ADHD Parenting

I Am So Proud Of You

2010-07-04T02:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I said something to my eldest son, something that I have said to him many times. Maybe I never really said it heartfelt before, or maybe I just did not pay enough attention to see his reaction.

Yesterday I told my son that "I was so proud of him".

I really paid attention to see how he reacted. His whole face lit up. It was more than just his smile that told me that he needed to hear what I had to say. He ran upstairs to my wife and proudly announced "Abba is so proud of me!"

Being a parent with adult ADHD, I sometimes forget the small things. I am able to concentrate on the big picture (most of the time), but I can only imagine that some of the small stuff gets forgotten.

Just because someone has adult ADHD it doesn't make it ok to forget the little things. Especially at a child's expense.

Some ADHD Statistics

2010-06-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a direct quote from Wiki...

"ADHD is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children, affecting about 3% to 5% of children globally and diagnosed in about 2% to 16% of school aged children. It is a chronic disorder with 30% to 50% of those individuals diagnosed in childhood continuing to have symptoms into adulthood. Adolescents and adults with ADHD tend to develop coping mechanism to compensate for some or all of their impairments. 4.7 percent of American adults are estimated to live with ADHD.^{"

While I am not a Mathematician, I can add. If 2-16% of kids have ADHD (which is a pretty big difference in high and low estimate), and 30 -50% of these kids continue to have ADHD as an adult, than shouldn't 1-8% have adult ADHD? how is it only 4.7%? How do you define adult ADHD? Adults are rarely in classroom type settings for 8+ hours a day.

Another strange part of my previous quotation was, "}Adolescents and adults with ADHD tend to develop coping mechanism to compensate for some or all of their impairments." What "coping mechanisms" are they referring to? Being thrown out of class? Causing trouble when the teacher turns her back to the students? Failing tests? My coping mechanism was going into business management and not being forced into classroom type scenarios.

If there are secrets to coping with ADHD that I am not aware of, I am interesting in knowing...

Who Suffers The Most From An ADHD Child

2010-06-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

Up until a few weeks ago I believed that the bulk of the suffering in cases of ADHD adolescents was to the kids themselves. After meeting Beth* my perspective completely changed.

Beth is the neighbor of mine and a mother of 3 ADHD boys. She literally stopped me on the street to "kvetch" about how hard her morning had been. She explained that her boys were just too wild. Even their teachers refused to deal with them - they would get kicked out of class and sometimes sent home.

Beth is a work from home mother, so having children at home during work hours complicates things. It turns out that these children's teachers do not want them in class because they simply do not listen. Even Beth has difficulty dealing with them when all the boys are together.

I explained to her that as kids grow up the "bad" side effects of ADHD minimize - and the "good" side effects start to emerge. She could not believe that any good could come out of ADHD. I explained to her that I personally had very severe ADHD as a child, and even at this point have serious adult ADHD symptoms. I spent about 15 minutes of my mid-morning in an effort to convince Beth that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A very bright one.

I honestly hope I was successful in reassuring a nervous mother that there is hope for ADHD kids.

* Name changed to protect the privacy of individual.

My Personal Experience with Dexidrin

2010-06-09T01:56:00.000-07:00

I'm constantly hearing of new side effects of different medications from friends, people who I've met who have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. While I'm sure that medications have changed since I was a kid, I can only tell what I've experienced. I regularly read the long list of side effects on any pills I take and then get nervous of all the crazy side effects that are listed to avoid lawsuits.

As a child, obviously, I took what my parents gave me, which was Dexedrin. Every person who I've spoken to who took similar meds as I did had similar side effects. Frankly, these side effects caused more trouble, both short term and long lasting than the benefits they provided. I remember sitting in class, an hour or so after the meds kicked in, and feeling like my entire body was over-concentrated. Not only was I able to focus on what the teacher was saying, but I was equally focused on every single little thing happening around the classroom, thereby being unfocused. I would notice every ant or fly hopping around the room, the child across the room who was tying his shoelace, etc. While on paper, i was focused, it was too much so, so everything became a distraction. I would wait helplessly for five or six hours to pass so that my mind would return to it's normal state. After a full day on the medication, I would feel mentally exhausted.

