A Worried Parent asks: "My 6yo daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD and is currently taking a certain stimulant whose name starts with R. I don't like it, but for the moment her happiness has improved, as opposed to when she's not medicated where she appears unhappy and frustrated with her inability to find her way in the world. She's sat through an IQ test, and the result was 147, which means she's better at doing IQ tests than 99.9% of 6 year olds. I wasn't that surprised but her teachers were, she's very clever but has difficulty following instructions - which is kind of a requirement in a classroom environment. If she's in a group of kids being given instructions she'll be looking at something else, playing with the grass, singing quietly to herself, etc. She'll suddenly become aware of all the kids wandering off to follow said instructions and then panic because she wasn't paying attention. In a group of people her attention just sort of switches off. I don't think this is something she can change. Any thoughts on how to help? Don't bother quoting the books on this one, i'm after first hand experiences. (i've read enough books :p)"
"Whatever the cause, she is quite different than most kids her age. I was much the same at her age and it was a pretty difficult way to grow up. I'd like to do what i can to make things easier for her.
Given that the Slashdot audience appears to mostly belong to the geekier end of the curve, is there any advice you can impart on parenting the geeky child... whether it comes from what did and didn't work for you as a kid, or what does and doesn't work for you as a parent of an obviously 'different' child.
Discipline is a bit of a problem but nothing that can't be handled. My biggest concern is that she'll grow up resenting her intelligence and being generally unhappy with who she is. The statistics are fairly clear on what happens to kids who grow up unhappy and with a low self esteem. Especially for a girl, in whom geekiness is seen as less socially acceptable.
Any advice?
First hand (Score:5, Insightful)
Two things...first, learn exactly what true ADHD is. Read up until you are sick of it. You need to be able to tell others with confidence how to distinguish true ADHD from other problems. This is never easy, unless you've suffered yourself. Also learn about dyslexia.
Second, remember your goal. This is to support your child. Not to defend yourself as a parent...not to cave in to a doctor or teacher without enough time to help your child. This is the hard part.
Good luck....
Re:ADD and ADHD are cop-outs (Score:2)
This attitude of better living through altering chemicals in your brain is bullshit. If your kid won't pay attention, that's a problem, so deal with it (I'm referring to the poster).
I used to feel exactly the same way.
My best friend and I were very similar. We were the guys who'd sit at the back of the class, making fun of the teacher. Everything was more exciting than homework.
After being expelled from high school for driving a motorcycle down the hallway mostly because I was bored, I went out into the real world. So did my best friend.
As roommates for several years, we knew each other very well. Massive career changes were routine, though we worked well for a professional audio and video company where the tasks at hand changed every day and the stress kept us focussed.
The house situation was interesting. I came home one day to find that he'd had a couple of friends over to play guitar. There was stuff everywhere: amps, guitars, guitar strings, cables, sheet music. Only a very select few would wheel an old Ariens snowblower into the living room to clean it up: I did. He came running down the stairs, and with the pressure of a running snowblower dealing with his cheap old acoustic guitar, eveything else was cleaned up quickly.
We drank a case (12) of beer a day, and each smoked over a pack a day. Food was secondary.
We mutilated several Chevettes, including building a V6 Chevette, a Chevette targa (a convertible with no top) [glowingplate.com] and a Chevette with the back end of a 1956 Dodge Custom Royal welded on [glowingplate.com]. Short-term creativity was a hallmark.
Then my best friend was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.
Much as I was a skeptic, on dexadrine, he became a model of management, confident ability and skill. The creativity remained, but it was nowhere near as impulsive. All of a sudden, there was consideration to the question, "Is it really a good idea to cut the roof off the car I have to drive to work on Monday?".
After a while, I noticed little things like my fidgeting, the fact that I was always told that I was "careless" when doing math problems, I'd slept with most everyone in two large towns mostly because I wasn't interesting in any commitment, was the world's greatest procrastinator, I like to amuse myself by shocking other people, etc. I did an online test, and it showed that had a strong leaning toward ADD, too.
I printed out the test results and took them to my doctor, who *immediately* wrote a prescription. I tried out Ritalin and found that it improved things, but the biggest improvement simply came from knowing the diagnosis.
Yes, I have attention deficit disorder. I pop a pill when I need to be able to focus for something really important, but for the most part, I am as I am.
Is there a benefit to ADD? Yes, absolutely. Most people with ADD are exceptionally creative problem solvers. This isn't a feature that you wish to stifle with medication, but it can cause problems in situations, ie. academia and some workplaces, where conformity is an asset.
And yes, there is a physiological basis for ADD. Look it up. Consider the fact that, outwardly, this is a hyperactivity disorder which is medically controlled with stimulants. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that using stimulants on hyperactive people should only make the problems worse.
Yet, stimulants control ADHD's hyperactivity and ADD's poor impulse control. Many people with ADD/ADHD consume huge quantities of coffee and cigarettes, because caffeine and nicotine help with focus. Stimulants are used because they increase activity in the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, a part which is shown by MRI images to be less active among people with ADD/ADHD.
Finally, there appears to be a genetic predisposition, though there are other factors involved. Much like homosexuality, there is no definitive proof of a genetic origin, however, both Helen Keller and Ray Charles could see a pattern emerging from the data.
It's not the condition-of-the-week, it's real.
Re:First hand (Score:2)
Now, I am a senior Physics/Mechanical Engineering major and don't use medicine much... The downside to my ADHD is that I perform poorly in school and am taking several over again.
Dude... you're *supposed* to fail computational fluid mechanics *and* thermo at least once each.
ADHD and others... (Score:4, Insightful)
ADHD and learning disabled childeren usually have a very short attention span when it comes to things that do not entertain/challenge/interest them whatsoever. Socially they may suffer a few years behind the crowd (we all hate crowds right?)
one of the things you can do, is find something that interests/challenges her/him to his or her own liking, then build on it. Use that when they are younger (while exploring other options and ideas they are interested in) you catch their idea and sort of mix it in with other things you want to teach them or have them learn about on their own.
For me, it was the computer. If it didn't include my old c128, 8088 or amiga it wasn't worth it. But being preteen, having a strong interest in any area of life with little interest in anything else, AND teachers/parents not understanding it can stunt development of a child.
hope that helps
Re:ADHD and others... (Score:2, Insightful)
For me the hardest part as a kid was having to respond to stimuli. E.g. playing in the sand box and a butterfly comes along I had to go chase it. In the back of my head I was thinking "darn it, I wanted to finish that sand castle", but the other 99.9% of my focus had switched completely to the butterfly. And I couldn't control that.
It took me literally years of lying awake at night (i.e. with a minimum of stimuli) to be able to understand how thought process layers worked, how to redirect stimuli to "alternative" processes and how to keep the primary process (i.e. conscious thought) on whatever needed to be concentrated on.
But it never goes away. You just learn adaptive mechanisms and you refine the layers. Even now, 30 years old, much of my day-to-day activities are defined for me by ADHD. Not that anyone can tell nowadays by watching me because they can't tell that even though I'm focused on, say, reading something, I have also noticed and "processed" everything visible outside the window, the fact that the desk is getting dusty, moving cloud shadows, a bird flying by, phones ringing next door and barely overheard conversations.
If anyone has ADHD and is having problems coping, or has kids and needs to be able to explain it to them, let me know. Not only do I have a lifetime of experience with a rather extreme case of it myself but I also have a much younger brother with it who is doing very well without medication simply by becoming educated and by making very slight changes in his daily living.
You can email me at adhd@itwerx.net
Re:ADHD and others... (Score:2)
Excellent advise. I was never diagnosed ADHD (never taken to a psychologist) but had all the symptoms. My parents convinced school teachers in lower grades to give me extra projects that would interest me.
ADHD kids are normally bright (which is why they get bored). ADHD can't be "cured"; children may or may not "grow out of it" as they develop. For those that don't, it is essential to develop a coping strategy. For me that has been to apply myself fully to a particular task for a short period of time, then switch to something else that needs to be done, lather, rinse, repeat.
For example, read Slashdot, read The Register, read BBSpot, read The Onion, read Slashdot ...
I know several other attention deficit people who cope in much the same way. One alternative which I am told is quite successful is to force yourself to learn concentrating -- that can be done in children using positive reinforcement; reward them for concentrating. This is probably a dangerous course though - ADHD children don't really like you fooling with their heads, and they tend to know what you're up to.
Another personal example: my parents used to punish me by taking away favourite toys, television privledges, etc. If they took something away for a week, I would voluntarily ignore the toy or privledge for a further week. Extremely effective, trained the parents in no time at all.
On the plus side, allowing an AD child to be bored is not a bad thing in and of itself. If you can cope with the hyperactivity, the child will learn to cope with the attention defecit. ADHD children are often highly imaginative / creative, and will find and use this to deal with their boredom. Personally I would try introducing a child to simple role-playing games, but that's not ever parent's idea of a good passtime.
Dealing with school work is more of a problem. All ADHD or near ADHD children/friends I've met were very bright, and breezed through school until the higher grades, when they suddenly had to work; at which point they don't know how to. To my knowledge the only resolution is to challange the child in extra-curricular activities so that (s)he is forced to learn learning skills. If possible get the teacher to help, so that it seems to be school work. Any projects involving research are good candidates -- things involving memory tend not to be!
From personal experience, I would say that parents should be careful to notice when an ADHD child is concentrating on something, and not to disturb them. This helps build attention span -- even if only in certain areas of interest initially.
Well, that's my $1.95. The bill is in the post.
Doers it really exist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Keirsey [keirsey.com] wrote a pamphlet denying it. As a school psycologist, he found most kids diagnosed with "disorders" to be SPs. Being schools are not made for SPs, such kids have a *very* hard time listening without hands on experience.
The IQ test, being written (probably by NTs) for NTs, only measure strategic intelligence. With a higher IQ, she's probably an NT (though ISTP just as well, being close to the INTP). As an INTJ myself who was drugged with a double dosage of Ritalin twice daily, I can say that I had no such "disorder". I was merely energentic and bored to tears. The teacher taught at a *much* slower than I needed. As such, I got straight As (except history in eighth grade), all the awards, but Ds or Fs in "effort". Then they drugged me and "they" were happy. Talk about self-centeredness.
If only they'd set up schools by knowledge and understanding rather than age. It's so silly and damaging to potential.
