If you’re a parent, do any of your children deal with ADHD? If you answered yes, you know how challenging it can be to help your kids learn when they have problems focusing. Still, much of the difficulty stems from our common misunderstandings about how a person with ADHD thinks and works. We tend to stigmatize anyone with a brain difference, thinking that the way they do thinks is wrong or “broken,” when in reality it may simply be different.
That’s what mother and counselor, Susie Garlick, decided to comment on in an article posted on USA Today’s parenting blogs.
According to Garlick, there’s nothing inherently “wrong” with children’s brains who have ADHD—they just respond to things differently.
As many of you may know, plenty of kids with ADHD are creative, innovative and fun to be around. The only issue comes when getting them to sit down and pay attention to things that are (let’s be completely honest) a little boring. To get her point across, Garlick described the ADHD mind using an unusual metaphor which seems to resonate with a lot of people:
“When I work with parents of ADHD children I use the zip-line analogy. Inside the brain of ADHD children are thousands of zip-lines. If something is not strong enough to hold their attention they will simply zip-line to something more exciting. In years past, we could hold our children’s attention much longer because quite frankly, our world was more boring. We did not have everything at our fingertips. If we wanted to learn about The Big Dipper we could either look in our textbooks, go to the library or leaf through our handy-dandy encyclopedias and read three to five paragraphs in summary.
Today we simply type The Big Dipper into our computers and we might as well be standing in the constellation itself. We are instantly given pictures, videos, activities and interactive, everything imaginable in seconds. Whether we like it or not, this new world is far from boring. It is fast, it is innovative, it is creative and it is interesting.”
With this way of looking at things in mind, Susie suggests that we not blame the children and that we instead start to look at the environment.
Many of probably remember school as a pretty dry place dedicated to reading, learning technical skills that don’t have much real-world application and plenty of sitting in a chair. Still, the other parts of school that we don’t often talk about include recess, lunch, unstructured time and hands-on activities like art and music. These are engaging outlets! Still, Garlick is quick to say that this doesn’t mean we should lower our expectations:
“Does this mean we should let our children run freely without any rules, routines or expectation? ABSOLUTELY NOT! All children need rules, routines and expectations to feel safe and secure, but we must stop setting them up for failure and begin helping them succeed. If you are the parent or the teacher of an ADHD child I challenge you to change the lens you are looking through. What changes can we make to help our ADHD children be accepted when they don’t fit inside the box?
We must allow them time to zip-line for part of the day.
We must allow them time to run, play and explore.
We must support their interests and help them foster their passions.
We must look at our education system.
We must stop giving our children mindless homework.
We must focus on their effort, find small successes and give them specific praise.”
Although sweeping educational changes are slow to happen, Garlick’s insight is still worth using at home.
Parents obviously love their children but it can be hard to communicate with them sometimes. With this example, Garlick has started to find a way to think about our children’s needs in a more constructive way—and the internet has taken notice. What do you think about Garlick’s take on ADHD? Do you have any strategies of your own that you use to help your children?
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