ADD parents explain this please

this is quite common in kids and adults who have ADD. He sounds like he may be more ADD-Inattentive. It is hard to get them to monitor their internal motivation clock. the playstation is a diversion, and it is a fun distraction that many kids get hooked into and before they know it the time has just passed by and then when it is time to do their homework they are tired and cranky and don’t want to do it… This also can happen to ADD adults who can’t stop surfing the web or perhaps those who like to watch TV, they could just sit there and not do anything else..

With my son I have found that I have to provide the structure he doesn’t have in reminding him when he needs to do his homework. When I say, “The piper has come for his pay” He knows that I mean it is time to do homework and not play…

In the meantime, limit the playstation, give him firm structure. Have him do his homework first in a distraction free environment and then when he is done he can play on the playstation. He has to learn work first and then play is the best way to go…

Hello again—

He has to do his homework first and then when he completes it he gets to have his free time (outside, playstation, tv)—his choice.

Thanks for the response

I agree. I have 4 “kids” with ADD or ADHD ages 27 yrs to 7 years. This is very typical behavior for ADD/ADHD kids.

What you describe is the norm for kids who have ADHD. The hallmark of the disorder is being unable to focus on and stick with things that are hard or uninteresting. Of course, we all find it easier to concentrate on those things we find fun, but when we have to, we can make ourselves persevere on a tedious or difficult task. A person with ADHD has a much tougher time doing that, because he or she has difficulty inhibiting the impulse to do something else, something easier or (probably) more interesting. Russell Barkley has written some interesting things about ADHD. His opinion is that the disorder is essentially a failure of self-control rather than a failure of attention per se. That doesn’t mean that the child could pay attention if only he would control himself better. Instead, it means that, neurologically-speaking, the brain chemistry that allows us to exercise that control is lacking in those with ADHD. There are lots of ways to help a person with ADHD improve his self-control, including behavior modification and medication. What doesn’t work is to simply say “try harder,” or “pay attention.” You wouldn’t say to a kid born with one leg shorter than the other “try harder and you won’t limp,” but you certainly would offer that child physical therapy and a built-up shoe so that he or she could become as strong as possible and achieve a walk as close to normal as possible, given the basic limitations he was born with. It is really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a child is being lazy. After all, if he is simply not trying, then the possibility remains that if he ever does try, everything will be just fine and nothing at all will be wrong with him anymore. As one who has walked this road for a long time now, I can tell you that, with the right interventions, things will improve, but the ADHD will not go away. If you give your son behavior modification therapy, or medication if that is appropriate for him and acceptable to you, you will be taking the first steps to help him manage his ADHD. If you teach and practice with him specific ways to organize himself and give him a method for remembering to bring home and hand in work, he will do better at it. But, the reality is, he is probably not going to come up with these strategies on his own, because that is the nature of ADHD. I can remember thinking about my own child, who is now 12 years old and a straight A, hard-working, highly motivated student, “why won’t he just try?”. The answer was, he didn’t even know how to begin to do that. He wanted to please his parents and teachers, but he had no strategies for making himself do what they wanted. When he began taking medication for his ADHD (combined with therapy), it was as if a veil lifted. Suddenly, he was able to learn new ways of doing things. He still wasn’t coming up with them on his own, but he was able to learn them and follow through with them. In essence, he was able to try where he hadn’t been before. I realized that I had been unfair when I blamed him for being unmotivated.

Andrea

Thank-you for this excellent summary of a typical child with ADHD. When I watch my son’s friends and classmates I see them trying hard and succeeding in the classroom because 1. They are not struggling with ADHD and 2. They have figured out how to “go about” accomplishing their work and goals the teacher has set in the classroom. No child WANTS to fail! They surely will, if a parent stays with the belief that the child isn’t trying hard enough. These kids need extra help in acquiring social and academic tools to get through life successfully. The sooner the better……Thanks, TBG

There are many normal things about ADD kids, this is one of them. Fun rules, work stinks!

NT

Hi,
I decided on my ADHD son’s psychiatrist after I had talked with his receptionist, who sold me on him. She is an ex-teacher, who has an ADHD son of her own, so she is a blessing for me. I recieve emotional therapy from just listing to her talk of her own life and raising her son, that it makes me feel much better about myself. My son comes home on Fridays with a homework packet, we spend Sat. & Sun. trying to get it all completed. Thanks this wonderful lady, who after hearing of my increasing problems trying to get him to finish all the homework with him becoming increasingly frustrated, she said, just decrease the load. If you have a page of 24 math problems, he need only do 10 to show he can do the work, why frustrate him by making him (cracking the whip) do them all. I discussed this with his teacher, who he’s had for the last three years, and she was in complete agreement. Homework has gotten better now, anything I feel is irrelevant (draw a picture of the hamster eating his food) etc. from a story, get crossed off. He hates drawing pictures. Thought I’d pass this on to you, to not be afraid of dictating to your child’s teachers that more is not always best for “our” frustrated kids, and keeping them liking schoolwork of vital importance.

