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Resources for Parents and Teachers of ADD/ADHD Children Produced by the ADD ADHD Information Library at NewIdeas.Net IMPORTANT: Use this information at your own risk. This information is not to be used in place of appropriate medical advice. If there are problems, always consult your physician. Welcome to our Newsletter! Feel free to tell your friends about this service, or to forward this to them! Links to this Newsletter are sent to you via our auto-responder, so they will come to you automatically. If you have any problems with the service, please let us know right away by email. To subscribe, send an email to addnewsletter@webmailstation.com, and the link code to your first issue will arrive immediately via autoresponder, with following issues arriving about every five days. Please only subscribe once to our robot autoresponder. May we also ask that if you are going on vacation and are planning to set up an autoresponder at your end to announce your vacation to everyone, please unsubscribe from us first. We have come to work with 1,500 email messages, all from the same person on vacation. Their autoresponder and ours simply played "Pong" all night, sending emails back and forth to each other (and receiving a new subscription each time, I might add). Please help us out with this. Thanks. For more information on ADD or ADHD, visit the web's most comprehensive ADD ADHD Information Library for parents, teachers, and professionals, at NewIdeas.Net. We have updated the site as of April, 2001, adding dozens of research studies, new graphics, and more information. Be sure to visit the newly revised site and let us know what you think. |
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What Is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - ADD or ADHD? Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, often called ADD or ADHD, is a diagnostic label that we give to children and adults who have significant problems in four main areas of their lives:
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a neurologically based disorder. This position has become controversial as many would like to dismiss the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder altogether saying that there is no evidence of neurological differences, or that there are no medical tests to diagnose ADD ADHD, or that the diagnostic criteria is too broad. For now we will simply report that there is a tremendous amount of research to support the statement that, indeed, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a neurologically based condition. Defining Terms: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a medical condition, caused by genetic factors that result in certain neurological differences. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder comes in various forms. Today they all fall under the category of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and then the main category is subdivided into ADHD Inattentive Type, or ADHD Impulsive-Hyperactive Type, or ADHD Combined Type. In the recent past the terms attention deficit disorder "with" or "without" hyperactivity were also commonly used. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder comes in various forms, and truly, no two ADD or ADHD kids are exactly alike. For a very in-depth continued discussion on this topic, please link here to The ADD ADHD Information Library, Lesson One: What Is ADD ADHD?
1. Have Realistic Expectations. We all have expectations for our child, just make sure that your expectations are * Realistic * for your individual child. If your expectations are too high (or unrealistic) then you will be constantly be subject to feelings of hurt or disappointment or anger. Be * Realistic *. 2. Keep Your Home Organized. The more "scheduled" you can keep your home, or the more "organized" you can be at home, the better for your ADD/ADHD child. Routines can help your child to accept order in his life. Be consistent with routines. 3. Simplify Your Life. Please don't try to do all things, be all things, lead all groups. Reduce the number of your commitments to others. Your child needs your time and attention more than others do (except perhaps your spouse). Spend more time at home with your child and family. 4. Accept Your Child's Situation. If your child is hyperactive, then come to the place of acceptance that your child is, has been, and will be, a person with very high levels of energy, limited impulse control, and difficulty sitting still. Don't feel guilty about. Did you cause it? No. Is the child intentionally hyperactive? No. Don't waste your time trying to eliminate the hyperactivity, just learn how to redirect it into positive channels. Be patient. 5. Be Fair, Firm, and Consistent with your Discipline. Make sure your child knows the rules ahead of time. Review them as you need to. Always be fair to the child. Be firm, don't reward inappropriate behaviors by ignoring them, but use your best wisdom on how to discipline or punish. 6. Teach to Incompetent Behaviors and Punish Rebellious Behaviors. Kids are weird. And, know the difference between "incompetence" and "rebelliousness." Kids will forget to put the lid down on the toilet seat. They run through the house. They do kid things. When your child acts incompetently, then teach him how to do things the right way, and have him practice doing it right. Rebellious or defiant behaviors, however, need to be disciplined through punishment. Yes, your child does need to know who's in charge, and that person needs to be you, not him. 7. Avoid Allowing Either You or Your Child to Become Fatigued. We all get grouchy and irritable when fatigued. Don't schedule so many activities in your day that you get tired, or he does. If it happens, either you'll be hard to live with, or he will. Cut back on your activities, do less, not more. Save your energy. Slow down. 8. Only Take Your Child to Places Where He Has a Chance to Be Successful. If your child simply cannot handle going to the store, or to church, or to birthday parties where they are serving punch and cake, then don't take him there. Or go but stay around and provide the supervision that he'll need so that he doesn't blow it with his behavior and have the event turn into just another failure in his life. 9. Watch Less TV, Not More. When we are tired, the tendency is to turn on the TV and just "veg out" in front of it. The problem is that the average person (yes, the average person) watches over 35 hours of TV per week. Since I don't watch TV at all, someone else out there is watching more than 35 hours to make up for me! Watching TV simply steals our precious time and the attention that we should be giving our family. Read books, talk to each other, play board games, go for walks --- but don't watch TV. 10. Take Care of Yourself Too! Eat right, work out, spend time with your spouse, your friends, and yourself. Don't focus all of your energies on your ADD child. There is more to life. Read good books, not just ADD books. Pray. Enjoy sunsets. Go for walks. If your life reflects a sense of balance, then in a crisis you will respond with more wisdom and discernment. |
