A Worried Parent asks:
"My 6yo daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD and is currently taking a certain stimulant whose name starts with R. I don't like it, but for the moment her happiness has improved, as opposed to when she's not medicated where she appears unhappy and frustrated with her inability to find her way in the world. She's sat through an IQ test, and the result was 147, which means she's better at doing IQ tests than 99.9% of 6 year olds. I wasn't that surprised but her teachers were, she's very clever but has difficulty following instructions - which is kind of a requirement in a classroom environment. If she's in a group of kids being given instructions she'll be looking at something else, playing with the grass, singing quietly to herself, etc. She'll suddenly become aware of all the kids wandering off to follow said instructions and then panic because she wasn't paying attention. In a group of people her attention just sort of switches off. I don't think this is something she can change. Any thoughts on how to help? Don't bother quoting the books on this one, i'm after first hand experiences. (i've read enough books :p)"
"Whatever the cause, she is quite different than most kids her age. I was much the same at her age and it was a pretty difficult way to grow up. I'd like to do what i can to make things easier for her.
Given that the Slashdot audience appears to mostly belong to the geekier end of the curve, is there any advice you can impart on parenting the geeky child... whether it comes from what did and didn't work for you as a kid, or what does and doesn't work for you as a parent of an obviously 'different' child.
Discipline is a bit of a problem but nothing that can't be handled. My biggest concern is that she'll grow up resenting her intelligence and being generally unhappy with who she is. The statistics are fairly clear on what happens to kids who grow up unhappy and with a low self esteem. Especially for a girl, in whom geekiness is seen as less socially acceptable.
Any advice?
Slashdot Mirror
I was....am. My kids are border. My wife teaches elementary school and visits this issue on a routine basis.
Two things...first, learn exactly what true ADHD is. Read up until you are sick of it. You need to be able to tell others with confidence how to distinguish true ADHD from other problems. This is never easy, unless you've suffered yourself. Also learn about dyslexia.
Second, remember your goal. This is to support your child. Not to defend yourself as a parent...not to cave in to a doctor or teacher without enough time to help your child. This is the hard part.
Good luck....
....why not switch up to crystal meth? Surely if the "R" drug works a bit, a stronger stimulant will work more ;-)
On a serious note....my daughter is having some similar issues, although she's a tiny bit younger. Personally, i think in our information-loaded society, kids are tuning out more and more....
-psy
Start drinking more. When you get drunk, start issuing randome beatings.
Too often these kids are over looked in the classroom and by their parents as being "under-par" by their own analysis because the kids aren't understood, when in fact they're almost always superior in intelligence.
ADHD and learning disabled childeren usually have a very short attention span when it comes to things that do not entertain/challenge/interest them whatsoever. Socially they may suffer a few years behind the crowd (we all hate crowds right?)
one of the things you can do, is find something that interests/challenges her/him to his or her own liking, then build on it. Use that when they are younger (while exploring other options and ideas they are interested in) you catch their idea and sort of mix it in with other things you want to teach them or have them learn about on their own.
For me, it was the computer. If it didn't include my old c128, 8088 or amiga it wasn't worth it. But being preteen, having a strong interest in any area of life with little interest in anything else, AND teachers/parents not understanding it can stunt development of a child.
hope that helps
The question is if there is such a thing as ADHD.
Keirsey wrote a pamphlet denying it. As a school psycologist, he found most kids diagnosed with "disorders" to be SPs. Being schools are not made for SPs, such kids have a *very* hard time listening without hands on experience.
The IQ test, being written (probably by NTs) for NTs, only measure strategic intelligence. With a higher IQ, she's probably an NT (though ISTP just as well, being close to the INTP). As an INTJ myself who was drugged with a double dosage of Ritalin twice daily, I can say that I had no such "disorder". I was merely energentic and bored to tears. The teacher taught at a *much* slower than I needed. As such, I got straight As (except history in eighth grade), all the awards, but Ds or Fs in "effort". Then they drugged me and "they" were happy. Talk about self-centeredness.
If only they'd set up schools by knowledge and understanding rather than age. It's so silly and damaging to potential.
Anyway, I'd suggest that you first find out her interests. A good way to do that is with the MBTI (Book: Gifts Differing). Though Kerisey (Book: Please Understand Me II) has much more observation-wise in his book. With a knowledge of (possible) interests, it can be much easier to deal with such children in an effective manner.
Have you read my journal today?
Have you considered homeschooling/unschooling? School works for some people, but for others it doesn't. Or maybe a half day in school and half day of homeschooling would be best for your daughter. Or a different type of school. Just remember that school isn't the only option. So the kid finds school frustrating and boring. Do you change the kid, or do you change the school?
Is to remember not to ask a bunch of linux geeks on slashdot how to take care of your children.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
The only advice you'll get here is to eat a lot of junk and watch a lot of Star Trek and then develop a smug sarcastic knowitall attitude to make up for the complete absence of social skills.
I'm 33 now. Off Ritalin so that I can clean out and have healthy babies with my wonderfully understanding wife. In the mean time, I've graduated with a BS in Chemistry and am pursuing a Ph.D. at a Big Ten school. If I didn't have the medication for those 6 years I wouldn't have the habits necessary to study and complete complex assignments on my own. (My Palm Pilot keeps me on time for things. I never developed an internal clock on the medicine.)
My friends thought I changed after taking Ritalin but I think it was for the better.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
In my opinion (and it is just that, an opinion), medication only tries to fix the symtoms, and does nothing to correct the underlying problem. Have you looked at alternative medicine? She is obviously far and away better than anyone in her class, have you considered finding some way to teach her in a manner that would be condusive to her mode of learning? Even if it meant home schooling?
I can relate to her problem as I was mentally ahead of everyone in class when I was in elementary school, and I got poor grades because I had a hard time slowing myself down to their level. I survived by finding things that interested me, both academically, and extra-curricular. Perhaps you can help her find something that she can focus her raw mental abilities toward that will keep her interest, and stimulate her development.
If I may make some conjecture, and a suggestion, her imagination is most likely to be very powerful. Help her to find something that will hold her imagination, yet keep her somewhat grounded. (like what comic books did for us when we were younger.)
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
Sorry bout that last
I have it, so does my oldest daughter
She was on Rit for a while but it made her "not feel quite right" so we let her stop but she might have to start again due to her school performance dropping again. I only take it once or twice a week when I have to sit down to do my paperwork. It takes me about 4 times longer to get it done without the drugs.
The hardest part when "sunshine" is not taking rit is doing her howework. I almost need shackles to keep her in her chair. When eitheer one of us is doing something we enjoy, concentration is not a problem, when we have to do boring tasks that require thought I cant sit still and my mind wanders all over. there are many good resources out there and a simple google wil egt you all of them
Patience and good luck
She may actually need a different classroom. A classroom that is more understanding to the differences between herself and some of the others could benefit her greatly. While I'm guessing you may be adverse to "special schools" and the such, with her IQ being what it is, perhaps she'd be better off in an environment where she can explore new ideas at her pace (getting the teacher to keep up with her is another task). The "normal" classroom may be holding her back. Though she may drift from her current friends learning in a different place, the age to make a transition is 6yrs - NOT after 10yrs. of being frusturated (or drugged) in a "normal" school.
Try 1-888-GR8MIND (LD Online) for more help and information.
I can't speak from the perspective of having ADHD, however, my 4 siblings and I all had what seems like a strange situation in school. All of us craved learning. We all read everything we could get our hands on from as young as 4 years old, and we all ended up in "gifted and talented" classes. Thing is, right about 6th grade, just about every one of us shut down and burned out on school, and every one of us had a hard time passing grade after grade all the way through high school. None of us ever lost the desire to learn, and we each went after our own interests full throttle, but it seems we were pretty bored with school most of the time.
I'm not speaking as an expert here, but I tend to think that school (public education at least) is not geared toward children who think for themselves. Instead, it's designed to indoctrinate to a certain extent. I remember being ridiculed frequently as a student, not only by the other students, but by the teachers, as well, and always having to back up my seemingly outlandish points that contridicted the common thinking on whatever subject was being taught.
My point is, probably one of the best things you can do is give your child the freedom to think for herself. Give her the option of deciding for herself if the teachers are telling her the truth and the best method to accomplish the tasks at hand. Obviously, she has to respect the authority, but she doesn't have to take the knowledge they impart at face value. Collectivists love public education, because it makes everyone "equal", but in the end, the unique individuals suffer and are labeled with hard-to-define learning disorders so the rest of the group can cope with the person that doesn't think like they do.
Remember, Edison and Einstein were both labeled as imbeciles by their teachers.
