The mist is clearing - Understanding all things ADHD....

On becoming more clear on things ADHD

Today I clicked on something that has both encouraged and helped me understand ADHD a lot more!! We listened to it in true ADHD fashion… I listened to it… Doug listen to bits of it and then I filled in the gaps for himJ

It was a pod cast by a man called  DR. William Dobson.

It was long and I ended somewhere through the question time. It was one of the most informative and helpful talks yet.

The research around ADHD is really mind blowing.  Excuse the pun!

Some of the ideas and understandings of the way the brain works and ADHD plays out have refined and shifted.

I find this all very exciting and extremely helpful.

What I hope to do now is to take some of the ideas Dr. W. Dobson explored and share them including some personal aspects as illustrations.

One of the fabulous things is that, although the debate still rages around medication and ADHD in the PUBLIC domain, the science of it seems pretty settled.

Therefore, it is not a belief system but a fact.

ADHD is a function of the neurological system.

We can know that most people in the world have a typical way of neurological functioning but that about 10% have an atypical brain neurological function. This is called ADHD.

The impulsivity

Hyperactivity

Inattentive

Aspects of the ADHD brain are the impulse control that medication serves to help.

Some of the things around these key 3 aspects of ADHD have shifted and are shifting as we all understand what they are exactly. I love this.

So… inattentive does not mean that a person can NOT focus but rather that he or she finds it difficult or nearly impossible to focus on something that is not interesting TO them and does not grab them. So it is more about interest and therefore engagement.

ADHD people can engage on things perfectly well.

JUST as long as it is

1.   challenging even competetative

2.   interesting therefore engaging

3.   urgent

4.   novel – unique

This was so helpful to me. In our home we struggle with …

So the difference is about engaging with a task rather than not being able to focus at all. If you have an ADHD child you will know exactly what I mean when I say that they absolutely CAN engage and do. This is called HYPERFOCUS and is confusing because it makes them look as if they are just not ‘trying hard enough’

So we find our ADHD children struggling endlessly with being able to engage on all tasks or finding a task to engage with and of course the old ADHD friend

BOREDOM.

These two things are linked and play out on a daily and even hourly bases in our home. If something is mundane it will fall into the non-engaging category and therefore is not something worth doing.

Dr Dobson explained how the typical brain will do a task because it is important to do – no matter who needs it done. Perhaps a parent, boss or teacher requires something done. Therefore it is important. Our eldest son illustrates this well. He will get on with his school projects and learning regardless – EVEN if he is not particularly drawn to the task. It simply must get done. It is important to do it.

The ADHD person is not motivated to do a task because of  its importance.

Important things are not going to engage the ADHD brain

The second way a TYPICAL brain works is by reward. The reward of a job well done or some kind of external reward like good marks etc is a motivation to do the job and do it well. My brain definitely works like this.

Any task is worth doing because of the internal of external reward from doing it.

The ADHD person’s brain is NOT at all called to engage in a task because of reward. In fact research shows that any reward based system used with ADHD children and adults has no lasting effects on behaviour.

This made so much sense to me.

This is why star charts do not work with our ADHD kids. The novelty wears off and it all fades to nothing. It has worked on occasion if it is short and sharp but the effects on behaviour are not lasting. I was trying this approach this week. I am trying to get our little one to read a book a day . He is struggling with learning to read – another ADHD thing- and so I thought up an extra motivation through reward. I decide to pay him R10 for every 10 books… then I upped it to R50.  Still nothing….

The reason I upped the amount was because I thought that the reward was too small and so was no hook at all. In actual fact, as I learnt this morning, reward is not going to bring an engaged interest in learning to read. It just is notL

So, back to the drawing board.

Being a parent with ADHD children requires a great deal of trial and error approaches. In other words try lots of things and see which on works.

It sure is an adventurous life!!