While DYS disorders obviously affect the children who experience them, they also affect their parents. Fortunately, coaching and “parent training” solutions exist to offer support and responses better suited to their child’s behaviour and difficulties. One example is Barkley’s method, recommended for Attention Deficit Disorder, with or without Hyperactivity (ADHD)…
The difficult management of the ADHD triad
A disorder that is both complex and disabling, ADHD is built around a key triad—inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity—leading to a wide range of symptoms. For example, some children are simply intolerant of frustration, flying into terrible tantrums at the slightest refusal; others suffer from emotional lability, showing sudden, disproportionate, changeable, and unstable emotional reactions…
These behaviours invariably lead to negative interactions and conflict-ridden relationships with parents, who over time experience frustration, distress, and a sense of incompetence…
How can Barkley’s programme help parents?
Barkley’s Parent Training Programme is aimed at parents whose children struggle to follow social or family rules—which fits well with ADHD. Recommended by France’s national health authority (HAS), this method focuses on oppositional behaviour, helping parents develop strategies that are both consistent and effective with their children.
Barkley’s programme is built around 10 steps, ranging from information about the disorder to better understand it, to anticipating future problems, including the sticker, point, and privilege system, working and collaborating with the school, and managing public places. The method involves training at home on simple elements, before generalising the approach to other situations and making it stick over time.
How do Barkley’s parent training workshops work?
The framework set out by Barkley’s method recommends running the programme over 10 to 12 themed sessions, lasting 1.5 to 2 hours each, at a pace of two per month. Led by one or two previously trained facilitators, they bring together a group of 5 to 7 families maximum.
To give participants a sense of structure, each workshop follows the same format: theoretical input on the day’s topic, theoretical-practical answers, and practice at home. The following session always begins with a debrief of the previous exercise.
Beyond the benefits of the method for parents, it is also beneficial for the child with ADHD: by easing family relationships and reducing problem situations, the child can, among other things, achieve better personal fulfilment and improved self-esteem.
The qualified professionals authorised to run Barkley groups are doctors, psychologists, and psychomotor therapists. Don’t hesitate to reach out to the experts on the Ora-Visio platform to discuss this coaching and parent training approach together.
