The 3 Best Gifts to Give Your ADHD Loved Ones

The last thing your ADHD friends and loved ones need is more stuff to organize, manage, or return. So what are good gifts to get them?

Unless you know something that they actually really want, here are 3 suggestions that work any time.

(1) Hands-On Support

Every person who has ADHD also has some project they have been putting off because they need a partner-in-action. Usually it’s something tedious like cleaning out their closets or organizing files. But it could be anything.

You might be the type of person who thinks this task is not a big deal. You may wonder why they can’t seem to get this thing done. But that’s the nature of ADHD:

People with ADHD are great at a lot of things that other people find difficult, and tasks that others find “simple” can languish on our to-do lists for months.

The best gift you can give your ADHD loved one is the gift of your assistance to help them tackle that big task. If you don’t want to help them personally, you can hire someone to help them with it.

(2) Body Doubling

For some tasks, your ADHD friend or loved one doesn’t need your active participation. Instead, they may just need a body-double: someone to sit with them in the room while they do the task.

For example, maybe they need to work on their website or handle some paperwork. They don’t need to talk about the task; they just need the presence of someone else in the space to help them stay focused — and to remind them to take breaks if they fall into hyper-focus.

Giving them the gift of your presence in the room for a period of time while they tackle the task.

Your presence will help them feel supported and put their nervous system at ease so they can make progress.

(3) Administrative Support

Sometimes the hardest part of a task for someone with ADHD is dealing with the administrative logistics around it. People with ADHD tend to be great at big picture strategy and high level logistics, but we can get easily overwhelmed by the smaller details and moving parts.

If might be something simple like scheduling doctors appointments, calling insurance companies to research options, or doing meal planning.

Helping your ADHD loved ones with those minutiae of daily life can be a well-received gift at a time of year when we are already often overwhelmed.

These gifts don’t require you to enter a store or deal with shipping, and they’ll be well-received and appreciated by your ADHD loved ones.