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This week I completed Module 2 in the LADD on line Parenting Course. Check it out here for yourself.
I am a mother to 4 growing, darling sons. The oldest is 15 and the youngest 9. Two of our children are ADHD and my husband is also ADHD, Much like many other ADHD families, our adventure with ADHD is a journey that is " to be continued". Part of this journey is that I am privileged to be taking this online PARENTING Course.
Honestly, I find parenting a mixture of great joys and deep lows. Parenting ADHD children is extremely .... well, extreme. Sometimes it seems easy, flowing, on a path of sorts and then wham.... ADHD steps in and says, "Hello, remember me?"This is , in my experience, a daily visitor in our home. Being ADHD is not a part time thing. It is an all the time experience.
ADHD children can not be parented according to what is " normal" and works for most children. Something other has to happen.
Knowledge and information are my firm friends when it comes to my ADHD family. Understanding the 'whats' and 'why's help me to really come at the situation ; the extreme behaviour with grace and kindness and forgiveness ( either asking it or offering it) BECAUSE I get it. I can parent well, proactively, with specific knowledge on what ADHD is for my children..
I am so enjoying this course with LADD. It is informative and helpful as well as very clearly explained. The online notes are helpful and leave spaces for writing done additional information.
I am so enjoying it and actually can not wait to listen to the next module.
I do not what to give you all the details from the course because that would defeat the purpose:), however, I will try and share some of the parts that really filled in some gaps for me and really left me thirsty for more.
Dave Pughe-Parry sets about the hot topic of DIAGNOSES.
I found his approach to be well thought through and very much in line with the severity that such a diagnoses carries with it.
The bottom line here is get the job done well and by ONLY a professional.
ADHD is no joke. It is unfortunately one of these issues that causes much chatter and opinion sharing in the public domain. Dare I say it, as I have before, by those who do not really understand or fail to up skill themselves. Sadly some of these people are in the classroom with our very real ADHD children. Some are in our families. All this makes navigating life with an ADHD child or spouse lonely, scary and confusing. I encourage you to shut your ears to the ignorant and focus on up skilling yourself with good information.
This is a course that would help!
I love the way Dave really continues to drive home the point that each ADHD child is unique and that their ADHD is in fact complex and unique to them. This really explains why so many ADHD children and adults experience their ADHD world quite differently from one another. Of course there are the diagnostic certainties but the impairments work out differently for each person.
ADHD children are wonderfully unique!!!
This is a great reminder.
I love that about this course. It is honest about the real struggles that we as parents live with when we have an ADHD child. This is strangely affirming. The course is extremely informative and helpful in explaining the types of ADHD and the diagnostic tools used in diagnosing ADHD. The advice is sound and helpful.
There were some points that jumped out for me and have been enormously helpful even in this past week.
Dave touches on the idea that the ADHD child's impairment s should be the focus of treatment. This is a new idea for me and so I am eager to learn more and do some thinking on it.
There are 5 impairments that ADHD children/adults might have
READING was the first impairment Dave flagged up.
I have to say I was taken aback. All of my sons are great readers and love reading. My ADHD boys have really enjoyed reading as a way to escape and make life more interesting when bordem rules:) So my initial response was , no, this does not fit....... But , Dave goes on to explain that some ADHD children either struggle to learn to read while others who love reading and devour books are actually speed reading and in so doing......... missing out chunks of the information.
This was a light bulb moment for me. In tutoring children I have quite a few ADHD children who come for some support. This one point has helped me instantly with understanding why some of them, though good readers and able to do the work requires, often miss the question in a test.
ACTIVATION was another impairment. Here Dave explains this excellently. This has to do with the struggle to get going on a particular task.
FOCUS was another are that was excellently explained. This is about struggling to focus on one thing and all the variations of this as in hyperfocus.
MEMORY was another area that impairs the ADHD person. There seems to be such a weird thing with ADHD and memory. Short term working memory is the impairment for many ADHD people. and yet he/she seems to be able to remember something , in great detail, that happened a long while ago.
EMOTIONAL was another impairment that ADHD people experience. I think if you have an ADHD child, you will be able to definitely concur with emotional being an impairment for an child.
I would encourage anyone who has an ADHD child to consider this Parenting course. I have gone back and listened to this module again and it is extremely helpful. It has clarified further some of the details of what ADHD is and how it plays out specifically for our children who are ADHD.
Thanks LADD. You are broadening our adventure .
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