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Social Relations in Boys with ADHD
As has been discussed in several prior issues of ADHD RESEARCH UPDATE, peer relations are often an area of difficulty for child with ADHD. An article that appeared in the September, 1997 issue of the Journal of Clinical Child Psychology (pages 256-265) presents some interesting new information on this important issue.
The authors of this study were intrigued by the fact that many children with ADHD seem to offer inflated (i.e. overstated) accounts of their own competence, and believed that such exaggerated self appraisals may serve a self-protective function for many children. This is the hypothesis that they wanted to test.
This was tested by examining the effects of positive feedback on the self-perceptions and social interactions of boys with and without ADHD. Eight to 11 year old boys were participated in two unstructured, cooperative tasks with a same age peer whom they did not know. After the first interaction, half of the boys were given feedback that they believed was from their partner about how good a job they had done on the task and how much their partner liked them. This feedback was actually made up and had nothing to do with the other child's opinions.
After the first task - but before receiving the bogus feedback - boys with ADHD reported an overly positive view of how much their partner actually liked them. In other words, they believed that their partner liked them more than their partner actually did.
After received the bogus positive feedback, an interesting change occurred: boys with ADHD who received the feedback actually showed a decrease in their self-perceptions. That is, they now reported that their partner liked them less well than they did before, and the perceptions they now reported were actually more accurate. For boys without ADHD, receiving the positive feedback had the opposite and more expected effect in that their self-perceptions actually increased.
The authors interpret these results as supporting their hypothesis that children with ADHD often provide inflated self-perceptions to counter their feelings of inadequacy. They believed that what was going on in their study is that when the boys with ADHD were given the positive feedback, they were able to relax their defensive post posture and provide more realistic self-assessments. In other words, because the positive feedback helped them to feel better about themselves, they no longer had the same need to describe themselves in unrealistically positive ways.
This is an interesting and important finding that highlights the importance of findings ways to provide your child with positive feedback and praise. Although certainly not all children with ADHD may harbor inflated self-perceptions to ward off feelings of in adequacy, it is certainly easy to understand how tempting this may be for a child who is the recipient of negative feedback and criticism both at school and at home for most of the day.
Something that is often helpful for parents that I work with is the reminder to try and catch their child "being good" at least 5 times each day and to be sure to point this out to their child. Positive feedback and praise from parents - when it is deserved - is an important basis for developing positive feelings about self that can reduce the need to latch on to overly positive and unrealistic views.
An interesting and informative exercise to do is to keep track of the ratio of positive to negative statements that you make to your child each day. Many parents I have worked with are surprised at just how weighted towards the negative side their communication with their child turns out to be. This is easy to fall in to be- cause children with ADHD often behave in ways that elicit such negative feedback from parents, teachers, and others. That is why it can be so important to really make a deliberate effort each day to notice positive things to focus on and to convey your appreciation of these things to your child. The results of this study suggest that this approach can actually result in the child becoming more open to criticism and less defensive in how he or she reacts and relates to you and to others.
Note: This article originally appeared in Attention Research Update, an online newsletter written by Dr. David Rabiner, a Duke University psychologist and former member of CHADD's Professional Advisory Board. You can learn more about Attention Research Update and sign up for a free subscription at www.helpforadd.com.