Dr G's ADHD Chat

Many parents of ADHD have told me that the thing they’re most concerned about is the “temper tantrums” their child has. It’s so fierce and unexpected and out of control that they’re afraid it could signal something worse than ADHD like bipolar disorder or maybe even Schizophrenia. I remember when my my own child threw these incredible temper tantrums, way worse than anything his older brother did. I be discussing the real cause of these episodes and how to better handle them. They are called RSD-Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and they’re the result of feeling overwhelmed. They’re not even angry. The adaptive abilities have been challenged too many times. Your job as a parent is too help them learn to recover. We’ll talk more.

The most important thing you can teach your ADHD child is resilience. Many of us start off trying to improve obedience and compliance and even increasing will power. There several things we, as parents, need to recognize. !. Our child’s brain is different. Not broken or damaged but different. 2. Will power is not the issue. 3. Neither is disobedience. 4. Confronting and challenging a child in the midst of an RSD temper tantrum will not be productive for either one of you. Your first job is to encourage and train resilience, basically how to recover after a mistake, bad plan or bad decision. Your child is having to perform in an environment that is not designed for the way his brain operates. Therefore he/she will make more mistakes than a. Neurotypical child and needs to be taught how to learn from his/her mistakes and recover. This is called resi;wince and I’ll be covering more about this vital topic for bothe parents and adults with ADHD.

Raising an ADHD child is very demanding and takes a lot of time and attention. Family systems are likely to get out of balance when one child gets more of parent’s time and attention than the other children. As the parents you have to figure some way do balance the time and attention that each child receives. I’ll be covering how parents can balance their time and attention across all their children and keep sibling resentment from getting out of hand.

Raisiong an ADHD child is very tricky and there are lots of ways to mess up. The central core issue that you must never screw up is Trust. Your ADHD child must believe that he/ she must be able to come to you with any problem and get a reasonable attempt from you to help. Your child must believe that your response will not make him/her feel worse than he/she already does. You must keep in mind that your ADHDer is having a tough time fitting in because all the system with which an ADHDer must deal were designed for a brain that is different from his/hers. This requires first that you keep your calm and second that you know and understand ADHD and third you understand that most of the behaviors that look like willful disobediance are done out of feelings of inadequacy, pain and guilt. I’ll cover this area and add some examples from my own sometimes inadequate responses.

We all know the schools are not designed for ADHD brains. They are designed for neurotypical brains. ADHD brains work on interest-based learning. If it catches their interest they learn well. Neurotypicals have importance based learning styles, Thant is, if they-re told its important they will try to learn it. The good news is that here are some ways to make learning more interesting and doable for your ADHDer. I’m going to cover the four basic concepts that work the best-Urgwncy,Novelty, Interest and Challenge. Using these concepts you can make learning easier for your ADHDer.

ADHD children are allowed under the Americans with Disabilities Act to get Accommodations to make the educational environment more fair for them and their ADHD brains. We all know that the school system in the United States was designed for neurotypical brains, not neurodivergent brains like our ADHDers have. The 504 system is designed to make the environment more fair, to “level the playing field.” I’ll be explaining some of the basics of this system and how parents should prepare for the Child Study Meeting and how to update the plan over your child’s academic career.

This is the second episode outlining specific strategies to improve academic performance by your ADHD child or, if you’re a an adult with ADHD, these tips apply to you. It’s important to remember that ADHD is more of a difference cognitively than a disability. ADHDers can learn as well as anybody else but it has to be in the right environment. ADHDers use an interest based system while neurotypicals use a Priority based system. I’ll discuss these differences and how you can optimize school to better match your ADHDers learning style.

Last episode we spent a lot of time on 504 plans because that’s one of the first things to consider when getting ready for back to school. Now I want to discuss the actual nuts and bolts, mechanical part of improving your ADHDer’s ability to learn. Your ADHDer has the ability to learn like anybody else but his/her brain needs some extras like interest, urgency, novelty and challenge. Over the next few episodes I’’l be covering all these topics. Trust me, there are things you can do to increase your ADHDer’s learning and enjoyment in school.

!Back to School time is upon us and for ADHD parents this can be a time of anxiety and concern. It is also time to prepare for the school year. One of the biggest issues is re-establishing the essential routines and reviewing the child study group recommendations, the 504 plan and the effectiveness of these for your child. Barring the occasional teacher who has ADHD him or herself, you may well be the expert on ADHD in your 504 plan Child Study meeting so you need to come to those meetings prepared and knowing what you want and need for your child. I remember the first Child Study meeting I ever attended (not for my child), the vice principal, who was chairing the meeting, looked at me and said “Okay Doc, What are you going to make us do?” Not exactly the colllegial atmosphere I was hopping for. You find a wide range of levels of support in these meetings, so be prepared. I’ll present some of the things that I think you have to do to prepare yourself,

We are seeing a trend in this moment in time in which older people are asking for evaluation of posssible ADHD. There is increasing recognition of ADHD and its prevalence in our society. It used to be that my most frequent adult patients came to me because I had just evaluated their child and recognized themselves in his/her diagnosis of ADHD. Nowadays more and more adults are recognizing themselves as possible ADHDers. In this episode I’ll discuss some of the issues related to late daiagnosis of ADHD. It’s not all relief. Sometimes there’s a lot of regret.