ADD Student

Archive for the ‘ADD’ Category

Are you beginning to realize that everything in your life affects your ADHD symptoms? Your hormones are no exception.

The hormones in our bodies are very important because they affect many of your body’s processes, including metabolic rate, growth, sexual function, reproduction and your mood. (We all know about that one ).

Well it turns out that hormones can affect your ADHD symptoms as well.

When a child begins to go through puberty and their hormone levels change, it can cause a change in ADHD symptoms. You may find that they are moody, irritable, less focused, and even aggressive.

Most kids going through puberty will experience growth spurts as well as other changes in their body. Any time a child has a significant growth spurt, you need to re-evaluate whether or not their ADHD medication is continuing to work as it should. Sometimes the added body weight calls for an increase in the dosage of medication.

For teen aged boys, this approach will usually solve any problems with the effectiveness of the medication. But teen girls do not typically respond well to an increased dosage in medication while they are going through puberty.

Teen girls who have ADHD have higher rates of academic troubles, aggression, substance abuse, and depression than girls who do not have ADHD. An increase in medication dosage may make symptoms worse than before.

It’s important for you to be aware of this and to educate your daughter as well.

If her ADHD symptoms are worsened by hormonal changes (particularly close to that time of the month), then you both need to aware of how those hormones are affecting her.

You may find that a change in medication is helpful or perhaps a change in her diet. Working together to help her through those problems and learn coping skills will be beneficial to her for the rest of her life.

When I first decided to become an ADD Coach, it was to help kids who have ADHD do better in school. I did it for several years and found it both frustrating and rewarding.

My life circumstances have changed and I no longer do coaching, but I thought I would give you a little information about it in case you have considered it.

Coaching can be a very effective way to help students with ADHD be more successful in school but it can also be a very long and slow process.

Most coaches who work with ADHD do not specialize in students and learning and most of them work over the phone.

I personally have found that it is more difficult to engage a teen or adolescent over the phone. In addition, one of the most important keys to successful ADHD coaching is motivation to change. I find that in many cases, the parents are motivated but the child is not.

When you are looking for help for your ADD Student, the best place to start is to get an idea of where the problem actually is.

Are their grades poor in math because they don’t understand it or is it because they have so many missing assignments? Are they getting good grades on their tests but not in the class overall? Is it a problem regardless of the class or is it just one or two classes?

Talk to your child and their teachers to get a better idea of what’s going on so that you can begin to formulate a solution.

If the problem is academic – they don’t understand math – then a tutor may help. You might want to find one that is knowledgeable about ADHD; that could be a huge help.

If the problem is losing assignments or managing time, you might want to consider a personal organizer. Again, knowledge of ADHD is helpful.

If they are doing well on assignments but not tests, it may be test anxiety. You can work with them to teach them some skills to help, or you could see a professional.

Psychologists and social workers are often good people to seek out to help with behavioral changes, and may be covered by your health insurance too.

The other night, my family was watching one of our favorite shows – Intervention on A&E. It’s a documentary style show that profiles a person addicted to (usually) alcohol or drugs. In the show, the family stages an intervention and tries to get the person some much needed help.

The other night, a man named Vinny was featured. Vinny was diagnosed with ADHD when he was a child and placed on Ritalin. (By the way, Vinny was abusing crack cocaine; the ADHD was mentioned as background information).

In the show, Vinny says that his mind was always going 100 miles an hour and that he couldn’t focus, but that the Ritalin slowed him down to the point where he felt “retarded”. (His word, not mine).

He went on to say that he hated the way the ADHD medication made him feel so much that he started pretending to take it and then spitting it out.

You would think that his mom or his teacher would have noticed the change, but apparently not.

When my kids took ADHD medication, they were always open and honest about how it made them feel and how they felt about taking it. As far as I know, they always took it when it was given to them and said something when they didn’t. (I recently found out, however, that this was not the case when it came to antibiotics. Apparently they knew that was non negotiable.)

At any rate, I mention this to you as sort of an FYI. If your child takes ADHD medication, and if they seem not to be working as well as they used to, you might want to consider having an open and honest talk with them. Of course, many other things could be causing the change in effectiveness, including growth, weight gain, and diet.

And by the way, untreated ADHD can often lead to self-medicating with things such as alcohol, drugs, food, and nicotine.