Attention Deficit Disorder Hyperactivity Coping Tips

Life in the ADD fast lane

Let me explain what it's like to listen to the multiple thought impaired all day long. Have you ever visited your grandparents who are over 90 in the rest home and really listened to them for a while? Kind of slow huh? Well now picture that you are visiting people that seem that slow and you talk to them 5 hours a day, 12 years in a row. (That's what school was like for me.) Have you ever listened to someone who stutters really badly? Have you ever listened to someone who had too much to drink tell a really long boring story? If you have done at least one of these you know what you sound like when you talk to us.

Real slow

The reason we're not listening is because we can't concentrate on too much dead air, as they say in radio land. Our minds think real fast, we listen fast, and we talk fast. Try staring at a wall and concentrating on the wall itself. That is what a conversation with you is like. Take an 8-year-old with ADD and try talking faster. Guess what? You got his attention.Use small words and just talk fast.

Let me explain something. Let's say two people of the same age and athletic ability decide to exercise. One walks 2 hours a day for a year and the other runs 2 hours a day for a year. Guess who has the strongest legs? The runner! Now think of your ADD brain as the runner and the multiple thought impaired brain as the walker and guess who has the most developed brain? Speed up the conversation and you have instant attention.

It's simple logic. ADD people have a short attention span and think real fast, so how should they do anything? Fast and in short spurts. How should you teach them? How should they do their jobs? Fast and in short spurts.

We're just fine thank you. I happen to be blessed with a very creative mind with a short memory. So when someone calls and says let's get together for lunch day after tomorrow I say great, call me back and remind me. If they say write it down, I tell them, "no I'll just lose the piece of paper and besides you're the multiple thought impaired rocket scientist with the great memory, so you remember to remind me."

I stopped apologizing for being creative a long time ago. Others call it a short attention span. I correct them and tell them "it keeps the creative juices flowing, thank you." Ten minutes after I meet someone at a party, right in front of 20 people I'll ask them their name again. I say "sorry, I forgot your name." Then five minutes later I'll ask again. When they say "you have a bad memory" I say "I couldn't fit creativity and memory in the same head, so boring lost out."

What about drugs, behavior modification, lists, organization charts? Sounds like some good topics for some opportunist to sell a lot of "how to" material. You take a duck and send him to eagle school to learn how to hunt. First day out the new eagle school graduate spots a squirrel and then you know what happens? The duck makes friends with the squirrel! Why? Because he's a duck!

Self Esteem

When kids are in school they are fighting for an identity. They are searching for self-esteem and trying to find out where they fit in. Little things like a bad haircut can set them back 6 months. Their ego is very fragile at that age. Right in the middle of trying to fit in, the people they trust the most, their parents, doctors and teachers, point their finger at them and say "You have ADD!" and "There is something wrong with you, you're going to have to go to Special Class." Now try to fit in. Yeah, right. I just get to the batter's box to find out I get to start with 2 strikes against me in the game of life. Forget that! By the way, what do kids call the special class?

Dummy or retard class

I tried to fit in and compete academically for eight years. All I could get was a D average. By the time I got to high school I couldn't take it anymore. My self-esteem couldn't take it anymore. I tried to study but I just didn't get it. My ego was taking a beating every time they would pass the test back down the line with my grade stamped in a big red letter "D" and everyone got to see it. So I decided to compete in something else.

Class clown and troublemaker

If the teacher called on me I made jokes or would argue. This way my self-esteem was intact because my identity wasn't student, it was school hood. In 1973, in my junior year at Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon, I rode my motorcycle right through the front door of the school and right down the main hall and right into jail, all on the idea that finals were coming next week.

You see, if I could have competed academically, I would have. I just didn't have any idea how. Now, oddly enough there is research dating back to 1962 showing that nutritional therapy works. There is research proving that nutrition can increase academics and lower violence. I'm now eating fruit and vegetable supplements and concentrating on living ADD-style and life is great for me. I wouldn't give up my ADD for anything in the world.

Drugs

Ok, let's talk about some real silly logic. Everyone in the D.A.R.E. program is telling kids from one end of this planet to the other that smoking pot leads to cocaine. Now there is not one single molecule in pot that is in cocaine. Not one, you still with me? Now Ritalin has 90% of the exact same compounds as cocaine and no one is mentioning that Ritalin leads to cocaine. Confused? I am. Now here's another little fun fact. According to the Physicians Desk Reference and the FDA, both Ritalin and cocaine are class 2 drugs.

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