ADD/ADHD in Four Parts: Part IV: Capitalizing, Coping, and Making Meaning out of ADD

Florida Jewish News, November 18, 2005, p. 16

The first line of treatment is behavioral for children and adults. Although there are no shyness pills, one can go to Toasmasters. Although there are no anger pills, one can learn anger management. Just as the parents of an ADHD child need to learn how to handle him or her, the child himself needs to learn strategies for getting the most out of this challenging gift. Here are some ideas:

(a) Decide what is good about your ADD/ADHD. Write a list of benefits and prioritize that list. Ask yourself: How can I incorporate my strengths into my daily life, including my work?

(b) Allow yourself room in your profession for creativity and, if you are the hyperactive type, for activity, variety, and challenge.

(c) Write down or tape record reminders to yourself. I’m a big fan of yellow post-it notes and recommend clients make several copies of the same reminder and post them in places they would expect to look at such as their car dashboard or the coffee jar in the refrigerator.

(d) Allow three times the amount of time you think you’ll need for whatever task you are doing. This way, you’ll always be safe. In the same way, tell yourself that a project due Wednesday is really due Monday, a deadline of 4 PM is really 10 AM, and so on.

(e) Either create or have someone else create organizational systems for you that govern your schedule, your space, and your paperwork. Use the yellow sticky notes, color coding, master lists, and other visual or auditory cues to remind you of the system. Some people phone themselves and record their reminders on their voicemail. Others program their PDAs to beep at important moments with messages.

(f) Have organized people as helpers or employees to help you stay with the systems if you have that luxury. Marry an organized—but tolerant—person who really appreciates your quick wit, sharp mind, and creativity.

(g) Find your optimum working conditions. Too much mess and stimulation may cause distraction while too much control, organization, and neatness may blunt creativity and lead to restlessness. For some people, pleasant music in the background and a variety of projects available to switch to with no loss in productivity are useful setups.

The advice for parents of ADD/ADHD children parallels the above. First in importance would be the identification of the parent whose genes appear in the child so that he could start employing these methods on himself. Next, tailor the above for your children. Finally, these additional suggestions were offered by https://www.healthforums.com/library/1,1277,article~10456,00.html:

• seating the student next to the teacher to help him or her stay focused
• allowing extra time to complete assignments and tests
• dividing major projects into a series of small tasks
• requiring the student to keep a daily agenda notBook to track homework, signed daily by the teacher, the student and a parent
• promoting positive reinforcement to all of the student's teachers as the key to improving performance and behavior
• communicating weekly with parents by e-mail or phone to monitor the student's progress

In addition to academics, there is the whole realm of social skills development. Frequently, the impulsive tendency to blurt out things that may not be acceptable to peers can spoil a child’s social life. My recommendation is to be frank, yet very kind and very respectful, in discussing these problems with your child. Such a discussion might start with, “You know, when the teacher tells the class to sit down and you decide to be the only one standing up because you think it’s funny, there may be kids who won’t respect you for that. Do you think that could be true?”

The Spiritual Component

More important in my book than the behavior measures discussed above is dealing with the Big Picture. The child with ADD or the newly diagnosed adult wants to know: Why did this happen to me? Why am I defective? Getting the message through to your loved one—or to yourself—that you are most definitely not defective makes the difference between having a meaningful, satisfying life or not. Nothing can be more important than that. Furthermore, if you opt for Medication, the right answer to these questions will make the medicine go down.

I recommend saying something like this to your child (or yourself):

“You do not have a disorder. I don’t care what the books/teachers/psychologists call it. You are a fine and beautiful person made in the image of God just like everybody else. Isn’t it interesting that everyone is made in God’s image and yet no one is perfect? That is the nature of being human. Even the excellent student who hardly has to study to get A’s has challenges. Perhaps that kid must struggle to learn patience with people not as gifted as he is. Maybe that kid has to learn humility because his gift came from God just as your Attention Deficit Disorder did and he must remember not to get arrogant.

“You are actually lucky in a way. Because when you struggle to concentrate on your work, when you force yourself to focus and get down to your task, you will have really accomplished something. You will have demonstrated great inner strength that other people may not have. There will be times when your medicine will wear off and it will be up to you to remember to get the next dose. It will be up to you to learn how to concentrate without it when it is too late in the evening to take another dose. That will make you quite a mentch! A very mature, responsible person who fulfills the mitzvah of pikuach nefesh, taking care of your health. And by the way, ima (mommy) needs outside chemical help to concentrate too once in a while; that’s why I have a cup of coffee sometimes. Like I said, no one is perfect.”

It would also be a good idea to give this exact same message to siblings of this child. Each child must realize that he or she has strengths and also weaknesses. The strengths are gifts but the weaknesses may be learning opportunities—or opportunities to bring out the best in others. Thus, the ADD child’s siblings will be challenged to be patient and respectful of their brother or sister with the ADD. The siblings will also need to learn how to be assertive so that the mess or disorganization or excess energy of the ADD child does not impinge on their rights or their space.

Producing the right attitude in the child with the ADD not only fosters self-acceptance and compliance with Medication, but it actually alters brain chemistry. This point was driven home to me with one ADD child in junior high. I learned that as he was going off to visit a friend, his mother reminded him to take his meds so he didn’t drive his friend’s mother crazy: “What’s the point of that?” he asked. “I can take it but I can override it too.” How could he do that? The answer is that the Medication tells the brain which way to think. But if a person is hell-bent on going the other way, the brain and the meds both lose that battle. That’s why with “difficult” children the dose has to be raised and raised—with poor results. A solution is to address the cosmic questions first. Address the spirit and the rest follows.