ADD-The Innattentive Type

A wonderful site for you to explore and should answer almost all your questions:

Children and Adults with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder

www.chadd.org

Janis

Hi,
My oldest son and I both have add/inattentive. My son takes ritalin which has helped him tremendously, I am still muddling through but doing ok.

I have looked on the net at lots of different places, sometimes for info and sometimes to connect with other parents of add kids and adults with add. I lose track of some I have seen, however, this site ldonline is my favorite by far, most folks are helpful and upbeat. I have seen some bulletin boards that are very depressing. Anyway, one I have been on had a pediatric neurologist put up an e-book which I found very enlightening,not just for adhd. If you go to
communities.msn.com/ADDedSupport and then go to recommendations on the left of the page, click on books and then click on the e-book. Also an alternate site is the doc’s site pediatricneurology.com/adhd.htm
There is also about.com , there is even a place of humor there, things like
’ you know you are adhd when…’ There is lots of info on the web, just keep looking and always keep a few grains of salt with you when you read.

As far as personal stories about living with the add/in , for my son, he has always been a quiet kind of kid, as he has gotten older, he gives me a bit of a harder time. I have to stick to a routine, partly for myself, in the morning or things will be forgotten(like meds, or lunch tickets). Unfortunately even after all these years, I still have to keep after him even though the routine is now 7 yrs old (he is 12). He is very hard to wake up and has a hard time going to sleep which occurs even when he has had no medicine. My husband’s family seems to have sleep problems so I think this is inherited. One uncle even dxed with sleep disorder and has adhd.
He has also had academic difficulties since 1st grade but not adequately addressed until 4th grade. Currently he is doing pretty well, although I have my doubts about his math grade this 9 weeks. He can’t spell very well. He had great difficulty learning to read but has caught up some. He is very sensitive, takes small remarks to heart and can be very hard on himself. He is also loving, funny, very articulate, he draws well, can build fantastic lego creations, made a teepee by himself when he was 6 in my parents backyard and even found an old potty chair for a bathroom to use in his teepee. He has been an adventure for sure. He even drew up plans for a treehouse that looked really good, when he was 5. We have our moments but I think I’ll keep him :o)

As for an adult who was late dxed, I still forget things, I still don’t always follow through on stuff, I am overwhelmed by a really dirty house and can’t figure out where to start the cleaning process. The one thing that drives my husband crazy is that I was dishes in chunks.(You know, break up projects into chunks so it isn’t so overwhelming.) I also can hyperfocus on a book or the net. I did ok in school, things didn’t need to be so organized until I got into high school, not like our kids now. I do remember getting spanked everyday in the 1st grade, first semester because I was slow getting my work done. It was found that I wasn’t hearing, I had tubes placed and tonsils and adenoids taken out at Christmas,and did better afterward. My mom says the teacher felt guilty but you know what? I am almost 39 yrs old and I still remember it all. I have been very proactive about my kids since day 1 because I refuse to let them be humiliated by anyone. Believe me, at 4ft 9in I can tower over someone if they make me angry or get my mama bear instincts riled.

Oh, I also ramble a bit so I apologize. I don’t know if the personal stuff helped but do check out the e-book, it even has some simulations of different things such as adhd, tourette’s and ocd.

Sometimes I think my postings show me as the poster child for adult add/in :o)

Best wishes.

Hello,

My 13 year old daughter and six year old son were diagnosed as ADD/inattentive. Amyf’s posting could well describe our family life. I also have symptoms of ADD/ inattentive, as well as my husband. So we’re one big happy (?!) inattentive family. All quiet. All in our own little worlds. All hyperfocussing on our own little projects. But ADD can really damage communications, and now that we know that there is some reason we can’t quite get it all together, we have to work hard on improving our communication, among other things.

Some good books to read: Driven to Distraction, by Edward Hallowell, MD. He also has a website, drhallowell.com. Healing ADD, by Dr. Daniel Amen. He also has websites where you can read about inattentive ADD, among other sub-types: www.brainplace.com. Another good book is Brainstorms, by Dr. H. Joseph Horacek.

Hope this helps.

I found it difficult to find a lot of information about inattentive type ADHD. The speech given by Russell Barkley on ADHD and found at the Schwablearning.org website has some information about it. Through my library I got the following article which puts together what little research there is on this particular type of ADHD. “Five Frameworks for Increasing Understanding and Effective Treatment of Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Predominately Inattentive Type” by Robert R. Erk, Journal of Counseling and Development v. 78 no4 (Fall 2000) p 389-99.