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Developing social skills can be something challenging for children with ADHD. It's not uncommon for children with ADHD to face challenges even with simple social interactions. They may be seen as too intense, too aggressive, talks out of turn too much, or just be plain annoying. Most children with ADHD seem more immature than other children their age, and unfortunately can make them susceptible to teasing or bullying.

Some children with ADHD will figure out for themselves eventually who aren't appropriate to keep as company, and who aren't. However, some may begin to battle with depression and may do things that they shouldn't do just to get accepted by their peers. Especially for teens with ADHD, it's not unusual to begin acting out, spending time with the wrong crowd, and doing bad things just to feel accepted.

Most of the challenges that young people with ADHD have which affects their ability to make friends have something to do with their lack of social skills. It's a lot easier for parents to help young children with these challenges while early, which also stresses out the importance of early detection of ADHD. How can parents help their children with ADHD improve their social skills? Here are a few tips:

• Talk to your child - In a gentle but honest way, take your child aside and talk to him/her about his/her challenges and make suggestions on how to make changes.
  


• Role-play - This is particularly effective with young children because it's a fun and visual way of learning how to react in certain situations. Role-play different social scenarios and make suggestions on how your child can improve on his/her reactions and interactions with other people.
  


• Set playdates - Children with ADHD can get wound up pretty easily so it's not a good idea to invite many playmates at a time over to your house. It would be wise to choose one or two playmates, and to pick children with similar language and physical skills as your child.
  


• Draw the line on physical reactions - Children with ADHD can get frustrated easily and they act out emotionally and physically when that happens. Social interactions can be quite frustrating, and it's not unusual for frustrated children to resort to hitting, pushing, name-calling, and hair-pulling. Make it clear that you will have zero tolerance for this kind of behavior so that your child knows that he/she shouldn't resort to that behavior, and that he/she doesn't have to endure that kind of behavior from other children as well.
  


• Reward good behavior during playtime - When your child does something right during playtime, be conscious to point this out and reward him/her for it. Positive reinforcement does a lot of good for a child with ADHD.

Helping your child develop and improve his/her social skills can take a lot of effort and patience. However, this is an important aspect of developing into a well-adjusted adult. It definitely helps if you do the suggestions above in addition to other things that you can do together in order to soothe the symptoms of ADHD such as creating a structured environment, medication, eating a healthy diet, and exercising daily.