First of all, there is a reason why you kid isn't paying attention. She's bored. I'm still this way to a large degree. It's best if she just lears to put up with it. I seem to have solved this by becomming good at multitasking. I'm not great at doing only one thing at a time. In school, I'd pay attention to the lecture. If I was interested in it, it wasn't a problem (as I'm sure it is for most people). If I found it boring, I would listen (and if the teacher called on me, I was ready with the answer) but at the same time I might be doodleing, or thinking about how you would go about programming something, or just anything else.
As for a fix, here is what I have to say. I'm going to assume that you live in the US and that your child is going to public school. My number one suggestion would be to take your kid OUT of public school. Find a good private school. Religeous schools and single sex schools are best. Uniforms are very good too. One of the most import things is to make sure they are good on disciplin, not week like the public schools. If tuition is a problem, many schools will lower it if you do a certain ammount of volunteering. Infact, being involved is very important.
If boredom is truely the problem (as I suspect it is), you might want to conisder having her skip a grade later in life when the social development isn't as rapid. Putting her straight into 1st grade probably isn't a good idea.
Lastly, I have one more suggestion: Call Dr. Laura. I don't want to get flamed for this, or modded down, etc, but I think that she could help you on this if you get on the air.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
There is a certain class of children for whom
warehousing in the state creche is a form of abuse.
I was one. My daughter is similarly ill-suited to it.
My solution is simple: I keep my daughter with me.
Until she was 12 her mother and I schooled her
independently. Now, she takes Internet and
correspondence courses with various high schools
and colleges around the country.
If you choose this route, there are some practical
requirements. For example, at least one parent
should stay home the bulk of the time. I am fortunate
in that I have been able to telecommute 100% for
the past 12 years. My wife is a wonderfully creative
intelligent and energetic person who has been
willing to sacrifice any option of a career in favor
of our daughter's education. For another example,
you need to get out a lot. Or more precisely, your
child needs to get out a lot, in order to gain social
skills.
Personally, while I think there are certainly some
people who should not be training their children
at all, for whom a classical school or even a
boarding school would be most appropriate, I have
concluded by observing the rate of intellectual
moral and emotional development of my daughter in
contrast to those in the state schools that the best
approach is to conform your lifestyle to the model
under which humanity evolved. Extended family
support is good too.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
IANAD.
ADHD is one of the most overapplied, blanket "diagnoses" in the psychological industry. Very very few people who are diagnosed with ADHD have any medical condition that justifies medication. ADHD has become basically a way of applying a clinical label to a personality trait. Deal with your child for who she is -- not for what label someone applies to her.
A few random sources:
one
two
three
Anecdotal note: I hear (from considerably fewer sources than have informed my opinion above, which had been echoed by many qualified professionals) that Ritalin is a "smart drug". Do something intellectually stimulating (e.g. learn from a physics textbook), pop a few pills, and continue until the effect kicks in. Notice an improvement? Lots and lots of college students use Ritalin simply to make themselves smarter, regardless of whether an ADHD label has been applied to them. It's like drinking some coffee before your test if you're taking it first thing in the morning, or eating a candy bar. Obviously, it's a controlled substance, so look into it before doing it regularly. However, I would discontinue your child's use of it.
There is new med out there. You daughter is probably on ritalin.
It is called provigil and apparent is doing wonders in the for kids as it is not a stimulant but an awake-promiting agent.
I read about them. They were given to guld war pilots so they could fly 48 hours with no sleep deficits. It initally was used to sleep apnea patient that felt tired all day. They were the med and felt much more awake during the day, even though they were not sleeping better.
Anyway, give it a thought
Sigs are dangerous coy things
I know I sound like an asshole asking this, but I'm serious.
Does/did your daughter have any friends?
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
My advice? Go back to the books.
:) mithras
When it comes to medical issues, or even sociological ones, I'd trust well-done studies and statistics more than a couple of geeks' anecdotal advice. (how alliterative!)
I constantly find that intuitive expectations are subverted by experience, and that personal experience is contradicted by broad evidence.
Actually, I should amend that last statement to say, not that I personally, in my research experience, but instead, that broadly speaking, upon evaluating evidence from a wide range of issues and studies...
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
went through the testing and all of that mess. Some thought ADHD, some thought Auspergers, and we even had one diagnosis that, "He's just a quirky kid." Actually, we stuck with that last diagnosis. One of our good friends is a psychologist, and he referred to the psychologist who made the Auspergers diagnosis as the technical term, "boob."
Our net:
He's a quirky kid. He's needed lots of patience and work. Luckily my job as an engineer afforded my wife the opportunity to stay at home with the kids. She put in a ton of work with him in the early years at school. He's a teenager, good hearted, and still needs perhaps more intervention than many, (He would forget his head if it wasn't bolted on.) but works and tries hard.
Sometimes we despair of "getting him all he needs to know" before he goes off to college, but he continues to show progress. With him it's odd, because the progress comes in bursts. We're glad he had a full-time parent, and we're glad we didn't medicate.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The doctors prescribed adderol (sp?) for my daughter. We were very reluctant to give her the meds. We felt that the doctors involved were just following a rote path in diagnosing and treating her condition. We would have like for them to have a better understanding of what she was facing. We had to do that for ourselves. It was a very exhausting process for both us and her teachers. In the end we never gave her meds. Instead we found ways for her and her teachers to help her manage her condition. We felt very strongly that this would suit her better in life than simply medicating her problems.
In retrospect I think that we were very lucky. Her problems were not that severe. There is certainly a wide spectrum of behavior and issues to deal with when it comes to ADD or ADHD. I think that you must really understand this and determine for yourself how "difficult" the condition is in it's manifestation. In very difficult cases I am certain that meds are probably the only way to get through the day-to-day difficulties that ADHD presents to the child, parents, and teachers. But do not be too quick to accept the meds that doctors seem only too willing to prescribe.
Our daughter (and son) had particular problems with sensory integration issues. The seams in clothing were a particular issue that is vivid in my mind. Or the difficulty in getting my daughter to do her homework because she could not deal with the texture of the paper. School paper is very rough. I ended up printing lines on laser printer paper for her to use.
We brought both my children to an Occupational Therapist who deals with sensory integration issues in children. They had a big "play room" that they would bring the kids into. They would find out what stimuli provided positive reinforcement and which provided negative reinforcement. (Note: this is my terminology and how I viewed it.) All I can say is the OT worked wonders! If we missed a week we would end up paying dearly in the degree of difficulty we had in managing their behavior.
My daughter discovered horseback riding when she was 6. It was and still is amazing to me how an ADHD child who can't stay calm or focused in the classroom is amazingly calm and focused around a horse. Nobody at the barn would beleive that she was an ADHD child. For her this is her therapy. It works so well it is simply amazing.
My son needs physical acticity to calm him down. When I would get called in because of his bahavior I would simply take him out to the playground to run and climb. Rock climbing is particulary effective for him. We have also found Karate to be effective though organized sports are difficult for him because he does not have the patience to wait. This, however, is improving as he gets older.
I think that these activities help them to keep their mind focused. As I understand it and have personally observed it in my children, their minds are racing. As one OT person explained it to me. Imagine that you are trying to take a test but can't focus because the tick of the clock, the hum of the heaters, the simple movements of the people around you, are all as vivid in your mind as the problem you are trying to focus on. Your head is full of all this stimulus and can't seem to filter them out and focus on one thing as most people can. And you can't understand why? People start to think your just not trying.
We have found ways to help our children to cope with this without the use of meds. I think this is a better service to them than simply giving them the drugs. It certainly is much more work. Very exhausting. Sometimes I have wondered how my wife and I have made it though all this. I like to think that by doing this we have "taught our children how to fish" rather than simply "giving them a fish" so to speak. They are learning how to manage their issues rather than having them simply "squashed". This is important because drugs will always squash a lot more than just what you want them to. Of course if you cannot find these things to help your children cope or if they simply are not enough then by all means use meds. Just don't be so quick to feed them to your kids as the medical profession is.
God damn this is the last place to ask...
What was the question again?
My partners youngest child was diagnosed with the various incarnations of ADHD, and suffered quit a bit as whilst the medication was effective, it did not fit the bill as she grew. It seemed like she 'outgrew' the medication.
After much angst, we she was finally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. Now, she's off the medication, we're using a whole different range of understanding and coping systems, and life is really starting to shine -- for her and for us.
Why mention this here? The medical professionals we consulted were simply off base with their initial diagnosis. We've found *so* much support from people who have gone through the same process, and now we're help others go through the same thing.
Peer support is a big thing, for you and for your child. I can't recommend this enough. The feelings of helplessness and guilt can be increadible at times, as anyone who's gone through this sort of thing can testify.
I should note that I'm not recommending that *your* diagnosis is incorrect. What I am saying, I guess, is that the medical professionas and we as a community are learning more about these issues each day, and mostly we're learning that we were wrong.
Keep an open mind, get some support for everyone from community groups who are in the same boat as you, and keep looking to the future.
Robert Anton Wilson
I recommend a read through this book, currently partially available online.
