Gymnastics, hugging and no naughty step: does the past hold the key to treating ADHD?

I consider my family to be an accepting bunch. I’ve been fostering for over a decade and have been an adoptive parent for nearly five years as well. My relatives have always treated the children who drift in and out of our home as fully-fledged members of the family. Any unexpected little guests who come along to my mother’s house on Christmas Day find an equal pile of presents under the tree, and meltdowns from youngsters over seeming trivialities are tolerated with sympathetic glances and offers of support.

But if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to get the dander up of several of my relatives, it’s talk of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD), Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), or any of the other apparently ‘modern’ diagnoses.

‘Posh jargon for naughtiness, that’s what that is,’ my aunt scoffed, when I discreetly explained on a visit to her house, that the 8-year-old boy who had just uprooted her much-prized acer and scattered soil all over her youngest grandchild, had ADHD. And then she came out with the classic: ‘We never had any of this in my day.’

It’s a commonly-held belief, and accurate, to some extent. Back when my aunt was a youngster, any non-conforming child was either hidden away by embarrassed relatives or sent to reform school. Since ‘normal’ children rarely came into contact with anyone different from themselves, it was easy to believe that a sharp tap on the wrist with a ruler from the headmaster was all it took to bring the most challenging of children in line.

A decade ago, it was a belief I shared. After ten years of fostering, however, I’ve come to accept that there are some children for whom traditional parenting techniques - the naughty step/time out/withdrawal of privileges – simply don’t work. Having looked after children of all ages, it’s become clear to me that a system of reward and punishment can actually make challenging behaviour a whole lot worse.

Recent neurological research has confirmed that trauma, both pre and post birth, has a devastating impact on the developing brain, with the resulting, organic damage being visible on scans. Leading paediatricians now widely agree that the brains of affected children are literally wired differently, so that any attempt to discipline them throws them into a primitive state of fight or flight.

The answer to helping these children, I’ve found, lies in a combination of sensory exercises, robust physical activity and therapeutic parenting. When a child is out of control, the last thing they need is an adult reprimanding them. Shouting at a dis-regulated child is about as effective as screaming at a dog who’s poised to attack. Instead of punishing undesirable behaviour, the therapeutic parent helps the child to calm down and then teaches them alternative strategies for keeping themselves regulated. That doesn’t mean letting the child get away with doing whatever they want; firm boundaries are still in place, but natural consequences take the place of traditional punishments.

Some of my family, particularly the older generation, find the concept of hugging an angry, out of control child difficult to swallow, convinced as they are that unruliness is a state unique to the twenty-first century. So, what is the truth of it? Did ADHD and associated conditions exist in the years before they were officially recognised and diagnosed?

It was while searching through the old case files of the hospital almoners in the early 1920s for my book, Letters From Alice, I was writing about their work, that I came across the surprising answer: How to Help Cases of Distress, a handbook for social workers written in 1895.

It speaks of ‘an untractable child’ of 8 years old who ‘is a liar and a thief’. As well as repeatedly setting fires in his house, the boy had been turned out of several schools and had killed a cat and a parrot. ‘Beating has no effect on him,’ reports the handbook, ‘and his mother and relatives are afraid of him’. When hauled before Westminster Police Court, more beatings were suggested as a remedy, but a superintendent from a remedial school advised that the boy should be ‘placed in better surroundings… so that he should have no time to steal’.

The superintendent also prescribed that the boy’s carers should ‘ask him no questions for some time’ so that ‘his habit of lying and stealing will die a natural death much quicker than by any amount of beating’. He went on to describe his treatment of another boy who had a habit of stealing and harassing his schoolmates. Strikingly, the boy showed dramatic improvement after being put through ‘an extra course of gymnastics before going to bed’.

The remedy for dealing with challenging behaviour, explained the superintendent, was ‘to fill up boys’ waking time with thoughts and actions of as pleasant a nature as possible, and with such a genial supervisor that the delight he takes in his new life leaves no room for his old life, and then send him to bed too tired to talk or do anything but go to sleep. Systematic and constant employment of time, made as pleasant as possible, never fails to alter and improve what are called ‘incorrigible boys’.

Child behavioural experts at Family Futures therapy centre of excellence in London believe that ADHD and other conditions that manifest themselves into challenging behaviour have their roots in a sensory system that is out of kilter. And their answer? Filling a child’s day with activities that provide greater sensory input, such as putting heavy books in their school bag and giving them regular movement breaks, with plenty of opportunity for gymnastic-style play.

So, the next time one of my relatives questions my ‘namby-pamby’ approach to discipline, I’m going to present them with evidence that the seeds of therapeutic parenting can be found in a dusty old handbook for social workers that was published before they were even born!

Petrina Banfield’s book Letters from Alice is published by Harper Collins

This week is National Adaption Week. To find out more, visit first4adoption.org.uk