Teaching Unknowns
Unknowns can bring us fun and excitement or sadness, frustration, and anxiety.
What a combination! Unknowns are similar to the natural extremes the ADHD brain experiences everyday. They are confusing and how we react to them doesn’t always make sense. One day we and our children may handle things with ease and then Bam! We get knocked down.
The ADHD brain is moving quickly and at the same time can get stuck fixating on a thought or idea. Unknowns are hard for the ADHD brain to handle because they don’t fit with expectations. The ADHD brain can have a hard time bouncing back from change.
Being proactive by implementing strategies for teaching unknowns will help empower your child to better understand what their brain needs. This awareness will then lead to developing their own strategies for managing their response to unknowns.
Try using our favorite tips for teaching the unknown to your child.
Teach the Unknown
- With all of the exciting events that go along with the holidays, children with ADHD are bound to be thinking about “What’s next?” They get stuck on future events and have difficulty focusing on the task at hand while they sit and wonder what is to come in the afternoon.
- Help your child “Stay present” and focus on the task at hand by “Teaching the Unknown”. Teaching the unknown means to give them all the possible information they could have about an upcoming event.
- Include, where it will be, how he/she will get there, who will be there, what he/she will do while they are there and how long it will last. Try to answer all questions they may have and fill in as many blanks as possible.
- If you don’t have an answer to the particular question, tell your child how you will find out that answer. Will you call a neighbor to see if their child is attending?
The power in teaching the unknown is that you are helping your child think logically.
Logical thinking can dissipate in a second when we are overwhelmed so the process of gathering and giving your child details teaches them to do this for themselves.
As adults we know that life keeps going and unknowns will continue to arise. When we are able to take a deep breath, assess the situation, and choose from our bank of strategies our brains are in a much better place to handle all of the unknowns.
This holiday season experiment with teaching the unknown and we would love to hear how it is going through a comment here or send us an email! info@navigatingadhd.com
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