When I realized my son needed help cultivating and sustaining friendships, I looked for a social skills program but found nothing specifically for boys with ADHD. There were plenty of these groups in our area, but most featured well-meaning female clinicians or guidance counselors teaching formal etiquette and scripted communication that did not resemble the way boys talk to each other. “How are you doing today?” “What are your hobbies?” When boys speak in that way, as my son had done at wrestling practice, it comes across as inauthentic. I know this because I was a boy, and I’ve worked with hundreds throughout my career as a school social worker, therapist, and camp director who runs programs for boys with ADHD.

When kids with ADHD struggle socially, their inability to read social cues isn’t the problem. Instead, they more likely have lagging and inconsistent use of social executive function (SEF) skills, which we use to understand others’ thoughts and feelings. These SEF skills help us know how we’re coming across to others, how to read a room (or situational awareness), how to initiate and end conversations, and how to use humor appropriately.

Building Boys’ Social Savvy

When fathers call me about their son’s social difficulties, they tend to talk much more than mothers do, perhaps because this is the first time they’re speaking to another man about this challenge. During these conversations, I find that most parents don’t see the connection between ADHD and lagging social skills. (In fact, I’ve heard a lot lately about kids who were misdiagnosed with autism because of their difficulty with SEF.) I explain the important role that male role models play in helping boys improve SEF skills; and the differentiated and valuable perspective they bring to their sons because they understand how boys’ friendships evolve and how boys communicate when adults aren’t around.

I want each father to understand that his son’s emotional awkwardness, and difficulty understanding how he’s coming across to others, is neither a choice nor apathy. These are skills he is still developing, and he is most likely several years behind his peers’ emotional maturity because ADHD is an executive function developmental delay.

[Download: Solving Behavior Problems Rooted in Executive Function Deficits]

When boys with ADHD struggle socially, their fathers often resort to lecturing, telling their sons what they’re doing wrong. In turn, their sons typically become argumentative or defensive because they truly don’t understand how they’re coming across to their peers. The defensiveness is often a result of their shame, knowing that they have a harder time connecting with their peers but not knowing why.

Tips for Dads

Here are a few tactics for dads, and other male role models, to help boys improve socially:

Cite successes. ADHD brains live in the present. Kids do not think about how to cultivate and sustain friendships when they’re not around their peers. Point out situations when your child showed another boy that he wanted to be friends and kept that friendship going.

Describe healthy friendships. Say what it means to be a good friend as well as when to end friendships that have become hurtful. Many of the boys I’ve worked with were quick to latch on to other boys who showed interest in them. I’ve seen boys cling to friendships when they’re not being treated well out of desperation for friends, or for inclusion in a peer group. In my school-year programs and in summer camp, I share stories about when I was growing up to give the boys examples of good friends I’ve had, and times I’ve had to cut off a friendship.

[Read: Help Your Child Forge Lasting Friendships]

Raise awareness of patterns. Teach boys to understand how they come across to others. In Socially Smarter, my parent training program to build SEF, I depict a sequence of events: your child’s words, another person’s response to those words, and your child’s thoughts and feelings about their peer’s response. Parents can discuss why the interaction worked, or didn’t work, and how future communications can be improved.

Teach tolerance. Being part of a peer group means being flexible. If your child is invited to go bowling, he should go, even if he doesn’t like bowling. He was invited because someone wants to spend time with him. If he says “no” whenever he doesn’t like the activity, he may stop getting invited to outings because the other kids might assume he’s not interested in spending time with them.

Give praise. Kids can’t learn what they should be doing if we don’t praise them for what they’re doing well. That’s why it’s important to offer recognition of and praise for behaviors we do want, such as thinking about others, being flexible, and putting effort into social relationships.

The ADHD executive function liabilities are not gender-specific. Girls with ADHD struggle too. But I don’t teach girls because I did not have the experience of growing up female.

Just as girls need friendships with girls, boys need friendships with boys. They do not need social skills groups or role playing; research shows that clinic-based social skills groups offer no benefit to kids with ADHD. Boys need male role models to help them understand social communication and how friendships evolve between males.

Social Skills & ADHD: Next Steps

• Download: Questions to Get Your Child Talking
• Watch: The Social Lives of Boys with ADHD
• Read: What Parents Misunderstand About Executive Function
• Read: 10 Hard (But Essential) Truths for Dads of Boys with ADHD

Ryan Wexelblatt, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker, former school social worker, and father to a son with ADHD. He creates content at the ADHD Dude YouTube channel. Learn more at www.adhddude.com.

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Register to reserve your spot for this free webinar and webinar replay ►

Not available June 6? Don’t worry. Register now and we’ll send you the replay link to watch at your convenience.

Adolescents with ADHD are more likely to experience bullying for a variety of reasons, including missing social cues, blurting out in class, struggling academically, having difficulty making friends, displaying a lack of empathy, being clumsy or having poor impulse control, and associating with peers who are more likely to engage in bullying. Students in middle and high school may even believe they bring bullying on themselves due to their inappropriate behavior.

The effects of bullying can be devastating. Adolescents who are bullied experience negative mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety, that can last into adulthood.

In this webinar, you will learn about:

• Research suggesting adolescents with ADHD are more likely to experience bullying
• Predictors of bullying
• How to identify the signs of bullying
• Strategies to prevent further bullying
• Approaches to use if your child is the bully

Have a question for our expert? There will be an opportunity to post questions for the presenter during the live webinar.

Meet the Expert Speaker:

Dr. Rosanna Breaux is a licensed clinical psychologist, director of the Virginia Tech Child Study Center, and Assistant Professor of Psychology. Her research focuses on the social, emotional, and academic functioning of children and adolescents, particularly those with ADHD. Dr. Breaux is also working to evaluate and disseminate the RELAX intervention, which targets emotion dysregulation and interpersonal conflict in adolescents.

Webinar Sponsor

The sponsor of this ADDitude webinar is…

Play Attention: NASA Inspired technology that improves executive function & self-regulation. For over 25 years PLAY ATTENTION has been helping children and adults thrive and succeed. Tufts University School of Medicine found Play Attention significantly improved attention, executive function, academic performance and behavioral control of ADHD students. Your program will include a Lifetime Membership and a Personal Executive Function Coach to customize your plan along the way. Home and professional programs available. Call 828-676-2240 or click here for our FREE eBooks on Executive Function, Anxiety, Self-Regulation, Mindfulness, and more! | www.playattention.com

ADDitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content.

Certificate of Attendance: For information on how to purchase the certificate of attendance option (cost $10), register for the webinar, then look for instructions in the email you’ll receive one hour after it ends. The certificate of attendance link will also be available here, on the webinar replay page, several hours after the live webinar. ADDitude does not offer CEU credits.

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It’s hard to know the prevalence of twice-exceptionality, but a report from the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) estimates that 6% of U.S. students receiving special education services are also academically gifted.¹ Patience, persistence, and advocacy are key to improved outcomes for this largely underserved school population.

If your child is twice exceptional, did you first notice their strengths or their weaknesses? We asked ADDitude readers this and more: Did the school system acknowledge and support all the aspects of your child’s learning profile? How does this affect their academic performance and friendships? Scroll down to the Comments section and add to the conversation.

