Effective Behavioral Treatments and Therapies for ADHD in Children

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• Behavioral ADHD Treatment Effectiveness
• Nurtured Heart Approach for ADHD
• Success Story: Tucson School Transformation
• The Role of Sports and Exercise in ADHD
• Choosing the Right Activity for ADHD
• Full Transcript

Behavioral ADHD Treatment Effectiveness

Behavioral treatment for ADHD is a powerful first-line intervention. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD, emphasizes that how parents and teachers react to a child's behavior is crucial for success. He states that changing parenting styles can have an effect that equals the efficacy of medications, supplements, or dietary changes.

This approach can significantly decrease the need for pharmaceutical treatments like Ritalin. Dr. Anton Titov, MD, highlights that a medical second opinion can confirm an ADHD diagnosis and help choose the best treatment plan, which should often include behavioral strategies before pharmacology.

Nurtured Heart Approach for ADHD

The Nurtured Heart Approach is a specific behavioral method highly recommended by Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. Its core principle is positive reinforcement, actively noticing and praising a child when they do something correctly. This is vital because children with ADHD often receive excessive negative feedback.

The approach has three key parts. First, provide intense positive feedback for good behavior. Second, implement consistent, predictable discipline consequences without yelling or lecturing. Third, use a reward system to incentivize correct behavior. Dr. Newmark has observed dramatic improvements in many children when these principles are applied consistently.

Success Story: Tucson School Transformation

The power of the Nurtured Heart Approach was demonstrated dramatically at a school in Tucson. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD, recounts how the principal implemented this behavioral treatment for ADHD school-wide. This school was in a lower-income area and was performing very poorly before the intervention.

Within a couple of years, the entire school transformed. The number of children diagnosed with special education needs decreased. The use of medications like Ritalin among students also dropped significantly. The school's academic performance improved so much that it earned a "performing plus" designation from the state of Arizona.

The Role of Sports and Exercise in ADHD

Physical exercise is a critical component of non-pharmacological ADHD treatment. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD, explains that it is especially important for hyperactive children to burn off energy. Furthermore, extracurricular activities provide essential opportunities for children with ADHD to experience joy and success in areas where they excel, which is often not the case in a traditional school setting.

Activities like martial arts, karate, yoga, and meditation can be particularly beneficial. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD, notes that these disciplines help develop self-control and focus. Emerging clinical trials are beginning to show that practices like yoga can be helpful for managing ADHD symptoms, offering a world of treatment options beyond medication.

Choosing the Right Activity for ADHD

Selecting the right sport or activity is highly individual for a child with ADHD. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD, advises that the best choice depends on the child's unique interests and needs. As a general rule, children with ADHD often struggle with team sports that have complex rules and long periods of inactivity, such as baseball.

They tend to excel in activities that offer constant engagement and individual movement, like tennis. The most important factor is to let the child choose a sport they genuinely enjoy. This ensures they stay engaged and receive the positive reinforcement and confidence boost they need, making the activity a successful part of their overall behavioral treatment plan.

Full Transcript

Behavioral treatment of ADHD can be as effective as medications. The "nurtured heart" method is very useful to treat ADHD. A leading expert in holistic treatment of ADHD in children shares his vast experience. Behavioral therapy for children with ADD can decrease the need for medications.

Behavioral treatment for ADHD: the nurtured heart approach has been successfully used to treat ADHD. Behavioral therapy for children with ADD is effective in decreasing doses or eliminating the need for medications. Parents and physicians should include behavioral treatment for ADHD in any therapy plan.

Behavioral treatment for ADHD has to be tried before pharmacological therapy. A video interview with a top expert in holistic treatment of ADHD: "ADHD Without Drugs," a book by Dr. Sanford Newmark. ADHD behavior modification can help kids who have disciplinary problems at school and at home.

A medical second opinion confirms that the diagnosis of ADHD is correct and complete. A medical second opinion also helps to choose the best ADHD treatment for a child. Behavior therapy for ADHD kids can succeed in reducing the dose and duration of pharmaceutical treatment.

Behavioral treatment for ADHD is very important. The nurtured heart approach was tried at a Tucson school, and the results were great. Many kids stopped taking Ritalin. School grades improved significantly.

Sports are an important part of behavior modification therapy. ADHD children generally do not like rule-based team sports. They excel in active individual sports, like tennis. It's important to let the kid with ADHD choose the sport that he likes.

