In order to keep the peace at our house, we gave each child their own room. I am the mother of three children two of which have ADHD, and dyslexia diagnoses.
My husband and I tried many strategies for keeping our son, Lage, calm.
He especially struggled when we had company over. Using his room as a ‘Safe Place’ seemed to be what worked best.
When he was younger daycare overstimulated him. He needed a calm room to destress in when he got home.
Having our family over for dinner caused problems.
Lage would complain that there were too many people in the house, everyone was TOO LOUD, and he would demand that everyone stop laughing!
We finally solved this problem by suggesting he take one person with him to his room and shut the door. He seemed to enjoy this. He could be social without getting overwhelmed.
Sometimes he felt the need to hide from everyone and he stayed in his room alone. Giving him his own space kept us from being completely isolated as a family.
My Husband David and I live in Sweden with our three kids.
My son Lage (13) has ADHD (hyperactive-impulsive) while my daughter Maria (10) has ADHD (inattentive or ADD) and my youngest daughter Frida (5) doesn’t have a diagnosis.
We have been trying our best to create an environment in our home that helps our kids put their best foot forward.
Kids with ADHD often have trouble sleeping having their own room helps.
There are fewer distractions when you sleep in your own room. Siblings aren’t making noise when it’s time to sleep or waking each other at night.
When Lage was younger he needed lots of sleep to function correctly, but he had a hard time getting the sleep he needed.
Usually, he would go to sleep rather quickly and wake up several times during the night. He often sleepwalked when he needed to use the restroom.
As soon as we heard him get up we made a mad dash down the stairs. Sometimes no matter how fast we were, he was already peeing on the rug when we got there.
My husband barely saved his new ski boots from being used as a toilet and I cannot count how many throw rugs we washed!
Besides waking at the beginning of the night to use the bathroom he would wake up two-three more times.
Sometimes it was one of the girls crying that woke him up or he heard a dog barking or an owl outside. Just as often he could wake up for no apparent reason.
We were so sleep-deprived that having a sibling in the same room who could potentially wake him up was out of the question.
Those with ADHD have ‘Super Charged Hearing’ they feel calmer in their own room where they can shut out the noise.
When the girls were still nursing at night I wished I had super fast superpowers!
How long it took to calm Maria down was directly linked to how often Lage woke up.
He seemed to hear everything that went on in the house. His sensitivity to noise from large crowds has gotten a bit better over the years, but He still has trouble with everyday noises when he is trying to concentrate or sleep.
He tried to explain his hearing for us several times over the last few years.
‘’I have extremely sharp hearing. I hear all kinds of noises big and small all at the same time.
Listening can be overstimulating even if my eyes are shut.
It’s hard to concentrate on homework or other tasks when I am surrounded by noise.
I wish my little sisters could understand this and learn to quit screeching and stop making excessive amounts of noise!’’ – Lage
We are now in the process of insulating two of his bedroom walls to make his room a bit more soundproof.
Children with ADHD/ADD can be very rigid.
Letting children make decisions about the things in their rooms can alleviate some of the effects of rigid behavior on the rest of the family.
Having their own room will keep some of their rigid behavior from affecting the rest of the family.
If they feel they must have their hairbrush in a certain place or their toy dumper must be parked with the truck bed at a 60-degree angle that’s fine as long as it’s in their own room.
If they feel the need to listen to the same audiobook every night before bed three years in a row, as my daughter did, that’s ok. No one else has to hear it or argue about it.
Save yourself some sanity and let your kids decide what’s important in their rooms.
We have a rule that siblings have to knock and ask to enter each other’s rooms. (My husband and I usually knock as well, but we reserve the right to go in if we think something is amiss.) Knocking is a way of respecting boundaries.
This rule was one way to handle our son’s extreme paranoia over others touching his things.
He was especially worried about his stuff when he was away from home, but having some boundaries has eliminated the need for him to lock his room every day before school.
It helps kids learn to be responsible for their own space when you give them their own room and require them to keep it clean.
We have always asked our kids to clean their rooms. Often they get a little help from us on the tricky parts.
For my daughter keeping her room clean was a rather steep learning curve. She could throw clothes and toys over the entire floor and completely ignore the mess!
Because she has ADD (ADHD inattentive) the thought of cleaning her room was so overwhelming she tried to avoid it at all costs!
I had to create a system to help her to clean her room.
This system works really well and she keeps her room much cleaner.
