Parents as Friendship Coaches for Children with ADHD A Clinical Guide

Session 1. Understanding Your Child’s Social Behaviors Session 2. Giving Effective Feedback to Your Child about Social Behaviors Session 3. Helping Your Child to Choose the Right Friends Session 4. Preparing for a Playdate as a Host, Part 1 Session 5. Teaching Your Child Social Skills, Part 1 Session 6. Preparing for a Playdate as a Host, Part 2 Session 7. Teaching Your Child Social Skills, Part 2 Session 8. Preparing for a Playdate as a GuestSession 9. Meeting New Peers Session 10. Getting Ready for the Future Appendix A. Intervention Fidelity Checklists Appendix B. Parent Handouts

Biography

Amori Yee Mikami, PhD, RPsych, is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her program of research focuses on understanding and supporting children with ADHD and peer problems.

Sébastien Normand, PhD, CPsych, is an associate professor of psychology at the Université du Québec en Outaouais and a pediatric psychologist at Hôpital Montfort, Canada. His research focuses on children with ADHD.

"The authors have crafted what I consider to be the best program currently available for working with children with ADHD and their parents on improving the children’s peer relationships that are impaired in the majority of such children. Why? Other social skills programs that predate this one were not designed expressly for the social difficulties evident in children with ADHD. This one was, given that it is based on all that research has taught us about what is going wrong in those peer relationships. The others were based on children with other conditions, usually social anxiety, whereas this one is directly focused on ADHD. The other programs are based on a faulty premise - that children with ADHD are ignorant of social skills and, because they don’t know them, must be trained in them. This program gets it right — ADHD creates more of a problem with using the knowledge and skills a child has in everyday social relationships, and not regarding ignorance of knowledge. Furthermore, other programs train children in artificial circumstances, such as clinics, usually involving other children the child does not normally encounter in their daily life — so they don’t generalize much if at all to natural social settings, if they work at all. For all these and other reasons there is no better source than this one for working with families of children with ADHD. Every discipline interested in doing so will benefit greatly from making this program available." — Russell A. Barkley, PhD, clinical professor of psychiatry, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University; editor, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment (4^th ed.)

"This guide is a wonderful gift to clinicians, filling the enormous need for resources to improve the peer relationships of children with ADHD. Based on years of rigorous research, the Parental Friendship Coaching program uses a behavioral parent training approach to improve social interactions. This comprehensive, practical guide is an essential resource for mental health clinicians in school, primary care, and clinical settings, as well as graduate students preparing to be clinicians and researchers." — Thomas J. Power, PhD, ABPP, distinguished endowed chair in the Department of Pediatrics; director, Center for Management of ADHD, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania; co-author, Homework Success for Children with ADHD: A Family-School Intervention Program

"Problems with acquiring and maintaining high-quality friendships are a major source of distress for children with ADHD. Parental Friendship Coaching is a unique and innovative program that addresses this. The manual for teaching parents how to support their children with peer relations is rich with strategies based on clinical experience and research. Clinicians who work with children with ADHD should have Parental Friendship Coaching in their intervention repertoire."— Judith Wiener, PhD, CPsych, professor emerita, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, OISE/University of Toronto. co-author, Psychological Assessment of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Children and Adolescents: A Practitioner’s Guide

"Mikami and Normand present a very authoritative manual for a parent-mediated intervention to help children with ADHD experiencing difficulties in relationships with friends. At least half of the population of children with ADHD need help in this area and could benefit from this timely book. The program described is for parents working under the guidance of a helping professional, whether in a parent-group format or as a family. Although the material distributed to parents is specific enough to stand on its own, the clinician’s judgment provides for personalization and flexibility. The manual contains the details needed for the program to be implemented with integrity, maintaining focus on the behaviors needed to form and make friends. The language used is specific and accessible but not excessively simplistic. The emphasis on empirical evidence is a distinct strength of the program. Materials are provided to evaluate each implementation in a systematic way. The time needed for the evaluation is flexible and by no means excessive. The authors are candid about the empirical foundation of the program: It has been shown to improve the behaviors associated with positive friendship, which is impressive. The program’s effect on the subjective aspects of friendship quality has yet to be proven. Thus, the program can be seen as bringing the child with ADHD into a position where the natural processes of attraction between friends may take over and bring rewarding, close relationships." — Barry H. Schneider, PhD, professor emeritus, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa; senior lecturer, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College; author, Childhood Friendships and Peer Relations: Friends and Enemies