Building strengths

Children with ADHD have some wonderful strengths to bring to the classroom. They can be fun to have around, well-liked and bring energy and enthusiasm to topics and projects. They often have lots of ideas to share and creative ways of solving problems.

However, children with ADHD often have low self-esteem stemming from the difficulties they face and other people's reactions to their behaviour. We might put in strategies to help overcome their difficulties but it is also important that children with ADHD are able to identify their particular strengths and learn how to cultivate them.

It is good to find ways of highlighting a child's strengths in front of the whole class as children with ADHD often have attention drawn to them because they are being disruptive or not paying attention. Highlighting their strengths can build their self-esteem and encourage their peers to see good characteristics in them. 

Here are some ideas of how to cultivate the individual strengths of children with ADHD in your class. 

Something to think about: you might want to do this with all the children in the class, although steps 3 & 4 might need adapting to be more manageable with lots of children.