Question: What expectations should I have regarding my six-year-old's ability to listen and follow directions?
Dr. Kevin Skinner: Normally, we're not gonna diagnose ADHD—I mean, it is pretty early to be diagnosing ADHD at that age. The distractibility, the paying attention, that's not uncommon. The fidgety—if the child's going—is pretty common.
So might I suggest that if you are concerned that your child has ADHD, engage them in a skill-building activity. For a six-year-old: soccer, early karate, wrestling—something that requires them to move. Left-right hemisphere movement is really good for them. Now, whether your child has ADHD or not, left-right hemisphere movement is gonna be effective for them.
A six-year-old, by the way, is—most six-year-olds are restless. They're jittery. They wanna get up. If you're a kindergarten teacher, you could go ask any kindergarten teacher or first-grade teacher: "How many times do the kids wanna get up?" "I, Mrs./Mr., I wanna go bathroom. Can I do this?" That's what they wanna do. Go, go, go, go, go. Because that's the world that they want.
That's a good thing about that—that they are active and they're moving, using their calories, they're burning through that energy. So one of the core things that we wanna do with them is help them get that energy out and get them into activities that are gonna be productive in skill development that they can use for the rest of their life. Whether that's a sport skill, whether that is some kind of—again, skateboarding—I mean teaching them that again, left-right hemisphere movement. Even things like drawing or art. Coloring for a six-year-old can be very good. Some kind of artwork, if you're willing to let them make a mess. Those types of things can be very productive.
Now, expecting a six-year-old to pay attention and do a task—they're probably gonna let you down more often than not. So the next step there is actually to do it with them. If you really want them to accomplish something, do it with them a few times so they get into the habit. "Now, I'm gonna let you do it on your own. I've done it with you three or four or five times." Now you help them do it on their own. And that's something that I would recommend.