It will certainly provide food for thought.
You have a daughter of advanced intelligence.
Although I was never diagnosed ADD/ADHD, it is most likey that I have ADHD.
For me, I needed a challenge. The normal drudgery of day to day school work was to easy. Luckily, my second grade teacher saw me for what I was; smart, bored, active as hell. Ms. Compton gave me something to do, she challenged me (mentally as well as physically). It helped immensely. To this day, I work better, and faster, knowing that I have alot to do.
I lived in an age before medicating your kids was popular. I was lucky enough to go to a public school (Acres Green Elementary, Littleton CO) that paid attention to its students, and employed smart, caring teachers.
I wholly dis-approve of medicating children. I think kids should not grow up not knowing who they are. Sometimes the behavior of those around the child has to be adapted. Not unlike adapting your personality around people in your professional that you may not 'jive' with...
IMHO, IANAD.
The brain is limitless in capability regardless of what it is diagnosed with.
/dev/null.
There is nothing wrong with your daughter. Throughout my time as a student, I have known many children who had ADHD, but mainly 'cause they were early bloomers.
Primary school teachers don't seem to care about a child once they exhibit annoying behaviour. Teachers will often ask the parent to give ridaline as a way to get rid of a problem.
I remember reading that Ridaline is overprescribed.
One of my teachers described his experience with Ridaline as a young boy, and stated that it made him severely depressed and everything a blur.
First teach your children how to behave. (Sorry If I am jumping to the conclusion that your daughter is misbehaved, but teachers only advise Ridaline to children who bug them.) Teachers don't care how sane/insane your child is, they just want to teach the students that are quiet and behave in class.
Elementary School Teachers will try to get rid of a child who misbehaves instead of correct it. I've seen teachers simply send students into the hall for no reason so that they can teach the rest of the class. ADHD is an excuse to move the problem to
I am sure I'd have been diagnosed with ADHD hadn't my parents taught me extreme respect for teachers. They always told me to sit quiet in class and do nothing but pretend to listen.
Your daughter will become hated by classmates if you put her on Ridaline, hated by teachers if you don't. Just teach her to stay queitly in class and do nothing but what the teacher says. Have this issue fixed before grade 3, or she will have a lifelong scar of a tainted childhood.
I remember a perfect case of ADHD in a smart kid in elementary school. He was violent, rude, and everyone hated him by grade 6. This is only because the teachers singled him out in each class, and separated him from the other sudents as a method to get rid of the problem. He now has no childhood.
By the way, elementary school teachers more often than not, can't teach Math and Science. Tell your daughter to simply memorise everything the teacher says, and forget it right after so that you can teach it to her right.
One more thing to look out for. I have seen many genius kids lose their edge over others by stopping to try in class. Eventually the average kids will catch up to your daugher if you do not teach her the enriched stuff.
Sorry if I insulted any teachers reading this, this is a a sample of teachers from the three elementary school's I've been to. Along with the two schools my Sister went to.
Hope everything works out
That only happens when her intelligence separates her from her friends.
First off, separate her ADHD from her intelligence. There isn't any correlation between ADHD and high intelligence. You can look around and see how many dumb kids are running around with ADHD and judge for yourself.
Second, you asked two questions. The first is what you can do for your ADHD child. What can you do to ensure her happiness throughout her life? How long does she need to take the meds before she can become a "regular" person? Yes, you didn't ask this explicitly, but it is implicit in your actual question, "What can I do to nurture my kid's verified high intelligence?"
Like many kids before her, she will likely outgrow her ADHD. Generations of people have lived with ADHD without medication and become productive members of society in the past. There's no evidence that she will grow up any different. So as to the first question, forget about it. The kid's alright.
As to your second question, you have to really think about why it is that she would feel that her intelligence is a burden. The most basic answer to this is that if she is in a normal public school she will feel like intelligence is an anti-social skill. Since schools are secondarily a socializing environment, the type of school that you take her to every day makes a difference in how she will expect to interact with others later in life. If she feels that her smartness makes her a stupid geek now, she will resent her intelligence, as you fear. However, if she feels that she is valued by her peers for her intelligence then she will see it as a boon. Normal public schools are notorious for fostering the former attitude.
Private schools typically get better students. Yes it's a blanket statement, but one that is necessarily true at its heart. Parents who put their kids in private schools are actually making an effort beyond their basic responsibilities to provide the best for their kids. Granted, these parents are also present in public schooling, but they are not as dominant in that area as they are in private schools.
Also, private schools offer something that home schooling simply cannot: social interaction in a structured setting. Sports, music, and other extra-curricular activities are not replacements for group study, classroom participation, and group bonding that can happen in a school atmosphere. In the case of home schooling, the child is automatically separated from her peers because of her intelligence. If you think she will resent her intelligence now, just rip her out of school and away from her friends. "Recess" is an important part of a child's life.
Obviously you should stay away from strict religious schools. These usually are affiliated with churches and are taught by anti-intellectual Christian zealots. (I know, because I went to one and hated it every day.) The exception to this is Catholic schools. These have been around for a long time and generally have above par teachers and above par curriculum with focus on basics. However, any private school you can find that satisfies your personal criteria would be great. Do your homework, don't settle for the first school you visit.
Good luck to your daughter!
Maybe she tunes out because she is bored. I did. It is also possible that she has mild epilepsy, and is having petit mal seizures. This was also the case when I was a child. It started out in kindergarten. I thought I would learn to read and write, but it was just games for babies. I was dissilusioned. The teacher thought I was retarded because I refused to join in on the baby games, but when they had my mother sit in on a day of class, I was "suddenly a lively young boy." When mom asked why I didn't like school, I told her, "It's dumb!" In first and second grade, I was constantly accused of daydreaming. When I hadn't done my homework, and told the teach I hadn't heard her assigning it, I was telling the truth. I was put in the idiot classes, but once I was sent for an IQ test, I scored genius level, in the 130s. Now they were stumped, they can deal with average kids, and sub-average kids, but not gifted children.
After several years, and half a dozen doctors, I was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy. When "daydreaming," I was often having a petit mal seizure, and completely unaware of what was going on around me. Boredom with dumbed down schools was cured by sending me to an accelerated prep school, and the petit mals with Dilantin and Mysolene, as I was allergic to the drug of choice, tegretol. None of these is a stimulant like Ritilan. Petit Mal seizures usualy stop as soon as brain growth stops. Once you reach adulthood, it is gone. Mine went away just as expected. If I were a child again today, They probably would have said I have ADHD, and gave me ritilin, which would have harmed me, not helped. I used to work with a man who had been pilled up with that crap since childhood, and was still on it, and could tell dozens of horror stories about working with him. If you would like me to tell you more, email me.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
This is a good question to bring to Slashdot, because many Slashdot readers are of above average intelligence.
Highly intelligent children often have a very difficult time in elementary school, which for them is like a prison.
Highly intelligent children are likely to be more aware of the lack of caring of the adults around them. The lack of caring is extremely difficult for a child to understand.
A lot of what is done in school just doesn't make sense. Highly intelligent children are more likely to have problems with things that don't make sense.
There are a lot of people who make their livings by giving diagnoses. Those people are unlikely to see that maybe some of a child's reaction is a healthy negative reaction.
If someone tried to force me now, as an adult, to sit in a desk all day listening to someone say uninteresting things, I can guarantee that my behavior would be 100% uncooperative. But they are diagnosing your child with a disease for behavior that is probably less than 40% uncooperative. Does that mean that I am 2 1/2 times sicker than your child?
I myself haven't been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, but I suspect I have a mild or borderline form of it. I was always a bright kid, but had trouble paying attention, coloring in the lines, being neat... etc. In first grade, I was picked on severely, and my response of choice was to yell, get me tested for ADHD, and my mom refused. The teacher neglected to tell mom about the harsh punishments she used and her refusal to punish seeing as I was nonviolent. My teacher pushed to those mean boys for pulling my hair.
Anyway, I've always been excessively intelligent. Tested at adult standards, my IQ is somewhere around 123 (I'm 15). I get "average" scores for my age when I take IQ tests after 24-36 hours awake. I have the ability to concentrate VERY intensely on some things, and to multitask, doing several things at a time, on others. I have trouble paying attention to lectures in school unless it's a topic I'm interested in and the lecture is on stuff I don't already know, but I effortlessly pull a 3.75 almost all the time--Usually five A's and two B's, or Six A's and a B or C.
Someone suggested earlier that you have one of your child's friends fill her in on what's supposed to be done--that's what I did. I find myself unable to listen to instructions when given by the teacher, especially if numbers are involved, but when someone shortens it to one or two sentences, I'm fine.
