ADHDFamilies

You Are Not Alone!
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) affect between 3%-5% of the children in the United States. Numbers from other countries vary, but ADD/ADHD is also recognized as a valid diagnosis in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Brazil, South Africa, and in most of Europe. The disorder affects both sexes, all races, and crosses all socio-economic classes.Having an ADD son or daughter does not make you a bad parent any more than having a diabetic or epileptic child would make you bad parent. That’s because ADD is NOT a parenting issue. There are things that parents can do to help - and, unfortunately, to harm - their ADD sons or daughters, but parents do not cause ADD by being “bad” parents. Credible (or at least reasonable) theories about what causes ADD include brain circuit abnormalities and dopamine deficiencies,. indicating a biological basis for the disorder. There is also a strong genetic connection, which means that there is a very good chance that at least one of the parents of an ADD child will be ADD as well - but that’s a different topic for another page. Feel free to let the implications of that statement sink in for a moment before you continue.

Your Child is Part of an Elite Group of People
You have no doubt already discovered that your child is not like the average kid. That’s OK - the list of people who have ADD doesn’t include too many “average” people.

ADD is not a disorder unless it’s messing up your life. Your job as a parent is to help your child to learn to use the basic traits of the ADD brain as an asset. Granted, this is not an easy task. If it were, then ADD wouldn’t be considered a disorder at all. But the truth is that many ADD people never learn to use their ADD traits as a strength.

Having said that, keep in mind that you can’t “talk away” ADD. You can, however, learn to control the impulsivity and other potential negatives and to capitalize on the intuitive thinking skills and other benefits of the ADD brain. It will be hard for your child to have a positive self image if you only focus on the negatives of their “disorder”; There are some very positive things about being ADD. You just have to work to help them emerge and flourish.

Your Child Can Learn
While it is true that many ADD kids have some type of leaming disability, that does not mean that the ADD or LD child cannot learn. These children are not stupid. In fact, one has to wonder why do so many smart children with ADD fail in our public schools?

ADD students learn differently than do other students. In many ways, the right-brained mode of learning used by most ADD people is very similar to the thought and learning processes used by intellectually gifted students. The two groups are not mutually exclusive: Gifted Students can have ADD. Unfortunately, in a “one-size-fits-all” system of education, these students are either overlooked or simply ignored. You may have to become an advocate for your child to see to it that the school meets their responsibility to provide an environment in which the student can learn. ‘his may mean writing an Individual Education Program for your child.

You may even need to tell the teacher where to go so she can better understand your children and how to teach them.

ADD is a Life-Long State of Being
Children who are born right-handed are not going to become left-handed adults unless they lose their right hand or have a stroke or something. Likewise, children with ADD are not going to change either. ADD children may grow to become adults who have ADD- or ADDults, as we like to call ourselves.

Since your child is most likely not going to outgrow being ADD, it is imperative that they learn to accept themselves as they are. In order for a child (and later the adult) to accept themselves, they must feel that they are accepted and loved by their parents. Children who are not given unconditional love and acceptance by their parents will have a void in their lives that cannot be filled. Most addictions, including eating disorders, sexual addictions and other non-chemical addictions, are born from the need to fill this void. Unfortunately the void cannot be filled once the child is an adult. The fact that addictions and alcoholism is so prevelant among ADD people is a sad testimony to this lack of acceptance, especially when it is coupled with a biological predisposition for addiction anyway. The same could be said of depression. It appears that ADD people may have a biological predisposition towards serious depressive episodes, if not full blown depression. If a parent does not accept and love the child, the child will not accept or love himself. The resulting anger and rejection is turned inward and is presented as depression.

Here is an analogy: If a mother contracts ruebella during a certain time during pregnancy when the heart of the baby is being formed the baby will have a heart defect. That is why we stress vaccines for women for ruebella. The baby’s heart may be repaired after birth, but it will always have the scars from that exposure. Likewise, children need validation and acceptance from their parents during the crucial developmental years of their life. If a person does not recieve that validation during childhood, there will always be a void there. Nothing can fix that. You might go through therapy as an adult, you might do all this stuff to deal with the effects of that, but the void itself will not go away. The best you can hope for is that they will learn to accept their loss and move on.

Parents, do you want to help to ensure good mental health for your children for the rest of their lives? Then validate them now, while that part of them is still being formed.

By Bob Seay