ADD Student

Archive for December, 2008

Last night, my good friend Cara from The Household Helper had a seminar about organizing your home. There were several questions about getting your kids (and your husband!) organized and Cara had some great answers.

As you know, organization is something that people with Attention Deficit Disorder really struggle with. Being well organized and having a system that works for you can make a huge difference in your life.

Cara’s ideas weren’t specific to ADHD, but I think they were good ones just the same. Here are two of them (and she applied them equally to kids and husbands):

Cara is big on to-do lists. She thinks that there is a real sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from crossing things off a list. She also believes that it is more emotionally satisfying done on paper than a computer. She suggests a chore chart for kids, broken down very simply. “Clean your room.” is too broad. Instead, use “Put dirty clothes in hamper” and “Make your bed”.

She says the same idea is good for husbands – presented a little differently, of course. She says that often husbands would be more willing to help out if they knew what to do. A “honey do” list tells them how they can help and Cara says it enlists more cooperation than asking or telling.

Cara’s other idea is about containers, and I think it’s a great one. Provide containers for everything you can think of. (Hint: get an idea of what you’re storing before you buy the container, so that it’s the right size. Make it attractive, too.)

Cara has a small bowl for her husband’s keys, wallet and change on the dresser in the bedroom. Papers that the kids bring home from school are placed in a “in box” on the kitchen counter. Things are easily accessiible and easy to see, but still neat. I like this idea a lot!

If you’re interested in more of Cara’s ideas, she has a special now. If you purchase her book “The Household Helper’s Guide to Home Organization” for $8.97, she will add “Organizing the Kids” for free! If you’d like to know more, just click the image below.

This time of year always inspires me to become more organized.

If your ADD Student is currently out of school on holiday break, now would be a good time to help them start the New Year with a clean slate.

Clearing out and sorting through their backpack, room, and even their car can help get them back on track for the coming year.

Generally I advise people to do a little at a time in order to have the most success – maybe 15 minutes or so. Often, people with Attention Deficit Disorder are easily overwhelmed and likely to jump fully into a project they will find unable to complete.

However, if as a parent, you will be helping them, you may find it easier to do what needs to be done in slightly larger chunks of time. Sometimes kids with ADHD would just rather get it over with than drag it out. Since you are there to keep things under control, they can experience a greater sense of accomplishment this way.

Taking some time to help them put things back into order may not be their idea of a way to spend vacation, but if you can keep the time spent on it fairly reasonable, and offer a reward of some kind – maybe challenging them to Guitar Hero – the results will be worth it.

And in the end, doing things we don’t want to is a part of life and something they need to learn as well. Just remember the added difficulties of organizational projects when you have Attention Deficit Disorder and adjust accordingly.

It’s possible they might appreciate what you’ve done, although you may never know about it:)

The other day, on ADD Moms, I wrote about the frustration that sometimes comes with the territory when you have ADD.

At the time, I had spent a few pleasant hours re-designing my site (like this one) only to have it all disappear due to a minor glitch. I spent four additional days working on restoring things – four days to replace a few hour’s work.

The problem was that I suddenly couldn’t remember how to do the things I had done a day or two before. I became more and more confused the more I worked with it, and increasingly frustrated.

This is a very common thing with ADHD, and not one that is often understood, especially by parents and teachers.

You think if you know something, you know it. But that’s not always the case.

A better way to understand it might be to think in terms of wiring and storage. ADD brains are “wired” differently than non ADD brains – they work differently.

Non ADD brains work in a linear fashion. Orderly and logical – sort of a Mr. Spock kind of brain. Non ADD brains take information and store it in a logical, reasonable way. They almost always find it easy to retrieve the information because they have stored it in a logicial, predictable place. They can have trouble, though, if someone asks them to think creatively – “outside the box”.

Creativity is part of the ADD brain, because ADD brains work in a non-linear fashion. That’s what makes us so great at seeing connections between things that others miss. Because we don’t work in an orderly, linear manner, and our brains work very fast, information can get stored in a different kind of way.

We store according to connections, ideas, associations, but sometimes that can make it very hard to find the information again. In addition, environmental factors like diet, sleep, and even what’s going on around us can make things more difficult because our symptoms are more evident.

There isn’t a lot you can do when you have ADD frustration. I find the best thing is to take a break if I can and do something else. Also, if I can see that outside influences are aggravating my symptoms, I change what I can and see if it helps.

I hope this has helped you understand a little more about how the ADD brain works, and also helped you understand your child and his frustrations at times.