Planning your vacations with a child with ADHD

By Valeria Vilar, MA, BEd, LMHC

We all look forward with great eagerness to our family vacation. Some families plan trips to new destinations, others choose a quiet destination to relax, or end up choosing to visit their family or home country.

This eagerness associated to vacation time is generally linked to the desire of having a great time and storing happy memories of the time spent with the loved ones forever.

We all know that every new situation, regardless of how pleasant, generates stress both in adults and children. This is especially true for children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

I have often heard my patients or friends talking about their vacations with a hint of disappointment. Some said that their children had behaved worse than they usually do during the year. For instance, they complained about their children being much more anxious, annoying other members of the family, consistently disobeying, being disrespectful to their parents, being rude, etc.  

These behaviors caused conflicts, arguments and unpleasant situations among parents and siblings, and of course, generated a great deal of frustration and disappointment.

I thought it would be useful to draw on these experiences to give you a couple of tips that would help prevent this kind of situations.

• Let your child know about the type of trip you are planning. It is not a good idea to surprise your child with the trip without having given him or her time to elaborate on it in advance. Mark the date of the trip on a calendar and daily check with your child the number of days left before the trip. Show your child the place you will be visiting on a map. Talk to him or her about the people you will meet, what the weather will be like there, the activities you are planning on doing, etc. In this way, you and your child can create a guidebook with drawings and pictures. This will make your child feel at ease since he won’t be dealing with surprises.

Raising children can be the most rewarding task. Each age and developmental stage of the child presents specific challenges and opportunities: for babies it is to eat, to sleep and to explore their immediate world; for children to socialize and learn the basics of human interaction; for adolescents it is to develop their own identity.

One of the greatest achievements and goals that adolescents need to develop is independence. For some of them it is difficult to manage this transition from puberty to adolescence without conflicts. This passage towards a stage of greater freedom can cause sadness and stress to both parents and teenagers. This transition generates significant tension, and this is the time when parents must be prepared to act.

Starting early in that preparation is the best way to get ready for helping our kids and ensure a successful adolescence. Parents can prepare themselves or consulting with trained professionals.

In our professional practice we usually give parents certain tips that proved to be helpful:

1) Provide a safe and loving atmosphere at home, building a background of emotional security.

2) Work out the conflicting relationships among family members, in a way that teaches the adolescent how to learn conflict resolution tools, and inspire the child to act in the same way in other environments.

3) Create an environment of honesty, confidence and mutual respect starting with parent's example. Parent's actions, and their perseverance and commitment, are values that are going to fortify the young teens in their future development.   

4) Update and adapt the way you treat your kids to their ages.  Some parents have the tendency to continue with the same protecting style they were used to, and limiting by doing so, their teens' capacity to develop their own abilities. 

Adolescents naturally start to choose other important figures for them besides their parents, and they also tend to become highly influenced by peers.

It is wise to gradually grant teens independence, as a way to enhance their own responsibility and at the same time keeping discretionarily power over them, knowing what they are doing, with whom they meet and where are their favorite social meeting places. 

On one hand an excessive independence could give the youth insecurity and expose them to confronting situations that they're not prepared for.  On the other hand, an excessive restriction can produce rebellion or submission on their part, and these are both undesirable effects.

An open and fluid communication process between parents and teens is one of the bases to achieve a good relationship, and it requires persistence and understanding.

The adolescence stage can be less stressful when parents and teens work together in facing their challenges. This approach will ease and pave the road towards achieving a life-long loving and trustful relationship.

 Valeria Vilar, MA, BEd, LMHC, is the Clinical Director of Open Mind Bilingual/Spanish Counseling Center. The center is located at the Weston Town Center since 1998.  They work with individuals, children, adolescents, adults, couples and families. Additional information, can be reached at (954) 385-9550, and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by visiting www.openmind.cc