Parents of ADHD Children
ADDConnect Contest: Babysitter Survival Guide
Do Presidential elections roll around more frequently than your date nights? When out, do you clutch your cell phone at all times—just anticipating “the call?” Do your babysitters retire after one or two nights?
You’re in good company. Finding, evaluating, and preparing a babysitter for the adventure of caring for an ADHD child is a daunting task to say the least. Too many of us just find it easier to stay home.
But a parent’s mental health is important, too. Which is why we’re asking the ADDConnect community for help!
For a chance to win one of three copies of ADDitude‘s ADHD Guide for Babysitters, leave a comment below telling us what tricks or tools you use to hire good babysitters, ensure safety while you’re away, and help your child have fun while sticking to his or her regular routine on ‘parent date nights.’
Contest rules: For a chance to win one of three copies of The ADHD Guide for Babysitters, leave a comment below by Friday, March 9, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST.
Note: To be considered, please log in to leave a comment using a valid email address. Those who do not will not be including in the drawing.
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Replies
Our best luck on babysitters has been in situations where we know the whole family. We look for other families at our church with “active” younger siblings, and hire their older children as our babysitters. The sitter already has some tools from their own family experience, and they get it when we explain what things work for our kid.
I have a wonderful babysitter who has stuck by our side for 5 years now. She absolutely adores our children, the one with ADHD and the one without, but ESPECIALLY the one with ADHD. They have the coolest connection.. she is extremely easy going, and doesn’t mind the rollercoaster of emotions my ADHD child goes through on an hourly basis. She always stays consistant - calm, cool, collected, and especially very loving. She doesn’t judge, she doesn’t blame, she doesn’t hold a grudge. She controls the situation by always having a plan in place for each step of the routine process - she makes a fun game out of everything, and truly enjoys it. She works at a group home, and is the same way with the residents. Finding someone with a lot of patience and vested time is very difficult, but oh, so worth it.
I need information on babysitter or mentors for teens who are ADHD. I hope this guide will help.
My oldest is 10 and has ADHD. I have a 9, a 6 and a 5 yr old following… So I started leaving the sitter (15) with a checklist of the main things I want my children to do while I am gone. The sitter can have the kids check off their list: brush teeth, PJ, pick up table, read + bed, etc.
It helps them remember the routine without making the sitter the disciplinarian!
Our best babysitters have come from a local organization that connects teens with children with special needs.
Babysitting and my spouse and I with ADD/ADHD taking a break from our 2 kids with ADD/ADHD (ages 8 & age 10) is a challenge. Not to mention another financial stretch with my husband returing to school as a full-time student to hopefully a job that don’t be sent overseas (again). We’re not doing a good job figuring it out so I’m open to the ideas in this book.
I am so grateful for the books coming out about ADD/ADHD to support us with it and our kids - thank you, thank you!!
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