Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
With some sensory routines, the part doing the work may be a parent's steady hands and full attention rather than the technique itself. Worth knowing, because contact carries into the rest of the day and a protocol does not.
Views differ on this and the research has not sorted it out. What follows practically is that a family who cannot keep the exact routine going has not lost the active ingredient. Ten quiet minutes of calm physical contact, given regularly and with no lesson attached, may be carrying most of it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God wants ease for you, not hardship (Quran 2:185). If keeping a routine exactly is costing a family more than it gives back, ease is allowed to reshape it.
شَهۡرُ رَمَضَانَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أُنزِلَ فِيهِ ٱلۡقُرۡءَانُ هُدࣰ ى لِّلنَّاسِ وَبَيِّنَٰتࣲ مِّنَ ٱلۡهُدَىٰ وَٱلۡفُرۡقَانِۚ فَمَن شَهِدَ مِنكُمُ ٱلشَّهۡرَ فَلۡيَصُمۡهُۖ وَمَن كَانَ مَرِيضًا أَوۡ عَلَىٰ سَفَرࣲ فَعِدَّةࣱ مِّنۡ أَيَّامٍ أُخَرَۗ يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ بِكُمُ ٱلۡيُسۡرَ وَلَا يُرِيدُ بِكُمُ ٱلۡعُسۡرَ وَلِتُكۡمِلُواْ ٱلۡعِدَّةَ وَلِتُكَبِّرُواْ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ مَا هَدَىٰكُمۡ وَلَعَلَّكُمۡ تَشۡكُرُونَ
It was in the month of Ramadan that the Quran was revealed as guidance for mankind, clear messages giving guidance and distinguishing between right and wrong. So any one of you who is present that month should fast, and anyone who is ill or on a journey should make up for the lost days by fasting on other days later. God wants ease for you, not hardship. He wants you to complete the prescribed period and to glorify Him for having guided you, so that you may be thankful
Qur’an 2:185read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A family mindfulness programme for children with ADHD, added to care as usual, gave limited extra benefit to the children, and what gains there were showed up mainly in the parents. That is a caution against assuming the child is the only thing being changed by a family routine. It also hints that how the parent is doing may matter more than the specific exercise.
Siebelink NM, Bögels SM, Speckens AEM, Dammers JT, Wolfers T, Buitelaar JK, Greven CU. (2022). A randomised controlled trial (MindChamp) of a mindfulness-based intervention for children with ADHD and their parents.. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Warm, predictable contact from a trusted adult is regulating in itself, whatever shape it arrives in.
When not to
A child who is distressed by touch should not be talked into it; find another route.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
If you are trying omega supplements, give them four to six weeks and then decide. Imaging work has picked up changes in how neurons communicate after around four weeks, which is fast as these things go.
Kava, valerian, St John's wort, ginkgo, ginseng and the proprietary blends have not shown benefit for ADHD in trials that matched the amount in every capsule and kept both the person handing them out and the person rating behaviour unaware of who got what.
Omega supplementation for ADHD began with encouraging results, including a Swedish study where about a quarter of inattentive children seemed to improve. Blinded, placebo controlled work did not reproduce it, and a Cochrane meta-analysis found no effect.