Behavioral treatment of ADHD can be as effective as medications. “Nurtured heart” method is very useful to treat ADHD. Leading expert in holistic treatment of ADHD in children shares his vast experience. Behavioral therapy for children with ADD can decrease need for medications.

Behavioral treatment for ADHD. Nurtured heart approach has been successfully used to treat ADHD. Behavioral therapy for children with ADD is effective in decreasing doses or eliminating need for medications. Parents and physicians should include behavioral treatment for ADHD in any therapy plan. Behavioral treatment for ADHD has to be tried before pharmacological therapy. Video interview with top expert in holistic treatment of ADHD. ADHD Without Drugs, a book Dr. Sanford Newmark. ADHD behavior modification can help kids who have disciplinary problems at school and at home. Medical second opinion confirms that diagnosis of ADHD is correct and complete. Medical second opinion also helps to choose the best ADHD treatment for a child. Behavior therapy for ADHD kids can succeed in reducing dose and duration of pharmaceutical treatment. Behavioral treatment for ADHD is very important. Nurtured heart approach was tried at Tucson school and the results were great. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. Many kids stopped taking Ritalin. School grades improved significantly. Sports is important part of behavior modification therapy. ADHD children generally do not like rule-based team sports. They excel in active individual sports, like tennis. It's important to let the kid with ADHD to choose the sport that he likes. Video interview with top expert in pediatric attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, ADD) and autism. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Medical second opinion confirms that ADHD diagnosis is correct and complete. Medical second opinion also confirms that ADD treatment is required. Medical second opinion helps to choose the best treatment for autism and ADHD. Get medical second opinion on ADHD and autism spectrum disorder and be confident that your treatment is the best. Behavioral treatment for ADHD with sports is as effective as ADHD medications. Behavioral treatment for ADHD in children. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. ADHD is a behavioral problem. Perhaps there is a role for behavioral modifications. A number of behavioral methods have been tried to treat ADD. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. What behavioral approaches have been shown to work for ADHD treatment? Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD (Integrative Medicine ADHD specialist, UCSF). Yes. How parents and teachers react to the behavior of children with ADHD is crucial. Changing parenting styles can have much effect on the success of a child with ADHD. This effect equals the efficacy of medications or supplements or diet. Many parents, for good reason, are very frustrated with their kids with ADHD. Children with ADHD tend to be oppositional. They don't listen, they don't sit still. Parents are getting calls from schools. Parents get into the cycles of yelling at a child all the time. On the other hand, parents let the child get away with things. Because parents are so tired of dealing with it. This is a very negative style of interaction between parents and children. Having a good parenting approach can make all the difference. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. There are several behavioral modifications that can work for ADHD. I would like to discuss one useful method of behavioral treatment of ADHD. It is called a "nurtured heart approach". This is an approach that involves being very positive when the child does something great. Parents should really notice positive behavior. Because these kids get a lot of negative feedback in their life. You really need to help kids by giving a positive feedback for doing things correct. Children with ADHD do many things correctly! The second part is to have a consistent discipline consequences. But parents should give them without yelling and lecturing. Parents should just be consistent. Bad behavior of a child should have predictable consequences. The third part of Nurtured Heart approach to ADHD is this. It is a reward system for doing things correct. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. I have seen dramatic improvements in many kids when those principles were used. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. The core principle of nurtured heart approach is a positive reinforcement. Dr. Sanford [Sandy] Newmark, MD. Exactly. It really just accords with the principles of behavioral modification that work well. We know that they do work well. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. There is a school in Tucson where the principal had the entire school use this "nurtured heart" approach. This was a school in a relatively poor part of Tucson. It was doing very badly. Within a couple years the entire school turned around. The number of kids getting a diagnosis of special education needs decreased. The number of kids using Ritalin and other medications decreased. The school became a "performing plus school”. This in Arizona is a big deal. It means your grades and everything have improved. It was a really dramatic turnaround. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Extracurricular activities, sports, music, additional activities. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. What is their role for kids who have ADHD? Can these activities help kids with ADHD diagnosis? Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. Well, first, it’s very important for all kids to get exercise. It is especially important for ADHD kids to get good physical exercise. Hyperactive kids need to get out and burn off that energy. Second of all, it's also really important for ADHD kids to do things they are good at. School is not the easiest thing for them. For kids go to school for all day. They struggle all day. Then kids come back and just do homework. Or they get tutored on homework. Or they struggle some more. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. I mean, where is the joy and the feeling of success in their life? Some ADHD kids are really good at sports. Or they are really good at art, or dance, or building things. They need to be doing those things. So they get reinforcement for things they are good at. It's important not to make children with ADHD do things that are difficult for them all day. That's a big problem in our society in the United States. Some of these kids have such pressure to do well. Children have to get good grades in school. Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. Parents have kids go straight from school to tutors. Then children have to do homework. Pretty soon their whole life is school. That is destructive to their development. Activities like martial arts, learning kung fu, and karate or something. Sports can be really good for developing discipline and self control. Meditation and yoga can be helpful. We start to see some clinical trials showing that these can help kids with ADHD. There's a world of other methods to treat ADHD besides medication. Non-pharmacological methods to treat attention deficit disorder have to be emphasized. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. You mentioned martial arts, you mentioned yoga. Are some types of sport better than others? What are the defining characteristics of sport or activity that is best for a child with ADHD? Dr. Sanford Newmark, MD. It just depends on the individual child. As a general rule kids with ADHD are not as interested in team sports with lots of rules. They are not as excited about sports with long periods of boredom. For instance, baseball, American baseball. You spend a lot of time just standing around. It is not the best thing for a kid with ADHD. Tennis is good for a child with ADD. In tennis, you are doing something the entire time. But it does happen. There are ADHD kids who really like baseball. Then they play. You just have to find the correct activity for a child. Behavioral treatment for ADHD. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Video interview with top expert in holistic treatment of ADHD. ADHD therapy without drugs. Individual or team sports in ADHD?