As for your daughter's social status, I'd monitor it closely. "weird/smart" kids either get pushed to conform almost entirely, or pushed to the other extreme. The head of my class, with a 3.9, is the former, and I am the latter. I'm spending my high school years miserable and depressed, and he's spending his childish and bored. I strongly suspect you neither want your daughter being the perky cheerleader/athlete/popular kid, nor the mewing, Pokémon-loving, highly eccentric drama geek. But there's a happy medium out there (I have an effortless-3.3 GPA friend who proves it) I'd suggest you encourage your daughter to find it.
And as for her medication... if you can find some way to remove her from it and still have her function somewhat acceptably in class and out, I'd suggest you do so. Even knowing that one can be helped by medication can lead to a dreadful debate--if I releive my sorrows with meds that are supposed to help my disease, will I lose who I am? I'm sure this doesn't come into play when she's six, but I'm fifteen and I think about it every time I consider telling my counselor how depressed I really am. So if you can keep her happy and somewhat attentive without the stimulant, do it, but don't feel like you have to.
And another tip--as with me, the stage she's in now may pass. I went from being banished to the hallway every time there was an inside recess, to a favorite of all but one of my elementary teachers, over the course of a year. If you can get your daughter to channel her innattentiveness to quieter, more "studious" distractions, teach her to be as quiet and polite as possible, and get her to ph34r the 734ch3r5, so to speak, then she might be able to do quite well, as I did. Granted, she'll be dealing with a whole crapload of issues involving authority and standing up for herself by the time she's sixteen, if she ends up like me, but it's a temporary solution.
Sorry for rambling, but I just thought I'd offer a reasonably fresh perspective on being a problem child at age six. After all, most slashdotters were six fifteen to twenty years ago; for me, it's only been a decade.... well, 9 years, 11 months, a week or two. Best of luck to you both--and if your daughter ever needs a critique of any particularly quirky Pokemon teams or strategies, well, you know who to ask for.
and I guess it helped. it's something she'll grow out of, and her add will probably help her in the future (greater creativity).
:^)
if she has that high of an iq, she's probably bored w/ stupid elementary school stuff, and they're probably moving too slowly for her. not that she doesn't have add, but i'd have her tested if she hasn't been already. her add probably isn't helping her academic boredom.
see if you can get her into advanced classes, or put her into a good private school if your public schools don't have 'em. if the teacher is surprised at her intelligence, you DON'T want that person teaching your child. getting her into an environment with smart kids will help her self-esteem, too, since she won't be different.
as for advice for parenting the geeky child, don't talk down to her. if you act like you're smarter than her and you're not, she'll figure it out quickly. at that point she won't put stock in anything you say. you better have reasons for telling her to do the things you command, because if you don't she'll start to dislike you.
email me if you want.
I'm ADHD. It never subsided into adulthood. Things are still a struggle because
the "modern world" has little tolerance for people like us. When I was a kid,
there was no diagnosis or treatment available (at least for me). Mainly, I was
just regularly beaten by nuns all through grade school. The last beating was
10th grade high school (In the style of "Thank you sir may I have another").
We would take those fill-in-the-dot tests, I think it was called the Iowa Basic
test, and I'd score something like 99% but would get Ds and Fs in all of my
grades. "He's such a smart boy, if only he'd apply himself! Whack!
Although they are also the bane of my existence, computers saved me.
Something about the isolation or focus somehow let me get something
done. If it wasn't for learning how to program, self taught, (heaven knows I
couldn't make it through college) I don't know what I would have done.
My son, now 24, also was ADHD. Luckily we sought out help and with some
counseling and therapy, he blossomed into an outstanding adult. At the
time, the psychologist was really against medication and we never took that
approach. What seemed to work best was to embrace that he was a unique
individual instead of constantly harping: "Why can't you be like the other kids?"
We let him follow wherever him mind led him, with lots of encouragement and
positive physical contact.
You're actually fortunate that you've got an AD kid. Let them march to that
different drummer, keep them off the meds if at all possible. It will be a tough
parenting job but you'll see...you're blessed.
Treating The Causes, Not The Symptoms"
Patricia Lemer
This is the name of one seminar my wife attended at our church (www.mcleanbible.org) in March of this year. The church hosted a conference dealing with children with developmental issues. My wife who is a elementary school teacher went to it and bought some of the tapes. I listened to one about ADHD and it was very enlightening. The woman talked about diet and immunizations as causes of ADHD. She takes a systematic approach to helping people with the disorder.
You can order the tapes here: http://www.dovetapes.com/Inventory/ALS2002.html
Of course you can google on her name for more info too. HTH.
What is wrong with being a cheerleader/athlete/popular? I was an athlete and popular in high school (starting running back from sophomore to senior) and quite popular. I have a tested IQ of 148 and got along well with my peers.
Maybe if you quit trying to put people into convenient categories and started treating people like individuals instead of characters, you would have gotten along better in school. There is no dichotomy between being smart and being popular/athletic/successful. There is a direct correlation between your attitude towards other people who are not like you and bitterness about being left out at school.
Ok, I am pretty much in the same situation as your daughter, about two decades older. I started on Ritalin, but that aggravated my Tourette's Syndrome, so I had to stop taking it. After trying five other brain-altering drugs, I stopped them altogether.
Now I'm facing the same kinds of panic as your daughter, on a fairly regularly basis.
Is there an easy way to deal with it? I am very sorry to tell you, there is not: there never will be. The hardest thing for me and your daughter, the hardest thing of all, is the lack of understanding from other people. You can't make it easier, you can't "solve" the problem, you can't even improve it more than about 30% overall. But you can accept and support, to the limits of your patience.
In the adult world it is shocking how incapable people are of empathy. They simply cannot envision the validity of a different life experience from their own. I encounter this time and time again. Here is the classic scenario, one your daughter will encounter throughout the rest of her life:
Average: Do you do what I asked?
Fringe: Uh, no.
Average: Why not?
Fringe: I really meant to, but I forgot, or I was caught up in something else.
Average: What, you don't care?
Fringe: No, not at all! I really meant to do it. I'm sorry.
Average: Was it too hard?
Fringe: No, that's not it.
Average: So, you can do it, and you had the time, but you just didn't do it?
Fringe: Uh, yes.
Average person: If you wanted to get it done, and you had the time, then why didn't you just schedule the time and do it?
At this point, no average person I have ever met is capable of understanding why, even though I had the time, I did not get it done. None of them. As if for them, having time is the same as getting things done. Well, they won't ever understand, and I've given up trying to make them. At this point in my life, I avoid forming obligations with socially-adept personalities.
Like your daughter, I am also at the high end of the IQ scale, about 152. My memory recall is terrific, I can absorb material about an order of magnitude faster than others and recall nearly all of it -- when something interests me. If something does not interest me, I will just fail, no matter what.
I do use lists, messages, carry a tape recorder, have intricate systems for tracking e-mail and TODO items, use financial planners, day planners, goal planners, etc. They do not order my life. They keep it from the brink of irreversible chaos. I am not unintelligent or unmotivated, I simply cannot achieve the level of self-sufficiency that appears simple to ordinary people. In fact, it is so simple, so automatic for the average person, that I imagine this is why they cannot fathom how my life gets so unraveled. Such is the story of AD(H)D. And it is this lack of understanding that is the Enemy.
Those lacking both tact and empathy tend to get aggressive, or call me complacent, lazy, you name it. To them, the shambles of my daily life is a direct result of not caring enough. If I only cared enough! If I only tried hard enough! This is their mantra, because for them, effort equals result. This metric of success is so ingrained in our culture that it has taken me nearly fifteen years to free myself of it. If you could start with your daughter, teaching her that quality can exceed quantity in value, you will be doing her future self a world of good.
Yet my situation is not from complacency. By no means. You cannot imagine how angry, how frustrated I get at myself. All the punishments those uncaring people savor in their minds, thinking how they could beat me into submission, I have already tried. I constantly (read: daily, hourly) forget the most basic essentials of life. I forget them regularly, even after repeating them to myself about ten times, and writing them down on a list. I think, "Ok, if I do nothing else, I have to make sure I do this." Then a phone call comes in, I hang up and leave. Yup, not remembering what I tried so hard to remember. This happened just last night... again.
Life, regular day-to-day life, is very hard. No one believes how hard it is. Like Tantalus, I struggle with the unachievable goal of reliability and consistency. I long for these ideals, worship them in my social consciousness, but whenever I get close, the energy of trying breaks me down. No matter what efforts I make, I can reach 95% at best -- and then for only couple of days before sliding into organizational purgatory.
The average person seems to achieve 95% without thinking, and 100% by good old will-power and motivation. While refusing to accept any other human dynamic. If you lack 100%, you must lack will-power and motivation. Period. No discussion. You having trouble? Well, then you are either lazy or unmotivated.
