Head in the Clouds

I Live It Up on a Weeknight

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t go out to hear a panel of experts on ADD/ADHD on a school night when my daughter’s at my house. So when I found out that one such panel of local experts was going to be both televised and streamed on the computer, I thought, "Yippee!" My daughter, a sixth-grader, was sure she could do her homework upstairs on the computer while I listened to the panel on the TV downstairs. For an hour and a half.

You can see where this is heading.

The panel was excellent. Plus, one presenter said he thought my daughter’s middle school is a good fit for kids with ADD (I agree). He also recommended that certain ADD kids get “less homework” written into their 504 plans. I liked this guy.

Meanwhile, upstairs, my daughter opened The Phantom Tollbooth (one of our favorite books) to check the spelling of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis for her book review. Immediately hooked, she spent the rest of the hour and a half in Hyperfocusopolis, reading the book again.

Downstairs, the headache I already had got worse and worse. Panel over, I dragged myself upstairs. My daughter sweetly brought me ginger candies and an ice pack for the back of my head. By then it was bedtime.

I wasn't mad at my daughter. I had chosen to try this as an experiment, even though I was pretty sure I could predict the outcome. She needs a body double to stay on task with certain kinds of homework—notably, anything that requires writing. (Big exception: creative projects. Scale model of a clownfish, complete with slime coat? She's on it.)

I admit, though, to some panic and even resentment. Can’t I watch one panel on one weeknight, I thought, without my daughter getting all behind in her homework?

Once my headache eased and my stomach settled down, however, I could think more clearly. My daughter will catch up. We can track how much time she spends on homework. If it's really taking too long, we can talk with her teachers.

If necessary, we can even negotiate a less-homework clause in her 504 plan.

By the way, the last thing I learned before I turned off the TV? That a copy of the presentation would be archived and available anytime on the computer.

You can watch the panel too! Visit Boulder Psychological Services and look for "ADHD: Diagnosis, Challenges, and Treatment," from November 1, 2010.

A 12-Year-Old Interviews His Mom

If you're an NPR junkie like me, you might have heard the occasional StoryCorps interview on the radio. And if you're sensitive like me, you might have gotten all choked up.

Well, I love this StoryCorps video, in which a 12-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome interviews his mom. Asperger's isn't the same as ADD/ADHD, but see if there isn't something in here that you relate to, whether as somebody's parent or somebody's child.  The mom does a woderful job modeling for all of us how to accept and appreciate a person who is different.

(By the way, once the explanatory text was over with, I found I could listen to this better without looking at the animation.)

My Best on Mother's Day, Whether or Not You're a Mom

I slipped her in under the wire. My daughter, I mean. I was 42 when I gave birth to her, my first and only child. Whew. Motherhood is a pretty big thing to put off till the last minute.

ADD certainly played a role. I wonder if I might have become a mother earlier if I'd been less scattered, more decisive, and more comfortable with myself. I ended up wandering through a lot of relationships before I married my daughter's father—and before I finally started using the basal body thermometer to get pregnant.

Years ago, an infertility experience also delayed my foray into motherhood. On Mother's Day, I send a particularly heartfelt greeting to anyone who has wanted to become a parent but who has not, for whatever reason.

To moms with ADD and mothers of ADD kids, I send my greeting by video. (OK, it didn't work perfectly, but it's a hoot!)

A New Book and a Success Story

Here’s a review of a book I haven’t read and an ADD success story all in one.

Well, I did read a little of the book—what pieces I could peruse on Amazon. It’s Edward Hallowell and Peter Jensen’s new Superparenting for ADD: An Innovative Approach to Raising Your Distracted Child. Based on how choked up I got reading the first chapter and how inspired I felt when I asked Amazon to surprise me, I give the book a thumbs-up.

And here’s the success story, as Hallowell tells it in Superparenting:

I went to high school with a kid who got mostly Cs and Ds and sometimes Fs. It took him five years to complete the four-year curriculum. He couldn’t do math, he couldn’t do foreign languages, he couldn’t spell. Socially, he compensated by making jokes about how stupid he was. Finally he graduated by the skin of the teeth.

This young man was John Irving, who grew up to be a celebrated novelist. Here’s what Hallowell attributes Irving’s success to:

From all that I have learned about his life, it was because of love. His two parents never lost faith in him. They always believed in him. And rather than fussing too much over his poor grades and other shortcomings, they put their energy into supporting his strengths, one of which was wrestling.

In their psychiatric practices, here’s the advice Hallowell and Jensen give parents whose children are having difficulties:

“Hang in there. Keep loving him. Keep showing up. Keep trying. Keep setting limits, offering new ideas, making deals, wrestling with one catastrophe after another. Just don’t give up. Don’t write him off. One day all your love and all your efforts—and his—will pay off.”

I love hearing psychiatrists talk about love.

Here are two more books I haven’t read that tell stories about real people with ADD—not all of them famous—who’ve achieved different types of success. One is Positively ADD: Real Success Stories to Inspire Your Dreams, by Catherine Corman and Edward Hallowell. It’s geared toward kids, but it sounds like it could be a great read for adults as well. The second book is ADD Success Stories: A Guide to Fulfillment for Families with Attention Deficit Disorder, by another one of my favorite ADD authors, Thom Hartmann. I’ve put links to all three books over on the right under “Reads.”