Have any of yall ever been diagnosed with add or adhd or have kids that show symptoms? I grew up being told I was to hyper and that I needed to take pills to control it. Adderall turned me from a fun energetic person to a socially awkward zombie that had no appetite for food. I would try hiding the medicine or pretending to take it. Thousands of dollars in pills I hid. If any of yall have kids that are on it or even thinking about it. Take my advice or at least talk to and listen to your kids.
-
-
I have it...and I guess still have it as an adult but symptoms are gone.
Adderall does wonders....and did in school. Very helpful, just no appetite -
maybe everyone is different and how it affects them. Its awesome for concentrationComment
-
Overheard a phone conversation the other day, lady wasn’t tryin to be quiet, was talkin about her 2 year old kid being put on add or adhd meds. That floored meComment
-
Let me preface my comments.
1. I am a teacher and deal with this daily.
2. I have it.
3. 2 of my kids have it.
Here is the nutshell for what it actually is. You can process information faster than the environment can usually give it to you. You therefore get bored easy. But if you learn to harness it you can absorb, process, and analyze information faster than people without it. It is not a problem with you but with those around you.
What they see is someone that is not paying attention, and not focused. But if they dig they see someone that is absorbing the information around them faster than the others and are just waiting for the rest to catch up or to start being given new information.
Young kids only need medicated if it is actually effecting their growth. None of my kids are medicated. By the time they get to high school they should have been taught (by parents) to harness their gift. I do this as a teacher with my ADD students. They are rock stars with high performance minds by the time I am done with them. Their self-confidence goes through the roof.Comment
-
My ten yo boy is on the meds and it has worked wonders as far as his schooling is concerned. We let him take med breaks on the weekends so he can fidget and freak out. It has effected his appetite but not by much. He lost a few pounds in the first month but is back to gaining. As far as him being a zombie, it has not happened. He is still a funny energetic kid with a hell of a personality. We did request that he be prescribed the lowest dosage that would help and it has. Time will tell.Comment
-
Looking at comments from my teachers on old report cards and stories my mother has told, if they had known what ADD was in the 60's, I would have been the poster child for the condition. Very frustrating for both my parents and teachers. ("he is bright and has so much potential but he won't sit still and concentrate!) I guess I have learned to manage it over the decades and I might have outgrown it to some degree.. It seems to be one extreme or the other. I can get so hyper-focused when working on something or when reading I am totally oblivious to the world around me. When I am in this state of mind interruptions are very annoying because it's hard to regain focus. Other times my mind is all over the place, racing from one thing to another. I've described it as being like my brain is a car radio stuck on "scan" - thinking about something different every 5 seconds.Last edited by jerp; 02-07-2018, 12:12 PM.Comment
-
any pointers you can offer on how to teach them to harness their gift?Originally posted by Outbreaker View PostComment
-
I think I have it, I'm 46.Originally posted by Outbreaker View Post
I have a 124 IQ in HS my GPA was like 2. Barely graduated. Why? I was bored with being bored we being bored.
I read tons of books.
I wish I had a teacher that taught me to harness it.
I am also still socially akwatd yet I love being around people.
What helps ME in those situations is to have a goal and a plan. NOT a detailed plan.Comment
-
I would have been as well, could not concentrate on one task at a time...still have that problem to an extent but grew out of the hyper part. My boy is just like me but i will not let a doc. put him on any of the med's typically used for these things. In my career i have seen way to many screwed up kids that are on them.Originally posted by jerp View PostComment
-
I have always gad it but was only diagnosed as an adult.
I tried the meds but they give me bad cotton mouth and frequent headaches, nothing really worked right.
I learned everything I could, I read probably 15 books on ADD and ADHD; they taught me a lot about myself.
Now I use it for what it is, my secret weapon. I have always learned faster than everyone around me, I retain information like crazy, I read at a much faster pace than anyone I know and I can complete tasks with minimal resources and support. All of these make me great at my job, which I think I gravitated toward early on due to my condition without even realizing why.
The downside for me is that I get lost in a rabbit hole and need something to force me out and get the job done; this is usually the last minute. I am a rabid procrastinator, I know this now, so I give myself plenty of leeway for a project deadline, but I always have a hard stop. The hard stop forces me to get it done.
I use my calendar to get me through the day, the reminders keep me on track and I can adjust everything on the fly when needed. Even a little thing like putting lunch on the calendar every day keeps me in line, because I will become so engrossed in a project that I will look up and not had lunch. Every hour of my day must be ordered, and do it AS SOON as it is needed, if I put it off I loose it.
I have learned to make lists, they really help me get everything I need, my phone is a great help with this. I use an APP called notes to create lists and text about things that need to be done. Google Assistant helps a lot as well, I can just speak to my phone and she creates the appointment or reminder.
