Why do our children with ADHD become so frustrated by their performance in video games?

Yesterday, I talked about what to do when your child is frustrated with not getting to a certain level in a video game or because he lost the game. At issue as well, is why our children become so frustrated with what I alluded to, or as my son stated, “is just a game.” Children with ADHD often have a poor self-esteem. Despite the fact that they do not always have an accurate world view of how others see them and their behavior, they certainly know that they have few if any friends. They observe other children playing during recess while they walk around alone. They do not get invited to birthday parties. They have few if any play dates. Therefore, they know that something is not the same for them as compared to other children.

Because of their low self-esteem they look for any way to feel “cool,” and to feel good about themselves for achieving at something. I know that the older children with whom I work as well as those to whom I have interviewed during my doctoral research have said to me that they have difficulty focusing in school which prevents them from getting good grades and they see that others are rejecting them due to their annoying (their words) behavior. Therefore, if they are not excelling in school and they are not able to make friends, then certainly succeeding at playing video games becomes paramount. First of all, it builds their self-confidence when they become good at anything. Second of all, when a child is good at video games, he is somehow looked at as “cool” by the other children.

Our job as parents and teachers is to help our children to become experts at whatever we can in which they have an interest as well as something at which they excel. It does not matter if that “something” is music, art, sports, chess, debating, etc. What does matter is that you help them to find something that they can do so that when they walk into middle school and/or high school they have immediate friends as well as a social niche. Since our children with ADHD have difficulties making and keeping friends, it is vital that they somehow create an immediate social group that will accept and need them as an important member of their group. If they find that niche, their self-esteem and self-confidence will grow.