“We recognized the gifted attributes first, which ‘hid’ the ADHD until fifth grade. Teachers have high expectations, but they often do not consider [my daughter’s] ADHD when she forgets something or needs reminders because she performs well. She is still doing well, and they have a great resource department. She has a small group of friends who have ADHD too, and who are also doing extremely well in school.” — An ADDitude Reader

“My 12-year-old son has ADHD, developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and is gifted. The DCD was diagnosed first. The ADHD diagnosis came much later. Because he is bright, an introvert, and not hyperactive or impulsive, he flew under the radar. He does very well in math and reading, but just average on written tasks, which he finds harder because of his motor difficulties and his struggle to make decisions about what to write! He has always had friends but is shy. He finds it hard to initiate social interaction.” — Emily, Australia

 [eBook: Signs & Symptoms of Learning Disabilities]

“We had our daughter tested for ADHD after her brother’s diagnosis. We always felt she wasn’t reaching her full potential at school. They came back with a diagnosis of ADHD and giftedness. I think the diagnosis improved her self-esteem and helped her better understand how she learns, but she experiences a big social and academic disconnect. At school, she hangs out with kids on the fringe but takes AP courses. Her classmates are always surprised that she’s smart because they don’t perceive her that way. She feels that many of her teachers don’t, either. She’s a really bright kid who acts impulsively. Luckily, medication and therapy are helping her make better decisions and focus on her future.” — An ADDitude Reader

“Both of my children are 2e and I couldn’t be prouder of that fact! It’s difficult to distinguish which I noticed first, as both were very bright little people who never stopped moving. The ADHD diagnoses came first and helped push toward a 504 Plan. Once they were old enough for thorough testing and evaluation, high intelligence and specific learning disabilities (SLD) were indicated. Before that, though, there were areas of concern that the school consistently dismissed as typical for the age (which was not the case). Once the documentation showed otherwise, the IEP process began for the SLD need, but all ADHD supports were stopped. It wasn’t totally understood by the teachers involved why an IEP was necessary. Their “low” is average and average is what they were aiming for, but it wasn’t allowing the children to reach their potential. With administrative support at a new school, supports to address their attention and focus were added back in and things have been positive overall.” — Rebecca

“I have three gifted children. They’re all amazing, but two of them are 2e. My oldest was recognized as academically gifted in some subject areas, but the inattentive ADHD wasn’t until much later. I was diagnosed first and it became obvious to us that she had it too. It took three years of work and ‘second opinions’ to get a diagnosis at age 17, with only 5 months left of her school life… My youngest 2e child has been recognized by adults as gifted since he was a toddler. Individual teachers would recognize it, but… we had to pay for an external evaluation to get a diagnosis: first of severe dysgraphia, then combined ADHD. The school now acknowledges the diagnoses and provides minimal support for the dysgraphia during assessments only… I am extremely proud of my middle child, but I look at what she has been able to achieve at school and in the community and wonder what the other two could have done, or could be doing, if they received the support they needed.” — Lisa, Australia

“From the time he was 2 or 3 years old, my son’s incredibly bright mind was obvious to me as a parent. Unfortunately, his keen intelligence left me questioning my parenting when he couldn’t do simple things like stay close to me in the grocery store or listen when he was told not to touch something… He thrived academically but had a lot of trouble adapting to all the rules in a classroom. That’s when we knew something wasn’t lining up. He was diagnosed with ADHD in first grade. His psychological evaluation confirmed his high intelligence, but also revealed a rather low processing speed. Suddenly everything made sense, and I cut myself some slack as a parent. There is no perfect place in school for a 2e child, but he is currently thriving in advanced classes with a 504 plan in place. He has healthy friendships with other bright kids, many of whom are a year older than him.” — An ADDitude Reader, Michigan

[Read: Slow Processing Speed — Signs & Solutions for a Misunderstood Deficit]

“Both of my kids are 2e. In the oldest, IQ masked ADHD (without hyperactivity). We didn’t get a diagnosis until things fell apart in sixth grade. It was hard for my child to cope with always being ‘the professor’ who had no trouble in school to suddenly being the kid who couldn’t find homework or keep up with busy work. In my youngest child, ADHD masked her IQ, so school wouldn’t allow her in the gifted program despite testing from a psychologist. The psychologist didn’t want to ‘label’ my child as ADHD until they were in the correct academic setting, so we wasted a lot of time begging for help and cooperation while my child suffered. Now they are both getting what they need and doing well, but it’s sadly always a gamble: Will they get a teacher next year who doesn’t get them and their strengths or needs? Thankfully, both kids have good friends that got them through their difficult times. I wish teachers would be more knowledgeable and aware of 2e kids so it wouldn’t be such a big ordeal.” — An ADDitude Reader

“A few of [my daughter’s] recent teachers don’t understand her ADHD. She has been in gifted or honors classes since middle school and is now a sophomore… They don’t understand how hard it is for her to stay focused long enough to complete her assignments, which are longer in advanced classes. They don’t know how that goes into getting [assignments] done — taking medication in the morning and afternoon at the right time, being able to fall asleep so she can function the next day… Listening to music on her phone with earbuds helps her focus, but that isn’t usually allowed in school. Sending a text to her dad or I about something important before she forgets gets her in trouble. I think she’ll do better in college, where she can control her course load and have more autonomy to take care of her needs. One advantage of her being 2e is that she has a better understanding of her ADHD and how to manage it. This helps her advocate for herself better.” — Kim, California

“My 16-year-old son is 2e. His IQ is over 130, but he also has ADHD… We recognized his 2e diagnosis in second grade. Although he had read most of the books in the Harry Potter series by age 7, his teacher (in a dual language immersion school) said that she did not think he needed any accelerated or differential teaching. He has had particular issues with teachers who were not trained in the U.S. (Latin America and Europe) and his current high school supports are completely teacher dependent. His private college prep school refuses to give him any accommodations around decreasing homework or allowing additional time on assignments due to slow processing speed (he only receives extra time for tests)… Although transferring schools would probably benefit him, he is adamant to stay at this school. He has had substantial issues with friendships. He currently does not have many good, long-term relationships after starting high school and floats from group to group. He has a lot of social anxiety and difficulty ‘reading’ both his peers and school teachers or administrators.”

2e Students and ADHD: Next Steps

• Free Download: Fight for Your Child’s Rights at School
• Read: Encourage Success, Overcome Struggles
• Replay: The 2e Playbook for Nurturing Gifted Students with ADHD
• Read: Twice-Exceptional and Thriving — At Last

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Sources

¹Baird, L. L. (2022, April 20). How to support your twice-exceptional child. U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/how-to-support-your-twice-exceptional-child

Summer camp can be a rewarding and confidence-building experience for kids with ADHD. But when day or sleep-away camps aren’t prepared to adequately support children and teens with ADHD, problems arise. Kids with ADHD struggle, and in some cases, they are asked to leave the program.

To avoid these and other problems, it’s important that families know how to find the best camps for their child with ADHD, including which questions to ask, and how to support the camp staff in setting up their children for success.

In this webinar, Ryan Wexelblatt, LCSW, founder and director of ADHD Dude & Trip Camp, will provide caregivers with practical approaches that will help them make an educated decision about the best summer camp for their child, and strategies that will help set their camper up for success.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• What to consider when selecting a camp
• What questions to ask camp administrators to determine whether the camp can support your child
• How much information to share about your child with the camp staff, and how to support the camp staff
• Why overnight camp can be great for kids with ADHD, and why starting at a younger age can help ensure success at overnight camp
• About the common problems that occur at camp for kids with ADHD, and strategies to be proactive in addressing them
• Why having 1:1 support at camp is not helpful

Watch the Video Replay

Enter your email address in the box above labeled “Video Replay + Slide Access” to watch the video replay (closed captions available) and download the slide presentation.

Download or Stream the Podcast Audio

Click the play button below to listen to this episode directly in your browser, click the symbol to download to listen later, or open in your podcasts app: Apple Podcasts; Google Podcasts; Stitcher; Spotify; Amazon Music; iHeartRADIO.

More on Summer Camps for Children with ADHD

• Download: 20 Secrets to a Smarter Summer
  
• Read: Fun! Friends! Learning?!
  
• Read: Your Summer Camp Checklist
  

Obtain a Certificate of Attendance

If you attended the live webinar on February 16, 2023, watched the video replay, or listened to the podcast, you may purchase a certificate of attendance option (cost: $10). Note: ADDitude does not offer CEU credits. Click here to purchase the certificate of attendance option »

Meet the Expert Speaker:

Ryan Wexelblatt, LCSW, is the founder and director of ADHD Dude and Trip Camp. A licensed clinical social worker, camp owner/director, father to a son with ADHD and lifelong camper, Ryan creates content for parents and kids at the ADHD Dude YouTube channel. Ryan is the co-host of the Parenting ADHD podcast. ADHD Dude provides virtual parent training, as well as in-person social learning programs for boys with ADHD. Ryan and his son live in Tucson, Arizona. Trip Camp is located in Margate, New Jersey, and in Tucson, Arizona.

