Wii for ADHD?
And yes, as I mentioned in the newsletter, part of me remains skeptical, probably because my boys will STILL hyperfocus on video games and do nothing else for hours.
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Wii For ADHD?!
January 14, 2010 By 5 Comments
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I am a Clinical Psychologist and I work mainly with kids. After getting the WII Fit Plus, I realized how amazing it is for ADHD. With all the games that require attention and the need to control impulses, I think it could be a great intervention to help everyone with ADD/ADHD.
I’m starting to think that Wii is the worst thing I ever got for my son, 7 y.o. (on medication, adderall and tenex, w/ the hope of getting him off adderall). We play the Star Wars Lego game. I’m the only one he has played with. We play for 30 minutes and I have a timer in front of us. I give him and 5 and 10 minute warning.
When it’s time, he gets very frustrated. I’ve tried to get him to turn it off, but he can’t. When I turn it off he goes ballistic and can’t control his emotions which is usually intense anger. He does every thing short of physical stuff – kicking and hitting We’ve been working on anger and he’s doing very well except for this Wii stuff.
Does anyone else have this problem? I think it’s almost like a drug for him.
in response to Jane …
one trick i’ve tried (with success) is for every half hour of “active” game my ds plays he gets 15 minutes of “non-active” game. ie – do Wii play or Wii fit for 30 minutes and get 15 minutes of Star Wars Lego.
in response to Deanna i dont really think that will help ur kids after they get out of high school because all of it is what a kid would consider fun as aposed to math homework or any homework in general. i have ADHD and im a high school grad (and im in college) and im working on geting away from video games. it may work really well for ur kid right now but eventually they will turn to it for a “crutch” for when they are feeling down for example they were made fun of at school or they got a bad grade on a test. they will go to it without knowing that they are just using it to pour in their bitter feelings into it. the reason for this is that playing video games is realitively easy for kids that are growing up in this day and age and age(or growing up with video games like i did. i started with a gameboy color and it started very much how u are doing this today except that my parents would have me do 30 min of homework and then reward it with 30 min of gaming)
im just saying this to warn u for the future. every kid is different and maybe they will be able to handle the videogames.
I have a Wii game and I have a few games that you need to follow directions. My son wants to ‘win’ all the time, so he learns to control his impulses enough to ‘win’ at these games. he gets easily frustrated, but when i redirect him to try again, he does and this times follows the directions and than learns to control his impulses. it’s rather amazing to watch him control his impulses. right now he’s not on meds because his father refuses to have him on meds, but i’m working to change THAT.