Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Take Me for a Ride in Your Car, Car

So one of the more interesting aspects of being an ADD mom with an ADHD kid comes to play in the car. Sam talks in the car, CONSTANTLY. Like, demanding interactive answer kind of talking. I have ADD too. Which means it is super hard for me to tune him out. Ignoring him takes about 50-60% effort level for me. AND when there is traffic, or I'm trying to find my way someplace, it really requires 100% of my attention. So what's a mom to do?

A dear friend gave me some great tools for behavior modification, but for right now, the car isn't the place to start working on those. I need a solution that will work immediately, not one that gets worse before it gets better, which tends to be the case with behavior mod. Even if the "getting worse" period is just a few days, that presents a safety risk that I am unwilling to take.

So instead we're going with distraction. This has worked pretty well so far--I tell Sam that we can't talk right now, and pass back some coloring sheets and markers. Except then when we get to our destination, he is covered with marker, the caps are all missing, and it is a frightening hassle to try to get everything all put back together. I'm looking for ways to make my life easier, not trade one difficulty for another. Sure, I can substitute crayons for markers, and I will, but there are two main problems with that--Sam will break the crayons and then bitch about it, AND he'll get tired of it pretty quickly. So I need a grab-bag of quiet, mess-free activities for the car.  Here are the ideas I have so far:


  • I'm going to make a bunch of CDs with his favorite music on them so he can sing along. I can ignore singing, just not questions. 
  • Some string and cheerios so he can make necklaces. 
  • Craft sticks with velcro attached so he can build. 
  • A cloth bag with magnetic toys inside and his magnetic fishing pole
  • Various snacks

That's about all I got. Your ideas??

1 comment:

  1. i love that "lets go riding in the car car" song . . . there were some cool busy ideas for car rides that i saw on Pinterest that might work also. check out my "for kids" board and see if anything may work for him.

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