My Refusal to Eat While on Ritalin

2010-06-09T02:08:00.000-07:00

In my parent's efforts to find the right medication for me, I switched around a lot, and each one had it's own aggressive side effect. My brother to this day jokes about how I didn't take my medications, the couch did. While I may have subconsciously blocked out the fact that I hid my meds, after speaking to parents it seems to be a real dilemma. Kids would notice and get frustrated with side effects, and then refuse to take their pill. The specific main side effect that I had while on Ritalin was the loss of appetite. I wouldn't eat for the duration of the pill, and even for hours after it wore off. Looking back at the symptoms, I'm not surprised that I eventually refused to take the pills, even subconsciously. Needless to say I lost a lot of weight in that phase of my journey through meds.

Top 4 Important Things for Parents to Know about their ADHD Children

2010-06-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

The following are tips that we feel are important for every parent of an ADHD child to know:

1- Involve Your Child In Karate or Martial Arts: This will help children get out their excess energy and teach them important levels of self respect and discipline. More often than not, a child who's not successful sitting behind a desk learning can easily find his groove in a Dojo where informal learning is what matters.

2- Encourage Your Child to Build Something: Ever since I was a small child, I loved going on missions. Every day is a new adventure in the eyes of an ADHD child. Whether I was building a clubhouse, a fort, a laser tag arena, it didn't really matter. What did matter was that when I was done with my mission, i had something concrete to show for my efforts.

3- Find Something Your Child Excels At: After spending a full day in a non-ideal setting for an ADHD child, the average ADHD child will come home not only depressed, but without the belief that he/she can succeed at anything. ADHD children can work longer and harder at something that holds their interest, and it's so important to find something that fits this bill. Don't give up until you find that thing that makes your child tick.

4- Don't Ever Give Up On Your Child: Sometimes the unspoken word is the harshest. Every child knows when there's silent disapproval coming from their parents. Myself, I came from two extremely studious parents and for many years of my childhood, they just assumed their children would be as studious as they are, and did not know how to respond to my needs.

My husband with ADHD

2010-06-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

My husband has classic ADHD. I'm sure he was a difficult child, wild and all over the place. Even now he is constantly doing, running, thinking, planning. He currently takes an anti-anxiety pill, which has been proven effective towards relaxing typical adhd symptoms.

What he always says is that he wishes as a kid, someone would have pointed him in the direction of sales. It's the perfect occupation for him, because he's always doing, jumping, talking fast. Thank G-d he found informal education opportunities at a relatively young age (after the first semester in college, when we both dropped out to work in sales) and it really clicked with him. So much so that after holding a few different sales/managerial positions he was able to start his own business, and he's perfect for it because of his need to always be moving- he'll answer emails within minutes, be completely on top of the different aspects of his company, etc.

He'd like to one day open a program of some sort to point ADHD kids in the direction that they'll succeed in, in life.

Try to think out of the box- for example, college was NOT for my husband. It was extremely hard for him to sit through classes, study, take tests etc. He did much better in on the job training in the field he wound up in. Obviously, this may not apply to all ADHD kids, but I could see that for many, vocational training of some sort would suit them much better than sitting through years of classes.

Now that he is in the business world, my husband notices that many, many of the successful businessmen he meets with have similar cases, or even more severe of ADHD. (Constantly fiddling, jumping around in meetings, etc)

In short, i'm happily married to a terrific man with ADHD. I couldn't be more proud of how responsible and efficient he is with his business (as well as spending plenty of time with the kids and myself, of course!) So to all those parents with ADHD kids (and I'll be VERY surprised if I don't fall into that category one day, based on my husband) with the right medication and guidance, your kids can grow up great.