Anyway, I'd suggest that you first find out her interests. A good way to do that is with the MBTI (Book: Gifts Differing). Though Kerisey (Book: Please Understand Me II) has much more observation-wise in his book. With a knowledge of (possible) interests, it can be much easier to deal with such children in an effective manner.
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:3, Informative)
However, I think there's a middle road. I have chronic depression issues. USUALLY they are manageable by willpower/behavior mod, but, in the winter, and under times of extra stress, those things do not suffice. After making my wife EXTREMELY miserable one season, we started investigating other means to deal with my issues (keep in mind that I think 99% of all shrinks are quacks who went to school to try and fix themselves, and I hate the idea of a drug that dulls my mind--my brother has a more severe version of my problems, and spent quite a long time on many "fine" drugs).
Turns out, if I get regular doses of vitamin B (standard stresstabs) and 5-HTP (a mood stablizing supplement) I only become unbearable every once in a great while. In the winder, a full spectrum light also helps a lot.
While I cannot absolutely rule out placebo effects, since a study of one individual is meaningless, I'm pretty convinced that there are brain chemical issues involving seratonin that do predispose you toward certain mood disorders. It is probably also useful to note that I also once experimented with Choline, a so-called "smart drug" that affects your seratonin levels, and ended up in one of the blackest, foulest depressions I've ever had, and ended almost as soon as I stopped the Choline--that can't really be written off to placebo effect, since I expected something quite the opposite.
I absolutely agree that the pharmaceutical companies are not in it for my best interests, and if they could, they'd sell us all the soma they could make. But that doesn't mean that all the science is junk. It just means that, like everyone else, they're using the facts and statistics to lie for their own benefit. The right stuff, in my opinion, is that serotonin is a key mood regulator. The wrong stuff is that we need their drugs to control it. There are means that don't dope you and don't cost a lot (diet, supplements, sunlight or equivalents) that are as effective if not more in all but the most extreme cases.
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
As for the Mac thing, the first computer I really got into was a Mac. I still like Macs alot, but I use PCs because I like to tinker with everything, and Macs don't let you do that. OS X is changing that, and I like that alot. But I don't have the $1500+ to get myself a new Mac, so I'll stick to PCs. I agree, eMacs are nice. When they start to hit e-bay used I'll snap one up. I plan to do that with iMacs when they start to come down.
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Could someone clarify what these abreviations mean?
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
http://dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sc
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:4, Informative)
The rest of the letters are types. Each of the sixteen types has four letters. Keirsey groups them into four groups, with the SP being the energetic Artisan, and the NT being the scholarly Rational. The two introverted (hence "I") of the NTs are INTP and INTJ. INTP is the space cadet, or the absent minded professor. Albert Einstein was a classic INTP. INTJs, Keirsey's "Mastermind", are the rarest type (for women or overall, for men the rarest is INFP). Neils Bohr was an INTJ.
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
for men the rarest is INFP
Really? I'm an INFP. Since I was about 10 years old, one of my goals in life was to be 'rare'. The other was to be an astronaut. Looks like I succeeded in one of those goals
I don't usually give much credit to personality tests, but some of the myers-briggs stuff has been right on.
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
Let's face it, nobody's to blame for the final solution. And the evil practice won't end, not at least in the foreseeable future. One reason it won't end soon is that drugging disobedient kids is but a small part of the practice of drugging anybody that is said to be "afflicted" with a "mental disorder"--all get drugged. Witness, for instance, the fantastic increase in the use of Prozac for the so-called "mental disorders." The other reason is that all but the disobedient kids profit from the evil practice. The makers, dispensers, and prescribers get lots of money, while the parents and teachers get relieved of responsibility. Maybe by the middle of the 21st century the final solution will be recognized for what it is, a very evil practice, and so will end. In the meantime parents and educators are wise to steer clear of the medics, whose "cure is worse than the disease" even though the medics who engage in the evil practice have sworn to "do no harm."
(http://keirsey.com/evil.html)
Re:Doers it really exist? (Score:2)
Homeschooling (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Homeschooling (Score:3, Insightful)
The success of the human race depends on individuality, uniqueness, and free thinking. In today's schools, it is not possible for a teacher to allow children to develop their unique talents. If they let thirty kids run free with their imagination, the result is total chaos. The method of keeping order is to set goals for the lowest common denominator, and force all students to reach those goals at the same time and in the same sequence. They are also not there at the end of the day. It is too easy for a child to develop a habit of tuning out from 8am to 3pm. When a parent is directly responsible for a child's education, the parent is in sync with their child's emotions and talents. They can provide encouragement to explore areas the child has a natural ability in, while gently reinforcing necessary skills and developing solid and productive thinking habits.
Chain up the mind of an exceptional child, and you chain up the variety and brilliance that would propel future generations into accomplishments we can barely dream of now.
Most states have been steadily improving home education legislation, in response to the rapid increase of homeschooled students. Most colleges are currently very accepting of homeschooled students, and some actively pursue them. I happen to know two homeschooled students who started attending Vanderbilt University this year. They are twins, and received two matching full tuition and expenses paid music scholarships. They are having no troubles "fitting in" with everyone else on campus, and are in fact two of the most well-liked for their sincerity and friendliness.
Not to say that every story would turn out this way. There are certainly kids out there who need special attention because they could not function otherwise. However, I believe this is the exception, rather than the rule, for attention deficit disorders. It should be noted that free thinking and brilliant people have turned many a government inside out. Separate and marginalize those people with a "disorder" label, and the rest will follow their assigned leaders and not listen to what "those poor sick people" have to say. Perhaps the only intention of this is to pad the wallets of certain psychologists, but the end result is the same.
First things to do (Score:2)
Re:First things to do (Score:2)
On the contrary, many Slashdoters have alot of great advice on children. Why? Because many of us remember childhood... vividly... often the bad parts (and sometimes the good parts, if it can be drawn out).
We're the ones who remember what happened, and that can say 'Uh, don't force your kid to eat that. My dad never let me eat candy/forced me to eat meatloaf/etc and now look at my wierd eating habits', 'You know, letting your kid dissassemble all of his toys is a GOOD thing. Let me tell you what I do for a living...", "Listen, just because your son/daughter has trouble interacting with girls/guys does not mean that he/she is gay.".
Alot of people seem to forget their childhood, but this group remembers it pretty well.
Re:First things to do (Score:2)
First hand experience. (Score:2)
I'm 33 now. Off Ritalin so that I can clean out and have healthy babies with my wonderfully understanding wife. In the mean time, I've graduated with a BS in Chemistry and am pursuing a Ph.D. at a Big Ten school. If I didn't have the medication for those 6 years I wouldn't have the habits necessary to study and complete complex assignments on my own. (My Palm Pilot keeps me on time for things. I never developed an internal clock on the medicine.)
My friends thought I changed after taking Ritalin but I think it was for the better.
Opinion (Score:2, Insightful)
I can relate to her problem as I was mentally ahead of everyone in class when I was in elementary school, and I got poor grades because I had a hard time slowing myself down to their level. I survived by finding things that interested me, both academically, and extra-curricular. Perhaps you can help her find something that she can focus her raw mental abilities toward that will keep her interest, and stimulate her development.
If I may make some conjecture, and a suggestion, her imagination is most likely to be very powerful. Help her to find something that will hold her imagination, yet keep her somewhat grounded. (like what comic books did for us when we were younger.)
Try the buddy system (Score:3, Insightful)
She may actually need a different classroom. A classroom that is more understanding to the differences between herself and some of the others could benefit her greatly. While I'm guessing you may be adverse to "special schools" and the such, with her IQ being what it is, perhaps she'd be better off in an environment where she can explore new ideas at her pace (getting the teacher to keep up with her is another task). The "normal" classroom may be holding her back. Though she may drift from her current friends learning in a different place, the age to make a transition is 6yrs - NOT after 10yrs. of being frusturated (or drugged) in a "normal" school.
Try 1-888-GR8MIND (LD Online) [ldonline.org] for more help and information.
Dealing with geeky kids (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not speaking as an expert here, but I tend to think that school (public education at least) is not geared toward children who think for themselves. Instead, it's designed to indoctrinate to a certain extent. I remember being ridiculed frequently as a student, not only by the other students, but by the teachers, as well, and always having to back up my seemingly outlandish points that contridicted the common thinking on whatever subject was being taught.
My point is, probably one of the best things you can do is give your child the freedom to think for herself. Give her the option of deciding for herself if the teachers are telling her the truth and the best method to accomplish the tasks at hand. Obviously, she has to respect the authority, but she doesn't have to take the knowledge they impart at face value. Collectivists love public education, because it makes everyone "equal", but in the end, the unique individuals suffer and are labeled with hard-to-define learning disorders so the rest of the group can cope with the person that doesn't think like they do.
Remember, Edison and Einstein were both labeled as imbeciles by their teachers.
Re:Dealing with geeky kids (Score:2)
The modern "education system" is not set up to teach children so much as it is set up to control them. Now, in some cases, kids are lacking discipline and need some control, but that only goes so far. Other kids who want to learn just get fried by the system.
I went through much the same process, though in my case I was just getting C's for the most part, not struggling to pass.
Re:Dealing with geeky kids (Score:3, Insightful)
Scenario in one of the scarier short stories I ever read: Government sets up centers for problematic teens - basically, get picked up by the cops for being in a gang and you have to pass a year of class there. The system was failing until they brought in one individual who "got it", and basically convinced all his peers that learning something makes sense, they can leave gang life and move into suburbia with a nice house and a nice job. There's one spot where the advisors go in and see him reading Rousseau's Social Contract, and think that hey, he's doing pretty good, learning about how good government works, and so on and so forth. Unbeknownst to them, he leaves the library with that book, and Mein Kompf. About a week later the police have to come in and clean up after he arranges a "cleansing" of the staff - and the star pupil is now in jail as a murderer. Good idea gone very bad - now you tell me where they went wrong.
I'm not suggesting something like this would happen. It's an exaggeration for sure. The point is that there are certain social rules that society must instill in everyone - killing is unacceptable, racism/biggotry is frowned upon, etc. And one of the rules that I feel is being neglected now is: shit happens. Too many people are expecting the educational system to be tailored to their needs, without realizing that dealing with an imperfect [educational] system is part of the learning process itself. This applies BOTH to people who are handicapped in some manner, and to people who are gifted in some manner.
