How do i get my adhd son to lower his tone when speaking? He also is very disrespectful to me also.

When my son was 7 we went to a child counsler for the same problem's you are having. What we did started out to be very hard but it worked! Our counsler advised that we go home and take all of his toy's but 1 away. He was able to choose the one he wanted to keep. We explained to him that he was not in trouble but that we were going to try something new to help him follow the rules. As long as his "bad" behavior was not hurting anyone we completly ignored it. Everytime he behaved he would earn a check mark. An example of that is if he would say please or thank-you without being prompted, he would follow an instruction the 1st time asked, brushing his teeth without throwing a tantrum, ect. In the beginning for every 2 check marks he would earn back a toy. He get's to choose the toy. As his behavior improved ( we noticed a difference in 3 day's we would increase the number of check marks needed. ) We explained this was because he was acting like an older boy and we knew he could do it. Once all toy's were earned back he then had to earn EVERY privlage. Any T.V. time, videogame time, playdate time had to be earned with check marks. We still do this today and he is now 13. He get's 30 minutes for every 5 check marks. he also can earn dinner out & he get's to choose the place, etc. You have to get creative and it is tiring but it does become a way of life and it does work. I do not know what to tell you about the loud talking. My son still does it and I know he is really not aware of it. Good Luck! Jennifer

Saturday July 19th

     Vanessa, hi I have a suggestion that might work for you.  I just saw the Psychologist on Wed. July 16th for my mnthly one on one session w/him, I was discussing w/him how my son (who's 9 in half) got a smart mouth & how he's so direspectful to me when I ask or tell him to do something.  He suggested that I ground him from his most favorite toy/thing he likes to play with & have him write certain amount of sentenances that is a appropriate for his age (I am choosing 50 for my son) & the object is that my son doesn't have a set amount of time to get them done in, but the other object is that he can't have his toy/thing back I've grounded him from until the sentenaces are done (so if it takes my son per say 2 wks to get the sentenaces done then he will get back the toy/thing back then).  He also said that if any of the sentenace are not legible that my son has to rewrite them so that they're legible so, so lets say that my son finished all 50 sentences but 15 of them are not legible then he has to write those 15 all over again until they're legible.  My suggestion would be for your son to start w/maybe 10-15 sentences to begin with, since I don't know how well he writes or what he's like but the decesion is up to you to decide the amount of sentenaces that you think your son is able to write.  If this helps let me know, my son as of right now has to write 150 sentences (cause he has 3 different sets of sentences he has to write cause of his attitude/behavior, smart mouth & disrespectfulness he was given me last night).  My son has one of the older versions of the Gameboy Pockets & it's his favorite thing to play w/so right now he's grounded from it until he gets all 3 sets of the sentences fininshed & they're all legible.  I hope that this will give you maybe some ideas to work with, just hang in there & take one day at a time.  I have been dealing w/my son's type of behavior he has now since about the middle of November 2006, his behavior is a little better now since we started seeing a Psychologist in January of 2007 since his behavior was also slipping pretty good in school as well & they're the ones who suggested that I take him to see a Psychologist to help me get his behavior under control.  The school also knew that I was trying everything & doing the best I could do to get him to behave like a child w/ADHD should who was his age, we still have a long road we are going down but we have made some major progress w/the road that we have been going down since we started seeing the Psychologist in Jan. 2007.  Take Care & Keep Up the Good Work, even though some days are harder than others, just remember to take one day at a time & hope the day after a bad day is a good day.  I am also a single mom myself, so I know how you feel & what you are going thru, again Take Care - Heather & son Kaleb