While there are many signs of ADHD in children, it can also go easily undiagnosed. As a parent, you do your best to guide and help your child grow. Knowing when there is an issue that needs to be addressed can be more challenging to identify.
If you notice your child struggles to control their emotions, you may wonder if your child has ADHD.
With helpful resources and courses, BLOOM meets you and your child at your point of greatest need. Discover our courses Parenting a Needy Child and Emotional Control and Regulation to begin better supporting your child today.
Signs of Undiagnosed ADHD in Children
Children with a diagnosis of ADHD are usually the ones who have clear hyperactive symptoms.
When ADHD is left undiagnosed, it usually manifests itself as a child who just gets by in school. He is working hard to succeed yet passes by with B grades and doesn’t shine despite his hard work. He is distracted and struggles to focus and attend. This manifests itself equally with boys and girls and with men and women alike.
If you find that your child is really struggling to pay attention despite them putting in their best efforts to succeed, even though you are encouraging them and working together with them to improve, it may be a sign that your child has ADHD.
It’s worthwhile to check it out as it’s a traumatic route for a child to keep pushing himself to succeed, to keep on investing so much effort, yet never able to actually succeed and please the adults around him-his, parents, and teachers.
ADHD-Induced Anxiety in Children
Children with ADHD often experience anxiety due to the chasm between what they’re capable of and what is expected of them. It’s effective to treat the anxiety symptoms first since the anxiety only exacerbates their struggle to focus.
Anxiety Reducing Techniques for ADHD Children
- Breathing. Encourage long soft exhales to bring your body to a more relaxed state rather than the shallow, short inhales that cause more anxiety.
- Trigeminal Nerve Tapping — Tap lightly with small jumps of two fingers towards the center of the forehead and then back to the temples. Use the same motion from the temple along the cheekbone to the bridge of the nose and back to the temple. Then from the temple, below the eye bone, to under the nose, and back to the temple. Then from the temple, on top of the jaw line, to the cleft of the chin, back to the temple, and then around the ears. Repeat 5-7 times.
- Acupressure: Very gently press with your fingers on the top of the eyebrows in the middle, then on the two sides of the eyes, and then under the eyes. Under the eyes are often found to be the most calming.
Effective ADHD Treatments
There are a host of effective ADHD treatments, in addition to treating ADHD-induced anxiety, that can support your child in achieving their potential.
- Activities using bilateral integration using both hands and rhythm and timing, such as the Learning Breakthrough Program, can effectively treat ADHD symptoms.
- Improving one’s balance, both static and dynamic, positively affects one’s ability to focus and attend, so balancing activities would be an effective treatment for ADHD symptoms.
- Sometimes, the distractibility is caused by sensory sensitivities, so in that case, sensitivity. When you get anxiety before a test, it's a reflexive response. Trying to talk to yourself rationally to get out of it doesn't help enough. First, you need to work on making your body less reactive to the tension you feel at the possibility of a test, whether your reaction is as difficult as a panic attack or even if it's a lower-scale anxious response such as needing the bathroom more often, dryness in your throat or jitters in your stomach.
- Strategies for Test Anxiety–if you know that your child will get anxiety when it comes to a test, there are many ways you can help them keep themselves calm beforehand and during the test:
-Make sure to drink well- a warm drink is soothing
-Make sure to go to the bathroom.
-Take deep cleansing breaths while listening to slow rhythmic music before the test.
-Try eating something tart before you start, e.g., lemon ice cubes or cranberry juice. The tangy, sour taste will soothe and calm one's nerves.
-For some people, it works to invert their head and add the step of shaking their head.
Support for Children With ADHD
Once you help your child achieve calm, you can teach them to use cognitive affirmations such as "I am loved," "I am worthy," "I am enough," "I am smart and capable.”
Whether you think your child may have ADHD or already have a formal diagnosis, it’s important to seek support for you and your child. With BLOOM’s online resources and courses, you can discover tangible tools to help guide your child. Discover how BLOOM works today.