A video interview with a top expert in pediatric attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, ADD) and autism. A medical second opinion confirms that an ADHD diagnosis is correct and complete. A medical second opinion also confirms that ADD treatment is required.

Medical second opinion helps to choose the best treatment for autism and ADHD. Get a medical second opinion on ADHD and autism spectrum disorder, and be confident that your treatment is the best. Behavioral treatment for ADHD with sports is as effective as ADHD medications.

Dr. Anton Titov, MD: ADHD is a behavioral problem. Perhaps there is a role for behavioral modifications. A number of behavioral methods have been tried to treat ADD. What behavioral approaches have been shown to work for ADHD treatment?

Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD: How parents and teachers react to the behavior of children with ADHD is crucial. Changing parenting styles can have much effect on the success of a child with ADHD. This effect equals the efficacy of medications, supplements, or diet.

Many parents, for good reason, are very frustrated with their kids with ADHD. Children with ADHD tend to be oppositional. They don't listen; they don't sit still. Parents are getting calls from schools.

Parents get into cycles of yelling at a child all the time. On the other hand, parents let the child get away with things because they are so tired of dealing with it. This is a very negative style of interaction between parents and children. Having a good parenting approach can make all the difference.

There are several behavioral modifications that can work for ADHD. I would like to discuss one useful method of behavioral treatment of ADHD. It is called the "nurtured heart approach."

This approach involves being very positive when the child does something great. Parents should really notice positive behavior because these kids get a lot of negative feedback in their life. You really need to help kids by giving positive feedback for doing things correctly.

Children with ADHD do many things correctly! The second part is to have consistent discipline consequences, but parents should give them without yelling and lecturing. Parents should just be consistent. Bad behavior of a child should have predictable consequences.

The third part of the nurtured heart approach to ADHD is a reward system for doing things correctly. I have seen dramatic improvements in many kids when those principles were used.

Dr. Anton Titov, MD: The core principle of the nurtured heart approach is positive reinforcement.

Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD: Exactly. It really just accords with the principles of behavioral modification that work well. We know that they do work well.

There is a school in Tucson where the principal had the entire school use this nurtured heart approach. This was a school in a relatively poor part of Tucson. It was doing very badly.

Within a couple of years, the entire school turned around. The number of kids getting a diagnosis of special education needs decreased. The number of kids using Ritalin and other medications decreased.

The school became a "performing plus school." In Arizona, that is a big deal. It means your grades and everything have improved. It was a really dramatic turnaround.

Dr. Anton Titov, MD: Extracurricular activities, sports, music, additional activities. What is their role for kids who have ADHD? Can these activities help kids with an ADHD diagnosis?

Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD: First, it’s very important for all kids to get exercise. It is especially important for ADHD kids to get good physical exercise. Hyperactive kids need to get out and burn off that energy.

Second of all, it's also really important for ADHD kids to do things they are good at. School is not the easiest thing for them. For kids to go to school all day, they struggle all day.

Then kids come back and just do homework, or they get tutored on homework, or they struggle some more. I mean, where is the joy and the feeling of success in their life?

Some ADHD kids are really good at sports, or they are really good at art, or dance, or building things. They need to be doing those things so they get reinforcement for things they are good at.

It's important not to make children with ADHD do things that are difficult for them all day. That's a big problem in our society in the United States. Some of these kids have such pressure to do well.

Children have to get good grades in school. Parents have kids go straight from school to tutors, then children have to do homework. Pretty soon their whole life is school. That is destructive to their development.

Activities like martial arts, learning kung fu, and karate or something, sports can be really good for developing discipline and self-control. Meditation and yoga can be helpful. We start to see some clinical trials showing that these can help kids with ADHD.

There's a world of other methods to treat ADHD besides medication. Non-pharmacological methods to treat attention deficit disorder have to be emphasized.

Dr. Anton Titov, MD: You mentioned martial arts; you mentioned yoga. Are some types of sport better than others? What are the defining characteristics of a sport or activity that is best for a child with ADHD?

Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD: It just depends on the individual child. As a general rule, kids with ADHD are not as interested in team sports with lots of rules. They are not as excited about sports with long periods of boredom.

For instance, baseball, American baseball: you spend a lot of time just standing around. It is not the best thing for a kid with ADHD. Tennis is good for a child with ADD. In tennis, you are doing something the entire time.

But it does happen: there are ADHD kids who really like baseball, then they play. You just have to find the correct activity for a child.