In praise of every mom behind an ADHD son ( or daughter)

A friend of mine lent me a book called, "Raising Boys with ADHD." by James Forgan and Mary Richey

It begins with these words....

We know that behind every successful boy with ADHD , is a tired mom. I had to laugh out loud because this is indeed true.

Emotionally tired, physically tired, tired of worrying and thinking of new ways to help, support and guide their busy, talkative, distracted, emotional son. and yet ever hopeful and never, ever giving up!!

Yesterday I met up with a bunch of women for coffee. We shared something of our present struggles around parenting sons who are ADHD. As I reflected upon their individual stories I again came to realise that I simply admire these women. Women who in the midst of real struggles , press on and never give up with and for their son. 

This short blog post is written to salute these women and many more like them. I want to encourage you to keep on going. Thanks for you encouragement and example. Thanks for ideas and for listening.

I used to have a support group for ADHD mothers and these fine ladies have encouraged me to start it up again. A safe space to challenge, listen and encourage one another as we parent our ADHD sons.

to eat and what to eat.... that is the question!

I love good , yummy, wholesome food. 

Whole wheat and veggies are an easy choice for this pallet. Friends and I were talking yesterday about kids and food and I decided to write some thoughts around food issues and being a parent. 

All through my teens the fat war waged in my life and on my body. I tried this diet and that fad. Weight struggles are sadly not a thing in my past. I would love to say that I have bee set free from the bondage of eating issues and the obvious body image stuff. The truth is it is all a continual struggle for me and I am sure that , in this regard, I speak the language of many a western woman.

One of my pledges to my children was that I would not put onto them the issues that I myself face. have 4 boys definitely helps and I am sure that mothers of girls have trickier terrain to cover. I was chatting to a mom of a daughter and she was talking to me about the healthy weight role models at school and , honestly, I have never every thought about this.  But, having said that, I think that one can very easily place a focus on food for our children , that really need not be there at all. I have purposely not tried to make food an issue. 

But it is..... 

Growing up in the 70's and 80's in South Africa , for me , was a time in our family where we did not have money for luxuries. The idea of finishing ALL your food on the plate meant that one never really learnt to listen to that voice that told us when we were actually full. 

I have been a none red meat eater since I was 18 years old. I went through times when I ate no fish or chicken either.My aim and ideal when beginning this part of my life, as a mother, responsible for the health of  our children, has been interesting and as always pushed me right to the point where I have had to let go of most of my ideals around food. 

I still hold firmly the aim to try and not put my issues onto my kids and so I am very careful of what I say about food. I talk about that is not healthy for you rather than that is fattening, as an example. 

I really have always encouraged my boys to enjoy the food they like best.

Each of our sons is a unique eater with unique likes and dislikes. Each has a totally different body shape and type. There is not one mould but 4 unique individuals in ever way including food.

Our first son has been a good eater. He loved food as a baby and has continued to enjoy a hearty meal. As a lean teen his head is often in the fridge. He is always hungry. :)

All this is totally normal and good. 

He eats lots of one kind of  fruit and has a generally good balanced diet.  He could probably tweek it here or there. He is growing, has energy and is learning well.

Our third son is a hearty eater. He looooves his food and enjoys interesting food stuffs like avos and gerkins. He will try new things once. I like this!! He is the one who will have a second helping and has a colourful plate of food out of choice.

Son 2 and son 3 however were the children who shifted my ideal ideals around food. These two precious boys of ours have challenged me on the food front.

As a baby, our second son, although breast feed, repeatedly lost weight, Even once on solids, his weight continued to be a concern. A nutritionist helped with good things to put on weight and so we pressed on. 

Honestly our 4th sons early feeding years are a bit of a blurr. He is by far the most tricky eater of all the four. 

These two children of ours are both ADHD. Food has been and issue for them in that they both have a very limited pallet. Sensory issues and textures of food was an issue in the early days when food fun began but honestly food has remained a very tricky part of parenting with them. Both boys are tall and thin. Both take medication for ADHD treatment with enormous success.

The thing is I know what children SHOULD eat to be healthy and grow and I have that as an ideal for my children too, but the reality is, it just does not work this way. 

What that means is that , for these two boys, I make food that they like; that is fairly healthy; filling and that they will eat. 

Trying this and trying that costs money and is expensive and often wasteful. I work with what works for them and us as a family.

I often find the advice given by experts unhelpful and really lacking in true understanding of the real issues people face with kids who have eating issues. 

I have stopped  listening and reading about children and food. Latest diets and fads just irritate me because they offer really no solution or help for a child who really eats hardly anything. 

I think there is a lot of guilt attached to parenting in general and food issues fall prey to this too. I think parents who have children who are not picky eaters have no clue what it like to worry about a child who doesn't eat well. Many children have real food issues and these parents struggle and worry. The issues are not because the parent began the diet off badly and so created a food issue. No, these food issues are often part and parcel of who the child is. 

And so the artful parent has to dig deep to be creative so that this little person can also grow and thrive. learn and have energy.

Being a parent is an adventure indeed.

Life indeed does matter

Life Matters is one of the many organisations who work with children in our South African Schools. I have recently been privileged to join them with one of their schools in our local area. The setting is a primary school in a part of Cape Town. People who live here are just like you and just like me. But their lives are quite different. Turning off the main road I take the most direct route. Remnants of the days of Apartheid are evident in the response of the residence to this white woman driving up this street. Everyone notices.