Webinar Sponsor

The sponsor of this ADDitude webinar is…

Play Attention: Improve executive function & self-regulation. For over 25 years PLAY ATTENTION has been helping children and adults thrive and succeed. Tufts University School of Medicine found Play Attention significantly improved attention, executive function, academic performance and behavioral control of ADHD students. Your program will include a Lifetime Membership and a Personal Executive Function Coach to customize your plan along the way. Home and professional programs available. Call 828-676-2240 or click here to schedule your free 1:1 consultation! | www.playattention.com

ADDitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content.

Follow ADDitude’s full ADHD Experts Podcast in your podcasts app:
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Difficulty with social skills can take many different forms. Maybe your child is exhibiting behavior that’s alienating peers, like interrupting or talking loudly. Maybe your child experiences social anxiety and has difficulty approaching new friends. Possibly your child has rejection sensitivity and feels as though peers don’t like them. If this sounds familiar, social-emotional learning could help.

The thing to know about the social skills needed to make friends is that they can’t be learned in a lecture. We need models. We need to witness the desired (or undesired) behavior in others, which makes it possible to notice it in ourselves. Then we use that information to rehearse new behaviors, self-correct, and try them in real social situations.

That’s where parents come in — serving in the critical role of coach.

Begin by having a fruitful series of conversations with your kids about their social landscape and their relationship to it. From there, roll up your sleeves and help your child learn, through models, planning and practice, the skills they need to make, and keep, friends. Here’s how to get started.

[Read: 7 Executive Function Deficits Linked to ADHD]

The Social Emotional Learning Coach: Activities and Strategies for Kids with ADHD

Lay the Groundwork: Talking to Kids About Social Challenges

1. Ask, Don’t Tell

Parents who see their child struggling socially often have the well-intentioned instinct to tell kids what they should and shouldn’t do in those settings, sometimes reminding them of past flubs. The trouble is, kids often get defensive and shut down this kind of instruction. So, stop telling and start asking open-ended questions like the following:

• What’s hard about going to the cafeteria? What does it feel like?
• What’s the most popular thing to do at recess?
• What happens in homeroom between the different social groups?

It’s OK if your child doesn’t know how to answer your questions. You can help move the conversation along by offering some possible answer options and asking if you’re getting it right.

There are a few benefits to asking open-ended questions.

First, they strengthen your relationship with your child by showing them you care about their perspective. Second, these questions give your child the space and impetus to think critically about the social landscape, and to become more aware of their feelings about it. They build an executive function skill called metacognition. This is basically the ability to take a bird’s eye view of a situation, to be aware of your skills and abilities, your challenges, and your past history. Maybe you have a hard time waiting for your turn to speak, or you are often late, or maybe you struggle to walk across the hall and say hi to an acquaintance. If you know what your weaknesses are, you can work on them. If you know what your strengths are, you can lean into them.

[Watch: Building Conversation Skills in Kids with ADHD]

2. Listen Reflectively

Knowing how to ask the right questions is the first step. Just as important, though, is knowing how to respond to your child’s answers. The key to success here is reflective listening. Just repeat back your child’s words or, if you can’t remember them exactly, repeat the gist of what they’ve said.

Reflective listening makes your child feel heard — literally — which is very validating and opens the door for future communication. It also gives them the chance to clarify their thoughts, work through problems verbally, and hear their internal conversation. As the kids start to hear themselves, their wheels start turning. (Another way to build metacognition.) It may take a little while, but eventually they are more likely to realize where they might be going wrong socially, without you having to tell them in a way that feels critical.

3. Consider Your Child’s Internal Narrative

In addition to understanding the reasons your child is struggling, it’s important to understand the reasons they think they’re struggling (these may or may not be the same). To do this, you need to be aware of their internal narrative.

Maybe the story goes, “I’m boring, so no one wants to talk to me,” or “Everyone at school thinks I’m weird,” or “Everything would be fine if Dad just got off my back.”

Open-ended conversations will expose your child’s internal story line not just to you, but, perhaps even more importantly, to themselves.

Social-Emotional Learning Activities and Strategies

1. Be a Social Spy

Emerging research shows that the more we watch actions and gestures, the more we remember them. This is part of why Social Spy is such an effective way for kids to learn nuanced social skills. Social Spy is a technique that helps kids raise social awareness by simply watching with intention as other people engage in social situations.

Seventy percent of social information is nonverbal, so be sure to observe expressions, habits, norms, unspoken rules, body language, and other visual cues. The more you do this with your kids casually in everyday life, the more they’ll build this muscle and relate what they’re seeing to their own actions. Don’t shy away from having your child observe people who are exhibiting problematic social behaviors, too. If they see other people displaying behaviors they sometimes exhibit, they are more likely to see the impact of those actions and make the connection to themselves.

2. Set Up Social Infrastructure

Kids who struggle socially need opportunities outside of school to build friendships. Make sure the structures are in place for them to have shared experiences with peers, and an excuse to convene on a regular basis to explore a hobby or activity that your child enjoys. This might be basketball or soccer, singing in a chorus, acting in a theatrical production, playing chess or Dungeons and Dragons, or learning to code. It doesn’t matter what the activity is, as long as it offers your child a reason to spend time with peers. Pre-arranged activities create a low-pressure environment where kids can act as a Social Spy while making connections.

3. Work Out the Kinks in a Safe Space

Home is often the best place to help children with ADHD work out tricky social challenges without the threat of consequences. Playing structured games with rules allows parents to provide a safe environment for kids to work out a lot of the issues that may be causing problems in their friendships.

An excellent way to do this is through a game I call Build a Tower, in which the whole family works together to design and build a tower out of blocks. It sounds simple, but the game helps kids practice cooperation, taking turns, frustration tolerance, and celebrating their peers’ abilities — all skills they’ll need for their friendships to thrive.

Social Emotional Learning for Kids with ADHD: Next Steps

• Read: Raise Socially Adept ADHD Kids – Parenting Help for Social Skills
• Learn: Educational Apps for Kids That Teach Social Skills
• Download: Social Anxiety Facts and Falsehoods – Free ADHD Resource

The content for this article was derived from the ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Why Will No One Play With me? Social Emotional Training for Teachers and Parents of Kids with ADHD,” [Podcast #418] with Caroline Maguire, ACCG, PCC, M.Ed., author of Why Will No One Play with Me? (#CommissionsEarned). The webinar was broadcast live on August 23, 2022.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

The social isolation of the pandemic predictably led to rampant feelings of loneliness, despair, and apathy among adolescents in the prime of their social-skills development, and the troubling effects of shuttered schools and canceled activities continue to linger.

In a new ADDitude survey of 1,187 caregivers, half said their adolescent’s “friendships and/or other relationships have deteriorated” over the last two to three years, and that their child continues to be unmotivated to participate in sports, clubs, or other activities — even now that a relatively normal school year is underway. The pandemic’s stark and sudden interruption of kids’ social development has cast a long shadow, especially for those with ADHD who may already struggle to make and keep friends.

For many who graduated from high school at the peak of the pandemic, memories of their final years sting. “I missed out on important developmental changes and interactions,” said a 19-year-old survey respondent diagnosed with ADHD and bipolar disorder.

[Click to Read: Safeguarding ADHD Youth Against Depression in the Age of COVID]

A mother of a 10-year-old in New Jersey said her son is no longer interested in “parties or events with friends he used to hang with, and he worries about things that he doesn’t need to think about, including family money and our house flooding again.”

A Lifeline or an Affliction?

For many children cut off from friends and activities, social media became a lifeline during the pandemic. According to the ADDitude survey, 72 percent of kids aged 10 and older who have ADHD use social media today. Of those, 35 percent reported adverse mental health effects, including anxiety, sadness, sleep problems, and depression. These negative outcomes are about 70 percent higher than those seen in adolescents who don’t use social media.

Overall, 15 percent of adolescents with ADHD who use social media reportedly experience eating problems, and 14 percent have engaged in self-harm, according to the survey. The picture is even more bleak for young females with ADHD who use social media. Fully half of these girls’ caregivers reported adverse mental health effects from social media use by their kids, with 21 percent reportedly experiencing eating issues and nearly 18 percent engaging in self-harm.

