I wanna start with, uh, a question about,
um, A DHD.
It says, my son has has a DHD
and has always been my Jekyll and hide.
How do I help him with his emotional regulation
when things don't go his way?
His meltdowns often occur when he feels bored.
Hmm. So, okay, so there's two or three components there.
The one is the A DHD, the other is Dr.
Jeko, Mr. Hyde type of a concept.
And, and, and, and then emotional regulation,
which we can put all of that together.
And one of the core goals for,
for this parent would be helping the child
with emotional regulation.
And I'm gonna go back to something
that we talk about on parent guidance.
It's a course on, on just understanding A DHD
and the tendencies of it.
But, but A DHD in of itself, Michelle,
uh, the mind is racing.
It, it can't, it doesn't really slow down.
And it's looking for what we might say, uh, hyper arousal,
the fastest, the most intense,
by the way, did you see the squirrel?
And, and so it's easily distracted.
Now, the research on this is, is, is growing evidence,
a body of evidence that children
with A DHD do much better if they're able to use left,
right hemisphere activities, especially,
uh, throughout the day.
So it's not just a one time, uh,
they're gonna benefit from anything
that's moving their hands.
Uh, they are gonna do better in, in courses
where they can use their hands, like woodwork plays,
where they're moving, uh, exercising.
One of the better things
that we know is left right hemisphere activities,
like maybe parents might like, like this as much,
but skateboarding, anything that requires a movement
of right, left tennis, um,
that hand-eye coordination can be very beneficial.
So the exercises that, that a child
with A DHD engage in, uh, for example, the research shows
that while running is good, it may not be as good
as something like karate
that requires left right hemisphere movement.
So it's understanding that anything that activates the brain
and in encouraging a left meaning left right hemisphere
movement may be some
of the most beneficial things for children.
And, and the book I'm referring to, there is a book, uh,
John Rady, R-A-T-E-Y, called Spark.
He talks about the benefits of exercise,
has a whole chapter in that book on the benefits
of exercise, how it helps our minds.
And that's actually true for all of us.
If you notice people as they get older,
gravitate more towards fixing up things, moving
with their hands, something that's with their hands.
So I, I would probably, my first, uh, part
of the answer would be that the second part,
emotional regulation, I'm going to guess
that when your child is in a,
I'm gonna call it A-A-D-H-D groove, now
that's a term you probably won't hear anywhere.
It's just they're in a a DH ADHD mindset. They're fixated.
It, it, it's their mind's focused.
If you interrupt them in that, that's probably
where you're gonna get more of their anger.
And, and so being a sensitive
or aware of this, is this a good time, uh,
maybe a good starting point,
but helping your child recognize that there are times
where we have to prepare to shut down
that A DHD focused mind.
Because A DHD may be a lot of different array of things
that they're doing, but when they're hyper-focused,
that's when we don't interrupt them very.
If we do, we're not gonna get a good outcome
because they're gonna be upset or irritated.
So just generally speaking, hey, we're gonna need
to shut down in five minutes or 10 minutes.
Five minutes. Okay, now it's time to shut down.
You've given them a preemptive awareness
that there's gonna be a timeframe,
and now it's time for us to go.
I've, we've been talking about it. Okay. Okay. Okay.
So, so I would suggest that you're gonna wanna preempt, uh,
uh, anything that's sudden there, if,
especially if they're fixed on something that they're doing,
it will be much more effective
because it's not disrupting them as much.
Now, that's one concept.
The other part you brought up is emotional regulation.
Some of my favorite tools,
and this is gonna cover probably many
of the questions tonight.
Emotional regulation may be the most important skill
we can all learn.
This isn't just for children
or adolescents, this is something
that we all can learn from emotional regulation.
The ability to, so to speak,
turn up our own emotional thermostat is a skill
that takes time and it's learned.
And I'll share a little bit more about
that a little bit later on.
But for now, that, that learning how to shut it down, uh,
a really simple exercise, what I would refer to as the basic
exercise, if you'll go, uh, online,
type in the basic exercise, it's a great strategy to help,
uh, access our emotional breaks of the brain.
And I'll leave it there with that answer, Michelle.
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