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Add to FavoritesDoes Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) increase stranger danger? Of course it does. I have a niece, nephew and a granddaughter with ADHD and I know other children who have it. They are bright, intelligent children. But children with ADHD have one thing in common and that is, they don't stay focused and are easily distracted. Their minds wander and they tend to space out at times.
Furthermore, children with ADHD do not think fast enough. We had told all of the children many times to watch out for slow-moving vehicles on the way to and from school. They knew to run and not let them come up alongside them, giving them a chance to grab them and force them into their car.
When my niece was ten, her father had bought a new van that she had never seen. He was on his way home and saw her getting off the school bus. When the school bus pulled away and she began walking down the street, he decided he would see what she would do when approached by a slow-moving vehicle.
He came slowly up behind her on the other side of the street. She turned, but the windows were tinted so she had no idea who was in the van, yet she turned back around and kept walking. He pulled up beside her and she stopped!
He let the window down and when she realized it was her father, she simply smiled and asked him where he got the new van. Well of course he lectured her about what she was told about slow-moving vehicles, especially if they pulled alongside her and she merely stated, "I forgot.".
Having three children in the family with ADHD, I have read a lot about it and I have observed their behavior closely. I took my nephew to the bathroom at the mall once when he was twelve, waiting at the door for him. Two men went in while he was there. One came out but the other was still in there.
A good while later, I became concerned and was about to open the door, but the man came out. I waited another minute, opened the door and called out to him. When he answered, I asked if he was having a stomach problem. He said he was just thinking. Well you can believe I asked him if he could think about the fact that I was waiting for him.
Children with ADHD need more protection. Their minds wander, they tend to space out, forget, and don't observe their surroundings. When my sister's husband picked my niece up from the bus stop that day and realized how vulnerable she was to strangers, he never let her walk home from the bus stop alone again.
We kept an eagle-eye on all of the children, but the ones with ADHD, we were very protective of. They needed to be monitored more closely.
Learn more about this author, Pat Lunsford.
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No
My first reaction to this question was, of course children with ADHD are vulnerable to stranger danger, but on reflection, after considering the experiences I have had with my own four children, one of whom has Tourette and ADHD syndrome, I have to conclude that ALL children are vulnerable to stranger danger and rely totally on the sensible advice and good habits that you instill into them at an early age.
As any parent will tell you, all children are different and they will deal with certain situations in an individual way. I realized very early on that there is no point in try to get your child to deal with a potential problem in life if it was outside of their normal reactive capabilities.
For example, my eldest daughter was a very shy and introvert young lady who barely had the self confidence to walk up the road on her own, let alone deal with a stranger who could pose a potential risk. Clearly screaming out loud and shouting was not an option for her and so we devised a "safe route" for her to walk to school. I was in no doubt that she could not be enticed into a car with the promise of a few sweeties, but I also knew that it was possible that she could freeze with fear. Telling her to shake her head and then run as fast as she could to the nearest neighbor or friend seemed like the best option for her.
The worst thing to do to your child is to make them paranoid about every single person that is a stranger to them. Teaching them to fear anyone that they don't know is lazy parenting and all you are simply doing is putting them into a fearful situation every time they step out of the door.
ADHD children may need a little extra guidance, but in the long run you are actively helping them understand the world around them and live and react to certain situation in a sensible manner.
My ADHD son is an extremely bright young man but had a very low attention span. No matter how many scenarios we practiced at home I was always in fear that he would be "distracted" and enticed or grabbed by a complete stranger. He was a little more difficult to teach but until I was sure that he was safe, I never allowed him to walk outside alone.
With ADHD children you have to be repetitive. They haven't got the capability to think things through properly and so the best way to deal with a potentially bad situation is to get them to react to it in an instinctive way, rather than hope that they will "remember" what they have been taught.
I got him into the habit of walking along the inner part of the sidewalk as far away from cars as possible. This way, if he was walking, with his mind wandering, he would have time to react if a car slowed down next to him.
He carried a mobile phone around from a fairly early age and I got him into the habit of ringing me if he went into another house outside our own home. I made him do this even if it was just a friend's house, just to get him into the habit of ringing me.
No matter how a child reacts to a situation, it is up to us as parents to teach them the valuable life skills that will help them recognize the people and the situations that may threaten their personal safety.
An ADHD child has to be shown the personal boundaries that no one no matter how close you are to someone - that should ever be crossed. Even ADHD people get instinctive feelings about something not "feeling right". I managed to get my son to react to these feelings on an instinctive level rather than getting him to take the time to reason through his thoughts on why he felt the way he did about a situation.
Double checking is good. I found that by simply getting a second opinion from Mom about something was always a good idea. Me saying no about something was often the last word and made it easier for my son to explain and a simple telephone call doesn't take a lot of thought.
Ultimately, if you are a caring parent, it doesn't really make any difference whether your child has ADHD or not. You are not going to allow them into potentially dangerous situations until you are certain that they are capable of dealing with them in their own way.
Learn more about this author, Jane Allyson.
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