Thoughts for This Summer
School is almost out and summer vacation is nearly upon us. How will you spend the time wisely to prepare your child for success in the next school year? How will you use the time to improve your child’s ADHD symptoms?
We have several suggestions for you, and here is merely the first. ADHD Diet : Summer's the Time to Try It!
Since summer usually brings a bit more flexibility it is a good time to give an ADHD Diet a serious try. We have our own eating program for ADHD here, and there are other good programs available online to consider. Any good eating program will take about four weeks to assess whether or not any positive changes are coming from using it.
In our program we recommend NOT eating certain foods for two weeks, then adding them back into the diet to see if there are any food sensitivities contributing to the ADHD symptoms. If so, then appropriate changes can be made through the next school year. We also recommend avoiding sugars and carbohydrates paired together in foods, such as in breakfast cereals, doughnuts, and many snack foods.
Also watch out for sodas. In most cases, there is one spoon of sugar in each ounce of soda. A twelve ounce can has twelve spoons of refined sugar (more or less). This is not a good idea for anyone, especially your ADHD child or teen. Water is the answer, and summer time is the time to begin this new habit.
Our program also recommends using certain foods to help to feed the brain, beginning with a higher protein breakfast to start off the day. This may call for a new set of morning habits, like cooking a breakfast rather than just pouring it out into a bowl, but the benefits can far outweigh the costs and investment of time. Summer is a great time to begin these new habits.