Four Things You Can Do to Help Your Child

There may be no greater frustration for well-educated parents than watching their children struggle in school. Most parents feel powerless, so they take their children to specialists who are quick to label them with ADHD and medicate them. There are three things you need to know to help. First, ADD and ADHD represent a cluster of performance problems. ADD and ADHD are problematic and misleading terms. Aside from making children feel bad about his or herself, the terms are inaccurate. These children rarely have an attention deficit, rather they have attention inconsistency. They are easily bored by some things, and almost mesmerized by others. Second, think compensation and accommodation, not just medication. Medication can be valuable for dealing with distractibility, impulsivity, and hyperactivity (excessive energy), but it doesn't necessarily address underlying performance issues. It does, however, address one of the most important aspects of attentional dysfunction, namely mental energy control. Unfortunately, medication fails to improve how children process information and perform assignments. Third, don't think of "ADD" as a disease as much as a different way of perceiving the world. You know the costs, but there are also benefits. Among the most commonly identified people with ADD are: Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Leonardo da Vinci. Also suspected of having ADD are: Alexander Graham Bell, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Ansel Adams, Andrew Carnegie, Malcolm Forbes, Henry Ford, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mark Twain, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is important to note that all of these people exhibited inattentiveness, impulsiveness, or hyperactivity, yet none of these people believed that they were defective. Clearly, seeing and engaging the world differently can be an advantage; but only if you aren't crushed by the weight of disapproval and disappointment.