I went to a high school where the freshman year everyone is assigned a schedule. Later years, students can create their own. An unusually large number of parents saw their freshman student's schedule and immediately asked for changes - why can't I have teacher X, he's really good; teacher Y is a new teacher, why does my student have to have her? I'm sorry, life's not all roses, and I'd rather someone go through school and learn how to deal with life's problems than be pampered and eventually break down, even if that person has an IQ of 150. But this is a realization that most people in high school are simply not capable of making - the maturity just isn't there. Intelligence can be a handicap - by going too fast, we don't learn some of the non-tangible things. How many Slashdot flame wars have we seen about "able to learn" hires versus "long list of certs"?
A lot of the posters in this discussion have mentioned ways they found to get around ADHD - either focusing on interests, doing extra work, or realizing that an A does not necessarily equal intelligence. I have a lot of respect for those people - they tried something, realized they couldn't handle things the "normal" way, and found a way around the problem. What I don't have respect for is people who insist that the system change because they don't happen to fit it.
Well, this has been an overly long rant. (And I hope I feel better for having typed it!) But my basic point is, the school system exists for a reason. The fact that some people have difficulty learning math/writing/whatever in that system does NOT mean they should leave the school system. If you're getting fried by the system, don't jump out of the frying pan. Find another solution, add some more ingredients or turn down the heat, but that frying pan is there for a reason.
Mod as you will.
Re:Dealing with geeky kids (Score:2)
Re:Dealing with geeky kids (Score:2)
My point was, more precisely, that too many people see a school system that does not serve them well, and therefore insist that they/their children should not be in the school system. Round peg in a square hole - should we fix the problem drilling a new, round hole, or by stepping back and finding the square peg that actually fits that hole? And too many people insist on drilling that new hole. It solves their immediate problem - but ruins the board for everyone else. Likewise, if everyone pulls children out of school because it "doesn't work" for them, then there won't be enough teachers to teach the people for whom it does work, and then schooling "won't work" for everyone.
I love helping people get through school, I'll answer any question I can in a way that teaches instead of just giving away the answer. But when someone repays my efforts by screwing me over - by abandoning the school system, or by flunking out because they don't care enough to keep trying no matter how much potential they have - I just don't feel compelled to help.
Re:Dealing with geeky kids (Score:2)
While I don't insist that the right answer is to drill out the hole (that has obvious impact on everyone else), it should be my right as a parent to take my child elsewhere, where I can find the right fit for them. It's not my fault if our system is prioritized and/or broken in such a way that this makes it hard for the rest of the square pegs.
Re:Dealing with geeky kids (Score:2)
Good idea gone very bad - now you tell me where they went wrong.
It's a work of fiction. Maybe you can find an example of this happening in real life? This "learning is dangerous if not tightly controlled" idea is itself pretty dangerous.
Too many people are expecting the educational system to be tailored to their needs, without realizing that dealing with an imperfect [educational] system is part of the learning process itself.
First, the OP suggested withdrawing from the educational system and doing it yourself, not changing the system. Second, the "educational" system is perhaps the single most corrupt and twisted system there is. It's Lord of the Flies mixed with 1984. That makes it a really bad place to learn about imperfect systems or any other sort of humanity, since it has so little humanity itself.
that frying pan is there for a reason.
You must have been really scarred by something.
Re:Dealing with geeky kids (Score:2)
This "learning is dangerous if not tightly controlled" idea is itself pretty dangerous.
Agreed. And it was a work of fiction - to the best of my knowledge, it has not happened. However, Lord of the Flies also has not happened (again, to the best of my knowledge), yet we are concerned about that sort of situtation. I don't want to say that learning is dangerous - but the control aspect is simply demanding that everyone take a balanced perspective. Anyone should be free to read pro-Nazi propoganda - but I insist that if you are not mature enough to know that the Nazis committed a whole mess of atrocities that they justified with propoganda, then you MUST also learn about World War II and the Holocaust. That's the only "control of knowledge" I insist upon. Frankly, this maturity point seems to hit right about at the end of high school and the beginning of college. I agree that limited knowledge is dangerous - but I also claim that unlimited, unbalanced knowledge is also dangerous.
the OP suggested withdrawing from the educational system and doing it yourself, not changing the system
Withdrawing from the educational system is, in effect, changing the system. One person leaving school to do it their own way doesn't look like a problem; ten people shouldn't be a problem... what if 4-5% of the students in a school (i.e. one person per class) leave and learn their own way? 4-5% less students ~ roughly 4-5% less money, which may translate to one less teacher or a set of textbooks that isn't bought, which makes it slightly harder for everyone else still in school to learn - which means another few students leave school because it doesn't work for them, setting off another cycle... A gifted student leaving school because they learn better outside of school isn't always a win-win situation - but the loss to the school is so small that many people ignore it.
And that's even assuming that this gifted student gets a well-rounded education - if we're talking ADHD here, I have one friend with ADHD who believes history and writing are useless, worked only hard enough to pass his english classes... Right after the shooting at Columbine High School, he dug into a teacher asking why the school didn't hold "terrorist drills" or something of the like, to teach "these kids" what to do in a situation like that. The teacher, fortunately, patiently responded that drills, even fire drills, are NOT designed to show what to do in a fire. They exist so that we know where the exits are and in the hope that we don't completely panic - because if there were a real fire, everyone would panic (students and teachers included). The other thing that struck me about this person's comments was: he referred to "these kids". He didn't consider himself one of them. There was he, who was smart enough to see the problem and arrogant enough to assume he would never panic, and everyone else, who wasn't as smart as him. In this particular case, I'd refer to Brave New World - the guy thought that Alphas ruling Betas, ruling on down to Epsilons system was the right way to run a society (yes, we actually argued about this - he walked away with an "I'm right, you don't see my point, this is the right way to do things") - and missed the point that Huxley was CRITICAL of that society. This friend may be a brilliant mathmetician, but I sincerely hope he never gets into a position of power without first having a real awakening.
Whether the educational system is corrupt and twisted, I don't know whether to agree or disagree with you - but in my experience, it wasn't that bad. But I also expect that experiences may vary based on where I, and you, went to school.
that frying pan is there for a reason.
Scarred? :) No... the analogy was "out of the frying pan and into the fire", and I was claiming that ANY educational system that even comes moderately close to succeeding, no matter how inadequate you claim it may be, is better than trying to go it on your own. I suspect you disagree with me :) - and I respect your right to do so.
Rats on hamster wheels floating the sinking ship? (Score:2)
Come on, the potential change in the public school's funding shouldn't be part of anyone's decisions on education. If the school works, use it. If it would work better, if it were better funded, then sure, use it. But it's the bad (I would say pathological) design of the system, not the funding, that makes the public school system fail. The current lack of money just makes the failure more extreme.
I can just imagine the affected school board's newsletters to parents -- "We can't do a good job of teaching your children academics, but we do expose them to a herd mentality, inefficient bureacracy and mistrust from the administration, and to brute aggression from the football team, which nurtures blind obedience and avoidance of conflict, necessary skills for surviving in a modern corporation! Also, please don't allow the cute little revenue units[1] to leave, because we need the cash they represent. Think of what the others might miss out on!"
Seriously, do you really believe that an average public school system provides a well rounded education to the typical student? Some people graduate without the ability to read. I was in the gifted-and-talented set, like many others here, and it's a joke. AFAICT, it exists to keep smart people out of the teacher's hair. My experience is with the California and Oregon systems; perhaps others are better. (I was also homeschooled for a few years, and my sisters are homeschooled.) But when you put 30 people in a room and say "You will learn this material, whether you like it or not", you're never going to get good results. Some of them will learn the material, some of them will ignore it completely, and some will just cause problems. Those who learn, would probably learn well under any system, and would probably learn better under a system that encourages them to pursue what interests them, rather than dictating a curriculum. The others aren't being helped at all. At best, they remember what they have to in order to pass the next test, then they forget it. If anything manages to stick, it's only due to massive repetition, not because the student wants to know it. What's the point of making them learn it in the first place? They don't care about it. This is pure speculation, fueled by my biases, but I bet an average high school senior can't even do long division, and a high percentage probably can't tell you who wrote a book that was required reading for them, or what the main theme was. That was certainly true at *my* high school, 7 years ago, and by all accounts it's worse now. Disagree?
I believe that people can end up with good and bad educations from all kinds of systems, and learning is pretty much up to each individual. It works best, I think, when someone can direct his own studies, with guidance, and in the current world, homeschooling can be a good approximation of that. If public schools were better designed, they could be a resource that no homeschool group could possibly match. But unfortunately, the schools are founded on the belief that education is something that must be forced into people. Even if they were fully funded and working right, the poor design would make homeschooling a better option.
Certainly people can sometimes do a poor job of homeschooling. However, there are many other options that are much better designed than the American public schools. I think Montessori schools are an interesting system, but I have no experience with them.
[1] "Revenue unit" was the term used for a full-time student in the 2000 Oregon University System budget. I don't know if any K-12 systems use that term, but I wouldn't be at all surprised.
Re:Rats on hamster wheels floating the sinking shi (Score:2)
we do expose them to a herd mentality, inefficient bureacracy and mistrust from the administration, and to brute aggression from the football team
Which, unfortunately, are things we have to deal with today in modern society. Herd mentality = rush hour, inefficient bureacracy = [insert favorite gov't agency here, I like simply "Congress"], football team = that jerk that just cut me off. Sad, but the truth. And I think it's better to learn to deal with it in school than in the real world, where overreacting doesn't get you a trip to the principal's office but instead a trip to the slammer.
Some people graduate without the ability to read. I was in the gifted-and-talented set, like many others here, and it's a joke. AFAICT, it exists to keep smart people out of the teacher's hair.
Can't say I disagree - until I hit high school (which was particularly good), the only difference I felt was that the classes tried to separate grades somewhat - move the "A's in normal classes" people into another class so that when John and Joe compare grades over lunch, the fact that one is in gifted-and-talented and the other isn't won't stand out too much and interrupt some "social development process" the psych people came up with. Although there are some systems that seem more successful than others - my sister reported more success, going through the same schools five years after I did, after a few hefty changes. (The bad sign: budget cuts and complaints will probably roll those changes back). Colorado school system.
