Summary

Teaching Life Skills to Children and Teens with ADHD describes the Life Skills Program created by author Vincent J. Monastra at his ADHD clinic.

When children have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), even if their medication smoothes out the worst of the bumps, they still may have a lot of trouble in social situations like school. Teaching Life Skills to Children and Teens with ADHD features practical strategies for helping children and teens develop essential life skills at home, school, or in a support group setting.

Some of these skills include:

• Engaging others in conversations
• Seeking out confidence-building experiences
• Responding appropriately to teasing
• Establishing friendships and social networks
• Trying group activities to avoid isolation
• Developing healthy eating, sleeping and exercise habits
• Solving problems and getting organized
• Showing sensitivity to others’ emotions

Each chapter includes exercises to help you teach, model, and guide your child in trying out these skills. Interactive checklists, quizzes, and guided journal entries are provided as tools for reflection and for engaging children and teens in ways that are interesting and fun.

Author Biography

Vincent J. Monastra, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and director of the FPI Attention Disorders Clinic in Endicott, New York. During the past 25 years, he has conducted a series of studies involving thousands of individuals with disorders of attention and behavioral control. He is the coinventor of a quantitative electroencephalographic (QEEG) process that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in the diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a pioneer in the development of parenting and EEG-based attention training procedures, and the author of numerous scientific articles and book chapters. The first edition of his book Parenting Children With ADHD: 10 Lessons That Medicine Cannot Teach (2005) was named Parenting Book of the Year by IParenting, and his book Unlocking the Potential of Patients With ADHD: A Model for Clinical Practice (2008) provides a model for comprehensive, effective, and practical community-based care for patients with ADHD. His skills as a master diagnostician and therapist have been internationally recognized and are archived in several educational videotaped programs, including Working With Children With ADHD (2005). He has been a faculty member of Wilson Hospital's Family Practice Residency Program; the Department of Psychology at Binghamton University; and, most recently, the Graduate School of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Marywood University. Dr. Monastra is the recipient of several scientific awards, including the President's Award and the Hans Berger Award from the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback for his seminal research into the neurophysiological characteristics of ADHD and his groundbreaking study on EEG biofeedback. He was listed among the country's most innovative researchers in the Reader's Digest 2004 edition of "Medical Breakthroughs."

Introduction

Life Lesson 1. Succeeding in Life Isn't Easy, but It Starts Out Simple: Eat, Sleep, and Exercise
Life Lesson 2. Making Yourself Heard by Staying Calm
Life Lesson 3. Getting What You Want in Life Without Getting Into Trouble
Life Lesson 4. Being Confident, Part 1: Master Something That Matters to Your Peers
Life Lesson 5. Being Confident, Part 2: Face Your Fears
Life Lesson 6. Finding Out What Others Like to Talk About
Life Lesson 7. Sometimes Making Faces Can Be a Good Idea
Life Lesson 8. Ignoring Teasing Will Not Make It Go Away
Life Lesson 9. Every Day, Find Ways to Show Appreciation
Life Lesson 10. Kindness Is Contagious
Life Lesson 11. Organization Is Not a Four-Letter Word!
Life Lesson 12. Persistence Pays Off

Final Thoughts: A Personal Perspective

Supplemental Resources

Index

About the Author

About the Cartoonists

Supplemental Materials

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