So like everything, it seems that life has a way of trying to push you to do things that you may not want to do.

A few years ago I did a podcast on ADHD. I found good friends and felt that it helped in some small but meaningful way…to those who cared to listen.

This year…of what is left of it I want to do the same.

I am making a year end resolution to restart and kick start this blog once again.

There is much information in this worlds, my hope is that I help you sort out the cream from the crap.

Peace,

Hoe Bing

Needing extra help at home or through the use of an external tutor is almost common practise nowadays. Children with ADHD are no different. In fact, they probably benefit the most because most remedial help can be done in a home school fashion.

Of course, this means that you as a parent have to invest more time into teaching your child, which in turn means you must know what to look out for and how to maximize their learning capabilities.

In an ideal world the school system would be totally adequately funded to provide 1 on 1 education and the required remedial workers. Well, one can most certainly dream even though this is unfortunately far from reality.

So as a parent, you have to push very hard for any extra help that you can get. Small classes are few and far between and most support for these children comes through the personal efforts of perceptive principals and school teachers.

So really we get back to either home schooling or seeking external remedial help. Many parents pay for private tutors, who are often of great value but too much out of school tutoring can be a turn off, so be very weary about how your child feels about the entire situation.

ADHD children find their school day tough enough as it is, so the thought of returning home just to have their nose wiped in further academic failure is hardly worth looking forward to. That is why I suggest that you as the parent should take on this responsibility and educate your child.

You will find that through teaching your child, you get a much clearer picture of what their capabilities are and also what their main learning modality may be.

That way you can tailor the information to suit them and help them learn more effectively while at the same time develop a stronger parent child relationship.

Communication is the key. Listen carefully to the gripes and complaints that your child makes, they are often the best clues you will have as to the real difficulty that they are facing.

Of course as with any children, never expect a straight answer because more often than not your child doesn’t know what the problem is, they can only verbalize what they feel or experience.

Again, patience is a virtue much appreciated by your child, especially when they are having a hard time explaining things.

Well, this would be a great place to talk about the subject that most children love to hate…

I’m talking about homework. So let me do mine and I’ll come back to you with more info. Look out for your personal invite in the mail.

Maximize the Attention Span: Clever little tricks the teacher can use to increase ‘tune-in’ time of your child.

When your child is easily distracted, inattentive and just plain cannot persist at task. It is important to consider increasing the ‘tune-in’ period that is already there however small it may be.

Said another way is that the teacher needs to maximize what your child already has. Rather than focusing on the child getting bored all the time or tuning out of class, the teacher needs to work with your childs ability and increase his/her tune-in time first.

Here are a few clever tricks to give your childs teacher a helping hand.

1. Use sensible seating arrangments in the classroom

It is always tempting for a teacher to hide the disruptive child in a corner as far away from the rest of the group as possible. But if they are going to learn the childs needs, it is imperative that they position the child in the front third of the class and kept well away from distracting influences.

Select the most placid pupils and sandwich the ADHD child between them, this will help sedate their behaviour as they tend to absord the energy around them.

1. Communication, communication and more communication.

• ADHD children will never learn if they are not taught. It is difficult enough for a struggling child to keep up let alone one that is neglected in class.

• Personalized instruction is important for the ADHD children. This means the instructions are to appear individual without making your child stand out from the entire classroom.

• If the teacher himself is bored and starts teaching in a boring and unexcited tone of voice, it is unlikely to get past the left ear lobe of your child. Remember that the ADHD child is exquisitely sensitive and has the capability to ‘sample’ the surrounding emotional energy.

• The 1st step in effective communication is therefore to gain the attention of the child by establishing firm eye contact using an enthusiastic, firm and businesslike tone.

• If the class itself starts to drift, the clever teacher will use leading cue sentences such as ‘Ready,’ ‘Wait for it,’ ‘This is the interesting bit,’ or my personal favourite ‘Here is the fun part’

1. Incrementalize the insturctions and feed them to the class one at a time

• Long list are boring even to the attentive individuals let alone the ADHD child. So the message is simple, long lists are a no no. Yes, a no no. Period.

• ADHD children have memory lapses, they tend to forget the order of the instructions and the result is everything shambles.

• In the primary school years, difficult work needs ot be taught in a series of simple steps and yes, I do realize that it is easier said than done but isn’t that what a teacher is suppose to do?