Above all other things, this pivotal issue is what your daughter needs to understand and become self-secure about. Because ADHD has a flip side, one not often talked about among parents: It offers immense creativity, spurts of intense activity, and a more relaxed approach to life in general. My organizational life may suck, but my inner life is richer than in childhood -- this time with concepts relevant to the outside world, and even my employer. For example, if my group is stuck on a problem, I can sit down and throw out ideas left and right until I find one that works. Thinking of new ideas is not hard, in fact. Delivering the completed idea, that is hard.
Without people like me, I think society would stagnate. The "average people" who are so busy and self-composed, "don't have time" for my kinds of interests. They see my life as unproductive, unfocused, unsuccessful. Never mind that every few years a brilliant idea comes out that no one had considered. Those ideas they accept begrudgingly -- if at all -- and then promptly forget.
Beware of taking this approach with your daughter. Unfortunately, it will be automatic. People have a tendency to judge the actions of others as if they had done them (i.e., they read their own personal meaning into another's actions). You will have to struggle to understand her, just as she will struggle to adapt somewhat to your world.
If you can offer her a deep, objective understanding of this: that yes, life will be a challenge, but in the end she has gifts that no one else has, and you like her as she is and don't wish she would change "for the better": then she will flower in that atmosphere of love and encouragement. They won't be the kind of gifts you want, and they won't seem valuable to you (rarely does the ordinary world understand the value of an extra-ordinary idea right away), but learning to have faith and suspend your world-view for the sake of understanding find has rewards far beyond this particular problem.
Your daughter's life can be very rich indeed, if you accept that you will never achieve a mutual understanding of what "rich" means. It will be harder for her to get along than for you, but that doesn't mean her soul cannot thrive within its own context. Love and encouragement; these are the most important thing! Even if she fails school (and I have failed many a class) don't fear excessively! Creative people have the oddest happen of coming up with a solution where you thought no solution could exist.
Just ask me, a C student whom all my teachers labelled as "bright, though not achieving what he could if he applied himself." Now I make a six-figure salary -- earned by own hard work -- and contribute meaningfully, in many ways, to my workplace and my community. The people around me have learned to accept what I can offer, and I have learned not to make promises I can't fulfill. On average, it is a rather happy situation. But it doesn't look anything like "normal".
From a lifetime ADHDer
I was diagnosed in high school with ADD. No hyperactivity, just the tendency to royally space out. My mind would wander galaxies and universes while my mom was trying to remind me to mow the lawn. Scatterbrained was my middle name. Incredible potential, but no focus.
My father was a skeptic about this whole ritalin/ADD thing, and for good reason. We were involved in Scouts, and he'd seen a number of parents who would drug up their kids with the Standard Mind-Medication during the week to keep them docile, then dump them on a campout with a backpack full of sugar-foods. My mom was a critic, too, but she realized that I needed something to help me deal with this problem that was interfering with school and life. Like you, my mom did the research. Alternative treatments, herbal treatments, all the rest. In the end, she tried the ritalin route: Just a very, very low dosage. And it worked.
As I grew up, from high school into college, I learned to notice my own mental state more. I realized that, as a child, I literally did not know how to focus my own mind. Ritalin was a crutch that helped me to keep my mind on what was going on in the world around me. As I grew more self-aware, I grew less dependent. I did have a valid handicap, and in the beginning, I needed help. In college, I qualified for educational assistance under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But I'm a very independent, muleheadedly stubborn person, and I reject advantages handed to me this way. I prefer to overcome.
My father, as I said, was a skeptic. He said he was the same way as I was growing up, and he's just fine now. My mom had two counterpoints: 1) ADD was not a medically recognized condition when he was growing up, and 2) the rigorous discipline of 20 years in the military did for him what ritalin did for me. Without even knowing it was there, he learned to overcome a handicap, and she saw it more clearly than he did.
My (adopted) younger sister is another case. She was diagnosed with ADHD, and given ritalin. It's my mom's opinion now that my sister never really had ADHD, that she was just another stubborn kid. Such cases happen. She's still a handful (especially since she recently got her driver's license), but I think my parents are doing rather well raising her. (For one thing, no amount of begging and pleading is getting her a car as a birthday or Christmas present.)
I hope it's not too much of a boast to say that we're all fairly intelligent kids in my family, on the upper end of the curve. And it is tough being a 'geek' or 'nerd' growing up in high school. My best advice is to let her know that you love her, and that make sure she realizes that, when she is ridiculed (everyone gets ridiculed in school at some point), it's not because there's anything wrong with her. Help her to know that she is not alone.
The fact that you are wise and loving enough to be the Worried Parent you've shown yourself to be so far is a very good sign for her future. May God bless and look after you both.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Please try to address the problem instead of treating the symptoms. Treating the symptoms with drugs is only going to cause more long-term problems.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
As I look back on my childhood, I realize that I wasn't paying attention to anything I wasn't very interested in. I have very little memory of my school years, other than when I was exceptionally happy or sad.
Daydreaming was a big problem for me. Following instructions, doing homework, etc - they just flew right by me. I remember only a few teachers, but I don't remember spending any length of time in classrooms with any of them.
Even now I have two professors for a single class. One of them causes me to tune out within a few seconds - if I didn't have the lecture slides to look ahead, I'd be dozing off. I have to pay attention, though, because there are important things said (read - used in an exam) that are not available in the book, slides, handouts, or web site.
It...is...so...painfully...slow.
The other teacher is engaging, commands the classroom, and randomly calls on students for answers to simple questions. This forces me to follow the discussion through, but entertains me enough that even though I get what is being taught, I don't lose interest in the presentation.
I doubt that I'm any smarter than the other students, but I seem to grasp a lot of these topics much more quickly than they are being taught. I don't go to discussions because they simply are teaching at a lower level and helping those who are struggling.
At any rate, your daughter has to learn to live in a world that doesn't match her learning style and speed. You can help her immensely, but I don't think there are any medications that will help her deal with it. They will only delay her acclimation into the way the world works around her, unless she plans on using them her entire life.
You might consider encouraging her more, and following up. Try to improve her memory for dates, times, assignments and events. Just quiz her and make it an important aspect of life. I still have problems in this respect, and half the issues I had with getting homework done (outside of procrastination and general distaste) was when the assignment was actually due, and how much real time I had left.
Good luck. I have a toddler and an infant, both very energetic and curious. There's no substitute for a parent, and I hope you are there for your kids.
-Adam
Not to echo what many people have said so far, but are you sure it's AD(H)D? I've been working at various summer Camps over tha past years, and as part of the application process parents send us a form with all the information on their kids that we might possibly need in order to manage them and interact with them well. Many times there will be letter from their doctors and/or therapists in there as well. I can't count the number of times that that a kid has looked like a terror on paper but has turned out to be a normal kids. Maybe its the influence of their parents that are screwing them up. maybe they ahd a rough month and were put on the big R but when they have a vacation from it, it turns out they do't need it. Or maybe it's the parents tyring to find a "scientific" way to rationalize the symptoms of shitty parenthood, and find a way to not blame their kids being messed up on themselves.
I'm not saying AD(H)D dosen't exist - I also know kids who are indeed, and who seriously need R/C (take your pick), and I'm not saying the poster is a shitty parent - if they care enough to ask an audience of millions blindly, they must have a genuine care for their kids' wellbeing. Just generally, make sure it's AD(H)D, and not that your kid dosen't like their school/is antisocial/has authority issues/is afraid of failure/the list goes on and on...
On another note, please DON'T homeschool your kid. Ever. Even if both parents are professional teachers, half (at least) of the point of primary school is learning how to interact socially with others. Maybe interact is too strong a word - how about deal and talk to others. How to deal with being put into a room with 20 other kids knowing no-one, and knowing what to do. If you want your kid to end up living in your basement all their live because the're afraid of the outside world and new people, more power to you. if you want a decently-adjusted kid, send them to school, daycare, summer camp, you name it. Teach them to interact and deal with others first - addition can come later.
Cue The Sun...
Insightful or Interesting. Your choice.
A lot of the posters and people in general seem to go from diagnosis to diagnosis until they find/found one they like. Eg. "The quirky kid." Or even the original person who wrote into Slashdot. They don't want to believe there kid has a problem. Well guess what they do!
Maybe your kid has ADHD, maybe he/she doesn't. If your kid takes Ritalin (a stimulant) and gets even more hyper, then they probably don't have ADHD. If they slow down and don't seem as hyper, then ritalin is working. Why? Because Ritalin is a stimulant! Doctors have been known to give senior citizens Ritalin to get them more hyper.
I took Ritalin, and I went from a 2.0 to a 3.0. It obviously worked. Kids have issues, some can be corrected by their environment, some need medication.
Ritalin helps a lot of kids. The poster has said his daughter is happier on Ritalin. This should be a sign that she is doing better. Ritalin is probably working for her.
PS. When you do your research, keep in mind there are tons of web pages that say vaccines cause autisim. Consider the sources of the research on the internet. Don't go looking for the answer you want to hear.
