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Every time you complain to someone about how active your child is and how he seems to be having infinite amount of energy, you are probably greeted with a knowing smile and a generalized “all kids are like that” or “kids will be kids” statement. However, you have seen other kids – you are sure there is a difference between other kids’ naturally active behavior and your child’s hyperactive one.
So, stop listening to generalizations and downplays. There is no doubt that it is very challenging to cope up with and engage a hyperactive child.
First step is to understand the reason for your child’s hyperactivity. Some kids are hyperactive by nature, while others are hyperactive to draw attention from parents. The latter is a trickier situation, so let us look into that first:
Sometimes, kids are hyperactive because they feel they do not get enough attention from their parents. The hyperactivity arising from this is called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Since ADHD requires behavioral therapy, as a step 1, you need to evaluate if your child has ADHD.
Kids with ADHD are generally very impulsive, they have problems staying still and paying attention and they find it difficult to follow instructions. They also exhibit other inappropriate behaviors such as interrupting conversations repeatedly, running in the halls and general disobedience. ADHD children also tend to be disorganized, distracted, or forgetful, often unable to make friends, and often loose things. They tend to exhibit the emotions of anger, desperation, sadness, and frustration.
We know! This sounds like ALL kids, right? Every child tends to demonstrate this kind of behavior once in a while, and it does not imply ADHD. This is why ADHD goes unrecognized in smaller kids as most of them are prone to such restlessness and short attention spans.
So how can you be sure? Before you even see a doctor, monitor your child. See if the behavior is “once in a while” or “always“. If the child exhibits difficulty to concentrate both at school or home consistently then you might want to talk to his doctor about ADHD. Once the doctor or a specialist confirms ADHD, then there are many ways of dealing with this including medications that help kids pay attention and behavioral therapies that help them control their behavior. Some kids are advised to take medicines, which will control the symptoms of ADHD. These medicines do not do away with ADHD, but help kids do better in life. These kids are also taught to deal with their intense emotions, coupled with relaxation techniques.
If your child does not have ADHD, then read on for 10 ways to handle hyperactivity.
Some people feel that eating too much sugar causes over activity and energy in kids. However, the link between sugar and hyper activity has not been established by science, and the space of research in the field is vastly not yet explored. However, sugar is anyway not a very great thing to gorge on, ADHD or no ADHD. Eliminating sugar from his diet will not help, so do not just get obsessed by cutting it on. ADHD however, is found to run in families, so genetics probably have a role to play.
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