Check out the link below if you want to try our system for cleaning and organizing for kids who have ADD /ADHD.
https://theadhdminimalist.com/help-adhd-add-kids-clean-their-rooms-and-stay-organized/
At the age of 10 my son naturally started decluttering, cleaning, and organizing his space without any promptings from me.
Before the age of 10, his room was often a mess.
I think he probably needed help minimizing his things when he was much younger, but he couldn’t put his finger on or express his needs.
We didn’t realize this was a problem until he started throwing everything he found distracting out of his room.
About ¼ of his things ended up in the hallway. He wanted to send it all to the second-hand store.
If you have kids who live in a mess try helping them get rid of things. You may suddenly have a much calmer child.
My son seems to look at life from a minimalist perspective and needs to have a clean uncluttered space in order to function.
He has learned to care for his things. Although he needs to work on using other people’s things with care and putting the things he gets out, in the rest of the house, back where they belong.
My daughter does much better caring for her room/things after I taught her how to clean and organize.
Having a place in your bedroom to do your homework can be a big help in a small house.
Shutting the bedroom door to keep out noise and distractions can help homework get done more efficiently.
If your child needs help with their homework you may need to sit with them in their room.
We have had zero success doing homework where siblings can come in and interrupt. When my ADHD/ADD children get interrupted it takes at least fifteen minutes to refocus them on homework.
If your children are old enough to do homework by themselves it can help them concentrate if you touch base before your child starts their homework.
My husband and I kept knocking on our son’s door and interrupting his homework time because he hadn’t told us he had started doing homework.
If you touch base first and get an idea of how long your child needs to concentrate on his homework you can try to make sure the rest of the family doesn’t interrupt him/her for that time period.
Getting their own room becomes even more important when more than one child is diagnosed with ADHD in the same family.
Having her own room where she can häng with friends is very important to my daughter.
When my children were younger my son tried to hijack my daughter’s friends. He would try his best to get her friend to play with him.
When he succeeded he would exclude his sister from the game.
This happened more often if she had a friend over and he didn’t, but even when he had a friend as well he would try to include Maria’s friend in the boy’s games.
When Maria’s friends wanted to play with the boys instead of her, she would break down and cry.
When she cried she often got bullied by the other three, and this created a negative spiral.
Separating the kids when they were playing with friends often helped. Sometimes this meant playing in their rooms with their friends.
Having his/her own minimalistic space can help your child stay calm and relaxed in his room.
My son often gets panic attacks when he is under stress.
If he is stressed over school work and gets over-stimulated by a messy room and loud siblings when he comes home this is often too much for him to handle.
He is a self-advocate for minimalistic bedrooms. As soon as he realizes he has no need for an item (or doesn’t like it anymore) he gives it to me and asks that I give it away or dispose of it.
Having his own minimalistic retreat has been his way of coping with his diagnosis.
Children with ADHD/ ADD may have a hard time sharing certain favourite items.
Let them have a place in their room to hide things.
My children needed their own bedrooms because they have a hard time sharing or even having other people touch their favorite things.
Yes, we have worked on sharing but if every time you ask your ADHD child to share certain favorite items it causes an explosion you may need to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
I suggest picking a different battle.
After some trial and error, we decided that our kids didn’t have to share everything with their siblings.
If friends came over we could put some of their favorite things in the storage room. Whatever was left in the room they had to share with their friends.
Think back to when you were a kid. If you saved up your own money for several months and bought something really special did you want others to touch it and try it out?
If you thought that was hard as a child sharing favorite things is 100 x harder for kids with ADHD.
When there is too much stimulus for an ADHD child in their home they need a room to hide in.
If you have a big family like my husband does family gatherings may be overstimulating for your ADHD child.
We found that it was often best for our son if we invited everyone over to our house because he had a safe place he could escape to if his senses hit an overload.
We often tried sending him to his room with one other family member (often an adult or older cousin) to build legos or play before he started having a meltdown.
Having gatherings at our house often helped my husband and me be social. Sometimes Lage would just disappear into his room and our guests would barely see him, but we learned to just go with the flow.
If you would like to read more on this subject check out my articles on Helping kids with ADHD/ADD clean their rooms and stay organized https://theadhdminimalist.com/help-adhd-add-kids-clean-their-rooms-and-stay-organized/
or How to declutter kids’ toys https://theadhdminimalist.com/decluttering-kids-toys-and-other-monsters-in-their-rooms/
You can take a peek at Our Favourite Resources page for reading tips and more information. https://theadhdminimalist.com/our-favourite-resources/
If you have a question or comment please send me an email at babysnail2002@yahoo.com
Copyright Annie Eklöv