• As your child gets older and matures, they can teach themselves to break complex concepts into manageable tasks and usually by their teenage years they will be talking themselves through a sequence of instructions, just as a pilot runs through a check list prior to take off.

• The important thing to note is that initially the teacher sets the foundation for them to learn. That is why the teacher is a crucial part of the success of your child.

• Once your child develops self imposed order, you will start to see them succeed and excel because they would have harnest the ADHD Advantage.

• You start to see your child making lists with headings all written up in a highly structured format.

I hope you can see why the teacher is imperative especially during your childs ‘formative educational years’. A solid foundation is one that can be built upon.

Make sure your child is not left behind early in the educational game.

What? You want more tips on how to improve the learning environment at school!

It is not so much that the children change from year to year, it is just that some years the pupil hit it off with the teacher and some years they don’t.

A number of teachers believe that the ADHD child child be sorted out with heavy discipline. Boy, are they in for a rude awakening. As you now know, hard discipline is not the way to go. What happens when you put an ADHD child in the pressure chamber?

That’s correct, it is an explosion waiting to happen. So when you get a teacher who is just as impulsive and inflexible as the child, you have the perfect recipe for chaos in school and a ticking behavioural time bomb.

The choice of teacher is absolutely paramount when you have an ADHD child. Chemistry between the child and the teacher is important if not the most important factor in determining what kind of a year the child is going to have.

If there is to be a clash in chemistry between the child and teacher, the classroom is not going to be a happy place. Your child needs a supportive, caring and loving teacher who is consistent and predictable.

More importantly the teacher should be insightful and intuitive to pick up what the child is feeling and act accordingly. Having a great ability to organize and keep a positive outlook while encouraging the child is also important.

ADHD children respond well to boundaries that are well explained. They need to know that the teachers care, appreciate and accept who they are but at the same time know that the teacher is firmly in charge.

Perhaps you are thinking, boy that is so much to ask of a school let alone the teacher…and you are right. There is not easy way out of this particular scenario.

Some parents have been very successful in actually gettingthe school to take on the responsibility of sorting out the teacher pupil allocation while others have had to fight to give their child the best chance to succeed.

Your situation will be different yet again. So do not be discouraged if the first reaction you get from the school is not the one you expect. There is always a way, when the will is strong enough.

I will come back and cover more strategies later. For now, let’s tackle the in class attributes that will give your child the boost he/she needs to perform.

Such sentences do not come naturally to many parents, if they come naturally at all. However, if you do implement this simple strategy, I guarantee the results will shock you.

In the heat of the battle disassociate emotionally from the situation and infuse love. Chaos settles when you start to become in tune with your child. That is something you will have to learn.

I do not want to go too deep into brain technology but here is a quick tip. Your thoughts are just like vibrations in a pond. If you have terrible thoughts like extreme anger, your ADHD child has his/her receiving station on full and will absord the negativity that comes with in. Their brains in turn will start the ‘chaos cascade’ and multiply that back to you. So be very very careful of how you use your mental energies.

Consistency is all important but so is the insight to know when to back off when a tornado is running straight at you. Remember we talked about having time out to cool and allow the situation to diffuse? A very powerful tool when dealing with your ADHD child.

ADHD children are at their most vulnerable when moving from one situation to another because of the unkonwn. Uncertainty is their number one enemy and can cause a lot of distress to both your child and you.

So always allow for time to settle. Always have some time to allow them to regain composure especially after trips e.g. excursions or during the play period.

ADHD chidren cannot cope with change (initially) so keep them away from teachers with an unreliable attendance record and those who are about to go on long service leave. In small schools there children are often incorrectly placed in a class taken by the school principal.

Although he/she may be the most tolerant and experienced of all the teachers in the school, your ADHD child will become so unsettled by all the administrative change and interruptions that it is like a time bomb waiting to explode.

Always, always, always seek the class of least change. At least until you identify the triggers and eliminate them. Having said that, some teachers just don’t fit the mold.

Trying to teach a restless, inattentive child is probably one of the most difficult tasks in the world. Even with the best intentions many problems will remain and that is ‘normal’.

Not everyone is educated or has a thorough understanding of behavioural psychology to make the right choices and encourage the right behaviours all the time. What makes it more difficult is the fact that there is a misconception that ADHD is a chronic condition, hence the educators start to expect poor performance which turns the entire exercise into a vicious downward spiral.

There is no one single simple solution, magic pill, silver bullet…that is the unfortunate news. However, educators must not despair but fortify yourselves for the long haul.