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ADHD or Bi-Polar Disorder? Bi-Polar Disorder, or Manic Depression, is characterized by mood swings, sometimes extreme, from depressed to normal or depressed to manic. Manic behaviors are often very similar to "hyperactive" behaviors, including motor restlessness, irritability, temper outbursts, sleeping less, or having higher levels of energy. It is rare. But it does happen. About three times per year a child is brought to my office for an assessment for ADD/ADHD who ends up having "Early Onset Bi-Polar Disorder." These children are typically displaying very extreme behaviors, such as throwing their bicycle -- off of the roof -- at the policemen, and so on. The behaviors may not be constant or consistently displayed as one might expect from an ADHD child, and may be more extreme than one would expect from ADHD. The big clue is taking a family history and seeing if either of the parents, their brothers or sisters, or their parents, have/had a bi- polar disorder. If so, then this clue will be very helpful in making a proper diagnosis. I usually refer families to UCLA for a better evaluation, but in your community you may need to rely on an evaluation by a very good psychiatrist (never go to a bad or even average psychiatrist, only good ones!). Ask about experience with bi-polar disorder in children. Telephone teaching hospitals in your area if there are any, or call your local private psychiatric hospital. Don't ask the switch board operator for a referral, instead ask for the children's unit or the adolescent unit. Once transferred there, ask the unit nurse who they would recommend ("If it were your child, who would you take your child to see?") The nurses know. |
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School Issues: When Should a Child Be Held Back In School? This can be a very complicated issue, so I don't mean to suggest that my comments here are the definitive thoughts on the subject. For a parent to even consider the issue, things have to be pretty problematic at school. So, even though these thoughts may be inadequate to cover your individual situation, I will share them with you anyway... Consider these things: 1. How old is your child? If you child is 4 or 5 years old (especially with males) and is struggling in Kindergarten, he may simply be too young for structured learning. Not a big deal. Bring him home and work with him for another year. I usually recommend that parents start their sons in Kindergarten at age 6 anyway. 2. If the child is older, and the reason cited is "immaturity," then ask yourself these questions: When did the "immaturity" become apparent? Did it just begin this year? Are there emotional issues, or learning disabilities, that need to be addressed? Or is it really "immaturity?" How long has the teacher felt that this was a problem? What other options exist to deal with the situation? Would your child benefit from being with students who were a year younger than himself if the problem is immaturity? 3. If the reason given for retaining the child is lack of academic progress, then ask yourself these questions: Why didn't my child learn more? Were there problems in school behavior? Poor attention span? Poor work ethic? Poor work skills? Too much TV watching? Too little parental supervision? Too much parent supervision? Would any of these problems be fixed by holding him back, or would you just repeat the same situation over again? Are there other options, such as tutoring, home schooling, summer school, school interventions and accommodations? Look at all of your options first. There are dozens of things that can be done besides holding a student back a grade in school. Just some simple thoughts. Hope they help. |
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Products, Books, Web Sites . . . Links to OVER 700 ADD ADHD and related web sites are available through the new ADHD Links Project. This site covers Attention Deficit Disorder, other Related Medical Conditions, and resources for Educators. Great site for research, treatment, or resource links. This site is new as of January 1, 2001. Complete Planet is a Search Engine of Databases and other Search Engines. It is a great resource for research on any subject. This link will take you to their list of sites with information on Attention Deficit Disorder. http://www.completeplanet.com/Health_Medicine/Mental_Health/index.asp MentalHealth.com is a great resource for information on medications. Non-Ritalin approach to ADD/ADHD treatments discussed at these sites . . . For data from our study on the effectiveness of the ATTEND nutraceutical medicine, and for a comparison between ATTEND, and Ritalin, and EEG Biofeedback training, visit our new site at ADD-Products.com and then visit the RESEARCH section. Attend and Extress. Amino acid based nutraceutical medicines. Good products. For an in-depth discussion and product information... EEG Biofeedback therapy is discussed at several sites, including the ADD Information Library at NewIdeas.Net. The EEG Spectrum site has a number of studies and an overwhelming amount of information on this treatment technology. The TOP 100 List of Advanced Nutritional Products, all in one place! Go to the VAXA International web site to see the greatest collection of breakthrough health products, from effective Weight Loss products, to Cardiovascular Care, pH balancing, stress reduction, and so very much more! You deserve these products!
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Published by The NewIdeas.Net Family of ADD ADHD Web Sites Copyright © 2000 NewIdeas.Net. All rights reserved. Information in this newsletter is not intended to replace medical advice from your physician. Always consult with your physician.
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