Coaches Coaching compulsory children with ADHD

[WavyNavy8]

Does anyone have any good pointers on how to structure rotations (at practice) when a few girls struggle with ADHD?

I can see the girls who do not have ADHD are consistent with skills and assignments where my girls with ADHD are more inconsistent but her pull out beautiful routines under pressure at meets.

Trying to find a balance for practice to help manage both groups of ladies. My ADHD girls sometimes thrive on rewards, but the novelty often wears off if the reward isn’t great enough.

The results in practice vs a meet are quite different. I’m looking for more quality assignment completion before moving to upgrades, but in their eyes they “did the assignment”. Doing and doing well are 2 different things.

I want them to be more engaged at practice and I want them to move on past the assignment, but I also don’t want to allow them to mark their assignments complete with 70% effort when my non ADHD girls are consistently giving me 100%. So I’m trying to look at new methods or a new mindset for myself.

This is for all compulsory girls ages 7-12

 

[raenndrops]

Have you considered that what you call 70% effort is 100% of the effort they can give at that time? If they know that moving on to upgrades is a reward for doing their best on the assignment, they are probably trying as hard as they can.

In a meet, they don't have to keep doing the same thing over and over. It is easier to focus for a very short period, making it seem like they give less effort in practice.

Good luck ... from someone with lifelong ADHD ... finally getting treated for it as a 52-year-old.

 

[Scream4IceCream]

Like Raenndrops said, please don’t assume they aren’t giving their best effort just because it doesn’t look the same as what the NT girls can produce.

Games and contests for drills/rotations can help, but you do have to switch it up because (as you observed) the novelty wears off (and ADHDers often thrive on novelty). One trick that I’ve seen work well with a group of L3 at our gym is they show routines (or parts of routines) and they can earn a piece of candy, but the coach doesn’t tell them the key to getting it so they basically have to try their best on everything (like on bars one round it might be proper leg position in the pullover and the next round proper connection of the FHC to the cast). The girls do their best routine and then just get a yes or a no from the coach, but the “secret skill” isn’t revealed until everyone has had a turn. It also keeps the girls engaged watching their teammates and trying to guess the secret skill.

Another thing that can be helpful is reminding the gymnast of her correction before she takes her turn. So many times, the girl does a skill and then gets a correction and goes on to the next station or back at the end of the line. With ADHD it can be very difficult for the gymnast to remember the correction by the time she gets back to that skill/station. A verbal reminder of her last correction right before the next turn is very helpful. The next step up from that would be to ask the gymnast what her correction was from last time and have her brain recall it and say it out loud to you before her next turn. That helps her to start to develop that habit herself.

Don’t let the ADHDers get away with sloppy form. If they can only do three perfect handstands before they lose focus while NTs can do six, have them stop with three. Try to teach them to be mindful of their turns and put words with their skills so they don’t get used to sloppy turns and build bad muscle memory.

It can be typical of an ADHDer to pull out her best performance at a meet. It’s ok to remind her that you know she’s capable of pointed toes, straight arms, etc. (or whatever it is you see in competition, but not in practice) and it’s ok to point out that she’ll make faster progress if she does all those little things every turn in practice. However, don’t say things like, “This shows you’re making a choice to be sloppy in practice!” “You can’t just put in effort when it’s in front of a judge!” or other things that make it seem like she’s making a deliberate choice to perform better in competition.

Finally, you might ask their parents if they have any tips. Parents often have valuable insight into how to “hack” their child’s ADHD because they live it all the time. If the parent knows there are focus issues in the gym they also might be able to adjust medication dosages/timing if their gymnast is medicated. (One brief note on this, if you know your ADHD gymnasts are medicated make sure they take advantage of water and snack breaks. Many ADHD meds can blunt the sensation of hunger and thirst.)

Hope some of this helps! Thanks for taking the time to try to help your ADHDers!

 

[rigel]

From a pre-team coach with ADHD:

When I notice a kid struggling to maintain their focus or motivation during practice, I'll often introduce a body double by pairing them up with another kid who seems to have a surplus of focus. The goal is to give the ADHDer a constant visual reminder of their assignment, and a friend to passively keep them accountable while completing it. When making this pairing, be sure to use language that emphasizes mutual support, so that the ADHDer doesn't draw the false conclusion that their teammate is being made to babysit them. When implemented correctly, the ADHD kid can seem to "share" their teammate's focus, even without explicit instructions to do so.

I've also made it work the other way around - pairing an ADHDer up with a new kid, maybe someone younger than them or with less gymnastics experience, and entrusting them with the job of guiding the new kid through their assignment. This can, admittedly, look a little more like babysitting, but when I explain the dynamic as a temporary mentoring or buddy system, it's usually received positively by both kids. It tends to have a similar effect on the ADHD kid as the former scenario, but the sustained focus comes from a responsibility to "share" it with their friend.

I find that body doubling as a strategy to support executive function is fairly easy to use in the gym. Side effects may include a deeper sense of cooperation and understanding between teammates

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Have you considered that what you call 70% effort is 100% of the effort they can give at that time? If they know that moving on to upgrades is a reward for doing their best on the assignment, they are probably trying as hard as they can.

In a meet, they don't have to keep doing the same thing over and over. It is easier to focus for a very short period, making it seem like they give less effort in practice.

Good luck ... from someone with lifelong ADHD ... finally getting treated for it as a 52-year-old.

I was going to come in and try to say something like this, but you absolutely knocked it out of the park here and I have nothing to add.