A More Active Parenting After Attending Let’s Get Organized: Experiences of Parents With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

PURPOSE: Time management skills are essential to maintain activities in daily life including work and family life. Parenting demands a high degree of attention, planning, problem solving and also time management. Managing time and organizing daily life can be a challenge for people with ADHD and consequently complicate parenting. Let’s Get Organized is an occupational therapy group intervention aiming at training skills in time management and planning and organization. The aim of this study was to describe parents’ experiences of time management and parenting after participating in the occupational therapy group intervention Let’s Get Organized.

DESIGN: The study had a descriptive qualitative design. Participants (n=15) with self-reported difficulties in time management skills due to ADHD were recruited from three psychiatric and habilitation outpatient services in Sweden.

METHOD: Interviews with a study-specific interview guide were performed after completed intervention. Data was analysed using qualitative inductive content analysis.

RESULTS: The findings describe the parents’ experiences in one overarching main category, Active parenting och better relations within and outside the family through daily time management. Three underlying generic categories were identified: Let’s Get Organized facilitates empowerment in daily life; The individual and family – both facilitators of and obstacles to implementation of time management strategies; and A changed parenting and family life.

CONCLUSION: Participants experienced a positive impact on time management skills after Let’s Get Organized which generated more active parenting and better predictability in the whole family. Let’s Get Organized can be a valuable occupational therapy intervention for parents with ADHD.

References

Lidström-Holmqvist, K., Tollén, A., Holmefur, M. (2021). Toward Control Over Time: Participant Experience of Attending the Let’s Get Organized Group Intervention. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 75 (5). https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2021.043216

Holmefur, M., Roshanay, A., White, S., Janeslätt, G., Vimefall, E., & Lidström-Holmqvist, K. (2021). Evaluation of the “Let’s Get Organized” group intervention to improve time management: protocol for a multi-centre randomized controlled trial. Trials, 22:640. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-021-05578-x

Wingren, M., Lidström-Holmqvist, K., Roshanai, A. H., Arvidsson, P., Janeslätt, G., White, S., & Holmefur, M. (2022). One-year follow-up after the time management group intervention Let’s Get Organized. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 29(4), 305–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/11038128.2021.1954687