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ADHD: Are There Obvious Answers We’re Overlooking?
Distractibility and short attention span have always been recognized as components of a Learning Disability. It is in finding creative solutions to their child’s problems with attention and hyperactivity that parents have their greatest opportunity to make helpful changes. This is an area where parents can make a big difference. Over the past twenty years, our focus has shifted toward medication and away from other answers. In our determination to find the right medication, do we sometimes overlook the obvious?
As an eleventh grader, Anna was on stimulant medication to control her distractibility, restlessness, and short attention span caused by the ADHD component of her Learning Disability. Even with the medication, Anna could only pay attention in class for ten minutes before her eyes glazed over and she started watching the clock. Her grades were all Ds and Fs. Rather than repeat her junior year, Anna used her summer to get intense remedial training. The camp she attended provided her with six hours a day of LD therapy plus tutoring in the courses she would be taking the following year. During her senior year, she had no trouble paying attention in class despite the fact that she was no longer on medication. And she made all Bs and Cs. What caused this dramatic transformation? According to Anna, "Understanding what you're learning helps concentration."
When this teenager says it, the truth seems so obvious. Are there other obvious answers we're also overlooking?
Paul's mother fought to get the services and medications her LD / ADHD son needed to function in class, but he remained unmotivated, distractible, and disorganized. However, during basketball season Paul got his act together every year. When he spends his afternoons in the gym, his study habits improve, his grades go up, and his attitude changes. Although the pressure of eligibility might be motivating Paul to make some of these adjustments, the basis of his transformation is probably much simpler: the child needs exercise. All children need strenuous exercise daily. Hyperactive children need more than most. Physical activity helps burn off the excess energy that makes them so wiggly in class. A couple hours of vigorous movement also helps neutralize the tension, stress, and frustration that builds up from sitting in a classroom all day. Paul doesn't have to wait for basketball season. He could gain the same happy results from track, baseball, la crosse, tennis, swimming, soccer, football, or wrestling. Children with an overabundance of energy need to learn how to direct it. Sports is a good place to start.
Diet is another area where the need for a change is often obvious. It's not at all unusual for a family to allow a youngster to live on doughnuts, hot chocolate, and pizza while expecting an assortment of prescription drugs to control a wandering mind, fits of rage, and bouts of depression. It isn't that such youngsters need a "special" diet - they need a balanced diet to prevent fluctuating blood sugar levels from adding to their problems with attention and attitude. It's not hard to establish this by taking control of what foods come into the house. There's no need to padlock the refrigerator if the junk food simply isn't in it.
Families often notice the huge benefits their children gain through academic therapy, regular exercise, and a normal diet, yet they seldom take definite steps to set these anti-ADHD actions into motion. Any sudden bursts of improvement are viewed as sheer serendipity. Yet, this is rarely the case.
Finding and developing a special interest or talent is often the factor that pushes an LD / ADHD child over the top into life success. It not only puts a light of enthusiasm in their eyes and a bounce of confidence in their step, it helps them see that their weaknesses are balanced by their strengths. Many famous innovators achieved their great success by using ADHD characteristics to their advantage. Isadora Duncan had trouble expressing herself with words. She claimed, "If I could tell you what I mean, I wouldn't have to dance it." For her, communication was much more effectively established through movement. Edison turned sleeplessness into his greatest asset. By working nights as well as days, he directed his excess energy into productivity. He still holds more U.S. patents than any other American inventor. Handel turned his hyperfocus into a great blessing. He used it to write the entire "Messiah" - words, music, "Hallelujah Chorus" and all - in just 23 days.
Children find it helpful to picture the brain as an egg carton that the creator fills with talents. If the kid asks for some extra aptitude during the building process, the answer is, "Sure. What do you want to trade?" Typically, the gleeful recipient offers up spelling, neatness, organizational adeptness, or boring time management skills in exchange for a prized gift like musical talent, mechanical genius, artistic brilliance, or athletic prowess. The egg carton analogy gives children a new perspective where ADHD is not a flaw but a sign of a specialized brain.
Dr. Albert Galaburda of Harvard Medical School believes that the altered brain patterns that produce LD and ADHD are nature's way of "producing certain kinds of superior talent." Kids who adopt that point of view find it easy to generate the optimism, enthusiasm, and tenacity that lead to success.