Bully-Proof Your Kids

By Laurie Tarkan

Published October 11, 2011

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/11/bully-proof-your-kids/?intcmp=trending#ixzz1aVbSYs76

Can your kids ‘catch’ your stress?

by Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Manage Your Life, on Fri Sep 23, 2011 12:29pm PDT

You may think you’re doing a good job of shielding your kids from your anxiety and stress. But research shows that your children are probably picking up on it anyway—and it’s affecting them, physically and emotionally, more than you could imagine.

“Parental stress can weaken the development of a child’s brain or immune system, increasing the risk of allergies, obesity, or mental disorders,” says David Code, author of “Kids Pick Up on Everything.” Research shows that kids can “catch” their parents’ stress, overloading their systems until they act out or exhibit mental and physical illness, he says. “Stress is highly contagious between parent and child, even if the parent is unaware of his or her own anxiety.”

Parenting expert Lori Lite, a mother of three, author, and founder of the “Stress Free Kids” line of books, CDs, and lesson plans, agrees. “I do believe that children feel their parents’ stress,” she says. “Children that do not know how to manage stress in a healthy manner will see it manifest in other areas like overeating, headaches, even anger.”

But how do kids know that something’s wrong, even when we keep telling them—and ourselves—that everything is fine? Neuroscientists call it attunement, and it may have to do with our ability to feel empathy. “Attunement is basically a fancy word for what we used to call the mother-infant bond, where parent and child are so attuned to each other that the child can pick up on a parent’s stress and absorb it almost by osmosis,” explains Code, who calls it “the mind-body connection” in his book. “It’s not so much what we say or do to our kids. It’s more about the ‘vibe’ we give off in their presence. We simply cannot fake being calm to our kids.”

Many parents aren’t even aware of how high their stress levels really are, Code points out. Between the still-weak economy and our increasingly isolated modern lifestyle, “stressed out” has become the new normal. The push to be the perfect parent is also ratcheting up the stress levels—and harming children rather than helping them. “It’s not about, ‘The more attention I give my kid, the better they’ll turn out.’ Rather, it’s about, “The calmer and more social I am, the better my kid will turn out’,’ Code says. “It turns out we were so busy killing ourselves to make our kids happy that our stress is now making them unhealthy.”

Even parents who know that they’re under a lot of stress often fail to notice that their kids’ stress levels are high, too. A 2010 study by the American Psychological Association found that one third of age 8 to 17 reported having had headaches within the past month, but only 13 percent of their parents thought the headaches were a result of stress. Forty-four percent of the kids surveyed said that they had trouble sleeping because of stress, but only 13 percent of their parents noticed it. And while 20 percent of the kids in the survey said that they worry “a great deal or a lot,” only three percent of their parents rated the kids’ stress as “extreme.”

Headaches, trouble sleeping, and irritability are common reactions to stress among both adults and children, pediatrician Dr. Michelle L. Bailey, director of education at Duke Integrative Medicine and the author of “Parenting Your Stressed Out Child,” said during a seminar at Duke University in June.

“Parents can help by learning to talk about and model stress reduction techniques with their kids,” Dr. Bailey said. She suggests that “mindful practices” such as paying attention to one’s thoughts and emotions without passing judgment can help.

“A lot of stress is not a reaction to actual danger, but a reaction to our thoughts,” she explained. “Being mindful gives children time to deliberately notice their thoughts and choose how to respond, rather than moving automatically into a stressful state.”

Lowering your own stress levels can do wonders for your kids as well, Code points out: “The lower our stress response, the fewer verbal cues parents pass on to their children, so kids’ stress response stays lower, too.”

Lori Lite of “Stress Free Kids” has some simple ideas for lowering stress levels. “Actual relaxation techniques like deep breathing, visualizing, and positive statements can be incorporated throughout your day with very little effort,” she suggests. “Explain to your children that you are calming yourself down and remember to use positive statements when you are feeling frustrated. Blowing bubbles is a stress reducer and fun activity enjoyed by all ages. With a little practice, relaxation techniques will become second nature to you and your children.”

“Not only is it fun looking for ways to lower stress for your children,” she adds, “but parents receive the added benefit of lowering their own stress levels and experiencing more joy.”

Self-medication of anxiety tied to later drug abuse

Thu, Aug 04, 2011

People who drink or use drugs to calm down anxious nerves are at increased risk of developing full-blown substance abuse disorder down the road, Canadian researchers have found.

