“My Favorite Social Skills Activities for ADHD Youth”
These three fun activities help children and teens with ADHD build their social confidence.
As a woman with ADHD, I can’t help but pull from my childhood experiences and reflections when helping the neurodivergent kids I see in therapy.
In fourth grade, my favorite teacher led an activity where we had to describe to our peers how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as if they were aliens who had never heard of such a food. As bright fourth graders, we started by telling the other group to “put the peanut butter on the bread.” As you can imagine, the instruction was so vague that my peers, who were only following directions, placed the entire peanut butter jar on top of the bread, which was not our intention. “Working and communicating together in groups can be challenging,” my teacher told me. “Did you learn anything from this?”
Working in groups – and socializing in general – can be especially challenging for kids with ADHD. ADHD is not so much about knowledge-based deficits as it is about performance-based challenges. A lot of us know how to socialize and we understand what’s right and wrong, but we struggle when we need to display our social skills. That’s why it’s so important to practice skills in real time, and why it’s even more important for parents to support and replicate skill-building at home.
The following are three social skills activities I have found help children with ADHD because they can be practiced in a social-skills groups with same-aged peers AND outside of the office with the support of parents:
“LEGO My Creation”
The first strategy, derived from an activity book by Jennifer Cook O’Toole, is written for parents, clinicians, and educators of autistic children. Given the overlap between autism and ADHD, this resource may be helpful more broadly.
[Get This Free Download: A Friendship Guide for Kids with ADHD]
The goal behind this communication activity resembles that of my PB&J fourth grade bit. During the activity, children sit back-to-back and each pair is given identical LEGO pieces. In each pair, Child #1 creates a structure with the pieces while Child #2, still turned the other way, waits. Then, Child #1, who built the structure, practices clearly and patiently communicating what they created to Child #2, who is blind to what Child #1 created. Child #2 has to try to build a replica using only Child #1’s verbal description. Both partners can only see and compare structures at the end of the activity. Before the activity, clinicians and/or parents should discuss helpful tips for easier communication, and children should also be coached and given direct feedback during the activity.
I like this activity because, even if it turns out to be very difficult for the pair, it will likely serve to increase awareness of situations in which children may be misunderstood and need to explain things more clearly. Other versions of this same activity, like drawing, can help with clarifying thoughts and with communicating more effectively.
Two tips I’ve learned in my practice with neurodivergent youth: Make sure the LEGO pieces are large and simplify the task for them as much as you can. The goal is to teach them something, but also to make the task attainable and fun, so if the structure is too difficult to describe, that may suck the fun out of the activity and make the game unnecessarily stressful.
Spin the Confidence Wheel
Many of the neurodivergent pre-teens and teens with whom I work say they want to increase their confidence in social situations. Enter the Confidence Wheel, an activity I derived from my exposure therapy work with anxious youth. Each slice of the wheel is filled in with a unique social anxiety exposure or situation based on the child’s specific triggers. When the wheel stops, the child has to engage in the social anxiety exposure indicated. (For so much of anxiety, the only way out is through.) After discussing the rationale behind this activity and receiving some core coping skills, the child engages in the social anxiety exposure with the support of their social skills group and clinician; they can also practice outside of the office with parental support.
[Read: 5 Ways to Reframe Anxiety for Your Worried Teen]
I like this one because it is applied – it pushes the child to actually DO something rather than just discuss a skill, and it can be practiced with parents’ support. After all, it will be difficult to engage in real-life social skills practice if anxiety is holding them back.
Winging it with Improv
Improvisation has so many social skills built into it — changing and adapting personas based on context, getting used to quick cognitive shifts, following what others are saying, staying on topic – that can help neurodivergent youth rehearse in a funny and supportive environment.
Improv classes, programs, clubs, and camps are everywhere – another benefit of this activity. As individuals with ADHD, we need humor and movement to stay sane, and improv provides both. Here’s a display of one improv activity I’ve seen work well with neurodivergent preteens and teens: LiveKellyandMark.
In each of these activities, we encourage adolescents to interact with others in real time while facing their social fears in fun, supportive environments. These exercises and contexts teach them to love themselves for who they are while opening their minds to new strategies for becoming the best versions of themselves.
Social Skills Activities: Next Steps
- Read: Social Smarts — The Teen Years
- Read: Building (Real) Friendships in the Age of Social Media
- Watch: The Social Reboot – Helping Tween and Teen Boys with ADHD Make Friends
SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.
