ADHD Kids May Need Help in Recognizing Emotions in Others
Posted By: Dr. Robert Myers
Category: ADHD/ADD, Child Behavior, News
Comments: 5
Have you ever been in a situation in public where your ADHD child continues to annoy others (or you) with their inappropriate behavior, even though you’ve given them every cue that they should stop? A recent study* conducted by The University of Western Australia found that ADHD boys had a hard time correctly identifying the emotions of facial expressions in drawings they were shown.
|
So if you’re the parent of an ADHD kid, be aware of the fact that your child might not be picking up on a lot of non-verbal cues that most of us take for granted. He or she could be reading something entirely different into a facial expression–or perhaps not reading anything into it at all! One way to tackle this problem with your child is by using drawings and photos of people or characters. Ask your child what emotion the person is displaying in the photo, and talk about it together. This can be done while reading a picture book or magazine, or looking through a family photo album. Point out the expressions of the people you see, and ask your child how you think that person is feeling. There are other resources for this activity as well. For example, the pbskids.org website has a game in its “Arthur” section that gives younger kids points for correctly identifying what emotion a character from the show is feeling.
When I developed the Total Focus program, I made sure to provide materials to help kids learn how to properly identify facial expressions as part of the “Social Skills” module. The good news for parents is, Your ADHD child can be taught to properly interpret facial expressions–one of the first steps to stopping inappropriate behavior.
5 Responses
If you find any comments that are rude or inappropriate, please contact us immediately.
Leave a Comment
The Empowering Parents Blog values your opinions and encourages you to add your comments to this discussion. Wherever possible, we will post comments exactly as they come in. We reserve the right to edit comments for clarity, exclude questionable matters, and delete off-topic comments. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for us to respond to every question posted on our blog. Empowering Parents encourages its readers to participate by weighing in with suggestions and advice.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:12 am
This explains why my son’s behavior doesn’t stop even when I give him the evil eye. I’m going to try working with him on it. Thanks!
June 28th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I have noticed this pattern. I have gone with a mirror and pictures to shown them but it doesn’t make much of a difference in my kids.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:12 am
So true, turns out in addition to ADHD my 10 year old was diagnosed a year ago as being on the autistic spectrum as well. Can’t figure out facial expressions, social cues.
We’ve been saying “my face is here, look at me when you (I) talk since he was a toddler!
July 29th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
All your articles are very true i have been doing a lot of them in the past and even now. It does not work as well as you make it sound. i have a 16 yr old that i have been struggling with the last 3 years bad, before that it seemed like we were getting some where,wrong. do you have any solid critical advice for older children that think they know it all, can and do do it all or when, whatever they want because”you can’t stop me, touch me make me”, i am always bribing begging demanding, and promising, sometimes threatening, i have done it all and it just doesn’t seem to get easier. i always think he is almost 18, but so what does that mean i want to help him and fix him, not dump him. We have been to councelors also. Can you help us?
July 29th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Oh My Goodness! I am (severe) ADHD. This is why I understand my three severely AHDH children so well (there could be a fourth one the horizon but the jury is still out on him…he’s too young to be formally diagnosed. My youngest is the only one of the four that belongs to my current husband…and, not only is he not ADHD, his only gear is…reverse. He is horrified at the prospect of having had an ADHD child. The blended family that we have right now is nearly sucking the life out of me, because the kids and I are constant defending ourselves and apologizing for our behaviour (such as…not identifying when my husband is upset or aggravated…just as you mention in this article). I need a Total Transformation program for him! Because I am afraid that he will not bond with or understand the son that we have together. We are already tiptoe on eggshells around him. Our “loudness” and extreme “busy” mode has literally caused him to have anxiety issues!!! It’s becoming miserable…sigh.