Looking Back

Here it is the start of a new year, and I’m looking back. Not back to last year, but way back. Back to when my children were small - babies and toddlers.

Do you remember when your ADD child was little? A toddler, maybe, or even younger? What did you think about them then?

Of course, you loved them. Did you think they were smart? Maybe even smarter than some of your friends kids? Did they learn to walk, or talk, or do something earlier than their peers? (My son learned to ride a 2 wheeled bike when he was 3 years old.)

Were you proud of them then?

What about now? How do you feel about them now? You can be honest - you’re only talking to yourself.

The love is still there. But what about the pride? The feeling that they are smarter than other kids? Do you still think and feel those things?

And if you don’t (it’s OK) - what has changed? Them? Or you?

You might be surprised to find out that the biggest thing that has changed is your perceptions about them. They really haven’t changed that much, at least not fundamentally.

Sure, they give you more trouble now, and headaches. They might be less adorable and more frustrating.

But all the potential and intelligence and wonderfulness you saw back then is still there. The problem is that it’s being covered up.

It’s being covered up by labels, and people who don’t know better and some who do. It’s being covered up by bad feelings and frustration and knowing who you are but not being able to express it. It’s being covered up by one more failed attempt, one more forgotten thing, and one more mentally foggy day.

You can uncover it, if you try. If you do, and you succeed, it will be the greatest thing you’ve ever done. To try means to go against the grain, to swim against the current along with your ADD child.

To try means that you still see them as they are, for all that they can be.

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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 Wizard of ADD?

My Twitter friend Anthony Whyms replaced his picture a few days ago with a picture of the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. I asked him about it - was it his Halloween “costume”?

Today he sent me a link to a post he wrote on his Moving4ward Internet Marketing Blog.

In the article, he compares building an online business (or really, acheiving any goal at all) to the journey undertaken by the characters in The Wizard of Oz.

Each character was searching for something:

Dorothy - the love and comfort of home
The Scarecrow - to prove his intelligence
The Tin Man - to show he had a heart and feelings
The Cowardly Lion - to show that he was brave
The Wizard - to share what he had learned with others

Anthony asked me which character I was, and I told him, the Scarecrow. Having Attention Deficit Disorder always means proving your intelligence over and over.

I suppose in some ways I am the Wizard, too, since I try to share what I’ve learned with all of you. At times, I guess, we can be any or all of the characters.

It’s the Scarecrow, though, who holds a special place in my heart, just as he did in Dorothy’s. I guess it’s because I know how he feels. It’s hard to feel stupid when you know you aren’t, and worse yet to have to prove it over and over.

Keep him in mind as you raise your own wonderful and amazing ADD child.

The Wizard only needed to give the Scarecrow a diploma to make him feel good about himself. You might need to do a little bit more.

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