In short, I have learned to capitalize on the strengths of my ADD and work around the weaknesses while not being on medication.
It ain't perfect, but it is what I do.Comment
-
My 11yr old has ADD. We took him to a child psychologist for an assessment and he has the attention deficit part but not the hyper part. Well, not continuously ongoing hyper. We do not have him on medication because he has learned to create strategies that work for him. One such strategy is that every morning and right before bed he goes completely ape****. All kinds of noises and random crazy *** behavior. Not intentionally doing it, more like uncorking the bottle. Does it in the morning so he won’t do it at school. Does it in the evening so his brain can unwind for sleep.
We talked with him when he was 8 to explain ADD, so he knows he has it. I think knowing helps him manage it. He is a very smart kid that does very well in school with little effort...but good Lord he irritates the hell out of me sometimes. Some of it is normal 6th grader stuff, some of it is the ADD.
For a few years I was of the opinion that it was a discipline issue, so I cracked down hard. His brain just doesn’t work that way though, and we have learned that a little more explanation and planning on the front end takes care of all the discipline and diligence issues on the tail end. I feel fortunate that we haven’t needed to use medication. I know that process is very difficult for some parents.
If those without kids one day have a kid with ADHD, it isn’t the end of the world, they aren’t bad or broken, they just need a slightly different approach. Where our brains might focus on a single animal in a carousel, theirs tries to focus in great detail every animal as it passes by. They end up with hundreds of partial thoughts instead of one complete idea, and this is what becomes the erratic and seemingly misbehaving or irresponsible behavior.Comment
-
Glad to hear im not the only one with adhd. I have the ability to learn new skills at a very quick pace and retain that knowledge once learned. I am very quick witted but I have a hard time sitting still to this dayComment
-
I call it chasing rabbits. That is what we do all day in our minds. The trouble happens when the rabbit we want to see goes down a rabbit hole (then the OCD side of ADD takes over) and we obsess about it until we get to the rabbit.Originally posted by silentstalker92 View Post
Here are the tools.
1. Make Lists
2. Make outlines of essays and projects.
Work in short bursts of flurry....then take breaks
Focus the rabbits....Make the list... let the rabbits run.
Focus the rabbits....Accomplish part of the list...let the rabbits run
When using an outline on an essay the outline gives focused structure to the writing while the running rabbits give information.
Over time they will learn to focus the rabbits when needed and it is amazing to see how fast they can accomplish things when they do. They go back to letting them run.
Get 2 or 3 ADD people together and the conversation will go from project to cookies to whataburger to project to football to soccer to swimming to project and they will all follow the conversation........and the non ADD people will still be on cookies and lost.Comment
-
The first thing to do is realize that ADD is a gift and not a burden. Read everything you can on how it works and what effects it has on the person; keeping in mind that all people will be a little different.Originally posted by silentstalker92 View Post
For me, there are two very important aspects:
Up Time
Down Time
Up time is actively engaged in something that is enjoyable; for me it was reading and building stuff. I got into a field that is very technical and I get to use my hands; air conditioning work. Remember, Up time is very active use of the brain, learning, reading, working; all at a fast pace and is very engaging naturally to the person. This generally something we like to do anyway, like reading, playing video games, or other hobbies.
Down Time is the time that is spent sludging through those mundane tasks that we hate, for me it is spreadsheets among others, but I really hate spreadsheets. So, I have trained myself to do spreadsheets when I feel my best, right after lunch. I LAWAYS reward myself after completing a Down Time task; for instance, at work I will jump on TBH and read a few posts or something like that. I have a goal and I have a reward.
Learning what these are and categorizing them has helped me to work better and organize my day (another thing I hate, organization, or at least how other people define it anyway). These are the two big things to me.
The third is called Zone Time.
Zone Time is time allotted to any particular thought or process but not any particular thought or process. Our brains work differently, when I get a thought (squirrel!) I sometimes need to follow that thought because some of the best ideas and fixes come from them. I call this female thinking because during these brain storming sessions (brain storming but with only one person) literally everything I have on my mind is being processed at once, it is ALL connected. It is during these brief interludes from everything else that I can see connections other people cannot see, I can find solutions to problems that others cannot see. It may look like I'm just sitting in my office with a dumb grin on my face, but these times are required to not only work out solutions but to clear my mind of all the fractured thoughts and backlog of whatever is in there.
My Boss has learned to not come in my office during these times and ask me what I'm thinking about. It looks like I'm sitting doing nothing, but when I answer him and tell him what I am really thinking he just smiles and walks off.
We are different, we need to be trained differently; but when we use our full potential we are a force to be reckoned with.Comment
Comment