You will notice that I use the word educators. This term is a catch all to include the parents, teachers, day carers, basically anyone who has any contact with the child as they have the most influence (although they might not recognize it) on the childs behaviour.
Choosing the right class.

Now what have you learnt so far about ADHD children? Well, remember we talked about how ADHD children thrive on consistency? They like calm, structured environments in order to function optimally.

Now if you were royalty, your child would have his own personal tutor who was mild mannered and always helpful. Your child would get 100% of the tutors attention and would probably excel at most any subject that is taught to him/her.

Unfortunately, most of us aren’t royalty (besides if you were, you would have hired me to take care of your child ) and so in the real world you and I are stuck within the confines of either the public school system or if you are lucky enough, a private school system.

In most places around the world, this means that your child will be in the same classroom with anywhere between 15-50 other children!

When choosing a class then (if you have the priveledge of choosing a class that is. If not, bring your child in for an interview and I’m sure the principal would be most amenable) always aim for the traditional closed plan style.

Do your best to avoid any composite, multi angled, high tech, odd shape classes where more than one grade level are taught together. Of course, each individual situation is different and unless they have 1 teacher to 1 student ratio, it is simply not worth the problems.

ADHD children do not cope well with unexpected surprises as you know very well by now. They have a need to know everything that is going on and you must create a routine where they know what is planned from the start and what will be coming at the end.

Clear guidelines are essential and there must be no doubt as to the consequences when these are not met. Basically you are going to have to up the ante and raise the standard bar.
The rules of engagement are simple, lay down the rules in a firm fashion but always use warmth and phrase your requests as positive sentences. Most important of all your have to be 100% convincing and speak with authority. But remember, be friendly, approachable and positive.
To most parents what I just said would have sounded like alien speak. How is it possible to be warm and strict at the same time? How can you lay down the rules and still be positive?

Trust me, it is not as difficult as you think. As you will learn your behaviour is probably the major influence in your childs life. The way you talk, walk and communicate all impact and leave footprints in their all absorbing mind. So take great care with your own conversations.

Learn how to use love and hate in the same sentence. E.g. I hate the way you did such and such but I love you dearly. I know you are much more than what you did, I love you and I want you to show me what you are truly capable of.

Curious isn’t?

ADHD is strange in the sense that as a dis-ease it has no apparent underlying cause. In fact, ADHD if you scrutinize it is nothing but a collection of symptoms that describe certain behaviour.

Consider the following list for a moment…

Rude

Defiant

Careless

Impatient

Overly active

Impulsiveness

Uncoordinated

Unable to sit quietly

Have you at any one time in your life experience these? I know I have but I do not consider myself as being afflicted by ADHD. Ok, it is true that the professionals have criterias (strict one too) that ‘defines’ ADHD but I come back to the fundamental issue. What is it? What causes it?

Is ADHD a real dis-ease? Or is it just a façade, a medically fabricate fraud?

Can you imagine the feeling of a parent when they find out that they have been medicating their children for a dis-ease that doesn’t exist? Personally, I would be outraged. But wait…let’s not jump to conclusions. As wise, informed researchers (yes, you too have reached the rank of a research. After all you aren’t going to let someone else dictate what you do with your child now, would you?)

Back to the original question, what is ADHD? Or perhaps a different approach would shed some light to the discussion. Let us assume that ADHD really exist, that is the message that gets shoveled down our throats whether we like it or not anyways.

Even if that is so, what causes ADHD? What is the Organic (physical) undisputable root cause of this insidious so called dis-ease?

Did you know that even to date with all our sophisticated medical advances and space age imaging techniques, no one has been able to identify a specific problem area of the brain that is linked to ADHD.

In plain simple English, the researchers can’t see anything different between the brain of a so called ‘ADHD’ kid compared to a ‘normal’ kid.

Doesn’t that information disturb you?

Well, at the very least I hope it stimulates some thought and discussion with regards to the way you view ADHD.

Most people unfortunately will never get over ADHD because they view it as a dis-ease, when ADHD is actually just a collection of symptoms.

Re-read the above sentence again and again and again until it is part of your thinking.

ADHD is merely a collection of symptoms.

What does that mean to you? Well, not a whole lot if you don’t know what to do with it. However, may I suggest that thinking of ADHD as a collection of symptoms will radically change your life?

