adhd - School is where many ADHD problems appear

… Jason has a problem in his brain requiring him to take prescriptions pills to manage his dysfunction. He has a defcit. He has ADHD! Who has the problem? Who isn’t “getting it”? If you think it is Jason, this website and my books ADHD: A Path to Success and ADHD: Drug-Free and Doin' Fine will dramatically change how you understand your child.

In the previous  descriptions, you have just experienced the essence of what ADHD is really about.

As I put the empirical research and my clinical experience together for my second book,  ADHD: Drug-free and doin' fine, my thinking became more refined. I could not avoid the conclusion that ADHD symptoms and behaviors are inadvertently caused and amplifed by well meant, but misguided, efforts to try to fix it. I did not start out with this premise, but as Daniel Boorstin said, “I write to discover what I think.” What I always sensed intuitively from observation is now undeniable at the scientific and clinical level.

The harder misguided solutions to ADHD are pursued, the worse the problem gets. Solving problems is not a matter of trying to make an old strategy work. For example, it makes little difference whether the child is taught in a quad, a pod, special education classroom or home schooled if the process of what goes on is essentially the same. It makes little difference whether the child is given Concerta, Adderall, Metadate or Ritalin. They are all very similar central nervous system stimulants, so the process is the same. If “reminding” a child does not work to change his behavior, it is unlikely that renaming it a prompt, redirect or prod is going to be any better.

If you throw time and money at variations of the wrong same treatment, you will just get more of the wrong outcome. From your experience helping your child, learn what does not work so that you can check it off your list vs. being fooled into repeatedly doing essentially the same thing and expecting a different outcome by old solutions translated into new words.

Not only do you have to find new solutions to solve the problem, but you also have to make sure the old solutions that are causing the problem do not reoccur. This is critical because the old ways of being are well-ingrained, emotionally triggered habit patterns that happen at light speed. Thus, old patterns can preempt new, slower, fragile strategies. Real change is as much unlearning the old patterns as learning new ones. This aspect is seldom well understood or addressed.

To make a real difference, you have to change the process of what happens between teachers and children and children and parents. To do this, you will have to give up some old ideas and develop an indepth understanding of what actually causes ADHD. I will offer solutions to both getting rid of the old and creating the new. But, to understand the solution, first you need to understand the real problem.