Their study is the first to try to shed light on a long-standing chicken-or-egg question: Do anxiety-ridden people self-medicate because they are substance abusers or do they become substance abusers because they self-medicate?

Tapping into a national U.S. survey of drinking problems and mental illness, the researchers were able to follow close to 35,000 people over three years.

Of those who had anxiety disorder at the outset of the study and said they self-medicated with alcohol, 13 percent developed alcoholism, Jennifer Robinson and her colleagues at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg report in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Among respondents who didn’t self-medicate, only about five percent got hooked on the bottle. The pattern held up for people who used drugs to calm their nerves.

After taking income, age and other factors into consideration, self-medicating people had 2.5 to 5 times the odds of becoming dependent on alcohol or drugs compared to people who stuck with their doctor’s prescription.

In theory, a person who self-medicates could be a budding drug abuser without the interviewer having spotted it, so the findings aren’t bulletproof evidence that self-medication is a slippery slope.

Still, the researchers say their study bolsters that hypothesis.

They also found that people who self-medicated with alcohol were three times as likely to develop social phobia as those who didn’t.

It’s possible those people had some degree of phobia from the get-go, according to the researchers, and that drug use then fueled that.

“Another possibility is that the social unacceptability of substance use may create a desire to avoid social contact in those who actively use other drugs,” they write.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/oRI26O Archives of General Psychiatry, August, 2011.

The Surprising Habits That Can Sink a Marriage

by Oprah.com, on Tue Aug 2, 2011 10:49am PDT

By Tara Parker-Pope

Can you spot a good marriage? I was pretty sure I could, starting with my own. My husband and I rarely argued, we had similar careers, we shared common interests. Things weren’t perfect, but we seemed to be humming along in harmony better than most other couples we knew. In fact, nobody was more surprised than we were when our 17-year marriage ended in a New Jersey divorce court.

It turns out, though, that the signs of trouble had been there all along, if only I’d known what to look for. Instead, I was judging my marriage by the wrong standards—which, I’ve since learned, most of us do. In one now-famous study, researchers asked therapists, married couples, and others to watch videotaped conversations of ten couples and try to identify the relationships that had ultimately ended in divorce. The results were abysmal—even the therapists guessed wrong half the time.

So how can you diagnose the health of your relationship? Armed with huge volumes of data on married couples, scientists have identified some simple but powerful indicators that can help couples recognize marital strife long before their relationship hits the skids.

The Way You Were

Imagine a couple that go hiking on their first date. In a happy marriage, the wife might tell the story this way: “We got terribly lost that day. It took us hours to find our way back, but we laughed about how neither of us had a good sense of direction. After that, we knew better than to plan another hiking trip!”

But if the relationship was stressed, she might tell the story this way: “He lost the map, and it took hours to find our way back. After that, I never wanted to go hiking again.” Same story, but instead of reflecting a sense of togetherness—using pronouns like “we” and “us”—it’s laced with negativity. Research has shown that analyzing what’s known as the marital narrative—the way you talk about the good and bad times of your early years together—is about 90 percent accurate in predicting which marriages will succeed or fail.

Had I been paying attention, my own how-we-met story could have told me a lot about how I was feeling in my marriage. Early in the relationship, when asked about our first date, I recounted a magical evening that ended with a walk around the Texas capitol building in Austin. I often laughed about the fact that I was limping the whole time because I’d recently had surgery on my foot. But later in my marriage, I changed the story slightly, always adding, “Of course, he didn’t even notice.”

Fight or Flight

When my husband and I first married, I felt lucky that we almost never fought. But studies show it’s a mistake to judge the quality of a relationship by how much or how little you argue, particularly in the early years.

University of Washington researchers studied newlywed couples and learned, not surprisingly, that those who rarely argued were happier in the relationship than those who fought often. But three years later, the findings had reversed. Couples with an early history of bickering had worked out their problems and were more likely to be in stable marriages. The couples who’d avoided conflict early on were more likely to be in troubled relationships or already divorced.

Obviously, fighting that includes violence or verbal abuse is never acceptable. But most marital spats represent an opportunity to resolve conflicts and make things better. “We need to learn to tolerate conflict in our relationships,” says Carolyn Cowan, a longtime marriage and family researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/the-surprising-habits-that-can-sink-a-marriage-2519021/

Common Antipsychotic No Help to Vets With PTSD

Published August 04, 2011

Reuters

In a cautionary tale about the use of unproven medicine, a new study

shows an antipsychotic given to thousands of U.S. veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder has a negligible impact on the common condition.