One of the most useful experiences I had was the year I spent in my sophomore year history class. I picked it because it was the only one my schedule could fit where the teacher wasn't brand new. A few years later (kind of the goodbye-to-teachers I'm-off-to-college time), this teacher told me that her class was actually half under the "learning disabled" heading - i.e. half the students qualified for unlimited time on tests, etc. Click - a lot of the things that went on in that class suddenly made a lot more sense to me. My classmates in there generally did fine - yeah, a few failed because they didn't care, but for a normal-level class everybody did fine. Without grade inflation. Honestly, I think people in there learned more than in other normal-level classes. And I sure felt that many of the people in there were "smarter" than some of the people in my "accelerated" classes - they certainly had better study habits. I didn't stay in touch with many of these people - but the experience did change my perspective of the "advanced" classes - what I gained in learning more raw material, I lost in learning about other people.
I even agree with you that today's public schools don't do a great job of teaching math/reading/etc. Yeah, it needs fixing. But I think the benefits of having a "socially normalizing" educational system are too important to ignore.
Fad Diagnosies (aka "Your Kid's A Kid") (Score:2, Insightful)
First of all, there is a reason why you kid isn't paying attention. She's bored. I'm still this way to a large degree. It's best if she just lears to put up with it. I seem to have solved this by becomming good at multitasking. I'm not great at doing only one thing at a time. In school, I'd pay attention to the lecture. If I was interested in it, it wasn't a problem (as I'm sure it is for most people). If I found it boring, I would listen (and if the teacher called on me, I was ready with the answer) but at the same time I might be doodleing, or thinking about how you would go about programming something, or just anything else.
As for a fix, here is what I have to say. I'm going to assume that you live in the US and that your child is going to public school. My number one suggestion would be to take your kid OUT of public school. Find a good private school. Religeous schools and single sex schools are best. Uniforms are very good too. One of the most import things is to make sure they are good on disciplin, not week like the public schools. If tuition is a problem, many schools will lower it if you do a certain ammount of volunteering. Infact, being involved is very important.
If boredom is truely the problem (as I suspect it is), you might want to conisder having her skip a grade later in life when the social development isn't as rapid. Putting her straight into 1st grade probably isn't a good idea.
Lastly, I have one more suggestion: Call Dr. Laura. I don't want to get flamed for this, or modded down, etc, but I think that she could help you on this if you get on the air.
Re:Fad Diagnosies (aka "Your Kid's A Kid") (Score:2)
Perhaps this will change, as communications (and advertising) starts filling in those blocks of time. Is dealing with boredom a skill that won't be necessary in the future?
Re:Fad Diagnosies (aka "Your Kid's A Kid") (Score:2)
A) That would be true, but AD(H)D is a catch-all diagnosis these days. It's almost like saying anyone with a headache and is acting a little 'odd' must have some brain tumor (ignoring X-Rays, MRIs, etc). Sorry but that's the best example I can come up with ;)
B) This is more of a general idea. Public schools have many MANY problems. Studies show that kinds learn better in unisex classrooms than in bisex ones. Also, kids tend to do better in religous schools than in non-religeous ones. This sugestion is largely based on the fact that most public schools are nothing but "brainwashing interment camps." Obviously, that's hyperboly, but the fact is that many radical left wing groups push the agendas into the classroom. The books in my .sig talk about this alot.
C) If I said something like "go ask Al Gore" I would agree. But the fact is Dr. Laura is a liscensed family therapist, among other things. Obviously, counseling and such would probably benefit the kid better; but in just asking for some sugestions (like the asker did) she's very good at. I have heard a few calls along this line and she has very good advice. But for realy therapy (if needed) and such, you're correct. That can't happen on the air. PS: Slightly off this topic, but notice how for every "intersting", "insightfull", or "informative" moderation I've gotten, I've gotten an "offtopic" or a "troll".
Homeschool (Score:2)
warehousing in the state creche is a form of abuse.
I was one. My daughter is similarly ill-suited to it.
My solution is simple: I keep my daughter with me.
Until she was 12 her mother and I schooled her
independently. Now, she takes Internet and
correspondence courses with various high schools
and colleges around the country.
If you choose this route, there are some practical
requirements. For example, at least one parent
should stay home the bulk of the time. I am fortunate
in that I have been able to telecommute 100% for
the past 12 years. My wife is a wonderfully creative
intelligent and energetic person who has been
willing to sacrifice any option of a career in favor
of our daughter's education. For another example,
you need to get out a lot. Or more precisely, your
child needs to get out a lot, in order to gain social
skills.
Personally, while I think there are certainly some
people who should not be training their children
at all, for whom a classical school or even a
boarding school would be most appropriate, I have
concluded by observing the rate of intellectual
moral and emotional development of my daughter in
contrast to those in the state schools that the best
approach is to conform your lifestyle to the model
under which humanity evolved. Extended family
support is good too.
Serious Question (Score:2)
Does/did your daughter have any friends?
Tim
Re:Serious Question (Score:2)
It is a little know fact but before there where public schools NOBODY had any friends.
That is why Al Gore invented public schools.
Re:Serious Question (Score:2)
at her age, and a much richer and more complete
life. She has the luxury of being able to choose her
friends -- and the involvement of her family with her
peer group, whereas I was cast into a den of vipers,
and abandoned there.
Where does she meet them? (Score:2)
I'm more thinking about the younger ages, say 6, 7, 8, where kids don't have any problems making friends but they might have a problem finding other kids to be friends with (can't go places alone, etc...).
I'd imagine if there were enough people homeschooling in an area you could form some sort of a unity for social stuff, but that might only work in cities.
I could be abnormal in meeting a lot of childhood friends through school though, no kids living near me, and my parents waited somewhat long to have children so their friend's kids are much older than I am.
Tim
Overapplied. (Score:2)
ADHD is one of the most overapplied, blanket "diagnoses" in the psychological industry. Very very few people who are diagnosed with ADHD have any medical condition that justifies medication. ADHD has become basically a way of applying a clinical label to a personality trait. Deal with your child for who she is -- not for what label someone applies to her.
A few random sources:
one [opengroup.com]
two [delfossedesigns.com]
three [creativegenius.org]
Anecdotal note: I hear (from considerably fewer sources than have informed my opinion above, which had been echoed by many qualified professionals) that Ritalin is a "smart drug". Do something intellectually stimulating (e.g. learn from a physics textbook), pop a few pills, and continue until the effect kicks in. Notice an improvement? Lots and lots of college students use Ritalin simply to make themselves smarter, regardless of whether an ADHD label has been applied to them. It's like drinking some coffee before your test if you're taking it first thing in the morning, or eating a candy bar. Obviously, it's a controlled substance, so look into it before doing it regularly. However, I would discontinue your child's use of it.
Re:Overapplied. (Score:2)
Ritalin has been an extremely helpful drug for thousands of people. And, as someone who has taken it, I can tell you it's not a damn thing like speed, or even coffee. There are way to abuse it, but that's not the clinical approach.
Ritalin does not make anyone smarter except to help them moderate their attention span. It is not used as a stimulant -- if you're ever met a kid with ADHD the last thing that would occur to you is to stimulate them, but paradoxically the drug calms them down.
Anyway, do read your own sources -- they are for the most part about the hazard of misdiagnosing a problem as ADHD when it is something else. This is a far cry from saying ADHD is a sham, and also does not say what you claim, that "Very very few people who are diagnosed with ADHD have any medical condition that justifies medication." If the real problem is epilepsy, believe me that needs treatment, too. Also, ADHD is a medical condition. If it is overdiagnosed, and perhaps it is, it still does exist, according to a hundreds more sources than the naysayers.
Re:Overapplied. (Score:2)
Re:Overapplied. (Score:2)
There is no "high" when these drugs are used properly, in tiny doses; to be effectively abused they must be taken in high doses or crushed and smoked, injected, or snorted. It is thus a gross distortion to deliberately blend clinical and street uses and nicknames.
Any potential stimulant or addictive effect of the drugs is an undesired side effect, and must be taken into account. A new drug called Atomoxetine is under review that is similar in effectively to methylphenidate, but is not a stimulant. Its parallel effectiveness underscores than the stimulant aspect of current drugs is not responsible for the therapeutic effects; it will also not be a controlled subatnce.
I studied these drugs in school and out, don't bother telling me that I don't understand. Drugs are not the solution to all our problems, but neither is careless propaganda and prejudice.
Re:Overapplied. (Score:2)
Personally, I tried five or six drugs for ADHD, and they all had their benefits. For me, though, the main benefit was experiencing other ways to be. I haven't tried any of the medications in years, but the intermittent experience of having a more normal attention span really helped me see how to achieve a lot of the benefits without drugs.
I'd also strongly encourage people with ADHD to try meditation and yoga. (And when I say yoga, I don't mean american-style "power yoga" with an areobics instructor looking for the latest fad. It should be the slow, peaceful, but intense kind.)
Also, I found the book Driven to Distraction [drhallowell.com] to be the best book on the topic; it's written by a professional psychiatrist who also had ADHD. The first time I read it blew me away: suddenly a number of seemingly unrelated things in my life fell into a pattern.
Re:Overapplied. (Score:2)
I've had by own, ah, experiences, and am paradoxically anti-pro-drug. I don't think there should be a stigma, but also don't see how you can't say someone is better off not taking any drug (which presupposes that they've got the illness under wraps).
FWIW, my doctor "friend" did say the newest drug Atomoxetine is da bomb; although not an improvement in effect over Ritalin, it lacks some of the side effects and it sounds like it will displace Ritalin. The downside is probably that the drug will be expensive much longer than Ritalin, which is now generic (yes? to those who don't know, generic == dirt cheap). The patent-protected time-release version of Ritalin, Concerta, is also considered superior for giving fewer "up and downs" -- the once-a-day is not just a convenience issue.
My principal purpose in this thread was to try to throw up some static against the prejudiced view of drugs, that anyone naive who might stumble through here would hear the other side. So I'm kind of talking over your shoulder, too. Hey, I thought I knew my stuff having studied psych and pharmacology, yet I didn't realize until a few years ago there was an ADD variant to ADHD, or that adults had to deal with this stuff. A lot of this wasn't known well until relatively recently.
In any event, the belligerent flavor of ignorance really pisses me off.
"Driven to Distraction" has been recommended to me several times, I just, heh-heh, keep forgetting about it.
