Managing Pediatric ADHD and Stress During the Holidays

In this podcast, Greg Mattingly, MD, physician and principal investigator, Midwest Research Group, St Charles, Missouri, and associate professor at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, shares tips and advice on managing pediatric attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and stress through the holiday season.

Read the transcript:

Greg Mattingly:  Hi, I'm Greg Mattingly, coming to you live from the Psych Congress meeting in San Antonio. The temperatures are dropping, and we're heading into the holidays. Holiday should be a time of joy. We all know it's a time of transition. Kids are coming home from school; daily routines are being changed. People are coming home from college.

We're going to talk about the importance of managing [attention-deficient/hyperactivity disorder] (ADHD), and managing anxiety, and other associated symptoms during the holidays. We all think about ADHD is something where we want to help our kids do well at school. We need to talk about the importance of helping our kids to do well when they're not in school.

Do well, when they're having social activities, or at that sporting event, they're running down the football field, they're at a Girl Scout meeting, they're to church event. Also, do well over the holidays, when they're interacting with others, their family. Maybe their schedules have been disrupted, the importance of continuing to receive the treatment that's helping your child.

We know that many parents haven't gotten the message about ADHD. It's just as important as other health conditions and treatment begins with the right options and continuing those options. Planning for the holidays, making sure that our patients have refills available. Some of us may have some of our alternate hours over the holidays. We talk about heading into the holidays.

This year, Christmas Eve is going to be on a Friday. How do you make sure people don't run out of medicine over the weekend, to where holidays can fall apart? We know that in addition to all the great things that comes with the holidays when we look at it, there's higher levels of stress.

There's the stress of lots of people being together. Expectations. One of the things we quite often forget about is if you look at the most stressful events in life, 5 of the top 10 are positive life events—getting a new job, getting a new house, moving, going on a vacation, heading into the holidays. Plan for that stress, talk about that stress, talk about how you going to manage it with your children.

Many of us make the mistake of not talking to our kids and say, "Listen, I'm a little stressed and keyed up with all this. How are you feeling?" It's normal to feel stressed. Do you normalize it?

Do you help the kids who are having some anxiety symptoms, say "Hey, listen. You know how to handle this. We've talked about it. Let's talk about the tips and tricks. Let's talk about the things you worked on with your counselor. Let's talk about things we can do as a family to make these holidays a successful, peaceful, happy time instead of one that's filled with stress."

Heading into the holidays, make sure we have our medicine, make sure there's not gaps in treatment. Make sure we plan ahead proactively. Make sure we normalize that anxiety is common, and it's OK. How do we deal with it? How do we support each other? It should be a time of love and a time of joy. Let's look forward to the holiday season together.

Greg Mattingly, MD, is a physician and principal investigator in clinical trials for Midwest Research Group, St Charles, Missouri and a founding partner of St. Charles Psychiatric Associates, St Charles, Missouri. He earned his medical degree at Washington University, St Louis, Missouri. Dr Mattingly is board certified in adult and adolescent psychiatry and is a Diplomat of the National Board of Medical Examiners. He is an Associate Clinical Professor at Washington and has been a principal investigator in over 200 clinical trials focusing on ADHD, anxiety disorders, major depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.