However, veterans who got the drug, called risperidone, experienced significant side effects, including weight gain and sleepiness.

“We know there are large numbers of veterans who have been getting risperidone for a long time, and our study suggests that is not helpful,” said Dr. John H. Krystal of the Veterans Affairs (VA) Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, who led the study.

While talk therapy and antidepressants are both effective against post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a considerable proportion of patients still have troubling symptoms.

Those include flashbacks and nightmares, being revved up and looking for signs of dangers everywhere, as well as feeling numb toward other people and positive emotions.

Many vets end up with disabilities due to their mental breakdown, Krystal told Reuters Health, noting that PTSD is the most common psychiatric disorder treated at the VA.

So when proven treatments fail, doctors often try a variety of drugs not proven to help the condition. For example, close to 87,000 PTSD-stricken vets were prescribed an antipsychotic in 2009, despite those drugs not being FDA-approved to treat the condition.

“The average patient was on almost three psychotropic medications,” said Krystal. “It is a huge problem for patients that we don’t have validated treatment to address this effectiveness gap.”

To test whether antipsychotics actually have an impact on PTSD, Krystal’s team randomly assigned 267 Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan vets already on antidepressants to take either an inactive placebo pill or risperidone. The drug was donated by Ortho-McNeil Janssen Scientific Affairs.

After six months, the PTSD symptoms had retreated considerably in both groups of patients, but there was no difference between them.

Risperidone didn’t alleviate depression or anxiety either, or boost the vets’ quality of life.

However, 15 percent of the vets on risperidone said they’d gained weight over the study, compared to only two percent of those on placebo. Fatigue, sleepiness and increased amounts of saliva were also common with the antipsychotic.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first large trial of antipsychotics in PTSD.

Krystal said that unless PTSD patients also have psychotic symptoms, like paranoia and delusions, the findings suggest doctors should stay away from antipsychotics.

TALK THERAPY HELPS CHILD SOLDIERS

Another study appearing along with Krystal’s findings brought some good news, however.
In that report, German researchers found that a few weeks’ worth of talk therapy effectively improved PTSD symptoms in a group of former child soldiers from Uganda.

Currently, some 250,000 children worldwide serve as child soldiers, according to the researchers.

“Child soldiering is one of the worst forms of psychological traumatization, children being abducted, kept for weeks, months or years, undergoing slavery, torture and sexual violence, and all of this during sensitive periods of their development,” Frank Neuner of Bielefeld University told Reuters Health in an email.

“We could show that, when living under peaceful conditions, the majority of them can be successfully treated with limited efforts,” he added.

Youths who told their stories to trained local lay counselors on average cut their symptoms by about 14 points more than those who took a catch-up English course (on a severity scale of 148).

Neuner said that while some organizations are providing trauma treatment in Uganda, there is still a lot of unmet need in the rural parts of the war-torn African country.

“Part of what happens when you tell your story is that those experiences become more linear,” Dr. Charles Hoge, a PTSD expert at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, told Reuters Health.

Hoge, who wrote an editorial about the new studies, said that process helps extinguish the irrational gut-level fear reactions that plague those with PTSD.

As for the U.S., he said, one major problem facing service members and vets is that many are reluctant to seek help.

“Around half of service members and veterans who need PTSD treatment are not coming in to get it,” Hoge explained.

Although the military has placed a bigger emphasis on mental health and PTSD in recent years, Hoge said those services need to become a more-integrated part of routine primary care.

“It’s fair to say that those efforts have had an effect in improving stigma and access, but I think it is also fair to say that we have a ways to go,” he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/08/04/common-antipsychotic-no-help-to-vets-with-ptsd/#ixzz1UXbFGke0

Vets With PTSD, Government Reach Settlement

Published July 29, 2011

Associated Press

More than a thousand Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post traumatic stress disorder would be given lifetime disability retirement benefits such as military health insurance under the terms of a settlement reached between the government and the veterans. Attorneys for the veterans, the Justice Department and the military jointly filed a motion on Thursday that spelled out the terms. The settlement must be approved by a judge to be final.
It also affects another thousand veterans who already had lifetime retirement benefits, but would receive a higher disability rating from the military. All of the veterans affected by the settlement would potentially receive new monthly disability compensation.