I am a senior in High School, and am still smarter than much of my class and probably had/have some kind of ADHD
At my school, we have a program, called "seminar", that takes the gifted kids out of class once a week and gets them together with the other gifted kids for some stimuli. We did a lot of trivia, logic puzzles and problems, as well as research papers on things that we found interesting. Just having a chance to have an outlet like that really helped me, I know that myself and several of the other seminar students looked forward to going each week.
Before I was enrolled in the gifted program, I spent much of the school day reading a book while the other kids did whatever the teacher was currently talking about. She knew that I wasnt paying attention, but she also knew that I didnt need to pay attention. The gifted program didnt make a difference during my normal classes, but it was great a building confidence and relationships with students that I could relate to.
I believe that schools are required to have some degree of "gifted" program in my area, but I have no idea what other schools offer.
Even if it is not the perfect solution all the time, having the outlet for our "smarts", even weekly made a big difference in how I thought of school and it being a waste of my time. Games played a big part in the logic and math exercises that we did, from spatial abilites in "traffic Jam" to math thinking in a card game involving several numbers that we had to +/-/*/divide to get the answer card's number.
A Part time outlet may not be the solution that you are looking for, but I know that it did make a big difference for me
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking - H.L. Mencken
Check out the drake institute:
http://www.drakeinstitute.com/
They have non-drup programs for add and adhd.
I went. email private for more details.
"Piter, too, is dead."
I can speak from personal experience, I was classified as ADHD as well as EMH (Educably Mentally Handicaped) (just smart enough to dig ditches) until I tested with a 150+ IQ. Fortunately, my parents stuck to their guns and got me both LD and gifted education resources. Despite everything I managed to get a Ph.D. in Physics, become a member in good standing of Mensa and a Director at the company I work at.
/. knows, being different is never easy. Remind her that being different is hard but it is worth it!
Here's my recomondations:
-DON'T USE 'R'! It's really bad stuff, and it only dumbs you down. I was on it for 1 week only.
-TAKE MOST 'SPECIALISTS' ADVICE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. Most doctors in the field don't have a clue and want to medicate at the drop of a hat. Find a doctor who makes sense and doesn't medicate.
-Contact the local branch of the LDA (Learning Disabilites Association ldanatl.org) and network with the parents.
-Contact MENSA and obtain as much info on support for the gifted child. When I mention getting classified as EMH half of the people at MENSA say "Don't you hate it when that happens!", the coincidence of ADHD and high IQ is much higher than you might think.
-Stimulate, Stimulate, Stimulate: ADHDs are often natural polymaths. We can assimilate a lot of information simultaneously, a library card, internet access, plenty of smart toys and a radio can be the key to rapid development.
-Find a 'Conveyor Belt': I think much better with a certain base level of distraction, i.e. while I'm walking or music is playing. It tends to mask out minor distractions and keep a constant flow of thought. Figure out what works for her.
-Fight like hell! The schools don't want to handle the gifted or the special child, they wan't to produce a uniform product and treat anybody different badly (welcome to the hellmouth). Use the LDA and MENSA to determine what the schools are obligated to do and HOLD THEM TO IT!
-Computers are your friend. I can't add, spell, draw a straight line, remember a phone number or write in a legible cursive script. The reason I'm not digging ditches is that I have computers calculators and PDAs to do all that for me. Teach her how to add, write and so on and then introduce computer solutions as fast as possible. I failed drafting because I couldn't crosshatch, now I render 3D with the best of them. Moore's law makes this the golden age for the ADHD/LD/Gifted individual.
-Remind her of Famous People with the same problems. Disney, Edison, Churchill, and Newton for starters. "Do Not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater" -Einstein
-Teach self confidence but include Noblesse Oblige.
-Support her to the hilt! As any denizen of
So turn her into a geek?
Does being smart mean that you have to be a geek?
My parents put me on a low sugar diet when I was a kid (very ADHD) for me it helped my attention span but I didn't run around like a normal kid anymore, so they eventually quit without bothering to try and find a good balance. My step-child on the otherhand was very ADHD also when I entered the picture, we dropped the sugar level significantly and she was very sluggesh at first but as her body adgusted she got more energy but wasn't completly herself so we increased her carbs till she had energy but could still pay attention. It really helped a lot.
Good point.
Teaching proper behavior is essential, you daughter is gifted and different, and one must never forget that this is an obligation to help those who are not so gifted.
On the other hand, this may not help in the popularity department. Speaking from personal experience being smart and different or even just smart will not become popular until late high school, early college.
Even so, proper conduct, humility and superhuman patience are necessary to handle society and game the system. On the other hand NEVER EVER COMPROMISE, NEVER EVER SETTLE, and NEVER EVER hide your light under a bushel.
Just remind her of the Tomn Clancy quote "Nerds get smart, jocks get old."
The most important thing you can do is to communicate to her that you understand and you ARE OK with the way she is. I grew up with adhd, and being told that what you are is wrong your whole life becasue they think its something you choose can be really damageing to her self esteem. arrgg. that was a very adhd type ramble...
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
This is not necessarily an answer, just an observation. This is in no way meant to bash the parents, either. I'm sure it is pretty confusing when your kid seems to have "behavior problems," and sometimes the only resource you have to turn to is a doctor who is gung-ho on the latest fad diagnosis and drugs.
While I'm not very familiar with this sort of thing first hand, I know that ADHD and other similar "diseases" are diagnosed quite a bit to children that don't fit into the mold. Many people feel that doctors are too quick to diagnose this.
It feels to me as if the reasoning in many cases is "This kid isn't normal. So we should give him/her drugs to make him/her act like normal kids do."
Doesn't this miss the fact that this girl (and many others like her) is NOT normal? Her IQ (147) is MUCH higher than an average person's (100). Provided her IQ test was done correctly, this qualifies her as a "genius" (I believe genius is defined as being 140-145 or above, depending on who you ask). I've heard that people with even higher IQs have even more extreme "behavior tendencies."
Obviously, she is going to act much differently than most of the other students in her school!
She is attending a school where the lessons were designed for people with average mental capabilities. She is also going to have a hard time following instructions designed for children in the 85-115 IQ. Even people with IQs in the 120s and 130s have some problems adjusting to these settings. It is probably even more unnatural for someone with an IQ close to 150 or higher.
Even though she has been diagnosed with ADHD by a doctor, I question giving drugs to "correct" the behavior of such an individual. I don't know what long term effects drugs like the dreaded "r" have, but I'd be afraid of neutering my child with such drugs if I found they had a high IQ.
It seems someone like this would not benefit at all from a traditional school setting, at least at such a young age, and would be better off in a school designed for people gifted with high IQs.
It seems to make more sense to nurture someone's high IQ with activities that they can relate to, rather than give them a drug to force them to become "normal."
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Risperdal
Recent studies have shown that one of the factors in ADHD children is the fact that they aren't getting enough sleep. With Ritalin being a stimulant, this "wakes" the child up enough so that their own self control can take over. While I don't think this is the problem in this case (with such a high IQ level), it is something to think about.
Tons more info here.
What, me worry?
I have a somewhat atypical case of ADD. I wasn't diagnosed untill I was 17, but looking back at my life a lot of things suddenly made sense. When I started taking methylphenidate (the chemical name for ritalin), my whole life changed for the better.
For as far back as I can remember, I had trouble in school. I'm not stupid, by most standard measures and by popular opinion I'm pretty bright. My parents always suspected something wasn't right, but were systematically reassured by schools that wasn't learning disabled, I I was just lazy or stupid or some euphimism thereof. Over the years I grew to resent school more and more, to the point of being suicidal in 8th grade, and finally dropping out after two years of highschool and two more years of vo-tech. I only thank god for putting computers on this earth to give me an outlet.
The bottom line was that I just couldn't concentrate on any one task for very long. Nothing stimulated me. Now I know what you're going to say, "You're undiscaplined! You're lazy!" NO! That's crap. Even my interest in computers, which I love to work on like nothing else, suffered because of my inability to concentrate. What is it that makes people concentrate on tasks? Maybe it is motivation or whatever you call it, but obviously if your brain is lacking in some motivation neurotransmitter than concentrating is going to pretty fucking painful.
I finally insisted on being tested for learning disabilites, and it turned out that I have not only ADD but a fine motor skills disorder that makes writing slow and painful. So that explained pretty well why I'd always been such a marginal student. I started taking methylphenidate several times a day, and my life turned around. I went to college. I graduated with honors with an associates degree in computer engineering. I'm now in the senior year of my bachelors degree. I've been awarded computer engineer of the year. I'm a leader in the student government, and I run several clubs. And I do consulting on the side. Ritalin made the difference.
