Friendship and ADHD
“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden”
Friendship. It is one of those things that can make a huge difference in all of our lives. Friendship can mean companionship, support, a sense of belonging, increased well-being, and a place to feel accepted.
We know that social skills and friendships can be a struggle for many kids with ADHD. Some kids with ADHD have a hard time making friends, some have a hard time maintaining friendships, and others may choose friends that are a negative influence. So what do we do about this when we know how beneficial positive friendships are to our kids' lives?
We had Guest Expert Katelyn Mabry, an ADHD Coach, Educator and Author, into Shift Your Thinking for a live call to talk to us all about Friendships and ADHD. Katelyn discussed friendships from a variety of different angles, and we are going to share a few of the highlights with you.
Katelyn discussed the importance of positive friendships, and helping our kids to understand the different types of friendships in their lives. She shared a strategy of using a “colour” system to discuss friendships with your child.
Green light friends: are those that are safe, that you trust, that build you up, affirm you and make you feel good.
Yellow light friends: you have to be cautious with them, you may not be able to trust them all of the time (i.e. maybe sometimes they make fun of you or don’t support you)
Red light friends: these are toxic friendships that bring you down, suck the energy out of you, and take some of your joy from you.
When we talk to our kids about their friends, the colour-coded system is a simple way to visually take a step back to reflect on the friends in our lives and which category they fit into.
Katelyn also discussed the need to help our kids with ADHD to navigate their friendships. We can get into the mindset of “they will figure it out” when it comes to struggles with their friends, but we need to consider that they might be chasing the wrong people, they might be in red light friendships (and not know it) and what is happening to sabotage their friendships may not be obvious to these kids.
As adults in their lives, here are some tips to help our kids:
Facilitate: help to teach and coach your kids through the process of making friends and dealing with struggles within friendships. Don’t assume they know how to make friends, what is going wrong in friendships etc.
Empathize: let your child know that you are there to listen, and try to help them feel seen and heard. Struggles with friendships in those that have ADHD is not a set part of the diagnostic criteria, but is a real thing that can cause real distress.
Brainstorm: help your child to reflect on what is happening in their friendships, what good friends act like, how they can be a good friend, and what they may need to help navigate friendships.
Problem-solve: help your child to dive a little deeper to understand the reasons and causes for issues they may be experiencing within their friendships. Help them to look for evidence when they are feeling sensitive around things such as assumed rejection, and encourage them to communicate with their friends when they are uncertain.
Love/support: be there for your child, and do what you can to build them up (such as feeding them strength based characteristics about themselves).
Starting as early as we can to help our kids to navigate, understand, and communicate about friendships, the better they will be set up to have strong, positive friendships. And of course, having the support and camaraderie of friends leads to increased well-being for your child (and isn’t that one of the best goals?!?).
If you would like to learn more, you can find this Masterclass about ADHD and Friendships with Katelyn Mabry in our FREE SYT Support Library.
We also have another Masterclass about ADHD called “Is it just ADHD or something more” with The Childhood Collective, and we have lots of information about topics related to ADHD within our SYT Support Library (sign up at the bottom of the SYT Support Library page to receive a link via email with access to all of our masterclasses and expert content for free).