According to caregivers, 58 percent of girls with ADHD have been bullied on social media and 44 percent in text messages. “My daughter was bullied online, her account was hacked, and explicit photos of my daughter were shared online,” said the mother of a 15-year-old in Canada. “My daughter went from a happy, healthy, successful singer, dancer, and actor to withdrawing from everything.”

[Related Reading: How to Protect Your Child From Cyberbullying]

As many as 42 percent of survey respondents said their child has experienced trauma, and 63 percent of those said their child was receiving mental health care today; more than half reportedly started therapy during the pandemic. Still, a majority of caregivers said long waiting lists; scheduling, cost, and insurance barriers; and a lack of local providers have made it “difficult to very difficult” to access care.

“The mental health system is quite broken,” said a mother of a child with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder. “The real help only kicks in when your child is actively suicidal.”

Safeguarding Your Child’s Mental Health

1. Ensure that your child is using technology and social media in healthy ways.

Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., suggests the following strategies:

• Watch for warning signS of problematic Internet use. There’s no consensus just yet, but this self-test could help you pick up on potential red flags.
• Quality is much more important than quantity. Try to understand what your teen actually does online/on social media, and pay attention to who they’re interacting with.
• Have ongoing conversations about online experiences. Try co-viewing your child’s social media feed, especially if they tell you that they’re feeling negatively about what they’re seeing. By co-viewing, you may be able to see the posts that are causing body image concerns, anxiety, and other forms of dissatisfaction.

2. Watch for signs of cyberbullying.

Your child might be a victim of cyberbullying if you notice that they…

• have increased or decreased their device use.
• hide screens or devices when others are near.
• avoid discussions about social media/device use.
• are suddenly performing poorly in school or are refusing to attend.
• become withdrawn, sad, or angry after being online.^{1 2}

This article covers strategies to help your child deal with bullies in school.

3. Take a trauma-informed approach at home.

Honor the four Rs of trauma-informed care:

• Realize the widespread impact of trauma
• Recognize signs and symptoms of trauma
• Respond instead of reacting by using validation and de-escalation skills
• Resist re-traumatization by incorporating stress management and relaxation skills to cope with distress

Read this article for additional trauma guidance for parents and caregivers.

ADHD, Social Media, and Mental Health: Next Steps

• Join Us! Mental Health Out Loud Event on Eating Disorders in Teens
• Read: Special 2022 Mental Health Report from ADDitude
• Download: How to Regulate Your Teen’s Devices
• Sign Up: Mental Health Out Loud: Eating Disorders and Body Image Among Teens
• Read: Q: My Teen Has Only Online Friends — Will Screen Time Limits Help?
• Read: The Social Media Guide for Teens

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Sources

¹American Defense League. Cyberbullying warning signs. https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/cyberbullying-warning-signs

²U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prevent Cyberbullying. https://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/prevention

How to Stop Bullying at School

Sadly, many neurodivergent kids experience bullying, teasing, and/or taunting. Despite anti-bullying policies in schools and national efforts to raise awareness, kids with ADHD will likely find themselves as victims and/or aggressors at some point.

Yes, aggressors. Children and teens with ADHD may not realize when they’ve crossed the line from gentle ribbing into full-on bullying. Teasing is:

• often done with humor
• is reciprocal
• doesn’t affect self-esteem
• will stop when it is no longer fun

Taunting, on the other hand, involves ill will and continues or even escalates after the recipient is hurt or asks for the taunting to stop. Taunting is a form of bullying, and it is rampant in the upper elementary school grades, middle school, and early high school years.

Bullies often target individuals they perceive to be weak, vulnerable, and unable to defend themselves. It is repetitive, purposeful, and meant to cause harm or fear through the threat of further hostility. Bullying can be physical (hurting people), or it can be done through relational aggression (starting rumors, spreading gossip, and getting people to “gang up” on others).

[Free Guide: Help Your Child Make Friends]

Often, the roles of bully and victim are fluid. Kids who feel insecure or different from others are more likely to be aggressors at one time and then victims at another. Children and teens with ADHD may become targets for bullies due to impulsiveness, clumsiness, and greater challenges navigating awkward conversations and reading body language. They also may not realize when they are in danger of being targeted or attacked.

Sometimes the bullied becomes a bully. The same impulsivity and social challenges that put kids with ADHD at risk for bullying may also lead them to take out their frustrations on others.

A bully’s motivations may include the following:

• A desire to fit in with or be accepted by “cool” or “popular” kids
• Peer pressure
• A defense mechanism: “If I bully others, then others won’t bully me”
• To increase social status: “I feel stronger/smarter/better when I put others down”

How to Deal with A Bully: 5 Steps

To teach kids to respond effectively to bullying, support them with these interventions:

1. Encourage your child to speak up in non-provocative ways to assert strength. Bullies will do a few practice taunts to test someone, create drama, and stir things up. If their insults provoke a reaction, they will continue. Your child can shut this down by standing up and saying: “What did you say to me?” or “What did you mean by that?” Or your child can interrupt the bully mid-sentence, say his name, and change the conversation. Try role-playing with your child to practice this.
2. Create an exit strategy. Discuss techniques and phrases to use to extricate your child from an uncomfortable situation. Explore ways for your child or teen to engage the assistance of their true friends in socially tricky situations.
3. Remind your child that he is not alone. Point out his true friends and encourage time spent together. For younger children, facilitate these meetups; for older ones, ask if they’d like to invite a friend over. Ask the school for help in fostering positive connections through project collaborations with like-minded individuals. Make sure that teachers are aware of the social dynamics your child is facing.
4. Help your child build self-awareness about statements, actions, or facial expressions that might be misinterpreted as hostile. Try saying: “Hey, are you aware of the volume of your voice right now? Can you bring it down a notch?” Seek out feedback from teachers about possible off-putting behaviors or habits that they notice.
5. Create a safety plan that details what to say or do to stop bullying when it occurs in person or online: whom to talk to (a friend or adult), where to go at school (the office of the nurse or counselor), and how to minimize reacting.

Nurture self-confidence in your child or teen by identifying her interests and capabilities, developing skills and pride in these areas, acknowledging her efforts as well as her accomplishments, and staying compassionate and steady in your relationship.

[Symptom Test: Does My Child Have ADHD?]

How to Become An Upstander

Encourage your child to recognize situations in which they are bystanders. Ask them to reflect on their feelings about what they see. Explain what it means to be an upstander or someone who intervenes on behalf of a person being bullied by speaking or acting out. Discuss how your child can role model prosocial behavior, inclusivity, and other appropriate and safe ways to be an upstander, such as:

• Welcoming others to join their activities and groups
• Showing kindness, respect, and empathy for others
• Walking or sitting with vulnerable kids who may be targets of bullying
• Intervening as a group by enlisting the help of other friends who dislike or fear the bully
• Changing the subject when a taunting conversation begins
• Questioning the bullying behavior by asking to do something else
• Using humor to lighten up a serious situation
• Stating approval of the victim and validating his or her social status
• Reaching out privately to the target to express support and concern
• Reporting the bullying to a trusted adult, parent, teacher, or school administrator
• Reaching out privately to the person doing the bullying to express concern, if you feel safe to do so

Most importantly, tell your child how proud you are of them when they show compassion and help targets of bullying. Help them identify the positive emotions resulting from their good deeds. Having a strong sense of self will prevent your child from becoming a bully, and it will teach her how to stop bullying effectively when others bully her or other classmates.

Anti-Bullying Resources

• STOMP Out Bullying
• StopBullying.gov
• PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center
• The Human Rights Campaign

Stop Bullying: Next Steps

• Download: Free Guide to Improving Your Students’ Social Skills
• Read: Is Your Child a Target for Bullies?
• Listen: “Stop the Bully: Helping Your ADHD Child Overcome Teasing”

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When parents help strengthen social skills in kids with ADHD, however, friendships can blossom into lifelong relationships. Here are tips for different age groups as your student heads into the school year.

Elementary School

The Wallflower: Doesn’t mix in and is passively social

Walking the rim of the playground, sitting alone at lunch, rarely invited to “hang,” these kids spend a lot of time alone. One encounter with rejection, real or perceived, will stop them from trying to initiate a friendship again.