The settlement stems from a 2008 class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington by veterans unable to serve, at least in part, because of the anxiety disorder who said they were illegally denied benefits.

The law requires the military to give a disability rating of at least 50 percent to troops discharged for PTSD, but each of the plaintiffs received a disability less than that, said Bart Stichman, co-executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, a nonprofit organization that represented the veterans.

As part of the lawsuit, the military in January 2010 said it would expeditiously review the cases. But attorneys for the veterans grew concerned about the pace in which the cases have been reviewed by military boards. One of the boards reviewing the cases was moving so slow, it was going to take seven years for all the cases to be reviewed, Stichman said. That led to settlement talks.

Timothy Martin, 32, a former specialist in the Tennessee National Guard, who struggles with panic attacks and nightmares related to his war service in Iraq, would benefit from the settlement. He said the health care benefits from the settlement would help with health care for his kids, ages 2 and 5.

“The extra money, the back pay, the insurance, it’s going to really help change our lives,” Martin said. Each of the veterans in the suit was released from the military between Dec. 17, 2002, and Oct. 14, 2008. PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after a terrifying event in which a person felt physically harmed or threatened.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/07/29/vets-with-ptsd-government-reach-settlement/#ixzz1TtvbJQBU

Report: Kids as Young as 5 Hospitalized in U.K. for Eating Disorders 

Published August 01, 2011

Children as young as 5 are being treated in British hospitals for eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, official figures being widely reported Monday reveal.

The number of kids under 9 years old needing hospitalization for the debilitating disorders has doubled in the past year with the nationwide trend being blamed partly on the “size zero” fashion craze.

The statistics show there were 98 children between the ages of 5 and 7 admitted to hospitals during the last three years, with a further 99 children between the ages of 8 and 9 treated over the same period.

There were also almost 400 kids between the ages of 10 and 12, and 1,500 between the ages of 13 and 15 hospitalized for the disorders.

The figures were released by National Health Service trusts around Britain under the freedom of information act, although the true extent of the problem may be worse — with several hospital trusts refusing to release their numbers.

“Children are receiving very pernicious messages,” Susan Ringwood, chief of charity Beat, told The Sun. “The ideal figure promoted for women is that of a girl not an adult. Girls see the pictures in magazines of extremely thin women and think that is how they should be. Body image seems to be influencing younger children much more over the past decade.”

Rosi Prescott, chief executive of the YMCA, agrees.

“As a society we are far more obsessed with body image compared with 20 years ago,” she told the Daily Mail. “Young people are trying to make themselves look as appealing as possible and they are looking up to these celebrities and models as references, even though many are not real because they have been airbrushed. They are becoming preoccupied with what they eat and developing an unhealthy relationship with food.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/08/01/report-kids-as-young-as-5-hospitalized-in-uk-for-eating-disorders/#ixzz1ToxBuB9Z

6 Ways to Let Your Kids Be Kids

By Judith Newman, REDBOOK

There’s a good chance that your child is, right now, making his own Harry Potter broomstick out of a stick he found in the backyard…and he might prefer it to the pricey vibrating plastic version you were thinking of buying him. Childhood experts and those who have studied the stressed-out are weighing in on the ways we can help our children reclaim simpler pleasures. Here are a few of their suggestions for slowing down and getting a little balance back into kids’ lives:

1. Embrace the joy of goofing around. If you live in an area where you can let your child run amok with his friends outdoors, let him; if you don’t, remember that just hanging with friends and neighbors indoors can be great too. I’ve recently adopted an open-door policy with the parents and kids in my building: The result sometimes necessitates that I wear earplugs and swill wine on a Saturday afternoon when the hordes descend, but the chaos and occasional showdowns (“You cheated!” “Did not!“—ah, the dulcet tones of 6-year-old boys) are far preferable to the eerie silence that descends when little kids are locked for hours in the world of Noggin or Club Penguin.