I'm glad you've seen good results in your own experience. If you'd like to see more "seemingly unrelated things in my life fell into a pattern" (I know what you mean -- hyperfocus was another symptom I had not heard of) look at the humor list, written by people with ADHD, and cited in one of my other posts here.
Things are changing, thank goodness.
Ah, one other novelty I wanted to mention to the OP, but wasn't sure if it would be too "negative," is that there is increasing evidence of correlation between ADHD and bipolar disorder. Manic-depression is the more evocative term for bipolar disorder. Now, correlation doesn't mean if you have one you have the other (sigh), but bipolar is serious stuff and is now being seen in children, not because of a fad but more likely on account of the realization that much underdiagnosis has gone on. When I was in school not that long ago the official word was that average onset of bipolar was age 30 -- wrong. Finally, bipolar is not the kiss of death; it is treatable, but as a very damaging disease highly associated with suicide (~25% die if untreated), it is best to keep in mind where your ADHD child may be predisposed to it.
In addition, there is increasing (and, to me, persuasive) evidence of a strong genetic predisposition, which may relieve the child of some of the "fault" for the problem and also suggest some benefit in examining family history and the experiences of siblings.
Not to compare directly, but bipolar makes ADHD look fairly
Re:Overapplied. (Score:2)
You have any cites on this? I'd certainly believe it, but I'd love to read the studies.
For a great book on the topic of creativity and mental illness, read Touched With Fire [amazon.com]. It looks at the Romantic-era poets and concludes that bipolar disorder (and its little brother, cyclothymia) ran in the families of many of them and a lot of modern creative people, too.
Re:Overapplied. (Score:2)
Cites? Hmm. I can't recall specific studies and investigators, but here is a trusty Google search [google.com] that will give you a stack of stuff to look at. The key words are "bipolar adhd comorbidity" -- esp. that last one.
Classicly, too, bipolar has been misdiagnosed as schizophrenia and major depression
Re:Oh yeah (Score:2)
OK, other than typos I think that completes what I meant to say. See, this is why one should go to a medical professional rather than
Go back to the books (Score:2)
When it comes to medical issues, or even sociological ones, I'd trust well-done studies and statistics more than a couple of geeks' anecdotal advice. (how alliterative!)
I constantly find that intuitive expectations are subverted by experience, and that personal experience is contradicted by broad evidence.
Actually, I should amend that last statement to say, not that I personally, in my research experience, but instead, that broadly speaking, upon evaluating evidence from a wide range of issues and studies...
My son... (Score:3, Insightful)
Our net:
He's a quirky kid. He's needed lots of patience and work. Luckily my job as an engineer afforded my wife the opportunity to stay at home with the kids. She put in a ton of work with him in the early years at school. He's a teenager, good hearted, and still needs perhaps more intervention than many, (He would forget his head if it wasn't bolted on.) but works and tries hard.
Sometimes we despair of "getting him all he needs to know" before he goes off to college, but he continues to show progress. With him it's odd, because the progress comes in bursts. We're glad he had a full-time parent, and we're glad we didn't medicate.
My kids were diagnosed ADHD.. (Score:2)
The doctors prescribed adderol (sp?) for my daughter. We were very reluctant to give her the meds. We felt that the doctors involved were just following a rote path in diagnosing and treating her condition. We would have like for them to have a better understanding of what she was facing. We had to do that for ourselves. It was a very exhausting process for both us and her teachers. In the end we never gave her meds. Instead we found ways for her and her teachers to help her manage her condition. We felt very strongly that this would suit her better in life than simply medicating her problems.
In retrospect I think that we were very lucky. Her problems were not that severe. There is certainly a wide spectrum of behavior and issues to deal with when it comes to ADD or ADHD. I think that you must really understand this and determine for yourself how "difficult" the condition is in it's manifestation. In very difficult cases I am certain that meds are probably the only way to get through the day-to-day difficulties that ADHD presents to the child, parents, and teachers. But do not be too quick to accept the meds that doctors seem only too willing to prescribe.
Our daughter (and son) had particular problems with sensory integration issues. The seams in clothing were a particular issue that is vivid in my mind. Or the difficulty in getting my daughter to do her homework because she could not deal with the texture of the paper. School paper is very rough. I ended up printing lines on laser printer paper for her to use.
We brought both my children to an Occupational Therapist who deals with sensory integration issues in children. They had a big "play room" that they would bring the kids into. They would find out what stimuli provided positive reinforcement and which provided negative reinforcement. (Note: this is my terminology and how I viewed it.) All I can say is the OT worked wonders! If we missed a week we would end up paying dearly in the degree of difficulty we had in managing their behavior.
My daughter discovered horseback riding when she was 6. It was and still is amazing to me how an ADHD child who can't stay calm or focused in the classroom is amazingly calm and focused around a horse. Nobody at the barn would beleive that she was an ADHD child. For her this is her therapy. It works so well it is simply amazing.
My son needs physical acticity to calm him down. When I would get called in because of his bahavior I would simply take him out to the playground to run and climb. Rock climbing is particulary effective for him. We have also found Karate to be effective though organized sports are difficult for him because he does not have the patience to wait. This, however, is improving as he gets older.
I think that these activities help them to keep their mind focused. As I understand it and have personally observed it in my children, their minds are racing. As one OT person explained it to me. Imagine that you are trying to take a test but can't focus because the tick of the clock, the hum of the heaters, the simple movements of the people around you, are all as vivid in your mind as the problem you are trying to focus on. Your head is full of all this stimulus and can't seem to filter them out and focus on one thing as most people can. And you can't understand why? People start to think your just not trying.
We have found ways to help our children to cope with this without the use of meds. I think this is a better service to them than simply giving them the drugs. It certainly is much more work. Very exhausting. Sometimes I have wondered how my wife and I have made it though all this. I like to think that by doing this we have "taught our children how to fish" rather than simply "giving them a fish" so to speak. They are learning how to manage their issues rather than having them simply "squashed". This is important because drugs will always squash a lot more than just what you want them to. Of course if you cannot find these things to help your children cope or if they simply are not enough then by all means use meds. Just don't be so quick to feed them to your kids as the medical profession is.
Read This (Score:2)
It will certainly provide food for thought.
Gifted children get bored, and tune out. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe she tunes out because she is bored. I did. It is also possible that she has mild epilepsy, and is having petit mal seizures. This was also the case when I was a child. It started out in kindergarten. I thought I would learn to read and write, but it was just games for babies. I was dissilusioned. The teacher thought I was retarded because I refused to join in on the baby games, but when they had my mother sit in on a day of class, I was "suddenly a lively young boy." When mom asked why I didn't like school, I told her, "It's dumb!" In first and second grade, I was constantly accused of daydreaming. When I hadn't done my homework, and told the teach I hadn't heard her assigning it, I was telling the truth. I was put in the idiot classes, but once I was sent for an IQ test, I scored genius level, in the 130s. Now they were stumped, they can deal with average kids, and sub-average kids, but not gifted children.
After several years, and half a dozen doctors, I was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy. When "daydreaming," I was often having a petit mal seizure, and completely unaware of what was going on around me. Boredom with dumbed down schools was cured by sending me to an accelerated prep school, and the petit mals with Dilantin and Mysolene, as I was allergic to the drug of choice, tegretol. None of these is a stimulant like Ritilan. Petit Mal seizures usualy stop as soon as brain growth stops. Once you reach adulthood, it is gone. Mine went away just as expected. If I were a child again today, They probably would have said I have ADHD, and gave me ritilin, which would have harmed me, not helped. I used to work with a man who had been pilled up with that crap since childhood, and was still on it, and could tell dozens of horror stories about working with him. If you would like me to tell you more, email me.
Re:Gifted children get bored, and tune out. (Score:2)
This wouldn't be so bad, except that, when they cancelled programs for gifted students, they increased programs for disabled students. They spend resources allowing students with absolutely no muscular control to be in PE classes, but not so that gifted students can have a challenge worthy of them.
This is a good question to bring to Slashdot... (Score:2)
This is a good question to bring to Slashdot, because many Slashdot readers are of above average intelligence.
Highly intelligent children often have a very difficult time in elementary school, which for them is like a prison.
Highly intelligent children are likely to be more aware of the lack of caring of the adults around them. The lack of caring is extremely difficult for a child to understand.
A lot of what is done in school just doesn't make sense. Highly intelligent children are more likely to have problems with things that don't make sense.
There are a lot of people who make their livings by giving diagnoses. Those people are unlikely to see that maybe some of a child's reaction is a healthy negative reaction.
If someone tried to force me now, as an adult, to sit in a desk all day listening to someone say uninteresting things, I can guarantee that my behavior would be 100% uncooperative. But they are diagnosing your child with a disease for behavior that is probably less than 40% uncooperative. Does that mean that I am 2 1/2 times sicker than your child?
My experience, my family (Score:2)
My father was a skeptic about this whole ritalin/ADD thing, and for good reason. We were involved in Scouts, and he'd seen a number of parents who would drug up their kids with the Standard Mind-Medication during the week to keep them docile, then dump them on a campout with a backpack full of sugar-foods. My mom was a critic, too, but she realized that I needed something to help me deal with this problem that was interfering with school and life. Like you, my mom did the research. Alternative treatments, herbal treatments, all the rest. In the end, she tried the ritalin route: Just a very, very low dosage. And it worked.
As I grew up, from high school into college, I learned to notice my own mental state more. I realized that, as a child, I literally did not know how to focus my own mind. Ritalin was a crutch that helped me to keep my mind on what was going on in the world around me. As I grew more self-aware, I grew less dependent. I did have a valid handicap, and in the beginning, I needed help. In college, I qualified for educational assistance under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But I'm a very independent, muleheadedly stubborn person, and I reject advantages handed to me this way. I prefer to overcome.
My father, as I said, was a skeptic. He said he was the same way as I was growing up, and he's just fine now. My mom had two counterpoints: 1) ADD was not a medically recognized condition when he was growing up, and 2) the rigorous discipline of 20 years in the military did for him what ritalin did for me. Without even knowing it was there, he learned to overcome a handicap, and she saw it more clearly than he did.
My (adopted) younger sister is another case. She was diagnosed with ADHD, and given ritalin. It's my mom's opinion now that my sister never really had ADHD, that she was just another stubborn kid. Such cases happen. She's still a handful (especially since she recently got her driver's license), but I think my parents are doing rather well raising her. (For one thing, no amount of begging and pleading is getting her a car as a birthday or Christmas present.)