What you can do:

Explain to your child that people want to hear from her; she matters! Encourage your child to “use her words” to express her needs. Practice conversations she will have in daily life with teachers, bus drivers, coaches, and grandparents. Encourage her to express emotions and build self-advocacy and communication skills.

The root problem here may be low self-esteem, as children with ADHD often expect alienation, regardless of what they do. Find a place for her to shine. What are her superpowers? How can she use them? Where can you find like-minded kids? It is easier to persuade younger kids to try new things, so now is the time to introduce new activities and groups. Friends build confidence and assuage loneliness.

[Download: Free Guide to Activities and Sports for Kids with ADHD]

The Boss: “This is how we’re gonna do it!”

Some kids tell everyone what to do and how to do it. They don’t adapt to group norms, take turns, or share in decision-making. They insist they are right and don’t know when to compromise or let things go.

What you can do:

When you catch your child being flexible, say, “I love it when you adapt to the circumstances.” When she acts inflexible, try to understand her point of view by asking open-ended questions, such as “What makes this so hard?”

Coach her daily in the art of compromise, discussing ways she can meet friends halfway, such as by sharing a toy or taking turns. In those moments, use a code word to cue her, or ask, “What can you do to be flexible?” If possible, she can also practice these skills with siblings at home.

Some children do not realize that their tone may be off-putting. Ask, “Have you heard a rude tone in others? How did it make you feel?” Tell her of a time when you used the wrong tone and ask her to do the same.

[Watch: Raising Socially Smart Tweens & Teens]

Middle School

The Irritator: Too much, too often, and too long

These kids keep telling the fart joke long after everyone stopped laughing. They poke, physically or verbally, exhaust, rush in, talk incessantly, and overwhelm their peers.

What you can do:

Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time demonstrates weak self-regulation, a core symptom of ADHD. To strengthen self-regulation, ask your tween what it feels like to be calm versus excited. Agree, in advance, to ask in the moment, “How do you feel in your body right now?” Practice calming strategies, such as deep breathing and havening (a technique to reduce anxiety and stress), as well as doing serotonin- and dopamine-inducing activities, like jumping jacks, running, and pushups.

Ask open-ended questions to prompt your child to reflect on actions and thoughts, such as, “What steps are involved in connecting with and making friends?” Tuning into and understanding nuanced subtext, body language, feelings, mood, and hot buttons is a key life skill.

The Over-Pleaser: Tries too hard

Some kids pursue friends too intensely and with an air of desperation. They accept whatever their friends dish out and come back for more. They assume the clown role and run themselves down with self-effacing humor.

What you can do:

These kids need help recognizing their own gifts and contributions. Feeling confident is key to feeling valued. Find a place where your child can engage and build her strengths. Talk about friendship in general so your teen will open up to you. Help her evaluate friendships: what to expect, her own contributions, how she wants to be treated, and how to use her strengths to problem-solve.

High School

The Instigator: Causes controversy and acts rude

Most kids don’t mean to be rude, but with ADHD—and its accompanying weak communication and executive functioning skills—some come off that way. Pot stirrers use drama and conflict to stimulate their brains. Even “sweet” kids can blame, lash out on social media, gossip, and tell secrets.

What you can do:

Collaborate on creating a code word to use when her tone is abrasive. Ask, “Did you mean to sound harsh?” Ask your teen to figuratively step into someone else’s shoes to interpret how her behavior might have made her friend feel. When you witness an emotional situation, later, respectfully ask, “How do you think she feels when you correct her? What did you mean to do? What do you think is going on in your friend’s life? What did you notice about her reaction to the situation? How might you have acted differently?”

The Over-Reactor: Overly emotional

For some kids, a harmless comment can trigger a tailspin of rejection sensitive dysphoria. An inability to compromise, cope with losing, and manage disappointment and other emotions can turn off peers.

What you can do:

Help your teen recognize the body signals that indicate she is having an emotional reaction. This could be a racing heartbeat, flushed cheeks, and sweaty palms. Teach her calming strategies. Create a support plan she can use in the heat of the moment, such as breathing techniques. Then, when a big reaction erupts, she will have a plan to help her reduce adrenaline and move from a heightened reactive state to a calmer, thoughtful state.

Get Your Kid to Open Up

Being told what to do makes all of us shut down. Asking your kid open-ended questions is a coaching technique that helps her to become more aware of her own and others’ points of view. It can be used anywhere and anytime to help her pause, self-regulate, and avoid conflict.

Avoid long, drawn-out conversations. Keep your questions short and truly listen for your child’s perspective. If you stay curious and open, you will learn invaluable information. Talk about friendship in general, rather than bringing up her past mistakes. Sample questions can include:

• What do your friends talk about?
• How comfortable are you jumping into a conversation?
• What happens in the hallway when you change classes? What are kids doing then?
• How do you know you have something in common with another kid?
• What makes you think someone might be friendly or approachable?

Social Skills with ADHD: Next Steps

• Download: Friendship Guide for Kids with ADHD
• Read: Building (Real) Friendships in the Age of Snapchat and Instagram
• Read: Build Back Your Child’s Social Skills in 7 Steps

Caroline Maguire, M.Ed., ACCG, PCC, is a coach who works with children who struggle socially. She is the author of Why Will No One Play With Me?

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Does your child have a hard time making and keeping friends? Should you step in? If so, when? And do what?

Finding and befriending like-minded peers who share interests can be a challenge for children and teens with ADHD. As parents, we know that there is a fine line between interfering and supporting, especially when it comes to friends. Too much support and we can interfere with development, not to mention possibly muddle all sorts of relationships. Too little, and we leave a big, tangled web of social-skills development to kids who already struggle with executive function challenges.

Weak executive functions and other ADHD challenges often trip up neurodivergent children and teenagers, but social skills can be learned at any age. Here, Caroline Maguire, M.Ed., PCC, will demonstrate the proven coaching processes that will help you engage with your child or teen to develop positive social behaviors from her groundbreaking book Why Will No One Play with Me? Maguire will present a specific process that will show parents how to engage children or teenagers in the social skills coaching process, learn how to teach a social skills lesson, and promote social problem solving through coaching. Use her game plan to coach a child of any age so they will open up and talk about tough social topics and develop key social skills.

Maguire will also describe the red flags of exaggerated anxiety and isolation and explain how to help children with ADHD manage their own behaviors and emotions, build healthy relationships, and make good decisions.

Attendees of this webinar will learn to:

1. Understand how executive function challenges directly affect social skills.
2. Coach a child or teen to initiate connection and express needs with peers and adults.
3. Identify and harness their special talents to problem solve, make friends, and build self-confidence.
4. Explore the evidence-based coaching techniques that have been shown to help struggling children and teens with ADHD.
5. Recognize the ways in which the pandemic has resulted in an escalation of symptoms affecting teens with ADHD.
6. Identify the roadblocks that can get in the way of open communication, and how to get around them.

Download Caroline’s free video, “Good Winner, Good Loser,” here.

Watch the Video Replay

Enter your email address in the box above labeled “Video Replay + Slide Access” to watch the video replay (closed captions available) and download the slide presentation.

Download or Stream the Podcast Audio

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More on Social Skills Training and ADHD

• Download: Free Friendship Guide for Kids with ADHD
• Read: Build Back Your Child’s Social Skills in 7 Steps
• Read: The Social Executive Function Skills That Elude Kids with ADHD

Obtain a Certificate of Attendance

If you attended the live webinar on August 23, 2022, watched the video replay, or listened to the podcast, you may purchase a certificate of attendance option (cost: $10). Note: ADDitude does not offer CEU credits. Click here to purchase the certificate of attendance option »

Meet the Expert Speaker

Caroline Maguire, M.Ed., ACCG, PCC , is the founder of a revolutionary Social Emotional Learning methodology that breaks down the complexity of human connection into easy actionable steps. She holds a Master’s in Education with a concentration in SEL training and is the author of Why Will No One Play with Me?, the winner of 3 awards including the Best Parenting and Family Book 2020 as awarded by American Book Fest. After several years as a highly respected social skills clinician at the Hallowell Center, Ms. Maguire formed her own private practice and founded ADD Coach Academy’s (ADDCA) training curriculum, The Fundamentals of ADHD Coaching for Families. She is a sought-after lecturer and workshop facilitator and is widely published in leading magazines and journals. Visit her website at CarolineMaguireAuthor.com and follow her @AuthorCarolineM.