2. Limit kids to one or two activities per season. For her book The Overachievers, which chronicled the lives of hyper-competitive teens destined for prestigious colleges, Alexandra Robbins interviewed kids of all ages; she found some as young as 6 who complained of stress, and 8-year-olds who were carrying day planners. “Kids may have lots of energy, but they get as tense as adults would when they’re overscheduled,” Robbins says. Some parents I know are taking the less-is-more idea a step further, at least temporarily. “One semester we took the girls out of everything,” says Soledad O’Brien, an anchor and special correspondent for CNN and mother of four children under 8. With all the various activities of the older girls, “it was getting insane…and it was hurricane season for me, so I was traveling more than usual. I said, ‘Screw it,’ and took ‘em out of all extracurriculars.” O’Brien then substituted dates with her daughters: Once a week Mom picked up one girl, who got to do whatever she wanted—museum, bookstore, carriage ride in Central Park, lunch in the CNN cafeteria (a favorite). “One-on-one time is great, especially with four kids,” says O’Brien. “And a child walking down the street telling complete strangers, ‘I’m on a date with my mom!’ is really sweet.”

 3. Encourage more human time, less screen and toy time. Our children are spending larger and larger chunks of time with stuff and less time with people. “Think about it,” says Elkind. “Even with something as simple as a car ride…parents used to use car time to talk to their kids, and now the kids are watching DVDs in the backseat.” Elkind also notes that the reason classic toys like Etch A Sketch, Mr. Potato Head, and Play-Doh are still popular is that they don’t direct a child’s play; they don’t say, “Here’s the story. Play with me like this.” Instead, these simpler toys allow for more wide-ranging, creative experience. “A good toy is 90 percent child and only 10 percent toy,” notes Linn.

 4. Introduce computers with caution. Many childhood experts agree that the interactive quality of computers can be powerfully motivating for kids who are learning to read and write—and games can be just plain pleasurable, too. But, notes Elkind, computers are finding their ways into tinier and tinier hands. “There are these little computers and computer games for 6-month-olds now,” he says. “Parents who say, ‘Well, computers are part of our world’ are right. But to them I say: ‘Microwaves are part of our world too, and you wouldn’t stick one in the crib of a 6-month-old.’”

 5. Reclaim summer. The first week of summer, I took my son Henry up to a lake outside the city and assumed he’d do exactly what I’d done at his age: hunt around for frogs, stare at the dragonflies. Instead, I got “Boorring“; he couldn’t wait to get back home to open his lemonade stand and make some bucks. Now, this kid has been Alex P. Keaton since the moment he heard the words Commerce Bank; still, I was appalled that he had so little concept of the pleasures of a lazy summer day. Maybe taking him on a tour of the New York Stock Exchange a few days earlier instead of going to a friend’s swimming pool hadn’t been such a hot idea. And maybe it’s time for all of us to stop thinking of summer vacation as an opportunity to burnish a résumé. Children and parents need that hiatus to recharge. As a bonus, if you relax over the summer, you’re going to be rejuvenated in time for back-to-school. Says Julie Bell-Voorhees, “When else are your kids going to catch lightning bugs and learn to play games like Jailbreak with the neighborhood kids?”

 6. Learn to trust your child. This may be the most important parenting rule of all, says Elkind. “Children are self-directed learners—they are naturally curious—and how they learn is through play.” When Henry finally stopped hyperventilating about getting back to the city for his lemonade stand, he teamed up with another kid at the lake who taught him how to skip rocks. This being Henry, the rock skipping ended in some massive contest over who could find the flattest rock and skip it the most times…and at some point, betting was involved. But in this simple, time-honored pursuit, they were learning something about the natural world, something about the physics of water and stone, and something about companionship and cooperation. At least I think they were. And heck, even if they weren’t, I didn’t have to listen to my 6-year-old discuss gross versus net for an hour. Now that’s a blessing of play. As for me, well, this much I know: After a year of enrolling my sons in after-school programs to keep them busy, busy, busy, I’ll be doing things differently in the fall. Sure, on a couple of days they will be out and about. And I admit it’s sometimes tempting to schedule them away every day: Ah, the peace in my house until they show up at 6:30! But recently I talked about a new after-school program with Henry, and he was quiet for a moment. First he asked if I would be playing with him. “No,” I explained, “you’ll be playing with other kids.” Then he wanted to know if the program could be done at our house. “No,” I said, “it’s near school.”

“Mama,” he said to me finally, “that day is too long. And I am too short.”

I think I know what he means.

Behavior Modification

If you find that you are having trouble with the implementation, maintenance, of just needing to make sense of it all, please do not hesitate to call me I will be glad to help you develop a parenting plan in order to help establish a structure that will help your child succeed! – Sara Jambon, M.Ed, LPC ,LMFT 985-373-6156

By Eileen Bailey 

Whenever there is a discussion on the treatment of ADHD, especially for children, the term “behavior modification” will normally come up.  But less often do people explain exactly what they mean or how to go about creating an effective behavior modification program.  This is a generic term for a system that rewards appropriate and acceptable behaviors in order to encourage more of the same.  The focus of a behavior modification program is that positive reinforcement is more effective than punitive measures.