Is ADD a behavioral problem? Perhaps, but brain chemicals and behavior are clearly linked. Try this experiment: think of all the shitty things in the world, fixate on them, try like hell to make yourself depressed, and I bet that you will find yourself feeling depressed. Everyone learns differently, and has different strengths and weaknesesses. Some people are just naturally more gifted at concentrating on stuff. For those of us that are naturally concentration disabled, there is little or no serious effort made to identify these deficiencies early or to treat them in any way other than with drugs. And of course its only a deficiency in relation to the average student going through our cookie-cutter generic school systems. If you're not a drooling window licker you don't get any special attention. Perhaps behavioral therapy could have or still could be effective, but that costs money and takes time. Right now I can make myself fit the mold by just popping a pill. It is a pretty attractive option.
Is ADD discapline related? Hell no. Don't even start that shit.
So the bottom line is, do whatever it takes to help your kid out. As a parent you OWE your daughter the therapy she needs, be it chemical or otherwise. Being smart is definately NOT a curse. Therapy will help her SOCIAL smarts as well as her ACADEMIC smarts. It sure has for me, not only has my academic performance improved drastically but so have my social abilities. Self esteem IS CRITICAL, and being an antisocial space cadet won't help it. Being able to use her intelligence will help her immensly in life, and does not doom her to being shunned by her peers.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
A lot of kids who are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD don't have that particular mental condition. There are many other conditions which have symptoms similar to ADD/ADHD. Most doctors and pretty much all schoolteachers are only familiar with ADD/ADHD, though, so... "if it looks like ADD, it's ADD."
Even when it's not.
Please, if you haven't already done so, go get your child checked out by a qualified professional NOT affiliated with the school. Make sure to ask about other pervasive developmental disorders, such as hyperlexia, Asperger's Syndrome, PDD-NOS, and so forth.
If your child really has ADD/ADHD, the first step is obviously to get her medical treatment for ADD/ADHD. If your child really has Asperger's Syndrome, or PDD-NOS, or... then the first step is to get her properly diagnosed.
Speaking personally, I have Asperger's--so I'm firsthand acquainted with how easily kids can be misdiagnosed by well-meaning but blind school officials and school psychiatrists.
My sister is 12, is brilliant, does great in school, is two years ahead of her class in math, and is very popular and has a lot of friends, not all of whome are as smart.
My female cousin is graduating this spring with a bachelors in education. She's gotten high honors straight through highschool and college, and is a star on the university lacross team. She lives in a house full of 12 other girls who are all like sisters and has about 100 friends. Social problems? Holy christ I wish I was that well liked.
Dumb people have way more problems, including self esteem, social, economic, and criminal. Being smart is your ticket to a good life.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Hell yes!
ADHD, Smart and a GEEK by the grace of God!
If I had a daughter and anybody told her: "Boy's won't like you if they think you're too smart" I'd rip them a new hole on the spot! Teach a child to compromise on their inteligence, especially a girl, and you will end up with a messed up nervous wreck with no self confidence.
While it is essential to teach a child to respect and be civil to everybody no matter how stupid, it is never worth it to allow someone to impose their supidity on them.
I'd rather raise the next Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper than the next Anna Nicole Smith.
My wife has a degree in Psychology, and she says that behavior modification has been shown to be as effective as drugs. Behavior modification with drugs works even better.
The symptoms of giftedness and ADD/ADHD are very similar. The following behavior checklist is taken from the Eric digest: http://www.ericec.org/fact/dualexep.html
m
;http://www.uniquelygifted.org/;http://www.eskimo. com/~user/kids.html;http://connections.smsd.org/sp ecialeducation/gifted.htm
Behaviors Associated with ADHD (Barkley, 1990)
1. Poorly sustained attention in almost all situations
2. Diminished persistence on tasks not having immediate consequences
3. Impulsivity, poor delay of gratification
4. Impaired adherence to commands to regulate or inhibit behavior in social contexts
5. More active, restless than normal children
6. Difficulty adhering to rules and regulations
Behaviors Associated with Giftedness (Webb, 1993)
1. Poor attention, boredom, daydreaming in specific situations
2. Low tolerance for persistence on tasks that seem irrelevant
3. Judgment lags behind development of intellect
4. Intensity may lead to power struggles with authorities
5. High activity level; may need less sleep
6. Questions rules, customs and traditions
From what you described, it seems that your daughter is just not interested in the material being taught- probably stuff that she mastered by age 3! One solution is for her teacher to figure out her preferred learning style and teach to it. http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/learningstyles.ht
Another solution is for the teacher to use the curriculum compacting model and acceleration in your daughter's areas of interest. Curriculum compacting is when the teacher uses pretests to determine what the student already knows as to avoid wasting time with repetition. If your daughter consistently gets 100% on all spelling tests, for example, she should not need to continue these. (I am assuming that she is in first grade since she is 6 years old.) Your daughter could select a list of words from books that she reads (probably above the class level) and use these for her word list. These are a few simple ways to engage your daughter and keep her learning "meaningful." Hopefully she will also begin class with the gifted and talented program if your school has one. If anything, at least this will give her the affective component she needs to meet her emotional needs and give her time with other children who are more like her. If this is not available, talk with her teacher about allowing your daughter to work in depth on a subject that she is interested in, for example- animals...maybe she could bring in materials from home and use the internet to find out about animals who live in the rain forest, gather data, make predictions, analyze and synthesize what she has discovered and present it in some way such as a portfolio, book for the class, sculpture, song, poetry, puppet show, skit, etc. incorporating several curriculum units such as math, history, science, and language arts all in one.
Some great websites for you to check out: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/
Worst. Sig. Ever.
There was the 1st grade where my teacher felt that should should send a letter home because I had problems following directions. Of course my mom was worried and went and talked with my teacher.
There she learned my problem was not stopping at 10 when asked to count to 10. Why did I do this? There was more squares that could be numbered, and anyway by counting to 20, I showed that I knew how to count to 10, and isn't that what the teacher was testing us on?
Apparently not. So my mom said I should turn the paper over and then count on the back. So I did. That wasn't good enough.
I also would draw pictures on the back of my handouts when I was done with them and was forced to wait while the rest of class struggeled with how many apples were on the tree. That was also a no-no.
The of course there was the ultimate comment:
"I'd like to talk to you about your son's language"
"Jonathan is swearing?!?!"
"Oh no! It's nothing like that. He just uses some words that the other students don't know. Could you ask him to stop?"
"What's the problem? You don't know what he's talking about? There isn't a chance in hell I'm going to tell my son not to use his vocabulary. If they don't know what he's talking about perhaps you could do your job and teach them."
Then came the third grade where I got a C in reading on my report card. This was unexpected since I was an "advanced" reader. So my mom duitfully went to the teacher and asked what was going on since this just didn't make any sense.
The teacher gave my mom a copy of some homework I turned in and said, "This."
My mom looked at it dumbfounded and then said, "What's wrong with it?"
"He circled the topic sentence."
"Isn't that what he's supposed to do?"
"He's supposed to underline it."
"Is that it? Because I don't understand how this warrants a C, afterall he's anwered all the questions correction. Maybe he should get a talking to about being more attentive to the directions, but not a C. He's always been a strong reader. He reads at 6th grade level. He's never had problems in reading or any other subject for that matter."
The response? "Oh. He's one of THOSE kids..."
My mom and I still don't know what that was supposed to mean.
Now I've had some good teachers My third grade teacher (I had two third grade teachers, a "homeroom" which taught everything but reading half a year, and then the aforementioned teacher), and my fifth grade teacher was absolutly wonderful , but I also had some real winners, and a lot of barely passable teachers. But then again what do you expect? Those entering the teaching profession generally (there are exceptions, as I noted) weren't the brightest people in school. Hell I know several teachers that laugh, "I never learned algebra, and now I'm teaching it!" "I never got better than a C in college!" "Oh I was never that good in school growing up!" I even heard one confess, "You know, I don't really like kids."
Given my experience with teachers and smart kids, and the fact that the evidence for prevalence of ADHD is highly dubious, I think you should take your kid off it, and put her in classes where she'll actually be stimulated.
For some reason ADHD is diagnosed in the United States significantly more than any other country in the world. And the increase in diagnoses track with the increased marketing of Ritalin et. al. Hmm... This is really suspcious and distrurbing. So much so, that the EU has written a working draft outlining their concerns. I quote:
For more information on this and other "interesting" trends in ADHD diagnosis, I'd suggest checking out
PBS's Frontline's "Medicating Kids"
Shit, how can you bring up Disney name? What an evil bastard...
I have a good friend who is now 30 and whos mother was a special ed teacher. He was one of the earliest to be diagnostic with what was called "hyperactivity" but is now called ADD or ADHT if it even exists. (I have a hard time focusing but force myself without medication when I need to, music help me for some strange reason)
He was given a lot of medicine to help him focus and not much else. It did. So much that he's very very poorly socialized right now. Its kinda of sad to watch him, because he a great guy but he just says strange things sometimes and frightens people. He can't communicate because he doesn't talk to you so much is talk at you.