I hope it's not too much of a boast to say that we're all fairly intelligent kids in my family, on the upper end of the curve. And it is tough being a 'geek' or 'nerd' growing up in high school. My best advice is to let her know that you love her, and that make sure she realizes that, when she is ridiculed (everyone gets ridiculed in school at some point), it's not because there's anything wrong with her. Help her to know that she is not alone.
The fact that you are wise and loving enough to be the Worried Parent you've shown yourself to be so far is a very good sign for her future. May God bless and look after you both.
Re:My experience, my family (Score:2)
What I got from ritalin was an experience with a mental state that I had not experienced on my own. A state of focus, of being in touch with my surroundings. It was a conscious, personal decision in college to achieve something of this mental state without medicinal aid. I'm not on ritalin any more because I choose not to be. I choose the way I do because of the person I am. I am who I am in large part because of the upbringing my parents gave me. However, for a time, the ritalin honestly did help.
It's my view that drugs are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, it's how they're used that makes the difference.
Lots of kids are like that... (Score:2)
Daydreaming was a big problem for me. Following instructions, doing homework, etc - they just flew right by me. I remember only a few teachers, but I don't remember spending any length of time in classrooms with any of them.
Even now I have two professors for a single class. One of them causes me to tune out within a few seconds - if I didn't have the lecture slides to look ahead, I'd be dozing off. I have to pay attention, though, because there are important things said (read - used in an exam) that are not available in the book, slides, handouts, or web site.
It...is...so...painfully...slow.
The other teacher is engaging, commands the classroom, and randomly calls on students for answers to simple questions. This forces me to follow the discussion through, but entertains me enough that even though I get what is being taught, I don't lose interest in the presentation.
I doubt that I'm any smarter than the other students, but I seem to grasp a lot of these topics much more quickly than they are being taught. I don't go to discussions because they simply are teaching at a lower level and helping those who are struggling.
At any rate, your daughter has to learn to live in a world that doesn't match her learning style and speed. You can help her immensely, but I don't think there are any medications that will help her deal with it. They will only delay her acclimation into the way the world works around her, unless she plans on using them her entire life.
You might consider encouraging her more, and following up. Try to improve her memory for dates, times, assignments and events. Just quiz her and make it an important aspect of life. I still have problems in this respect, and half the issues I had with getting homework done (outside of procrastination and general distaste) was when the assignment was actually due, and how much real time I had left.
Good luck. I have a toddler and an infant, both very energetic and curious. There's no substitute for a parent, and I hope you are there for your kids.
-Adam
Are you sure? (Score:2)
I'm not saying AD(H)D dosen't exist - I also know kids who are indeed, and who seriously need R/C (take your pick), and I'm not saying the poster is a shitty parent - if they care enough to ask an audience of millions blindly, they must have a genuine care for their kids' wellbeing. Just generally, make sure it's AD(H)D, and not that your kid dosen't like their school/is antisocial/has authority issues/is afraid of failure/the list goes on and on...
On another note, please DON'T homeschool your kid. Ever. Even if both parents are professional teachers, half (at least) of the point of primary school is learning how to interact socially with others. Maybe interact is too strong a word - how about deal and talk to others. How to deal with being put into a room with 20 other kids knowing no-one, and knowing what to do. If you want your kid to end up living in your basement all their live because the're afraid of the outside world and new people, more power to you. if you want a decently-adjusted kid, send them to school, daycare, summer camp, you name it. Teach them to interact and deal with others first - addition can come later.
People in denial (Score:2)
Maybe your kid has ADHD, maybe he/she doesn't. If your kid takes Ritalin (a stimulant) and gets even more hyper, then they probably don't have ADHD. If they slow down and don't seem as hyper, then ritalin is working. Why? Because Ritalin is a stimulant! Doctors have been known to give senior citizens Ritalin to get them more hyper.
I took Ritalin, and I went from a 2.0 to a 3.0. It obviously worked. Kids have issues, some can be corrected by their environment, some need medication.
Ritalin helps a lot of kids. The poster has said his daughter is happier on Ritalin. This should be a sign that she is doing better. Ritalin is probably working for her.
PS. When you do your research, keep in mind there are tons of web pages that say vaccines cause autisim. Consider the sources of the research on the internet. Don't go looking for the answer you want to hear.
Re:People in denial (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong: I think Ritalin can be very helpful to people with ADHD; it sure helped me. But it doesn't work the other way around: improved performance while on Ritalin does not mean that you have ADHD. Ritalin (and other stimulants, like caffeine) improve academic performance for everybody.
drake institute (Score:2)
Check out the drake institute:
http://www.drakeinstitute.com/
They have non-drup programs for add and adhd.
I went. email private for more details.
Don't Medicate! Provide Intellectual Stimulation! (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's my recomondations:
-DON'T USE 'R'! It's really bad stuff, and it only dumbs you down. I was on it for 1 week only.
-TAKE MOST 'SPECIALISTS' ADVICE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. Most doctors in the field don't have a clue and want to medicate at the drop of a hat. Find a doctor who makes sense and doesn't medicate.
-Contact the local branch of the LDA (Learning Disabilites Association ldanatl.org) and network with the parents.
-Contact MENSA and obtain as much info on support for the gifted child. When I mention getting classified as EMH half of the people at MENSA say "Don't you hate it when that happens!", the coincidence of ADHD and high IQ is much higher than you might think.
-Stimulate, Stimulate, Stimulate: ADHDs are often natural polymaths. We can assimilate a lot of information simultaneously, a library card, internet access, plenty of smart toys and a radio can be the key to rapid development.
-Find a 'Conveyor Belt': I think much better with a certain base level of distraction, i.e. while I'm walking or music is playing. It tends to mask out minor distractions and keep a constant flow of thought. Figure out what works for her.
-Fight like hell! The schools don't want to handle the gifted or the special child, they wan't to produce a uniform product and treat anybody different badly (welcome to the hellmouth). Use the LDA and MENSA to determine what the schools are obligated to do and HOLD THEM TO IT!
-Computers are your friend. I can't add, spell, draw a straight line, remember a phone number or write in a legible cursive script. The reason I'm not digging ditches is that I have computers calculators and PDAs to do all that for me. Teach her how to add, write and so on and then introduce computer solutions as fast as possible. I failed drafting because I couldn't crosshatch, now I render 3D with the best of them. Moore's law makes this the golden age for the ADHD/LD/Gifted individual.
-Remind her of Famous People with the same problems. Disney, Edison, Churchill, and Newton for starters. "Do Not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater" -Einstein
-Teach self confidence but include Noblesse Oblige.
-Support her to the hilt! As any denizen of
Re:Don't Medicate! Provide Intellectual Stimulatio (Score:2)
Sugar (Score:3, Interesting)
Her IQ is 147? (Score:3, Insightful)
While I'm not very familiar with this sort of thing first hand, I know that ADHD and other similar "diseases" are diagnosed quite a bit to children that don't fit into the mold. Many people feel that doctors are too quick to diagnose this.
It feels to me as if the reasoning in many cases is "This kid isn't normal. So we should give him/her drugs to make him/her act like normal kids do."
Doesn't this miss the fact that this girl (and many others like her) is NOT normal? Her IQ (147) is MUCH higher than an average person's (100). Provided her IQ test was done correctly, this qualifies her as a "genius" (I believe genius is defined as being 140-145 or above, depending on who you ask). I've heard that people with even higher IQs have even more extreme "behavior tendencies."
Obviously, she is going to act much differently than most of the other students in her school!
She is attending a school where the lessons were designed for people with average mental capabilities. She is also going to have a hard time following instructions designed for children in the 85-115 IQ. Even people with IQs in the 120s and 130s have some problems adjusting to these settings. It is probably even more unnatural for someone with an IQ close to 150 or higher.
Even though she has been diagnosed with ADHD by a doctor, I question giving drugs to "correct" the behavior of such an individual. I don't know what long term effects drugs like the dreaded "r" have, but I'd be afraid of neutering my child with such drugs if I found they had a high IQ.
It seems someone like this would not benefit at all from a traditional school setting, at least at such a young age, and would be better off in a school designed for people gifted with high IQs.
It seems to make more sense to nurture someone's high IQ with activities that they can relate to, rather than give them a drug to force them to become "normal."
Re:Her IQ is 147? (Score:2)
This is a reasonable fear to have; around my house we would jokingly refer to Ritalin as the "zombie worker bee pill".
But for me, Ritalin was immensely helpful in helping me to put all my smarts to use. Growing up, I was deeply frustrated at how little I got done: I started a million things, and finished about two. I had a long string of report cards that talked about the great gap between my potential and what I actually accomplished. Ritalin (and the other ADHD drugs I tried) allowed me to actually focus on something in a normal way, which was a revelation.
Unfortunately, I didn't get diagnosed until college, so I had 18 years of bad habits and self-esteem issues to unwind. If I could wave a magic wand, I would change things so that I could have tried Ritalin (and other ADHD meds) intermittently from an early age (e.g., a week on, a week off). I really value the saltative [m-w.com] way my ADHD-flavored brain works, but it was only the addition of some drug-induced mundane habits that let me really flower.
Re:Her IQ is 147? (Score:2)
Getting shit done is complicated; all sorts of problems could cause you to not live up to your potential. A sharp professional will be able to help a lot. Unfortunately, finding a sharp professional is hard; there are a lot of idiot psychiatrists and counsellors out there. I encourage you to take the time to find one.
But ADHD does certainly persist into adulthood for some people. If the symptoms ring a bell, go buy the book Driven to Distraction [drhallowell.com]. Somewhere in there there's a list of 100 questions you can ask yourself. It's not a diagnostic test or anything, but for me, a bunch of the questions (and many other things in the book) rang a bell, a big, massive, liberty-bell-sized bell. If you have the same experience, absolutely talk to somebody who specialized in ADHD. If you can find somebody who specializes in adult ADHD, even better; if not, be prepared for a waiting room with a lot of small chairs and copies of Highlights.
If you want to talk about it more, you're welcome to email me at the obvious address (my name at my web site).
