them know what you expect from them.
For instance, if you want your child with ADHD to complete school homework or eat on their own, you need to communicate that. It may seem a simple task to follow these instructions, but for kids with ADHD, even these instructions seem a lot to follow.
Ensure your kids remember whatever instructions you’ve given them. Have them repeat those instructions one by one. That way, you and the children will be on the same page. Also, you can remind them of something if they forget in the process.
Simple and Focus activities for kids with ADHD
Kids love games and activities. However, children with ADHD struggle to stay quiet. They seem always full of energy, which is basically their hyperactivity. You can use their hyperactivity and encourage them to participate in focus activities for kids with ADHD.
These activities will help your kids improve their attention span, allowing them to concentrate on lessons and follow instructions. Likewise, they will enhance their confidence in opening up to people.
The following are some activities for kids with ADHD to boost their attention and focus.
Story Based Games
Every kid loves stories, especially if they are presented visually. Kids with ADHD are no exception. What makes them different is that if the story is told to them in the usual way, they will lose interest.
To engage their focus and attention, you can introduce them to creative games for kids with a story-telling format. These games will allow them to foster innovative thinking and ideas. Playing colorful story-based games also helps them identify and learn different objects in a fun and interactive manner.
Dance classes
An effective way to handle children with ADHD is to encourage them to dance. Many kids who have ADHD are already high in energy. They often act in a risky and impulsive way. Instead of pushing their energy down, you should get your kids registered for dance classes.
Be it contemporary, ballet, or street dancing, your ADHD kid will get to release their energy more positively. Dancing requires movement coordination and memorizing steps. Kids with ADHD always have trouble remembering things because of their lack of focus.
By harnessing the power of dancing, children with ADHD can learn focus and attention much more effectively.
Ask Questions
Asking questions is also one of the best focus activities for kids with ADHD. Kids with ADHD often take longer time to speak or can’t find the right words to articulate what they want to communicate.
It is thus essential to ask them questions about different topics. These questions can also be lesson-oriented.
When combined, ADHD and studying can be challenging for kids. Due to a lack of attention and concentration, kids have a hard time studying and memorizing lessons. Parents can engage kids in playing interactive quiz-based games.
Reading lines from textbooks is not an appealing technique for teaching ADHD children. Instead, you can make cue cards and play rapid fire, making education a fun experience.
Mindfulness
An ADHD kid’s mind is full of hyperactivity and impulsivity. As parents, you need to find ways to calm them down. Practicing mindfulness is a great way to calm them down. However, it is definitely not an overnight process.
Engage your kids in group mindfulness activities that involve vibrant colors and shapes. Colors enhance visual stimuli and make learning a fun experience.
When your ADHD children are playing mindfulness games, they focus on the characters. As a result, your kids are learning to engage and sustain their attention on things.
Matching Games
Parents can introduce matching games as focus activities for kids with ADHD. Various matching games let kids match colors with words or moods with characters. When your ADHD children play matching games like Color Match Adventure by ChomChom, it helps them enhance concentration.
This game lets children pick the right colors displayed on their screens. Kids must match the colors and shapes with the appropriate words to win points.
Matching games are children’s concentration games that require children with ADHD to focus on the elements to match and say the words with their respective colors.
Artistic Activities
Art has a beauty that can calm fidgeting souls, especially for kids with ADHD. Engaging in artistic activities can help your child learn something beyond academic excellence.
Be it clay modeling or coloring, there are various artistic activities you can encourage your ADHD kid to take part in. They can use clay and crayons to form shapes, evoking their imaginative and creative thinking abilities.
Exercises
Encourage your ADHD children to exercise to channel their powerhouse of energy. Any form of physical exercise will help them release their hyperactivity. You can give your children a nudge to take part in sports.
Playing cricket, tennis, or football will help them improve their motor skills. Engaging in exercises will also allow your kids to centre their focus and attention.
How Does ChomChom Help Kids With ADHD Focus and Concentrate?
Being attentive and focused is hard for kids with ADHD. Even the parents go through an emotional toll, watching their kids fail to concentrate. Children with ADHD tend to be disoriented, and it’s not their fault. It thus becomes necessary for parents to understand the condition and its effects on children so that they can help them in this journey.
At ChomChom Tech, we provide a wholesome package to empower your children. Our gaming platform is specially designed for kids with ADHD, anxiety, and stress. Backed by therapists, our games feature imaginative designs and interactive elements that drive kids between 4 and 10 years old to play.
Our games boast vibrant colors, shapes, and characters, allowing kids to perform different activities as asked. Through the fun of playing, we provide a positive environment for your little ones to learn and grow.
Check out our gaming platform and let your kids unlock their true potential!
