How Routines Help Children with ADHD

While this mainly relates to children with ADHD, it can honestly help ANYONE. Having a daily routine and schedule helps your cognitive function as someone with ADHD—cognitive function and executive functioning skills are some of the main things to work on with a child who has ADHD.

Cognitive Function, Executive Functions, and Routines for Children with ADHD

Having structure throughout multiple areas in life will help your child, in fact, there was a study done that reported “kids with ADHD often have a hard time with certain cognitive skills known as executive functions, which are important for memory, attention, and organization. Having a regular routine can help kids manage deficits in the areas by building habits, incorporating reminders, and breaking tasks into more manageable chunks.”

A routine schedule is like medicine—think of it as an opportunity for the medicine to really work. I’m not giving medical information here, but from personal experience, if I didn’t have a routine, whether I was taking medication or not, I would just deviate from the task.

Essentially, you may be able to focus on medication, but if you don’t have a routine, you’re going to focus on the wrong things.

The Importance of Morning and Nighttime Routines

The morning routine and the nighttime routine make a huge difference, and the morning routine is a reflection of the nighttime routine. The benefits of both? It avoids decision fatigue and helps you make better decisions, knowing that you have a certain timeframe to get stuff done.

It also helps to prevent putting time and money into things they shouldn’t. They’re able to make smart decisions and therefore feel better about them, which leads to the domino effect of saying, “Hey, I want to do more of this. I want to get more benefits from having this routine.”

Really, it can make a difference in a child’s ability to focus and pay attention. But routines can also help with:

• Reducing anxiety and improving emotional stability
• Assist with self-regulation
• Reducing and improving impulsivity 
• Strengthen family bonds
• Improve your sleep patterns
• Being more organized
• Feeling more independent

This applies to parents, too. If you’re struggling with your ADHD—or even if you’re not—introducing routines with your child will encourage them to participate and engage more, making them feel better and do better!

Using Tools to Help Set Routines for Your ADHD Child

Sometimes, you need help keeping a routine, especially depending on the age of your child. There are plenty of tools and apps that you can introduce to your child (and use yourself) to help implement and stick to your daily routines. 

There are time management and organization apps, apps that give your child a sense of structure, predictability, and a sense of control—something a child with ADHD struggles to have.

You can see a full list of the ADHD apps I love here.

What’s Next? Learning How to Further Help Your Child

I love sharing these resources because it helps not only you but also your child! This stuff didn’t really exist in our generation, so I’m glad that we have these resources now and we can use them so that our children don’t get over-diagnosed, don’t let too many excuses get in the way of things, and have the tools to be successful in life. 

If you’re struggling with setting routines or getting tasks done with your child with ADHD, get in touch! I offer both ADHD coaching and math tutoring, I’d love to help.