Start with a Clean Slate

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:)

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ADD Frustration

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.

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The Natural ADHD Diet

For years, I’ve had parents ask me about treating the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder without prescription medications. I’ve always told them that a combination of prescription medication and coaching is considered the best method of treating ADD .

Still, I know that some parents or people with AD/HD don’t want to use prescription drugs to manage their ADHD. I started looking for an alternative method for them that would help minimize ADD symptoms naturally, and I’ve come up with one that I believe will work. (By the way, it’s also a great complement to medication.)

Actually, in doing the research, I realized that my family has used many of the suggestions in The Natural ADHD Diet for years; it was the way I raised my kids. By adding a few more things to our lifestyle, and modifying others (based on my recent research), I’ve come up with a lifestyle plan that I personally find is working very well.

If you’re interested in finding out more, check out the website.

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