Setting up a behavior modification program takes hard work, dedication, commitment and cooperation between parents, teachers and caregivers.  The following seven steps will help you to create your own system, catered to the individual needs of your children.

1)      Change Your Attitude

Before setting any plan into action, take some time to review how you typically react to your child.  You are going to take 1-2 weeks changing your view of your child and the situation at home.  This time will be well spent and the rewards of taking this time will pay off tremendously.  Raising a child with ADHD is exhausting, frustrating and demanding.  If many of your interactions with your child include yelling and leave you feeling exasperated, you are not alone.  Spend time listening to how you are talking with your child and try to change your perspective and focus.  Understand that children with ADHD require more monitoring and more patience than raising a non-ADHD child.  Accept that you will need to provide assistance.

An example of this would be if you sent your child to clean their room.  Fifteen minutes later you check and it looks as if nothing has been completed.  Your first reaction may be to say something like: “You haven’t done anything, didn’t I tell you to clean up, don’t leave this room until it is done.”  But changing your perspective, you could say instead, “I see you have picked up the blocks, that is great, now I would like you to pick up the clothes and put them away.  I will be back in 5 minutes to see how you are doing.”  Return 5 minutes later.  If the clothes are picked up, compliment them and provide another instruction.  If only one piece of clothing has been picked up, say something like, “I see you have started picking up the clothes, good work, now let’s finish, I will be back in 5 minutes.”  It may take your child hours to complete a job that could have been done in 10 minutes.  However, when they are done, they will have a sense of completion and accomplishment.

Try to use this technique as often as possible.  The more often you change how you react to your child, the easier it will become.  You will begin to see your child’s strengths, rather than focusing on their weaknesses.  Your child will also notice the difference and where they once did not seem to try, they will make more attempts at pleasing you.  This will not change overnight, however, and it may take several weeks to see the difference.

2)      Focus on One Behavior

There may be many things about your child that you want to work on improving.  They may be talking back, not completing homework, not completing chores, antagonizing brothers and sisters or not listening.  In order to make change lasting, you need to focus on one behavior at a time.  Although it is hard to ignore the rest of the behaviors, remember you are not really ignoring, but you are placing them on the back burner temporarily.  Choose the one behavior that seems to most disrupt family life (or school work).

Once you have chosen the behavior to start with, be specific.  Decide exactly what the end result you want is, and break it down into steps, if possible.  Define your acceptable behavior.  For example, if you have chosen the behavior of completing homework and handing it in, list exactly how you are going to accomplish this and what is required.  Maybe you want your child to follow a specific schedule, such as one half hour after school to unwind, and then begin on homework.  Maybe you want them to organize their work in a certain way, so that completed homework is easy to find and hand in.  Maybe you want the teacher to check and make sure homework assignments are correctly written each day.  Create an action plan based on your child’s needs.  Target the behavior as much as possible but make sure your goals are realistic.  Try to set up the plan of action to insure successes for your child.  Write down what behavior you have chosen, what steps to take and what responsibilities you and your child will have.

3)      Pick a reward system

Rewards to not need to be monetary.  There can be a tangible reward at the end, giving your child something to work toward.  Initial rewards can be stickers, check marks on a chart, or just a “good job.”  Interim rewards can be: staying up late on the weekend or having a friend sleep over.  Place a chart on the refrigerator in order to see progress.  In the beginning, make sure your child attains goals. Compliment them on any progress, if they handed in one piece of homework but forgot the other, compliment them on handing in one and place a sticker on the chart.  If they completed all their homework, place a sticker on the chart.  No matter how small the successes, compliment them and reward them.  As you continue, make the rewards a little less frequent.

4)      Pick a consequence

Although a behavior modification program focuses on positive reinforcement, there must also be consequences.  Make consequences appropriate for your child’s age.  If you determine the consequences beforehand, you will be able to deliver them calmly.  Consequences can be such things as: fifteen minutes early to bed, no television or no video games.  Consequences should be as immediate as possible in order for your children to connect the action and the reaction.  Time out is also an effective consequence but should be delivered without reaction.  There should be no talking allowed when in time out.