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Play Attention: Improve executive function & self-regulation. For over 25 years PLAY ATTENTION has been helping children and adults thrive and succeed. Tufts University School of Medicine found Play Attention significantly improved attention, executive function, academic performance and behavioral control of ADHD students. Your program will include a Lifetime Membership and a Personal Executive Function Coach to customize your plan along the way. Home and professional programs available. Call 828-676-2240 or click here to schedule your free 1:1 consultation! | www.playattention.com

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Why do kids with ADHD struggle with friendships? Navigating social interactions requires various mental processes, or executive function skills. Deficits and delays in these skills – which I refer to as social executive function skills – are common in ADHD, and they explain many of our kids’ problems in the social realm.

Lagging social executive function skills represent a learning challenge; they prevent children from intuitively picking up on social information from a young age to the same extent as their peers. This should not be confused with struggles stemming from social anxiety or other conditions.

Better social skills begin to take root when we understand the foundational skills that cause the most trouble – from internal dialogue and cognitive flexibility to perspective-taking and understanding context – and the strategies that effectively build and support these skills in ADHD brains.

Social Skills for Kids: Understanding Underlying Deficits

Children and teens with ADHD, even if they are socially motivated, tend to have a hard time with the following skills that underlie social interactions:

[Get This Free Download: 14 Ways to Help Your Child With ADHD Make Friends]

• Perspective-taking: Understanding others’ thoughts and feelings, and how you are coming across in social settings
• Situational awareness; reading the room and understanding what you should be doing, based on context
• Responding appropriately to others’ emotions; you may come off as rude or disinterested if you do not respond as expected after someone has shared their feelings or emotions
• Initiation; difficulty with starting conversations, with asking for help, and with self-advocacy skills
• Cognitive flexibility for the sake of being part of a peer group, accepting others’ ideas, and being able to take direction from others
• Using humor appropriately

Many children with ADHD have trouble with the above skills because they struggle to “hear” their internal dialogue (which I refer to as their “Brain Coach” to help children make sense of this skill).

Of course, ADHD symptoms like impulsivity and inattention may also impact social interactions. Impulsivity may cause an individual to interrupt someone who is speaking or say inappropriate things, while inattention may show up as spacing out during conversation or appearing disinterested.

What Social Skills Struggles Look Like in Children

Lagging social executive function skills become noticeable to same-aged peers around age 7 and well before parents start to notice. Early signs often include the following:

[Read: It’s Not About Social Cues. It’s About Social Learning.]

• Acting bossy and controlling with peers, especially during play
• One-sided conversations
• Difficulty in unstructured social situations, like recess
• Difficulty keeping friends (but can make friends)
• “Smothering” a new friend
• Difficulty relating to same-age peers, but does fine with younger children and adults
• Not understanding how they’re coming across to others (poor perspective-taking skills)

What Social Skills Struggles Look Like in Tweens and Teens

As social expectations increase over time, new difficulties may emerge, also rooted in weak social executive function skills. Signs that a tween or teen is struggling socially include the following:

• Retreating into video games/social media/the online realm to escape the uncertainty and unpredictability of socializing
• Inflexibility; unable to accommodate different viewpoints, activities, etc.
• Criticizing peers; might call others “weird” or “annoying”
• Only wanting to befriend “popular” peers who are not accepting of them; may overlook peers with lower social standing
• Little to no interaction with peers outside of school; may say that they have “school friends” but not “outside-of-school friends,” meaning they do not understand the work it takes to build and sustain friendships – and their role in that interplay

Social Skills for Kids: Strategies and Guidelines for Parents

Parents play the most important role in helping children improve their social executive function skills. Here is how to begin:

1. Share your internal dialogue to model perspective-taking. This will help your child understand what it sounds like to think about others, and thus help develop their own self-talk. Vocalizing your inner dialogue will help your child learn to pause and consider how they (and others) come across in social situations. Share thoughts like:

• “It was nice of that guy to pick up the lady’s umbrella. She’s probably grateful for his gesture, too.”
• “I’m feeling a little bored right now because you’re having a one-way conversation with me about Minecraft. I wish we could talk about something that both of us are into.”
• I’m having cringey thoughts right now because that person is speaking so loudly on their phone in a restaurant.”

2. Teach your child about the importance of “fake-outs.” A fake-out (a term I use with the children I help) is when you show interest in what others are saying, even though you’re really not invested. All of us engage in this type of reciprocity. But children with ADHD don’t often understand that “tolerating” someone else’s interests, especially when that person is new to them, is an unspoken part of social interactions and crucial to building and sustaining friendships.

3. Praise your child’s efforts. Recognize when your child displays resiliency, flexibility, grit, and the willingness to try something new with others. Use purposeful recognition and praise to help your child understand social behaviors that would help their peers feel comfortable around them. Examples:

• Recognize your child every time they show interest in others, especially when they’re going out of their comfort zone. Say things like, “It was great of you to agree to play basketball with your classmate, even though I know you don’t really like the sport. It showed them that you like hanging out them.”
• Does your child have responsibilities at home? Household chores are a great way to teach reciprocity because it teaches them to think about the needs of others.

4. Help your child understand context. The cause and effect of our words and actions, and how we respond to what’s happening around us, fluctuate based on setting. A child, for example, might feel more comfortable sharing a joke with a classmate than with the school principal.

To demonstrate that people have a range of thoughts based on situational context, I use what I’ve dubbed the “Cringe to Clutch o’Meter” – a visual tool that helps improve perspective-taking in children. On one end is cringe (thoughts and feelings of discomfort and awkwardness) and on the other is clutch (positive thoughts and feelings). To use the tool, have your child note the context of a situation first. Then, ask for their perspective: Based on their words and actions, what kind of response do they think they elicited from others? Where does it fall on the scale?

5. Practice “reading the field” together. Situational awareness requires putting pieces of information together to make sense of what’s going on, no matter if we’re indoors or outdoors. (That’s why I use “reading the field” instead of “reading the room.”) Situational awareness is as much about knowing what to do at a birthday party as it is about safety awareness while walking through a busy parking lot. Everyday life offers plenty of opportunities to work on these skills in varied contexts.

So the next time you’re at the shopping center parking lot with your child, help them “read the field.” Here’s what that may sound like:

• It’s Saturday morning. This is when most people are out shopping, so the parking lot will be busy with cars pulling in or pulling out of spaces. Reading the field involves looking at the cars to see if they have their white lights on, which means they’re backing out. We don’t want to walk too close to the cars, either. We also have to read the field to make sure we’re out of the way of drivers looking for a space. When we’re in a parking lot we do not look at our phones, because if you’re looking at your phone, then you’re not reading the field. Learn more about reading the field here.

6. Extracurriculars are essential. Whether sports, music, dance, or another interest, extracurriculars give your child a chance to spend time with their similar-age peers.  Require them to participate in an after-school activity; they likely will not take the leap on their own.

7. Help your child remember past social successes. ADHD minds struggle with episodic memory, or recalling the emotions associated with past experiences. That means your child may struggle to recall social experiences they found enjoyable. (It’s why they may remember last year’s summer camp as “boring” even though they raved about it at the time.) Without the aid of memory, your child may be reluctant to engage in similar social opportunities as they arise. Tap into your child’s episodic memory by asking questions about their past social experiences, scrolling through photos, and reminding them of all the ways they had fun and excelled.

8. Don’t measure your child’s social competency by how they interact with family. Children will often act differently at home than they do in school or with peers. Many children often do not feel the need to use “good social skills” with immediate family.  They feel safest with family, and they know there are no social ramifications if they use poor social skills with Mom, Dad, or siblings.

