ADHD time blindness

 

 http://blogs.psychcentral.com/wellness/files/2013/03/shutterstock_51412783.jpg

I have written a post on time and ADHD. 

This is some more on the important issue of Time and ADHD.

 Taken from a talk by Dr Russel Barkley.

ADHD kids and adults have what is called a kind of Time Blindness.

This means that an ADHD child lives in the now... in the moment. 

His brain has not got the hindsight voice that works backwards and whispers all that is learnt from experience. This voice is very weak in and ADHD child. He also lacks the future reference that a goal orientated brain would have. His forward planning brain also functions poorly. This means that the time for an ADHD person is NOW.

He is blind to time. Time has no meaning and he operates without any or very little reference to time.

This means that the ADHD child is often living life from one crisis to another in relation to planning and work. The ADHD child has an inability to organise his thinking for the future. He is unable to organise himself around a future intention or goal. 

This is profound!!

Once we realised this was the cause for my husband, many things changed for us. We began to operate in a totally different way with each other and in our marriage.

Firstly, my expectations changed. 

Secondly , my planning changed to include reminding him about the future dates and plans that I know know he has little or no organisational functioning towards.

EVER.

People often say to me, "oh that is just a man thing,my husband does that too."

I use the word ever because this time blindness is not an occasional thing. it is a forever and alwasy thing. ADHD children opperate like this all the time and so do ADHD adults. 

They struggle to plan forward. 

This Time Blindness has a profound effect on our ADHD children. They live in the moment. There is little if no thought for the future planning in any way in the day. 

So, if I have to remeber to take a book home at the end of the day for my afternoon study time. What are the chances of him planning to take it ahead of time and remebering to take it.

 Time managment for ADHD children has to happen  EXTERNALLY. 

This is new thinking for me and I am really still trying to get my head totally around it.

In part I have been doing this for my boys but I guess hoping that they will internalise the time thing for themselves. In part, this is better for the older son. I have had a good routine runing for him, since he began school and I reason that that routine was keeping time for him, externally. 

 I guess this means that the child might not learn to manage time internally , for himself, perhaps every. He will need to manipulate the environment to help with managing time. This is what we are going to try in our family going forward. Instead of trying and failing to get the ADHD child to fit into the time based way of thinking that most kids can handle, we need something new and something that works for our ADHD children.

Dr Russel Barkley suggests lots of timers , post-it notes, remeinders on phones, colourful notes and lists . Anything and everything needs to be tried and experiemented with, so that something that works can be found. 

The ADHD time blind child needs external visual reminders so that he can be alerted to time and so he can function well.

Here goes experiment number one.....

:)