ADD Student

Today on her blog on ADDitude magazine’s website, Kay Marner writes about the side effects that ADHD and ADD medications have on parents.

She makes some good points, and brings up a subject that’s rarely discussed: the emotional toll that ADHD takes on the parents.

Parenting an ADHD child is an emotional roller coaster.

When you get the initial diagnosis, or begin a new treatment, hope shoots up. Maybe now you’ve finally found something that will work, something that will really help your child and bring some peace and normalcy to the household.

Then, inevitably, reality sets in.

You realize that living with and managing ADHD is a lifelong process with both good days and not so good ones. There is no magic pill, no “one size fits all guaranteed to work” treatment that will make everything better.

Life with ADHD, just like life in general, is a series of learning experiences. Some are good, some are challenging.

Yes, living with and learning to manage ADHD takes time and effort and even attention. Recognizing that won’t make the low days go away, but maybe it can make them easier to endure.

Be sure to read Kay’s article. It’s a worthwhile read.

Have you ever really thought about why teachers assign homework? I know kids think of it as so much busy work, designed to make their lives more difficult, but we know that’s not true.

The purpose of homework is twofold: to review the day’s lessons and increase understanding and to prepare for the following days lesson.

A reading assignment, for instance, is designed to sort of put down that first layer of understanding on what may be a new topic. Doing the reading makes you more prepared for the following day’s class.

The following night, the assignment might be to answer some questions at the end of the chapter or to do a worksheet. At this point, the homework serves to push that new knowledge deeper into the brain and to measure how well the student understands the material.

As parents of kids with ADHD, we know that homework can be a nightmare for everyone involved. Sometimes assignments that should take one hour take three, and we find that we don’t have enough time in the evening to get it all done.

To me, it makes no sense to wage this battle night after night, working until everyone is frustrated and exhausted. How much good is being done here?

As parents we have the power to say “enough”.

Teachers do not rule our lives. They are on our side. In fact, there are no sides here. Everyone is working towards the same goal: to educate our children.

What I’m saying is this: remember the purpose of homework – to increase and measure understanding.

If your child can skim through a chapter, stopping to study pictures and charts, to read headings and definitions, and if they can then reasonably answer questions about the chapter’s content, then they have accomplished what was intended – whether or not they actually read the chapter.

If, after 15 math problems, it is clear that your child understands the material, why make them spend the extra time to complete 15 more when they could be working on something else?

And the reverse is true: if, after trying for 30 or 40 minutes, your child is still not grasping how to do the math, another two hours spent on it is not likely to bring success, either. Stop. Take a break. Come back to it for a few minutes to see if it has helped. If not, a talk with the teacher and perhaps hiring a tutor are in order.

Remember: homework is ultimately about grades, but it is first and foremost about understanding and comprehension.

Keeping those ideas in mind may help to eliminate the homework wars around your house.

I read a lot of what my son Andy calls “shelving blogs”. I don’t know where he got the idea that they were all about shelves – they’re actually decorating blogs written by other moms.

I saw a great organizing idea the other day on one of them that I thought I would share: organizing by the day of the week.

As I remember it, the woman had a series of baskets near the door that her family most often uses. There was one for each day from Monday through Friday.

So, for instance, if one of the kids had scouts on Thursdays and needed to turn in a permission slip, the signed slip went into the Thursday basket.

My kids are in college and their books and school stuff is all over the house. Like most college kids, they have one set of classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and a different set on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every day before they leave, they have to hunt down that day’s books and supplies and transfer them to their backpack.

How much easier would it be if they had baskets for each day?

You could use this idea for a lot of things.

Sale papers and coupons in the corresponding basket for whenever you do grocery shopping. Vet appointment? Put the leash in that day’s basket. Library books to return? You get the idea.

I think I’m going to have to take a look around my house and see where I can put this idea to use.