So my 9 year old stepson has ADHD, he was diagnosed about a year ago now and is now taking medication for it.  Since his diagnosis we have moved away from Liverpool where he has spent all of his school years.... he went through an enormous amount of difficulty, bullying and turmoil whilst undiagnosed and a fresh start was due.

Since taking his medication he has calmed down quite a lot, he is still very impulsive and clearly bears many an emotional scar from his previous years which has left him angry, short tempered and frustrated.  His biggest hurdle at the moment is socially.

A while ago now I decided to discuss with him how friendship works and I created the following analogy:

Imagine that you are an island, and all the people around you are other islands, there is a sea in between you. 
When you first meet someone you are starting the process of bridging the divide between you, the process is slow and requires some hard work. 
The first step is to throw a rope across, you must then begin to turn this into a rope bridge, this requires effort on both sides, some patience and cooperation.
Once the rope bridge is built, you have a link, the start of friendship.  the rope bridge isn't very strong, but over time you both work together to make it stronger. 
As you use the bridge more and spend more time on it, you can begin to upgrade the bridge into a wooden bridge, then a brick or even steel bridge. 
Bridges require maintenance however..... if you don't use the bridge it will rot, it needs frequent painting and repairing, the occasional storm might damage it but it can be fixed.
Some bridges you will like more than others, if both parties decorate the bridge in colours they both like, and you agree on how to decorate it then you will enjoy that bridge more.


This anaolgy seemed to work well, he understood it fine and even added his own extras to it.  Some days I would pick him up from school and he would be upset, he would then tell me that he had blown up a bridge by accident when he did something regrettable, and other days he would tell me of new bridges that he had made.

Yesterday he went to play with a local 'friend' and that 'friend' then told him how much he hated him, and how annoying he found him, great!  Unfortunately he still struggles with social rules and cannot get along easily with oither boys.  After a bit of thought I decided another talk was appropriate; it is so hard to sit there and essentially tell someone 'yes you do all these annoying things, heres how you need to try and behave'.  Its not his fault, and it must be so difficult for him.  I have watched how he plays, and his main issues stem from dominating the play, and being very selfish.... all the rules are his rules, all the games are his games.  So the talk went as follows:

What is more important.... having a bridge/friend, or playing a game by your rules only?  When you make a bridge you must remember that it is a shared link, you both use the bridge.  You will have to compromise on the bridge and perhaps paint parts of it a colour that you don't like, but is that so bad if you get to keep the bridge?  Also not only is the bridge for you to visit his island, but for him to visit yours.... if you don't share the bridge the the other person might just destroy it. 

He fully understood this and came back with "yer i suppose i could cope if he wanted to paint the bridge pink, even though I don't like pink, at least we have a bridge!"

The final point I needed to make to hime is that yes he does have ADHD, and he must remember that he is impulsive, often he will say something like "no lets do it my way" before he has even thought about it.... but he can always backtrack.... "sorry I didn't mean that, lets actually do it your way". 

I do hope some  of it sticks!