How Treating Toddlers or Preschoolers with AD/HD

Involves Parents or Caregivers

written by: Grace Yong
November 15 , 2003

Introduction

This paper is about toddlers/preschoolers with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) and parents’ involvement in treating AD/HD. Children with AD/HD are common and studies show that AD/HD in children is causing more parental stress than any other disorder. Also, studies indicate that children who develop AD/HD usually do so before the age of 6. Due to the fact that toddlers and preschoolers are still in the process of the development of various abilities, such as language, interaction with others and emotion regulation, it is not uncommon for them to show signs of AD/HD symptoms. This means that if children already have AD/HD when they are born, they will display symptoms of AD/HD during the various developmental stages of early childhood. During these developmental stages, children with AD/HD can benefit from learning and adjusting the deficits in their abilities through the influence of the environment, i.e., the contribution of their parents or caregivers in modifying the children’s cognitive and behavioral processes. Parents and caregivers play a significant part in helping children avoid further development of AD/HD in later years.

Toddler/preschooler emotion regulation

Bee, H. (1997) states that children at the toddler developmental stage have the ability to recognize facial expressions in situations that convey such emotions as: happy, sad, mad, loving and scared. They begin to understand the links between other people’s emotions and their circumstances. Also at this stage, children learn to regulate their own expression of emotions. When an infant is upset, the parents regulate the infant’s emotions by cuddling or soothing the child; as the child grows older, she regulates her own emotions. This is how a child learns from the parents about social rules regarding specific emotional expressions. This involves certain behaviour modifications, such as the child’s learning to constrict emotions like anger, how to express it appropriately, and how to conceal some emotions so as to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. Children at this developmental stage also learn to use their own emotional expression to get things they want, by crying or smiling as needed. (p. 177).