ADHD Family Coaching
ADHD Family Coaching helps families experiencing ADHD challenges to better understand and develop positive patterns of communication.
Families living with ADHD tend to experience higher than average every day life stress, misunderstanding and personal unhappiness causing ineffective communication patterns which can be more difficult to overcome than for other families. ADD Insights family coaching begins by focusing on communication between ADHD couples in both their married role and their parent role. Parental understanding for how they set the tone for communication in the family is critical to the success of the program. Teens and younger children receive focused care directed at their level of maturity and development. At appropriate junctures, all family members come together to practice with each other what they are learning in their individual coaching programs.
The goal of the program is to help each family member better understand his or her own feelings, motivations and needs as well as the feelings, motivations and needs of the other members of the family. Family members are then taught alternative ways of communication based on these new understandings. In particular, families are helped to understand the value of taking time to listen to each other and talk through misunderstandings. In some cases, this will require parents to set aside time for family meetings to discuss issues. In other cases parents will need to create opportunities for the family to engage in mutual time together such as eating, relaxing, or engaging in fun activities with each other. In today’s hectic world we must work hard to plan time to be together so we can keep the positive communication flowing.
At ADD Insights we have created a model we use with our families called “ADHD Family Success Coaching”: or AFSC©. Using this model we are able to:
- Get to know each family member and their unique perspective on their family.
- Work individually with members to promote understanding of family dynamics
- Intervene in issues between members as they practice new ways of interacting
- Provide support structures the family can use to communicate better as a whole
It is our experience that when we build on the positive functional communication and love for each other that already exists within the family, we can replace even long standing negative response patterns. Using the AFSC© Model has allowed ADD Insights to help families go from frustration and helplessness to understanding and hopefulness.