‘Hoe Bing, how would this simple change in understanding help me conquer ADHD?’ Glad you asked!

If ADHD is simple a collection of symptoms or in other words just a collection of behavioural patterns, what can you do about it?

The process is exceedingly simple, all you need to do is remove the cause of the behaviour and correspondingly the laws of the universe dictate that the effect i.e. hyperactivity has to disappear too.

So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to uncover the triggers that cause the ADHD symptoms.

NOTE: This page is a very condensed version of a whole lot of research by a whole lot of people. The message that you must take away is this. ADHD may not be an actual dis-ease like some would have you believe.

If you are to have any hope of overcoming ADHD then it is imperative that you start thinking of ADHD as a series of behaviours that arise due to some specific cause.

Now here is a question that will confirm that ADHD is no an actual dis-ease.

What in the world is the difference between ADD and ADHD? If you have been brainwashed by the medical people they would have you believe that ADHD and ADD are of the same class based on their precious DSM.

If you don’t know what the DSM is, click here to find out about the classification system.

What? You want the short version and keep the reading down to a minimum?

Ok, the difference between ADD and ADHD is that ADD has no Hyperactivity. But again, no brain damage, no physical problems, simply a collection of behaviours.

So what is ADHD exactly? A collection of behaviours.

Note: Many parents like to ask me if ADHD is simply a collection of behaviours does it mean such a thing doesn’t exist?

Well, wouldn’t you like to know. Follow the links to find out.

How to spot all the ADHD scams right now!

Here is a Short Poem For Alternative Therapy for ADD and ADHD to get us started

The above poem was from a dyslexic girl to convey the tragedy and frustration characterizing her dis-ease. It reflects very well on a whole range of learning disorders including ADD and ADHD.

If you or anyone you know has ADHD, then you are no doubt aware of the ADHD scams that so many out there are ‘prescribing’. If you are not familiar with the ‘conventional drug approach’ I would highly recommend ADHD Drugs: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Without sidetracking too much, as a prudent investigator and researcher, it is your job (yes, your job) to figure out the fact from the fiction, the wheat from the chaff. As your guide, it is my mission to help you become a health detective, able to spot inconsistencies and triumph by critically and intelligently analyzing the mountain of information that you will be presented with (if you haven’t been bombarded with it already).

First of all, it is back to basics. What is ADHD? This is a revision lesson, if you do not know or are fuzzy or can’t rattle off ‘It’s a collection of symptoms that have been conveniently classified as a disease’ at warp speed, then please read our ADHD introductory chapter.

Ok, so we are now working off the same page. ADHD or ADD is merely a collection of symptoms. And we need to know how the symptoms arise. Boy, isn’t that a massive topic? Without going into too much, researchers have identified ADHD as an allergic reaction!

Unbelievable? Try telling your doctor that

ADHD is a direct result of exposure of a sensitive individual to certain molecules. In other words, someone in the world somewhere is allergic to something that can cause them to present with ADHD symptoms.

So may we work with those two generalizations at the moment? Great, I knew you would agree.

How would you treat a dis-ease that is essentially an allergic reaction? Common sense dictates that you have to remove the cause to remove the effect. In other words, stop exposing them to the compounds that are making them display ADHD.

Simple yet extremely profound and here is why.

Remember, most people’s understanding is that ADHD is an actual dis-ease entity but you are now better educated and you know that ADHD is merely a collection of symptoms. Undesirable symptoms but symptoms nonetheless.

Here is where it gets interesting. The general accepted treatment for ADHD is simply to medicate (I call it assassinate). Now if your doctor had no idea what causes ADHD but he knows that the drug is going to cover up the symptoms, do you think it would be a good LONG TERM solution?

Ok, I admit, that was a rhetorical question. But the answer is obviously no. Why would you put your child (or yourself for that matter) on a drug that covers up the symptom instead of cures the dis-ease? Some would call that insanity.

For the short term drugs might be a blessing. But as a long term solution? I don’t think so, and neither should you.

So what is the treatment for ADHD? Well…pretty much everything else except drugs! This is not a reflection on the medical profession, far from it.

May I remind you that I’m actually studying to be one of them. The problem lies in your choices for treating ADHD. I will address the medications in depth later. For the moment, humour me.

I know I’m being very light hearted and somewhat facetious on this very serious subject but think about it for a moment.

