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Regular Features
THE
PARENT COACH
Dr.
Steven Richfield provides articles on many different aspects of raising a child
with ADHD.
ASK
THE ADVOCATE
Each
month we our advocate will be answering questions from our visitors about yours
and your children's rights in the educational system.
PARENTS
TALK
A mother is trying to help her teenage son learn anger management.
MOTIVATION
TIPS
Five great ideas for motivation, including The Shoe Race, Trading Places
and more.
ORGANIZATION
TIPS
Organize your child at home, and maybe find some tips that will help you
as well.
ADHD
IN THE NEWS
Headlines about ADHD, Learning Disability and Mental Disorders
Study on ADD and TV
The recent study published on watching television between the ages of one and
three and the possible link to ADD/ADHD did not take many considerations into
account. The author of the study even admits that he cannot conclude that
television watching and ADD/ADHD are linked.
Read the
Article
A Lesson Learned
Life With A Child With ADD/ADHD
by George and Eileen Bailey
As
new parents holding our infant in our arms, we are filled with new emotions. We
begin to dream of their
life
and all of the possibilities it may hold. We imagine our child growing up,
graduating from high school, going
on to college, landing the perfect job, maybe even becoming the president. Or
maybe we dream of our
children being famous athletes or movie stars. Whatever the dreams may be, we
nurture and expand on
them for years. By the time they are walking we have perfected our fantasy of
how their lives should turn out.
Is that fair?
We
must remember that these are our dreams and fantasies. Each child holds their
own potential and abilities,
their own dreams and their own ideas of the perfect life. It is ultimately,
their dreams they must follow,
their own rainbows they must chase and their own abilities they must live up to.
But what happens when
the child's abilities do not match our expectations. What
happens when a parent who has gone through school on honor rolls is faced on a
daily basis with a child
that can't seem to pass school. Where does the parent turn, do they blame the
child for being lazy, of
not trying, or do they yell and scream and punish? It is the strong and loving
parent that begins to search for
answers. Sometimes, the answer can be as simple as a child having ADHD, or
Attention Deficit Disorder. ADHD
is a disorder that can includes specific symptoms of inattention and symptoms of
hyperactivity/impulsivity. Individuals with ADHD may know what to do but do not
consistently do what they know
because of their inability to efficiently stop and think prior to responding,
regardless of the setting or
task. A
child with ADHD can be bright, articulate, and have the intelligence to do well
in school and in life. But because
of certain workings within the brain, they do not always have the ability to do
the work, remember their
assignments or receive the good grades in school. It is up to the parent to put
aside their expectations
and
their dreams to work with their child and to accept the child for who he(she)
really is.
Acceptance
is in some ways letting go to allow the child to follow their own path. But at
the same time, we
must always encourage and support our child, guiding them to work their hardest,
to not accept failure or
their "condition" as an excuse for failure. We must create an
atmosphere of success, finding achievement in
the smallest of details. As the old cliche goes "Take One Day At A
Time," parents of children with ADHD must
take one achievement at a time. When a child hands in their homework for an
entire week, it may be
time for a celebration. If they pass a class they were previously failing, it is
nothing short of miraculous. Raising
a child with ADHD, takes patience, effort and a great deal of hard work.
Lowering expectations and
creating an environment where the child can improve works much better than
asking the child to move up
ten steps to where we feel he(she) should be. Success comes one step at a time.
We have for years, watched
children with ADHD on television without realizing it, they are the children in
the shows and the cartoons
that can't ever quite get it together. We all watched and laughed at Dennis the
Menace for years, but
looking back, he is the typical ADHD child. Take
the time to take inventory of where your child is and try to build from there,
many people have succeeded
and surpassed all of our expectations. For example, Albert Einstein, Mozart,
Alexander Graham
Bell, Henry Ford, John F. Kennedy and Whoopee Goldberg all have shown signs of
having ADHD
or a learning disability. Nurture the creative and intelligence, and let each
child blossom in their
own way. There is no telling where they may end up.