I feel like kids, all kids and teachers too, need down time after school. In the old days we went out to play, sadly, kids today think play is in front of the tube. That’s another subject. Setting a time aside to do homework is healthy and allows that “down time”. It will probably limit resistance as well.
I also think it is important for disorganized kids to be taught how to get organized. Many parents of ADHD kids give this up because it is tough to master. Have your child carry an agenda book which HE completes daily with the teachers initializing work in, due, and needed correction. You sign it nightly and get the communication going. I have found in 20 years of working with SPED kids, if the holes between home and school are sealed - their productivity improves. Personally, I hate being organized yet I live by my Palm.
Good luck and with early “training” your ADHD/ADD child can learn to manage time and responsibility. It IS possible, it just takes a lot of work and cooperation between home and school.

Boy are you going to get blasted by many of the parents who think taking of medications isn’t what they want to do. I don’t like them either and really fought within the system to avoid them. However, truly ADHD/ADD kids that I have worked with have benefited greatly from them. Not because they sit there in a stupper but because they are able to process information and can learned compensatory skills. For kids who are truly ADHD/ADD not just undisciplined, without something to help them focus it’s like the old expression about being up to your @#$@@ in aligators - you have trouble focusing on your purpose.

Well said-Andrea!

Motivation plays a role but even as a teacher, I wonder why any child would be inherently motivated to do the things we ask of them in school.

School is too often one of the most boring places to be. How do we as adults motivate ourselves to do the boring things of life? My dishes pile up each day. Am I a bad person? I don’t like to think so.

Children are not that much different from us. What we ask of them in school is too often the equilvalent of doing dirty dishes. It’s mindless work without real reward. Now a video game on the other hand… It makes intriguing sounds, we vanquish our enemies and we feel empowered when we play them.

My point is - it’s not just about motivation. It’s about the task itself. Your child and many others might be more motivated in school if school were not so boring.

And I must add, in my day, there wasn’t much homework. As a teacher, I see homework causing more learning problems than it solves. School now extends far into the night and too far for many young children to contend with.

Im sorry I cannot recall which one, addresses exactly this situation as many parent/grandparents/pediatricians say exactly what you did-‘he cant be ADHD because he sits in front of a 60 minute video.’

He explained it as the attention being variable, not non-existant. And, similar to Andreas post, the person does not have control over it OR the controlling is exhausting(no way can he sustain that effort for 7 hrs of school)

I will post the author if I remember-he used a phrase that just put it all in perspective and i can’t recall it!

But dont let the playstation thing rule out your exploring the possibility of ADD

What if their distractions are caused by a CAPD or even gifted ness - making them appear and even diagnose an ADD-inattentive symptoms? It may be that medication can help an ADD-inattentive child - but it also may be that a little extra one-on-one in the classroom could provide the same benefit?

I have a dd who has a diagnosed CAPD. She does not have a diagnosed ADD, but does display MANY of the symptoms - including what Andrea just described. So am sure there is a Dr. out there who could/would diagnose it.

The teacher is not following the CAPD accomodations - doesn’t have time, too many kids in class. (She needs information repeated to her, visual ques, etc). If you are one-on-one and know you have her ‘attention’ - she absorbs and understands the information just as well as any other kid in the class.

At what point do you ‘concede’ and give her a pill? (assuming that medication even helps - but I would suspect that if the right presciption, it probably would). Do you risk the potential heath risks because the teacher doesn’t want to follow the accomodations? Or do you just accept the fact that she will never get A’s in school and will most of the information?

Not sure the right answer?

Pam, I completely concur. My son pays fine attention at home, he pays fine attention during one on one boxing lessons, at his extra help afterschool class where there are only 3 other students who half the time don’t show up. When a teacher has to teach 20 other kids, our kids cannot learn. What can we do about this? Nothing. Is a bottle of pills the answer? Yes. Is it the best answer? No, just the easiest and least expensive on the school budget. It’s almost criminal.

Just a mom’s opinion here, but I think if there is ADD involved, you will see it even during one-on-one help. I have an extremely quiet dyslexic child. Every night, I would work one-on-one with him and I couldn’t get him to stay on task for more than 30 seconds at a time. For two years, I attributed it to his newly-diagnosed LDs. We’d already been through mild ADD-hyperactive with his older brother and it just didn’t seem like hyperactivity to me. In fact, this child’s downright slow…. Even so, the little voice in my head just kept saying “this just can’t be right.” Then, through a series of coincidences, I learned about ADD-inattentive. That’s when the light bulb went on, and we got him help.