Re:Her IQ is 147? (Score:2, Interesting)
It depends on the IQ test being used. According to Mensa [mensa.org], an IQ of 132 on some tests qualifies the person for membership. To join U.S. Mensa (which accepts the top 2 percentile, check this page [mensa.org] for acceptable test scores.)
For more information on genius in general, check out Estimated IQs of Greatest Geniuses [swipnet.se].
I think this is something that has largely been ignored in the world at large. Remember that the IQ is a bell curve. An IQ of 130 is as rare as an IQ of 70. An IQ of 147 is as rare as an IQ of 53. (According to the Estimated IQs site, an IQ of 147 is equivalent to 99.83 percentile. Your child is "smarter" than 99.83 percent of the world.)If you think about how rare it is that a person has an IQ of 53, you begin to appreciate how special your daughter really is.
Personally, my biggest problem was motivation to work hard. All the way up throgh Sophmore year of college, I didn't have to work hard to get good grades, relying on just my memory, I could do very well. But when college got harder, I didn't have the patience to work through harder problems.
I think that you have to push your child so that they never become intellectually lazy. The problem you get is burn-out.
ADHD does exist, but I think it is rarer than is actually diagnosed. An incredibly gifted child may be labled ADHD merely because she is bored with what is, to her, very easy school work. Get a second opinion.
Look into other disorders. (Score:2)
Even when it's not.
Please, if you haven't already done so, go get your child checked out by a qualified professional NOT affiliated with the school. Make sure to ask about other pervasive developmental disorders, such as hyperlexia, Asperger's Syndrome, PDD-NOS, and so forth.
If your child really has ADD/ADHD, the first step is obviously to get her medical treatment for ADD/ADHD. If your child really has Asperger's Syndrome, or PDD-NOS, or... then the first step is to get her properly diagnosed.
Speaking personally, I have Asperger's--so I'm firsthand acquainted with how easily kids can be misdiagnosed by well-meaning but blind school officials and school psychiatrists.
ahh elementary school (Score:2)
There was the 1st grade where my teacher felt that should should send a letter home because I had problems following directions. Of course my mom was worried and went and talked with my teacher.
There she learned my problem was not stopping at 10 when asked to count to 10. Why did I do this? There was more squares that could be numbered, and anyway by counting to 20, I showed that I knew how to count to 10, and isn't that what the teacher was testing us on?
Apparently not. So my mom said I should turn the paper over and then count on the back. So I did. That wasn't good enough.
I also would draw pictures on the back of my handouts when I was done with them and was forced to wait while the rest of class struggeled with how many apples were on the tree. That was also a no-no.
The of course there was the ultimate comment:
"I'd like to talk to you about your son's language"
"Jonathan is swearing?!?!"
"Oh no! It's nothing like that. He just uses some words that the other students don't know. Could you ask him to stop?"
"What's the problem? You don't know what he's talking about? There isn't a chance in hell I'm going to tell my son not to use his vocabulary. If they don't know what he's talking about perhaps you could do your job and teach them."
Then came the third grade where I got a C in reading on my report card. This was unexpected since I was an "advanced" reader. So my mom duitfully went to the teacher and asked what was going on since this just didn't make any sense.
The teacher gave my mom a copy of some homework I turned in and said, "This."
My mom looked at it dumbfounded and then said, "What's wrong with it?"
"He circled the topic sentence."
"Isn't that what he's supposed to do?"
"He's supposed to underline it."
"Is that it? Because I don't understand how this warrants a C, afterall he's anwered all the questions correction. Maybe he should get a talking to about being more attentive to the directions, but not a C. He's always been a strong reader. He reads at 6th grade level. He's never had problems in reading or any other subject for that matter."
The response? "Oh. He's one of THOSE kids..."
My mom and I still don't know what that was supposed to mean.
Now I've had some good teachers My third grade teacher (I had two third grade teachers, a "homeroom" which taught everything but reading half a year, and then the aforementioned teacher), and my fifth grade teacher was absolutly wonderful , but I also had some real winners, and a lot of barely passable teachers. But then again what do you expect? Those entering the teaching profession generally (there are exceptions, as I noted) weren't the brightest people in school. Hell I know several teachers that laugh, "I never learned algebra, and now I'm teaching it!" "I never got better than a C in college!" "Oh I was never that good in school growing up!" I even heard one confess, "You know, I don't really like kids."
Given my experience with teachers and smart kids, and the fact that the evidence for prevalence of ADHD is highly dubious, I think you should take your kid off it, and put her in classes where she'll actually be stimulated.
For some reason ADHD is diagnosed in the United States significantly more than any other country in the world. And the increase in diagnoses track with the increased marketing of Ritalin et. al. Hmm... This is really suspcious and distrurbing. So much so, that the EU has written a working draft [coe.int] outlining their concerns. I quote:
For more information on this and other "interesting" trends in ADHD diagnosis, I'd suggest checking out
PBS's Frontline's "Medicating Kids" [pbs.org]
Re:ahh elementary school (Score:2)
Note that the United States was settled by a bunch of people who decided that they just couldn't sit still, who were so excited by new opportunity or so fed up with where they were that they made a big leap into the unknown.
It's no shock to me at all that the US has a lot more ADHD; every ADHD person I know loves to travel.
Be careful (Score:2)
He was given a lot of medicine to help him focus and not much else. It did. So much that he's very very poorly socialized right now. Its kinda of sad to watch him, because he a great guy but he just says strange things sometimes and frightens people. He can't communicate because he doesn't talk to you so much is talk at you.
I think the medicine might help but look at it as a last resort. If you child is not focusing is s/he bored with the class? Find out what is going on and find a good doctor.
Salon.com had some interesting articles on ADHT. Go there and search on it
Suggestion (Score:2)
Why do all kids have ADD, ADxD, AD&D these days? In my day, we had 1 "bad" kid, and he sat in the back of the class with a screen around his desk to keep him concentrating. He's now in charge of US Naval submarine communcations, so it obviously didn't retard his education.
I was diagnosed with ADHD (Score:2)
Obligatory Simpsons quote, to the tune of Popeye the sailor man:
When I can't stop fiddlin
I just takes my Ritalin
I'm poppin' and sailin', man. (toot toot!)
a couple suggestions (Score:2)
(usual disclaimers apply: i am not a doctor, developmental specialist, or in any way qualified to give professional advice. not tested on animals, your mileage may vary, etc.)
1) maybe a small change in style could help a lot; if your daughter's reading is up to it, it may be worthwhile to ask the teacher to have her instructions for the assignments and activities on paper. i know that i do much better when i have things written down in front of me rather than trying to have to remember them.
2) toys like model kits were really good for me (as was learning to cook, but that came later on) in terms of learning to follow directions. there's a nice reward if the task is completed successfully (good for reinforcement) and the fine motor coordination that i developped was very good for me too (we'll just say that until 4th grade my teachers were convinced i was an idiot, then it turned out that it was just my writing that was bad)
3) a good friend's younger brother went to the nysmith school [nysmith.com] (in herndon, virginia) and he benefitted well from the environment there. i realize that you're in a tricky situation these schools are expensive and i know my parents were strongly against placing me in those sorts of programs.
as for the ritalin, about the only obvious thing i can thing of is point you at the actual scientific literature. while i have not ever dealt with adhd myself, i am being treated for depression. it took me three years before i finally went to see a psychiatrist, because for most of those three years, i was convinced that happy pills were for people who aren't strong willed enough to get through it. what changed my mind was reading papers at u penn about the physiology of major depressive episodes and how antidepressants worked to counter some of physiological changes. i don't know if comparable work has been done or is even applicable to adhd, but it's worth checking out. unfortunately, this will mean a trip to a local university's library (and, of course, some talks with your child's developmental specialists / psychiatrists / counselors / etc.) because these discoveries are too recent to have made it into the more mainstream literature.
anyhoo, that's my $0.02.Apocalypse (Score:2)
* Somebody asks for parenting advice on Slashdot
Food allergies? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not talking peanuts and shock necessarily, but there are a host of pages out there by some very good sources about this topic.
For example, for me most soft cheeses get me all "distant" and everything starts going all "tunnel vision." I can function, but feel like I'm having an out of body experience. For other people, it's nuts, berries, etc. and jitters. Many people point to sugar as a culprit, but that's a bit of a cop-out.
Try "ADHD food allergy" in Google and you might be surprised.
As a former teacher, and a parent, I'd recommend that you locate a good dietician for suggestions. To make a generalization, doctors aren't a good source for this kind of help since they aren't taught nutrition; our family is vegan and the pediatrician asked about my daughter: "where does she get her protein?" A friend is a doctor and it's amazing the number of things he doesn't know about nutrition, like what foods have what vitamins, etc.
Another reason smart kids have "ADHD" is they just get bored easily, too. My IQ's in the range of your daughter's (as are many people who post here) and I'm sure most found the early years of education a long, tedious wait for people to get to the point. As a teacher, I now know that very few schools allow a room of 20-30 kids to each explore their own way of learning things. My parents got called in to a conference once because I "wouldn't stay on task" - apparently, I would go to look up a word in a dictionary, and end up finding another word too, and another, etc. I learned a lot of words, but annoyed the teachers.
Take care and I hope it all works out for you.
-insightkingfillATyahoo.com without the royalty.
Role Playing games? (Score:2)
It's a great way to meet other people, have some social interaction, and maybe build up some interest in paying attention to what is going on.
Is AD[H]D a hackish trait? (Score:2)
My little brother is (informally diagnosed) ADD, possibly ADHD, and after reading a couple of chapters of Driven to Distraction I'm convinced that I'm at least borderline ADD.
I've always felt, however, that my distractability was not a negative trait -- in fact, with some effort, I've been able to train myself so I can, for instance, participate in two conversations at once, or some similar multi-input task. In fact, I'm convinced that this is the flip side of what the Jargon File calls hack mode [tuxedo.org], "a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem" to the exclusion of everything else. This is an ability that I greatly value, even though it's sometimes not fun to finish a project and then suddenly realize that I've forgotten to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom for way too long.
My question, then is: is this a trait (or a mental ability) that is related somehow to the "hacker" mentality? Comments above have indicated that ADD children are often very intelligent and often have logical/mathematical abstract thinking patterns -- both of which are characteristic of hackers. I'd love to see some statistics (if there are any) on the relationship there.
