I think an important conversation that is rarely held is how to support your child with ADHD in sports. As a parent, you just want your child to have fun, excel if they are able to excel, gain the various benefits one can gain from a sport or team sport, socialize with other children, and gain physical exercise.
Many of you may be experiencing your child on a team that has a volunteer coach or others may be experiencing a paid coach. Either way, many of these individuals do not or would not truly understand ADHD and how it impacts a child’s behavior in sports. Not to mention, that every child has their own unique way of displaying ADHD traits. There are certainly scenarios when children may be very focused and more disciplined if they have a passion and talent for the sport. However, in other situations your child may become unfocused, distracted or distracting, show wavering motivation, or have difficulty managing their frustration or disappointment during practices and/or games.
Issues that occur when a coach doesn’t understand ADHD is that your child seems to get punished more often due to their behaviors. For example, they may have to run laps or get called out for their behaviors. Much of this may be natural consequences, however, the coach may not understand other strategies that could be used such as proximity control (standing close to the child) when giving directions.
Another issue that occurs is that the coach just ignores or overlooks your child because they are focusing more on children who seem more attentive, serious, and focused. This can be very frustrating, especially if your child has more potential, but their ADHD challenges are interfering. In this situation, a parent often feels like they just want their child to have a fair chance.
If this is something you are experiencing, join me for a free webinar to discuss these issues on Wednesday, October 14th at 12 PM CST
Just go to “Events” on this webpage to register and join.