Parents often complain that once they set up a behavioral program, certain behaviors become worse.  This is actually typical.  Children are accustomed to receiving a certain reaction from you and will attempt to get that reaction.  It may take a while for them to understand that you are no longer going to become emotional, but are serious about the new system.

5)      Be consistent

Being consistent is the key to making any behavior modification program work.  The more consistent you are the better it will work.  It is important to discuss what you are doing with caregivers and teachers to insure that everyone is working toward the same goal.

6)      Be Flexible with Rewards

Adding variety to your rewards will help to keep your child interested.  You can change the rewards without changing the rules.  Although the program will work exactly the same, maybe your child hands in homework all week and the reward will be to go out for ice cream this weekend.  Next weekend you might want to have a different reward, maybe renting a favorite movie.  If your children are older, they may be more interested in working toward a longer-term goal they have, such as purchasing a MP3 player.  Make sure the goal is not something they will take too long to accomplish or they will lose interest.  Try to help them find a shorter-term goal.

7)      Move On

As your child begins to master the behavior you originally began to work on, wean them off rewards for that behavior.  Then choose one additional behavior and begin again at Step 2.

ADHD Symptoms Can be Tricky

According to Health Central expert Eileen Bailey, getting an accurate ADD/ADHD diagnosis can be difficult at any time, but the fact that the disorder shares symptoms with other health conditions can make it even harder.

Click through this slideshow for more information on which conditions share symptoms with ADHD.

#1 Autism/Aspergers Syndrome

People with autism can seem to lack the ability to create emotional bonds and can struggle with interactions with others.  

Children with autism are often over-excited when in high stimulus environments, which can mimick hyperactivity.

Both children with ADHD and children with autism can have a hard time adjusting to change.

#2  Hearing Impairments

People that suffer from hearing impairments can experience problems in social situations and may have underdeveloped communication.  They may have a hard time paying attention because of their inability to hear properly.  Undiagnosed hearing loss can appear as missing details of conversations, not listening or not paying attention.  These symptoms are also common in individuals with ADHD.

#3  Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism can create feelings of sadness or depression.  People with ADHD can also suffer from these feelings, especially if depression is a co-existing condition. 

Hypothyroidism also includes symptoms of inability to concentrate and memory problems.  ADHD also includes the symptom inability to concentrate, and forgetfulness can be mistaken for memory loss.

#4  Iron Deficiency Anemia

Iron Deficiency in adults causes lethargy, feeling exhausted and irritability.  In infants and children, however, the symptoms include irritability, inability to concentrate, impaired cognitive skills and a short attention span.  Children with ADHD also show symptoms of inability to concentrate and are distracted easily, mimicking a short attention span.

#5  Lead Toxicity

Lead poisoning, even at low levels, can create a number of problems.  Some complications of lead toxicity include mental retardation, decreased school performance, short-term memory problems, inability to concentrate and decreased cognitive function.  Many of these symptoms are also seen in children with ADHD.

#6   Mental Retardation

Mental retardation can appear as emotional immaturity.  Some symptoms include limited social skills, school performance issues and needing extra time to learn.

Symptoms of mild mental retardation include forgetfulness and the inability to connect consequences with actions.

#7   Nutritional Deficiencies/Food Allergies

Hypoglycemia, also called low blood sugar, can cause a number of symptoms similar to ADHD including aggression, hyperactivity, inability to sit still or low concentration levels. In addition, some people also have an adverse reaction to chemicals in food, such as, MSG, red dye, corn syrup or additional additives.  These reactions can include anger, agitation, impulsiveness, hyperactivity and lack of concentration.

#8 Seizure Disorders

Some children with mild seizures can experience “absence seizures” lasting only a few seconds.  Sometimes these seizures are not even noticeable. After a seizure there can be a period of several hours where someone feels disoriented and confused, causing difficulty following directions or being attentive.

#9  Sensory Disorders

For children with sensory disorder, overstimulation can create symptoms similar to ADHD.  They may take risks without understanding the danger, quickly jump from activity to activity, be accident-prone or have difficulty paying attention.

10# Sleep Disorders

Although people with ADHD notoriously have difficulty sleeping, they may or may not have a sleep disorder.  The inability to get a good night’s sleep interferes with many daytime activities. People that lack sleep can have a hard time concentrating, communicating, following directions, and may suffer decreased short-term memory.  People with ADHD may experience many of these symptoms, unrelated to getting a good night’s sleep.