As you help build your child’s social skills, here are some important reminders:

• Expect defensiveness and resistance. Teenagers may not be eager to engage in self-reflection or listen to what parents have to say. That’s because social difficulties are a source of shame (for anyone). You might worry about hurting your child’s feelings by broaching the subject. But remember : Your child’s peers won’t be as interested in protecting their feelings. It’s better for your child to hear it from someone who loves them unconditionally, at the expense of temporary discomfort. Avoid falling into the argument vortex or trying to reason with your child about how they’re coming across to others. (Remember that because they struggle with perspective-taking, they won’t understand how others perceive them.)
• Expect inconsistency. ADHD is a condition of inconsistent performance. Your child may make a social breakthrough one day and appear to take several steps back the next – and that’s perfectly normal. Be patient. Results will come slowly and with time – not overnight.

Social Skills for Kids with ADHD: Next Steps

• Free Download: Develop Your Child’s Self-Talk
• Read: Building (Real) Friendships in the Age of Snapchat and Instagram
• Read: How to Make Friends – A Guide for Kids with ADHD

The content for this article was derived, in part, from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Raising Socially Smart Tweens & Teens” [Video Replay and Podcast #390] with Ryan Wexelblatt, LCSW, ADHD-CCSP, which was broadcast live on March 2, 2022.

Ryan Wexelblatt, LCSW, ADHD-CCSP is the Founder and Director of ADHD Dude.  He creates videos for parents and kids at the ADHD Dude YouTube channel, provides Parent Training and social programs for boys.  

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

When kids with ADHD struggle socially, people often assume they are “missing social cues.” In truth, many kids and adolescents struggle due to lagging social executive function skills.

Social executive function skills power the “operating system” of social interactions. Thus, if your child struggles socially, we can be relatively sure they have lagging social executive function skills. This webinar will provide you with an understanding of the social executive function skills that cause the most trouble for kids with ADHD, why parents have the most important role in helping their child to improve social executive function skills, and what works and does not work to help build these skills.

In this webinar, you will learn the following:

• How to recognize lagging social executive function skills in your child
• How to differentiate social anxiety from lagging social executive function skills
• What exercises and activities bolster social EFs in children and teens with ADHD
• What hurts, rather than helps, kids’ social skills
• How to guide without helicoptering as your child focuses on social EFs

Watch the Video Replay

Enter your email address in the box above labeled “Video Replay + Slide Access” to watch the video replay (closed captions available) and download the slide presentation.

Download or Stream the Podcast Audio

Click the play button below to listen to this episode directly in your browser, click the symbol to download to listen later, or open in your podcasts app: Apple Podcasts; Google Podcasts; Stitcher; Spotify; Amazon Music; iHeartRADIO.

More on Social Skills

• Free Download: Improving Your Students’ Social Skills
• Read: Dude, You Need to Reach Out to Your Friends!
• Read: How to Make Friends – A Guide for Kids with ADHD (and Their Parents, Too)

Obtain a Certificate of Attendance

If you attended the live webinar on March 2, 2022, watched the video replay, or listened to the podcast, you may purchase a certificate of attendance option (cost: $10). Note: ADDitude does not offer CEU credits. Click here to purchase the certificate of attendance option »

Meet the Expert Speaker

Ryan Wexelblatt, LCSW, is the director of ADHD Dude, based in Ventnor, New Jersey. Ryan has been learning and refining his approach to teaching social skills to kids with ADHD for more than 10 years. He creates videos for parents and kids at the ADHD Dude YouTube channel.

Listener Testimonials

“We just ‘discovered’ Ryan and found his approach to be what was missing in our understanding of ADHD and our parenting strategies. This was really well done.”

“Excellent perspective and details from this speaker.”

“I was truly helped by the webinar. It confirmed some things that my husband and I are doing right with our 16-year-old son, and some opportunities for us to do some things better.”

Webinar Sponsor

The sponsor of this ADDitude webinar is….

Play Attention: Enhance brain health and performance. For over 25 years PLAY ATTENTION has been helping children and adults thrive and succeed at school, home, and work. Our NASA inspired technology and cognitive training courses improve executive function and self-regulation. Each program includes a Lifetime Membership and a Personal Executive Function Coach to customize your program along the way. Click here to schedule your free 1:1 consultation to discuss a customized executive function training course for you! Call 828-676-2240 | www.playattention.com

ADDitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content.

Follow ADDitude’s full ADHD Experts Podcast in your podcasts app:
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In a recent survey, ADDitude asked parents, “Does your child with ADHD form friendships with primarily younger children? What do they take away from these friendships?” According to the responses, younger playmates tend to be less judgmental of ADHD behaviors and, therefore, help increase social confidence. Find other readers’ observations below and share your child’s experience with making friends in the Comments section below.

Social Interactions with ADHD

“My son has just turned 12 and is about a year behind his peers in maturity. He has a great group of friends that are mixed ages. He also has a few younger brothers and two younger cousins with whom he plays regularly. As his mom, I see the difference in his interactions with all groups. At times, he wants to be just like everyone else his age and to feel confident and independent, but he ends up covering his inability to understand social cues by being the group clown. He thrives when he is the bigger kid showing the younger kids ‘the ropes’ and being his goofy self.”

“My 9-year-old plays most comfortably with 6- and 7-year-olds – he likes leading the pack. They appreciate his wild creativity, which can be a bit much for his same-aged peers. Having said that, neighborhood kids of all ages seek him out when they want to listen to a good story.”

“My 11-year-old daughter has been encouraged by her 9-year-old friend to engage in make-believe games with dolls and toys. This area of play is something she missed; she also has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and observed rather than engaged for many years. It has helped her creative imagination to consider life scenarios and social situations. It has also fed her ability to develop her own imaginative skills for writing stories.”

[Free Download: 14 Ways to Help Your Child Make Friends]

“My son befriended the youngest daughter of our neighbors when he was 6 and she was 3. We would joke that they were siblings. She a great model for brushing off disappointment, and he helped her with schoolwork in return. I was sad to see them move after three fun years.”

“Many of my daughter’s friends in the neighborhood are 1 or 2 years younger. She is very active and loves playing outdoors with them. These kids are not in her class at school and don’t judge her.”

“My daughter made friends with several other students who also struggle socially. Luckily, she is oblivious to the drama and negativity that orbit the girls her age.”

“My son is able to make friends with kids older and younger than him, but his hyperactivity manifests when we have friends over for dinner and he blurts out rude comments to me in order to get them to laugh.”

[Read This Next: Dear ADDitude, My Child Doesn’t Have Any Friends]

“My daughter loves younger children and they love her. She knows how to make them laugh with slapstick humor and other silliness. The only issue is she tends to be too bossy with them.”

“My son has always been drawn to kids who are one to three years older – their patience is much higher than his peers. They can create boundaries he is more likely to respect, and he looks up to them. He actually shows more anxiety and emotional dysregulation with kids who are younger than him, maybe because he feels the pressure of responsibility.”

Improving Social Interactions with ADHD: Next Steps

• Learn: How to Make Friends – a Guide for Kids with ADHD (and Their Parents, Too)
• Free Download: Educational Apps That Build Social Skills
• Read: Will My Child Ever Have a Best Friend?

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What Causes Poor Social Skills in Children with ADHD?

Some parents fear that if they don’t supervise, cajole, suggest alternatives, and remind their child not to say or do things, they will be destined to a life without friends.

Making and keeping friends is tough for some children with ADHD. While your child has strengths, it is the weak executive functions — the management system of the brain — that affect their social skills. These brain-based processes determine how they behave in social situations.

After a year of social distancing, children with ADHD may need to practice being together. A year without play dates has made social interactions more challenging for all children, especially those with ADHD. Lack of practice, lagging maturity, fewer social models, and weak executive functions mean that they are struggling. Now is the time to provide children with extra support to build back emotional skills.

How to Improve Social Skills in Children with ADHD

1. Determine the root cause of social ineptness and practice workarounds.

   What causes the most disruption? Does your child have difficulty sharing, managing emotions, engaging with a friend, handling excitement, or being flexible? Once you have identified the top one or two challenges, practice building skills in real-world situations.