As for medication, a pediatrician we saw for our older son gave us this advice. Measure your child’s success based on these three factors:

Good self-esteem
Working on grade level
Successful social interaction with other children

If your child is diagnosed as ADD and is having significant difficulty in these areas, it is probably time to evaluate whether medication is an option.

I didn’t mean he isn’t ADD when in smaller situations, I just meant he is much more funtional. He wouldn’t need meds if he got more of this. You got good advice from your doctor, but too much of it relies on the school.

This world is made up of many kinds of thinkers. And what a boring world without them! ADD, is a dirty word as far as I’m concerned, it isn’t a disorder, just an inconvenience to the educational system.

When will this end? What has to happen? Will the ALMIGHTY EDUCATION SYSTEM decide it could work on even less a budget if even the non-adders were medicated to learn even more optimumly? Should we drug the bully, and the class clown and the rebel, so they are less of a hinderance to the system. I hate medicating my boy, but I’ve been over and over this, I see no other way. When the politicians cut back on school budgets, it’s our kids who suffer the most. Something to think about next election time.

Hi Pam,

I have the mirror image of your child. He has trouble attending to visual information and looks inattentive. I am still on the fence as to whether or not he is truely ADHD. I have ADHD in my family and I do recognize the symptoms in myself. His dad had a visually based LD and definitely is not adhd. He is alot like is dad.

I think that when you know that a child has a processing problem whether it be visual or auditory you address the processing problem first.

In our case this means vision therapy. We also did a program called interactive metronome that addressed several of his issues.

There are programs that help remediate auditory processing issues. You might want to ask about them on the parenting a child with LD board. There are many there who have dealt with this issue and can give you guidance.

Let’s see:

Good self-esteem - great
Working on grade level - everything but writing
Successful social interaction with other children - think it’s pretty good from what we have been able to tell

The problems are more in ‘listening/lecturing/following instructions’. I don’t think she is able to ‘pay attention’ and loses/mis-hears alot of the information. Her teacher sends home weekly newsletters and I ask her about information the teacher tells about in the newsletter. Most of the time, her response is a blank look and has no clue what I am talking about. (She mis-hears alot of information even at home - so we always try to reinforce that she has our attention.) So far not impacting her grades - but probably not as important in 3rd grade - will be more of a concern in later grades? (would this be CAPD issue or ADD)

Sustained attention when she is working on homework at home is pretty good. Writing assigments are a little tougher, but all other assignments are good. She does tend to skirm when she reads. Her teacher has not indicated that sustained attention has been a problem at school either.

Hi, our son’s doctor told us last August to cut out TV and playstation, Nintendo, Gameboy (we have them ALL). She told us 30 minutes of TV a day. Gameboy, etc. only on the weekends. That has SAVED our life and after 2 weeks of fights, both my boys do not miss TV or playstation, and they look forward to it on the weekends as a treat. I really see what all these shrinks mean that the TV and playstations are a drug!

I think it is really tough when you have a child with multiple issues. My son is CAPD also, as well as having other learning disabilities. I don’t have any answers but here is our experience.

After first grade we did Fast Forward and his attention improved in school. I felt vindicated because the school was screaming ADD. But by third grade, his attention was again an issue, even in resource room with small groups. He was never hyperactive so that makes it even more difficult. I asked his resource room teacher to observe him when he was doing easy and hard tasks. She told me that once she really started watching him, she realized often he just zoned out.

So in the summer I took him to a neurologist who diagnosed him with ADD-inattentive. We also did Interactive metronome. In fall, I gave his teachers ADD forms to fill out on a weekly basis in order to get a baseline for a trial of medication. Now neither teacher thought there was a problem. So we have not medicated.

Still, I wonder. Sometimes he is still so off task, even one on one. His audiologist therapist tells me she thinks it is all processing. But I still still am not sure. He certainly is functioning much better in the classroom but one on one there still are issues.

If you child does fine one on one, I’d be inclined to think it is just CAPD. But the two also coexist, and not infrequently.

Beth

ITA.

In fact, I believe the untreated ADHD Inattentive types may suffer the most. They aren’t an outward problem to most - it’s the internal damage, like self esteem and missing out on learning, social skills, etc. that I worry about.

I like what your pediatrician said. I can’t stand hearing all that stuff about society taking the easy way out with pills. Gimme a break. Your ped. summed it up - the med decision should be based on what is right/best for the child - no more, no less.