Let’s say your child’s ADHD is due to a food intolerance (yes, there are some foods that have been shown to cause ADHD like symptoms), the treatment therefore is simply to remove the offending food from the diet.

If the cause is a particular colour additive, food additive or preservative, then the sane thing to do is remove the offending item.

What about peanuts? Wheat? Gluten? Dairy? The list just goes on and on and on…

Now I know you might well be thinking that there is nothing left to eat but the point is clear, some people react badly to food that most of us take for granted.

Let’s get back to the topic at hand, what alternative therapies are there for ADHD?

If you are on drugs, anything without drugs is the alternative, or in some cases more drugs. A drug free approach like dietary modification is a good way to go. Or perhaps eliminating particular food additives and colouring.

What about perfumes? Bathroom toxins? Cleaning products? Off gassing floor boards, carpets? Leaching plastic? Contaminated water? The list again goes on and on and on.

The point I’m trying to make is that if you do not have a well defined idea about what ADHD is, anything and everything can be an alternative.

So really, you should not be looking for an alternative treatment or therapy. What you should be doing is figuring the root cause of the dis-ease and stop it dead in it’s tracks.

You would know fair well that ADHD is not a 24 hour dis-ease, right? There are periods when ADHD seem to go underground and other times it comes out to rear its ugly head.

So this means you simply have to figure out the trigger and remove it.

The question then becomes,

• what is it the causes me to not concentrate?
• To become irrate?
• Is there a particular time of day that it tends to happen?
• What do I do during those times that might contribute to the outbreak?
• What do I eat around that time?
• What do I drink?
• Are there any common factors in what I do before and after?
• What makes it better?
• How long does it last?
• etc etc

After you have successfully eliminated the cause, the next step is to strengthen to body and build up the immune system.

The message is simple. Your body is the ultimate healing machine. If you look closely and pay attention to its signals you will know what it can and can’t take. Don’t worry so much about your treatment, worry more about how you treat your body.

Forget about the ADHD scams out there to get to to take this miracle medication or than wonderful drug. For now, I hope this has given you food for thought.

There are many very real things that you can do to stop ADHD and we will explore those in depth in the other pages. At the meantime, visit some of the solutions that you see on the page.

Or email me a question, feedback, comment. I am here to serve.

So you now have a strong building block for ADHD. Let us recap what you have discovered.

1.   ADHD is a collection of symptoms

1. They have no idea what actually causes the ADHD. There are many theories but none that explains the gamut of presentiations
2. Our brightest and best are still trying to figure out what ADHD has to do with the brain
3. You now know that not everyone can eat everything. One persons cure is another persons poison.
4. You know that in ADHD, there is some environmental factor that is stimulating the brain causing it to go into hyperdrive.
5. Your job is to find those stimulating factors and eliminate them. For some people it is one or two things, for others it can be many different things. This is very individual.

Let’s get straight into the brain research to help increase your understanding of the subject.

At present the main research interest is in 3 different areas:

• Assessing the frontal lobe (CEO or decision maker of your brain)
• Studying the effectiveness of brain signal transmission (how well your brain cells talk to each other)
• Investigating areas of under and overfunction (different regions of the brain that respond less than normal or more than normal)

Assessing frontal lobe function has gained a snazzy name of Neuropsychology. Neuropsychologist are a new breed of high tech psychologist who are constantly developing new ways to study the subtle and intricate workings of the brain.

One of the areas of particular interest is the study of the CEO region or frontal lobe.

Interestingly most of our knowledge about the CEO region comes from patients from accidents. When their frontal lobes have been injured, these people respond to situations without proper consideration.

Most of the tests of frontal lobe functions focus on the ‘response inhibition’ and ‘mental flexibility’, as problems in these area seem to be the hallmark of frontal lobe dysfunction. In other words ADHD children seem to display a lack of inhibition and flexibility to adapt to the stimulus.

In frontal lobe function tests, the child is bombarded (literally) with a lot of distracting information and in the midst of this they are repeatedly challenged to see if they will make a considered response as opposed to a reflex response.

Usually ADHD children present as being unable to know when to react, when to hold back and how to modify their response.

The restless impulsive nature of ADHD children perform poorly in response to inhibition and mental flexibility, which confirms a weakness in frontal lobe function. Children who have ADHD without this impulsive package of behaviour have an additional problem. This means that they have the same weakness in the frontal lobe but on top of that have a slow speed of information processing.

Now let’s take a look at the brain chemicals and how they related to ADHD.