Scathenly Brilliant Ideas

Scathenly Brilliant Ideas

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

My little grandson, Wesley has been diagnosed with ADHD.  He absolutely drives his first grade teacher to distraction.  You see it is difficult enough to teach 28 wiggly six year olds but when you add one little boy who finds sitting in his chair longer than 15 minutes at a time painful and simply must run around his desk a couple of times it becomes impossible.  My poor little guy was sent to detention 6 times in the first six weeks of school.  A couple of times he was accused of slapping other children.  It turned out he was spinning round and round with his arms out at his sides.  The other children merely got in the way of the spinning boy top.  He was not being mean.  He is extremely sweet and affectionate.  Actually I have never seen him doing anything mean and little boys quite often are mean.

At first his parents and teacher thought this was simply an immaturity issue but as the school year progressed and his behavior did not get better it was time to discuss his behavioral problems with his pediatrision.  His parents, like me, did not want their son to become a zombie boy who walks around in a medicated fog.  We love this active little person just the way he is.  So why seek professional help?  Because eventually we must all conform to what society says is normal if we are going to be productive and successful adults.  These first years in grade school are crucial to his success later in school and then as an adult out in the working place.

Wesley's problem is not so much activity as it is the inability to focus.  That seems to be a family trait.  My twin sister and two brothers all had difficulties in school focusing in the classroom.  The research on ADHD had not even begun at that time.  Therefore we were branded as day dreamers and had to deal with the problems the best we could.  I'm sure it was not only difficult for us but also for our parents.  I remember one teacher told our parents, Sue and I were very sweet children but would never make it through high school.

I still am unable to focus on one thing for any length of time, but I have learned to work with this impairment.  I believe this is why I am so disorganized.  I normally have five irons in the fire at a time.  In the workplace this is called multi-tasking.  I was quite good at it.  There is a down side to my type of multi-tasking; I bore quickly and go on to the next project.  Quite often I bore of the project before it is completed.  Fortunately I had employees working for me and was able to delegate the completion of a project to someone else.  There is no one at home to complete the many projects I have going on.  On my front porch, the wrought iron railings are old and rusted badly so are quite wobbly.  I purchased new plastic railings two years ago along with resurfacing concrete to repair the badly pitted concrete porch floor.  Around the same time period I decided to widen the sidewalk going up to the front porch.  Both projects are halfway completed.  I have lost all interest in completing these and many other projects because I now have more interesting projects going on.  It looks as though I will have to hire someone to complete these two projects because I do not wish to do it myself any longer.

Now that I have retired this trait makes me "interesting".  No one really knows what I am up to.  I am not concerned about myself.  I have developed coping mechanisms to compensate for some of the so-called impairments, but I do worry about Wesley.  He is a very bright young boy.  Will the medicine slow his active mind down only enough that he can focus on his teacher or will it slow his brain down and numb the creative process?  We have always had day dreamers.  They were the ones who could see beyond the fog and create a "brave new world".   Where would we be without our Albert Einsteins?  Dr. Einstein was born before ADHD research.  How much you wanta bet?  He had ADHD!

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