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:5, Insightful)
My 6-year-old, First Grade boy has ADHD, and is on the same medication as your daughter. From your story it sounds like they could be twins. Actually, he's on a time-release version, so there's no mid-day trips to the nurse for meds -- none of his classmates has a clue he's on medication, and I think that's an important point.
I can't say for sure, but looking back I'm guessing I, too, have ADHD, although milder than my son -- I learned to cope, but it's still hard to concentrate on boring tasks (e.g., work).
My advice is to listen to your daughter's doctors -- if they suggest medication, and if it helps her live a more-typical (I hate the label "normal") childhood, by all means go for it. It's certainly helping my son. One example: The difference in his drawing is amazing. He went from scribbling uncontrollably all over the page to coloring between the lines to drawing recognizeable images freehand -- in a matter of weeks! I forgot his medication one day, and it took me two hours to get to the school to give it to him. Later, at our first parent-teacher conference, his teacher said that she didn't consider him any different than any other child, until that morning. She could definately tell something was wrong (yes, we fully informed her of his ADHD before school started).
Good luck, hang in there, and ignore the jokers who say you're "drugging" your child.
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:2)
My advice is to listen to your daughter's doctors -- if they suggest medication, and if it helps her live a more-typical (I hate the label "normal") childhood, by all means go for
Or, if you can make it happen (you may like
it when it does) - make your child's "typical"
chidhood experience different, so he/she doesn't
need this medication. Maybe that's a solution?
At some point, it becomes a positive feedback
issue: children get into environment where
other children are already disciplined/medicated
into a certain way of life, and your child stands
out. Maybe, if you found another community, your
child would be considered "normal".
Disclosure: I don't have children; a friend of
mine does, and has had people suggest to put
her child on R
by the way, she has a Master's degree in
Biochemistry, so it's for both physiological
and social reasons).
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:2)
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:2)
Even if I've had a good nights sleep I feel really sleepy within 5-10 mins. I don't have the problem on any activities that I have to do something - mentally or physically. (I often code for over 10 hours straight.)
If anyone knows anything about this, I'd be grateful. If I'm just being lazy, then fair enough.
Thanks
Medication is a fundamental of ADHD management. (Score:3, Insightful)
The dose of Dexadrine given to a child (or adult) with ADHD is far below "recreational" levels. The method of delivery is oral (slowing delivery), and the dextroamphetamine salt is a more slowly absorbed, and less efficiently uptaken, form of amphetamine than the "crystal meth" abused by most addicts.
The criticizers of stimulants as part of effective ADHD treatment also seem to be unable to understand, or unwilling to believe, that ADHD (like most other psychological disorders) is associated with, and most likely caused by a fundamental difference in the brain chemistry of the patient. For these jokers to stand on their soapboxes and proclaim that they believe stimulants to be bad, and not comprehend the how the effect of these drugs on the ADHD brain is different than the effect on the general population further highlights their ignorance of the subject.
My suggestion to you is to not delay treatment for your child. ADHD is a disorder that affects every single aspect of ones mindset, if it shows behaviorally or not. The risk in treating this disease too late is in allowing learned behaviors acquired through the emotionally distorting lens of ADHD to become not only habits, but fundamental parts of ones personality.
Re:Medication is a fundamental of ADHD management. (Score:2)
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, yes... I have ADHD, as well. I was not diagnosed as a child, and never had the opporunity to try any kind of durg therapy until I became an adult.
Methylphenidate helps me. A lot. I am able to concentrate, and maintain focus in a way that is totally alien to my normal mindset. Because of that, I only take it when I need it. When I have a very pressing deadline, or a very hectic schedule, and cannot afford to lose time to my mind's diversions.
Perhaps if I had been on Ritalin since I was first tested at the age of 6, then I would want it regularly. Right now, when I'm on Ritalin I feel like a different human being. At times, that's exactly what I need, but other times, I just want to be myself. Often, when I am using methylphenidate at work, I stop taking it on weekends.
If you have a child who may have ADHD, be careful. Be sure of the diagnosis. If Ritalin helps, then see if the child likes it. Some children would rather be on medication than feel like their brain is going out of control. Other's would rather deal with the consequences of ADHD than feel like their mind is in slow motion. In this instance, get the best advice you can get, but let your child join in the decision process.
Consult a physician about any change in your child's medications. Some doctor's believe that not keeping a continual dosage can be harmful.
Good Luck.
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:2)
Drugs (Score:2)
Please try to address the problem instead of treating the symptoms. Treating the symptoms with drugs is only going to cause more long-term problems.
Re:Drugs (Score:2)
Ritalin is a Schedule II controlled substance. SCHEDULE II!!!!! Yup, Schedule II...same part of the controlled substance scheduling as COCAINE!
-psy
Re:Drugs (Score:2)
Re:Drugs (Score:2)
-psy
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:4, Insightful)
Briefly, on drugs, and as the parent of a perky 6 y.o. I'm keeping an eye on, I should mention I just heard of a next-gen drug for ADHD, more sophisticated than the stimulants used up to now. Ask about it (it would be nice if I remembered the name, wouldn't it?). There has been a lot of press about overuse of Ritalin, which is just the brand name of one of several drugs, but there is also a lot of hype, and there will always be some doctors pressed by time or parents who write a prescription rather than sit down with the child to figure out what's going on. The child may need both. (While I'm "on drugs," I should add there is a more advanced formulation of Ritalin called Concerta which allows precise once-a-day dosing, and avoids the embarrassment of having to go to the school nurse.) A related problem is the lack of studies of drugs in children. (Speaking of studies, there was a good recent article [nytimes.com] in the NYT Magazine on a relatively novel ADHD study -- sorry it's not free any more.
From what you write, in my unexpert opinion, it sounds like your child is a mild case. Serious ADHD children are something altogether different, and I used to work in a psychiatric hospital. My son is having conduct problems -- acting before thinking -- and has attention span issues, either flighty or hyperfocused, both of which are classic symptoms. Still, and as someone with no philosophical reservations about medication, I believe he is subclinical and am taking a wait-and-see approach, despite the two calls I've gotten from school so far.
He too is extremely bright, and some do think there is some correlation, though ADHD is no proof of smarts... I have a theory it is more prevalent in the tech community, also, for social and intellectual reasons I could explore but someone here might get touchy.
I also have to acknowledge that dealing my son whom I love dearly has been an exasperating experience. I am tired of yelling at him and feel guilty for yelling at him, it's not my style but on some things like wandering into the street there is not room for negotiation. However much I know there is a biological issue, it is very difficult to not react emotionally to things like the child not listening; the medical is interpreted as behavioral, or even plain insulting. The parents may well go through more pain than does the child.
The question is not whether the problem is serious, but what's in his/her best interest, and even with medication the child has to learn certain self-discipline and organizational skills no matter what. The medicine is neither a crutch nor a magic bullet, and it cures nothing; rather it restores some balance so the kid can take it from there. Untreated ADHD can lead to secondary problems like a sort of learning disability and of course cause social adjustment problems as well. Often the problems go away with age, and in fact there is very little available in the popular press about ADHD/ADD in grown-ups. (Oh, a lot of people don't know about the ADD variant, which lacks the stereotyped hyperactivity -- some people may grow out of ADHD into ADD.)
Finally, my pragmatic view is that while you should not allow the callous comments of uninformed or unprincipled people to affect you, don't tell anyone who does not need to know. Once a label has been attached it can be hard to pry off, and of course kids will seize on anything to ridicule each other. Believe me on this one!
Privately, deal with the issue without qualms, and when necessary explain to a stubborn teacher or school administrator that this is a medical problem, not a fault in your childrearing or character weakness in your child. On the other hand, in some places school officials are too quick to medicalize a problem because it appears to provide an easy way out; there are anecdotes of them insisting a child be medicated. Above all make sure you talk to your child and explain what's going on and why she may have to try a little harder than other kids but is no less a person.
I look back on what I've written and realize I could write a lot more! Read as much as you feel necessary from professional sources, and let me or any of us know if I can help out. A good place to look for reading material is Amazon because of the reader feedback. There are also, of course, entire organizations, Web sites, and discussion groups dedicated to ADHD. The lattermost may be good for commiseration among tired parents -- don't forget your needs along the way.
To end on the upbeat note, ADHD is HIGHLY treatable, and much progress is being made. It was not that many years ago that everything from autism to ADHD was blamed on bad parenting. Here [douglass.org] is a short page I put together re ADD, emphasizing the humor in it.
Re:Seeing as you're already drugging your kid... (Score:2)
It probably would, yes. That's why there's such a correlation between ADD/ADHD symptoms and drug addiction.
"I don't want someone to love me, Just give me sex whenever I want it, Cause all I ask for is instant pleasure, instant pleasure..."
One of the characteristics of ADD/ADHD is risk-seeking behavior - and that includes illegal drug use. Stimulants - whether caffeine and nicotine or street drugs - tend to alleviate the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, which are every bit as frustrating to sufferers as they are to the people around them.
"Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration!"
You know when you get a tune stuck in your head? I thought it was normal to have music playing endlessly in your head. When my best friend gave me a Dexadrine to keep me awake on a long drive, the tunes in my head stopped, and I could focus clearly on things that had always been impossible - like multiplying two four-digit numbers in my head.
"Show me that smile again, Don't waste another minute on your crying, We're nowhere near the end, The best is ready to begin."
When I told another friend later that the Dexadrine made the music go away, he was surprised at the implication that music - and bits of speeches, movie lines and even mathematical expressions - were normally running through my head. They're usually loosely related to the thought or task at hand, but distracting nonetheless. Asking around, I discovered that this, apparently, is *not* a normal condition for most people.
"It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."
If I had tried cocaine to keep me awake on that long drive and found that it made thought clearer, I'd be a coke addict now.
"Yesterday, December 7th 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and without warning, attacked by the Empire of Japan."
Am I addicted to Dexadrine or Ritalin? Nope, in fact, I haven't had any ADD medications in the house for over a year. But they *do* help. This isn't a condition dreamt up by shrinks to help hausfrau handle poor little Johnny who just can't seem to apply himself.
"Capacitive reactance equals one over two pi eff cee, where eff is frequency in Hertz and cee is capacitance in farads."
If your daughter has these symptoms, look into treatment, at least during the school months so that she doesn't fall behind.
Re:Provigil (Score:2)
Although modafinil is proving to be quite useful.....especially for M.S. patients.
-psy