Get Out of Line

Kids with Attention Deficit Disorder often seem to not know things others take for granted. I have a clear memory of being in class one day - I don’t know how old I was - and seeing all my classmates taking out notebooks and pens and writing things down.

This was a mystery to me. Why were they doing this? Had I missed something from the teacher?

After a few minutes observation, I figured out that they were writing down what the teacher was saying. OK, I can do that.

But what to write down? I can’t keep up with everything she’s saying. And in spending all this time in my head, worrying about what to write and wondering about it all, I probably missed half of what was going on, and learned even less.

That may be the first thing you need to talk to your ADD kid about - the need to take notes. And please, emphasize the need to be relaxed and listening as well as trying to write.

ADD kids often don’t pick up on the verbal cues others get when listening to a lecture, even obvious ones like “This is important…”. And depending on their learning style, they may find that the most effective method for them is listening rather than trying to take notes at all.

Now, everybody’s idea of taking notes is to start writing - top of the page, first line, and go from there, just as though you were writing a paper. But that’s not the only way to take notes, nor the most effective, especially for kids with ADHD.

Mind mapping is a concept that I like a lot, and I think is very ADD friendly. It’s often taught in schools today, but as sort of an aside. Kids rarely get that they can use this method all the time.

If you’ve never heard of it, mind mapping at it’s most basic looks like a spider. Think of the spider’s body as the subject you’re taking notes on. Each of the spider’s legs is a branch out to an idea about the subject.

If you were to mind map your child’s day at school, for instance, school would be the spider’s body. Each class would be attached to a leg, and then more information would be added to each foot. One leg might say “math” and then under that, by the foot, you would have the teacher’s name, what they’re studying, etc.

Unlike my description, most mind maps are colorful and make use of images whenever possible. I think looking at a mind map is like looking at the way an ADD brain functions.

I first learned about mind maps from a book by Tony Buzan. Here is a video from him with more.

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