5 Social Strategies for ADHD Kids

Starting Point: Fran Tesoriero realized early on that her son, Jonathan, wasn’t exactly prom king material. “It was back in sixth grade, and he was always hovering on the periphery,” she says. “For his age, he just didn’t seem very aware of what to do socially. He’d blurt things out and had an honesty about him that, unfortunately, got exploited.”

 

In his struggles to fit in, Jonathan is not alone. Today, in the United States alone, doctors have diagnosed some 8 percent of school-aged children—that’s about 4.4 million kids—with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Children with ADHD often are regarded as social black sheep; they miss subtle visual cues and invade personal space. They also can speak out of turn, struggle to share and lose interest during long conversations.

 

For Jonathan, who wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until seventh grade, his little social snags quickly added up. He was different, clearly, and as friendship circles closed before him, he seemed too different to fit in.

 

Tesoriero was heartbroken: “It hurt to see that he wasn’t included in certain things. I felt that he was left behind. The parents labeled him as some kind of demonic kid, and even though that wasn’t his issue, the stigma was there. It was very hard.”

 

But there is hope. Here, we review five scientist-approved, parent-tested tips for helping children with ADHD learn how to make friends—and, even better, keep them.