Life continues as normal it is just a very different normal from the one I am used to. 

For one, the church and school windows are all covered with thick, heavy grates. The entrance to the school via the foyer, is locked with a security gate. Access is limited although it is very busy. 

The school has few plants and little or now green, lush grass. 

The homes that surround the school are neat and tidy . A little shop operating from one and a crèche from another.  

residence take care of the little they have.

The school itself is nice enough. It is need but it gets by.

The classrooms are small and the children and many. The classes are full of busy, chattering children. 

And so it begins. The journey of stepping out one comfort zone and becoming comfortable in another. The reminder that I live amongst the privileged and to be thankful. We have so much. More than we need. We all know this but stepping out and stepping up to the call to love has reminded me practically of this reality. 

Lets take books for example. The children in the programme can borrow a book to take home. Many homes have no books. In our home we have more books than I care to count. 

I gathered some from the many and shared them with LM the next week. What happened then just blew my mind. 

These two little boys I am getting to share time with, threw themselves upon these books and in sheer delight began to glean. 

"What does this say?" and "this" and "Here"

More and more... like a sponge just soaking up the water. 

They drank and drank and drank.

I leave that little school each week, thankful for the time I spent with these children. I leave heavy hearted and yet full. I leave with prayers spilling out. 

The need is great.

The harvest is plenty.

The workers are few.

Lord have mercy!!

on being ..Authentic and Real

Last night I had the extraordinary and rare opportunity to share my life story with a small group of women. 3 to be exact. 

We all have a story to tell. The story is our story to tell. it is real and living in the memory of our lives. It lives on through our daily experience as we journey on to the end. 

My story, which I have shared on my blog, is complicated and full. Full of all sorts of things that any good story would have to offer. It is not dull to listen to and it is frightening to contemplate. 

It is at its heart, the story of God redeeming his daughter and of his precious and perfect kind work in her life.

And so I shared!!

This morning I woke up and thought out loud.... Heck what have I done?

I had shared with three relative strangers, my hectic life story and now what. I felt as if I in that deeply uncomfortable  place called vulnerability. 

I still feel like that. 

It is far safer to be fake !

Or is it?

I think it is where people prefer to live. Life is great and all is well is far easier to cope with than anything real and authentic. 

And so today I wrestle with these feelings. I pray in all this that Jesus walked off my life story into the lives of two really special women and that they saw him and not me and all my broken , messy past.

Jesus is my redeemer and saviour and for that I am eternally grateful. 

The what if of a life without him is to horrendous to contemplate,

Jesus works with us and in us when we are real with him . My prayer for myself is that my past with count in the present and that as HE makes something good out of the broken, he proves himself real and authentic. 

*

Cape Town shares Leonardo da Vinci

Today we visited the da Vinci exhibition at the Cape Town Waterfront. I had been looking forward to it all week and felt like a child in a sweet shop. It was everything I had hoped for and more. Well set out with lots of space to read each exhibit. The information was clear and really interesting but that is not difficult with an exhibition of this nature. Leonardo da Vinci was an extraordinary man with an exceptional brain. His inventions and designs showed his engineering brain and his delight in solving problems. it is a beautiful exhibition and you will learn a great deal from visiting it.

We went as a family and hired an audio explanation. The little ones loved listening to this. If you are still wanting to visit it, it closes next weekend - Feb the 9th. it is well worth the visit.

Enjoy!!

The joy and the loss

This year our first born son began his high school life. it has been a great time of brand new experiences for us all but especially for him. His school is one of the best schools in South Africa, of which there are many and we feel the privilege deeply and profoundly. His has so many good and fun learning experiences ahead of him and indeed they have already begun.

Week one held within it, the music camp which was truly a special experience. We the parents enjoyed the fruit of their labour on the Sunday, as they 3 bands performed for us.

James , has been really settling in well and this particular school really has been a gentle and sure transition so far.

People keep asking me how it is going and I can honestly say that it is going very, very well. But, the truth for ME, as a mother is that high school has held within its bosom , so to speak, the reality of the next step towards adulthood for our son. I guess, because he is the first, I feel it more profoundly. The what of my feeling is quite frankly, loss. I am grieving in a way, the loss of the time that primary school affords one with a child, He leaves very early for sport and the like and is often home after 5. High school is awake long past sun down and so we press on , into the night.

This is all normal and good but for me feels happy / sad. I miss him. I miss seeing him at school when I fetch the little ones. I miss his casual hi. I miss knowing he is there. I am left thinking and determined to enjoy the time left at primary school with the other boys. It is special and fleeting. All good but still difficult.

So while I rejoice and am so thrilled to share this teenagers walk, I am mindful of the release that is required for a healthy journey for us both.:)

A right of passage - for us

 Yesterday , we spent some time together, with good friends and their children. We spent this time doing something a little wacky.

 We joined to share time with a group of young people who are about to enter high school for the first time. They all dressed in their brand new, shiny uniforms. They looked so smart. These young people are all going to separate schools all over the Cape Peninsula. What brought us together?

We were drawn together to share this time of fun and friendship and to gather , as mom's before the Lord Jesus, and ask him for his blessing and care for these children.

 It was a beautiful, busy and fun afternoon but mainly it was an afternoon of blessing:)