   [Read This Next: Social Skills Training for Kids with ADHD]

2. Beef up skills.

   Children with executive function weaknesses often need direct instruction to help them learn to self-regulate, read the room, and stop interrupting. To help your child with social learning, demonstrate the desired skill or behavior, then engage in situations where she can practice this new skill. Engage in conversations, ask her to share with siblings, prompt her to interpret daily situations, so she can cultivate the skill and demonstrate it with a playmate.

   If your child can’t manage her emotions when losing a game, play board games with her, and encourage her to use the soothing strategies you have taught her. Ask her to show you how she can allow family or friends to choose a game or a TV show. Talk about what flexible versus inflexible behavior looks like, and remind her to work on this social skill before the next play date. When your child is flexible and courteous, you can say, “Great job. I love it when you are like that.”

3. Assign your child a mission.

   Choose one or two focused behaviors to practice during your child’s next play date. If your child has shown anger, explain that they can work on controlling their anger the next time they see a friend. As you head to the park, remind them that they have two missions: to share and to take a deep breath to calm himself. You and your child should choose a mission together for better chances of success.

4. Find compatible friends.

   A friend whose temperament is similar to your child’s will help him to play better and to practice the target behaviors. But two bossy kids may lead to arguments.

5. Pre-plan the play date.

   Timing is everything when it comes to play dates. Remember that one goal of the play date (besides having fun) is to give your child a chance to practice new skills. Set up the date for a time when your child is not hungry, tired, sick, or sad. Play dates that last over two hours usually lead to disaster, as this is too long to work on emerging skills.
   [Additional Reading: 3 Ways To Develop Social Skills]

6. Control the activities and environments.

   Hosting the play date lets you remove the activities or toys that you know will cause problems. Choose an environment your child enjoys. Should you meet at your home or at a playground? A crowded park may be overstimulating, and that is not a good thing.

7. Create subtle cues.

   Rather than intervening and embarrassing your child, set up cues or code words to remind him of his mission. You can agree ahead of time that when you bring juice boxes over, he should think of his mission. When you put a hand on his shoulder, it should remind him to share more. If you say something like “What are you going to play next?” he should remember to let his friend choose a game. You can make things fun and silly by picking a funny code word, like “clown.”

Every child benefits from social coaching and practice. Each of us makes friends in a different way. Building friendships requires emotional skills, self-regulation, and social competence. If we show our children how to respond to — and extend — friendly overtures, they can build social connections.

Social Skills Exercise: “I Say, You Say”

This exercise is designed to help your child with ADHD recognize that a conversation is a two-way street, and that interrupting, monologuing, and blurting out are not conducive to a dialogue. Help your child get used to adding to or expanding on a topic. Every conversation has distinct parts: speaking, listening, and thinking how to respond.

What Your Child Can Say to Get Started

• How is your day going?
• Do you like (a teacher, a situation, an activity, a video game)?
• How was (a situation)?
• What was that like?
• Hey, I noticed…

How to extend a Conversation

• Ask questions.
• Try to learn something about the other person.
• Ask about interests, and see if you have any shared experiences.
• Comment on what the person has said and ask a question.

Learn the Give-and-Take of Conversation

Greeting: “Hello” or “How’s it going?”

Topic: A recent vacation, sports, or school.

Building on the topic: Add to the topics you and your partner have agreed to talk about. For example:

•  Speaker 1: “This summer I want to camp more.”
•  Speaker 2: “Me, too. Where do you go?”

More Strategies

Interpret verbal and non-verbal signals: Tune into body language (yawning, crossed arms) as it expresses how the speaker feels.

Listen: Actively take in information. It is also important to look like you are listening.

Make supportive comments: Say something to let the speaker know you are listening. Examples: “Oh, wow” or “Oh, that is tough!”

Use Gestures: Nod and lean forward to show that you are interested in what you are hearing.

How to Improve Social Skills: Next Steps

• Use: Downloads That Build Social Skills
• Download: Free Friendship Guide for Kids with ADHD
• Read: A New Way to Sharpen Social Skills

Caroline Maguire, ACCG, PCC, M.Ed., is a personal coach who works with children who struggle socially and their families. She is the author of Why Will No One Play with Me? (#CommissionsEarned)

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ADHD in Girls Explained

ADHD in girls is often missed or overlooked. In fact, three boys are diagnosed with ADHD for every one girl.¹ This is largely because the signs of ADHD tend to look different in girls: daydreaming in class, silliness or spaciness, shyness, skin picking, perfectionism, feeling anxious or sad, forgetfulness, emotional dysregulation, and sometimes trouble keeping friends.

Girls show more signs of anxiety and mood disorders than do boys, and girls are often diagnosed at a later age than their male counterparts. They also experience higher levels of peer rejection. This is partially because women are socialized to define themselves through their relationships with others, whereas boys are socialized to define themselves through their accomplishments or athletic prowess.

When girls with ADHD miss cues and struggle socially, they experience a delay in their ability to make and maintain friends. They want to connect, but they frequently don’t know how. They may struggle with forgetfulness and difficulty listening, but their challenges with verbal expression and control can particularly hinder interpersonal relationships. Since girls relate to peers primarily through verbal connections, these challenges can leave them with fewer friendships. While some girls with ADHD are very socially oriented, many are more likely to be disliked than are girls without the disorder.

More often than not, girls with ADHD suffer silently and show fewer outward symptoms of their struggles. Teachers and parents may miss their ADHD because the girls are flying under the radar and are not drawing attention to themselves.

[ADHD Symptom Test for Girls]

Shame is a huge struggle for girls with ADHD. They’re ashamed of their difficulties, and they’re overwhelmed by frustration and fear possible negative outcomes at school, home, etc. Disappointment is tough for them to tolerate and some girls with ADHD will do anything to avoid letting friends and family down.

ADHD in Girls: Support and Strategies

As parents, educators, clinicians and coaches, one of the most important things that we have to do is identify and normalize the challenges faced by girls with ADHD. That’s why getting an accurate assessment is so important. We want to help girls understand the brains they have and accept both strengths and challenges so they can advocate for themselves. Clarifying their executive functioning ages can be very useful in this process. Your daughter might be 12 in some areas but act more like she is 9 in others.

Investigate and set up appropriate levels of support. It’s hard for girls to ask for help so avoid their tendencies to hide what’s going on by creating opportunities for interventions that address their struggles.

Social Lives of Girls with ADHD

Because their tendency for rejection sensitive dysphoria is very high, girls with ADHD tend to suffer from low self-esteem. They take things personally and recover more slowly from hurtful interactions. As such, they are at a higher risk for eating disorders and self-harming behaviors. Pay attention to warning signs, such as isolation, shyness, and relentless perfectionism.

[Easy-to-Miss ADHD Symptoms in Girls]

Help your daughter, student, or client learn how to focus on and identify social cues and repair basic responses. So much of self-esteem for girls and women with ADHD is tied to social relationships. Practice what to say and how to say it with her. For example, if you don’t understand someone’s instructions and you need them to repeat them, what are you going to say? How close do you stand to someone? How do you ask questions? How long do you wait for responses? These are all basic aspects of interactional skills that we want to teach our girls.

Teach your child or teen that there are different types of friendships. There are acquaintances, friends, and best friends. What does a friend look like? What does a friend do? An acquaintance? This will help her maneuver in social circles more easily.

Many girls want to be friends with the popular kids, but those popular kids aren’t nice to them. We have to teach girls that someone is not their friend if they make them feel bad about themselves and less than who they are. This is very difficult to communicate to girls, because they may not want to hear what adults, especially their mothers, have to say.

Manage your own frustrations and show up for girls with compassion, kindness, and understanding. Many parents of children with ADHD have also experienced or lived with ADHD, so you can understand some of the difficulties your daughters may be having accepting it, maintaining perspective and reducing shame about it. We all have unique brains: assist the girls in your life to embrace theirs!

ADHD in Girls: Next Steps

• ADHD in Girls: Why It’s Ignored, Why That’s Dangerous
• Watch: Girls with ADHD Are Slipping Through the Cracks
• Learn: Why ADHD in Girls Is Often Overlooked or Misdiagnosed

¹ Data and Statistics About ADHD. CDC (Nov. 2020) doi:10.1177/1087054721997555

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.