ADHD & ODD

If your child’s been diagnosed with ADHD, we know that every day can be a battle. Everything from getting ready for school, to the grocery store, to birthday parties can leave you as a parent anxious and worrying about how your child will be able to handle all the stimulation, and what type of behavior you’re going to get.

The beginning of the school year can fill you with worry and dread about how the teachers and children will interact with the unique needs your child has. Will he be able to keep up academically? Will she make friends? Will this year be as bad as last year?

We know that not all parents are happy with the results medications provide for them, or are looking for drug free options to see improved focus, better behavior, and less meltdowns.  

The goal of introducing chiropractic care to a child with ADHD is to remove as much stress that’s on their nervous system as possible. When a child has less stress on their system, communication between brain and body can flow freely and optimally.

When stress is removed and communication is increased throughout the nervous system, this is what our parents have noticed in their child:

-Improved focus in the classroom

-Easier ability to follow multi step directions

-Better social interaction with peers

-Easier time transitioning between settings

-easier time falling and staying asleep

-less aggressive meltdowns

-increased bodily coordination

-less colds and congestion

-better reports from the teacher

-less anxiety

-Better ability to cope with change

Where does this “stress” on the nervous system come from?

Many of the kids we see in clinic share a very similar story either during their prenatal, birth, or post natal years. Often mom was under stress emotionally or physically during pregnancy. Maybe illness, toxic environment, or financial hardship was present. Or perhaps birth needed to be induced, or drugs and interventions needed to happen. And even worse, perhaps a medical emergency required an unscheduled c-section to need to happen- putting physical and emotional stress on mom and the baby.

Any and more of these factors will drive a child’s neurology into a state we call “fight or flight”. Basically, the child’s environment has been so emotionally, chemically or physically stressful, that the child’s nervous system has gone into full on “protect” and “defend” mode.

How will you adjust my child?

The answer is easy- however your child is willing! Many children with ADHD are not huge fans of strangers touching their back, or are not willing to follow instructions like “lie face down on the table.” Those are restrictions that a non specialized clinic may have of your child, but here at Blue Hills Chiropractic we will get the adjustment done in a gentle way that has your child feeling safe and non restricted. We have multiple different ways we can interact with your child to remove stress from their spine, many of which has the child not even noticing an adjustment happened.  (Think lego towers, mini trampolines, bubbles, puppets…. Oh yeah- we’re good at what we do!)

Even then, every single child is different, and requires a different plan. We have yet to find a child that if the parent is willing to drive to the office, we don’t find a way to get an adjustment done. Without tears and meltdowns.