I think the medicine might help but look at it as a last resort. If you child is not focusing is s/he bored with the class? Find out what is going on and find a good doctor.
Salon.com had some interesting articles on ADHT. Go there and search on it
In case anyone is wondering (and I'm sure they're not), I'm INTP with INTJ tendencies (one test at keirsey.com I'm INTP all the way, the other I'm just barely INTJ.
Turn off the TV. Read to the kid, let the kid read.
Why do all kids have ADD, ADxD, AD&D these days? In my day, we had 1 "bad" kid, and he sat in the back of the class with a screen around his desk to keep him concentrating. He's now in charge of US Naval submarine communcations, so it obviously didn't retard his education.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
All the people above who blindly dismiss the current crop of ADHD medications show an utter failure to understand these drugs, and how they differ from "street" drugs of the same family.
The dose of Dexadrine given to a child (or adult) with ADHD is far below "recreational" levels. The method of delivery is oral (slowing delivery), and the dextroamphetamine salt is a more slowly absorbed, and less efficiently uptaken, form of amphetamine than the "crystal meth" abused by most addicts.
The criticizers of stimulants as part of effective ADHD treatment also seem to be unable to understand, or unwilling to believe, that ADHD (like most other psychological disorders) is associated with, and most likely caused by a fundamental difference in the brain chemistry of the patient. For these jokers to stand on their soapboxes and proclaim that they believe stimulants to be bad, and not comprehend the how the effect of these drugs on the ADHD brain is different than the effect on the general population further highlights their ignorance of the subject.
My suggestion to you is to not delay treatment for your child. ADHD is a disorder that affects every single aspect of ones mindset, if it shows behaviorally or not. The risk in treating this disease too late is in allowing learned behaviors acquired through the emotionally distorting lens of ADHD to become not only habits, but fundamental parts of ones personality.
The things that I mentioned are habits that you will have to help blend into your child's lifestyle to the point where she will feel a compulsion to exercise, eat well, keep a spartan schedule, and cope well with her stress/anxiety. The last two things are something you will have to teach her by example - and she will have to learn from her own experience: Be proactive with things, and patient with people. I wish (to this day) I could better this about myself. Procrastination is the true enemy and leads to all incomplete tasks/goals and poor confidence. Impatience leads to impulsive comments that end up hurting others and in the end hurting you - hence poor self-esteem. ADD folks know exactly what I'm saying. Our impulsive natures lead us down dangerous paths, both socially and personally. The impulsivity and procrastination are often a curse, but can be tempered to produce brilliant ideas and motivate people.
So as an adult, I look back and realize that as a kid, I never really had any sense of urgency about things and rarely considered other people's feelings. As I've taken on more responsibility, I've discovered that the relationships that I've built with family, friends, and colleagues and their subsequent expectations tend to push me along and give me a great deal of focus. When there is minimal expectation, I spiral into my ADD habits. But I believe that if I could rewind the clock to when I was a kid, I would probably have counseled my parents (who were in denial about my ADD until I went to a therapist in college) to do these things for me.
This attitude of better living through altering chemicals in your brain is bullshit. If your kid won't pay attention, that's a problem, so deal with it (I'm referring to the poster).
ADD & ADHD bring many blessings with the curses. Managed properly she can accentuate the former and mitigate the latter. She has been given a nice different way of looking at things, an insatiable curiosity, a superhuman focus on things that interest her and, another side benefit that often occurs with ADD, is the gift of great intelligence.
Before I was diagnosed I was a miserable SOB. With some education and the right meds, I now feel I am much, much better off than a "Normie".
The field of Mental Health is in its infancy. Science is learning so much, so fast about the brain that it is hard for anyone to keep up.
First, find some good books on the subject. Goggle web sites. Explore discussion groups (keeping in mind that whiners find the web while the ones handling their problems well are out enjoying themselves). You cannot know enough.
Second, find a good Doctor, a specialist in Attention Deficit. You are looking for someone that your daughter is very comfortable with and who is also up to date on the subject. You may have to "interview" 20 to find the one winner. There are many, uhh, sub-optimal people in the field.
Next I would find a good support group. She will gain a lot of insight to know other kids in the situation and how they handle things. You would also do well to find a group of parents that share your obvious interest in this issue.
Finally, there are a LOT of different meds out now and more are coming out every day. I am on Effexor XR to treat my ADD. This med was not out when I was diagnosed just eight years ago.
The message I want to leave with you is that this field is very much dynamic. You both have a lifelong learning process in front of you.
With your good attitude and some knowledge this can be a real blessing for you both!
Cheers!
Bill
www.bamph.com
bamph
I have add and it's my opinoin that six is too young to start mediactation. Due to current standards for studies there have been no studies on the long term effects of ritalin on young children.(by the way I started taken ritalin in the 7th grade and am in the 9th now.)
AT 6 I think you should be teaching your daugher coping strategys (yes they exist they helped me immensley). I also belive 6 is too young because at that age many kids(maybe not your daghter) don't really understand exactly why they shouldn't "share" it with thier friends or do other stuff like that.
ONe thing you said was that you weren't happy about your daughter taking ritalin, it is currently illegal for a school to force you to medicate Your child against your will. I would suggest you taking your daughter off ritalin and talking to her teacher about possible coping strateges or ways that they can help your daughter.
procrastination is a way of life aka i'll think up a sig later
(Of course, they aren't for everyone.)
I was diagnosed with ADD my Sophomore year in highschool. I had always been behind in reading and spelling, but it was clear to my parents and teachers that I was sharp.
The test I got showed a reasonably high IQ but, for example, my arithmetc was in the 27th percentile. (It is a descrepency like this that strongly suggests ADD.)
With Ritalin I was able to actually sit down and do my French homework -- or my Math homework. Whereas without it I knew intellectually that it should be interesting, with Ritalin it (almost) actually was interesting.
For me, drugs helped to focus my abilities to do things that need to be done, rather than only being able to do well in the things I loved. I think this has helped me to become a more successful and balanced person.
Even so, my desk is a mess, I hate balancing my checkbook, and I procrastinate, so no, I don't feel that I have become a "robot." Ritalin makes it easier to focus in general; it's still my job to focus on the right things.
I hope this helps.
Sincerly,
Anon
Ritalin is methylphenidate. it is a derivative of methamphetamine. another common drug used to treat ADHD is Adderal(sp?). Adderal is dextroamphetamine-hydrobromide. These are TERRIBLE drugs to put kids on. How do i know? i used these 2 as speed for many years. It is nothing but high quality speed.My brother was diagnosed with ADHD many years ago, and has been taking Ritalin (at first) and Adderal (now) for at least 15 years, and he only gets worse and worse. I can tell when he's taken it because all he wants to do is talk and act completely ridiculous. When he's coming down, you can tell because he starts to get moody and even combative sometimes. It took me the better part of a year to get rid of my dependency, and I HIGHLY recommend you seek alternative treatment, even if it means medication that's at least non-amphetamine derived. You wouldn't want to make your kid sniff cocaine every morning, would you? I know I blew off cocaine in FAVOR of these drugs because the high lasts a lot longer. Save your kid's life and get her off that shit. My whole family is completely screwed now and the only thing that could fix it is a time machine. It makes me sad to see my brother the way he is every day, but there's nothing i can do about it. Please get a 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinion.. maybe even check out Gary Null. (ignore the 'healing with magnets' stuff though.)
try a montessori school. based on the principle that kids learn best at their own pace. i loved it, worked great. at age 5 i was doing 6th grade level work in some instances.
Free Webmail
When I was 12 I was diagnosed with ADHD. It was just before it was the end all diagnosis. They attempted to medicate me with caffeine. 2 cups a day for 3 months not only made me hyper but it gave me an ulcer. Next they tried the Z***** pill. This also has worked for a short time. Then they tried other drugs.
It basically came to a point where I didn't wish to be medicated anymore and used a little self control. I was the kid who had a tremendous aptitude but couldn't focus on one task long enough to succeed in it.
My suggestion to you is if the medication helps don't proclaim it the wonder drug but think of it as a tool. Eventually your daughter will have control and think before acting. A lot of the diagnosis is kids being kids. Just be supportive and try to have her work on her problems without using the drugs as a crutch.
Remind her she is a normal kid but extra inquisitive. Encourage her to reamain with standard tracking of other students and build on what does motivate her. My hobbies are the factors helped me concentrate and control ADHD.
My 8-year-old son was completely introverted at age 2, still didn't speak. His mother (my ex, we'll kindly just identify her as 'the other end of the curve' :^) was insistent on identification/diagnosis/testing. After lots of idiocy (cat scans, eegs, genetic testing, etc) he is now doing fairly well on Concerta, a time-release form of Methylphenidate almost identical to Ritalin SR ('sustained release') except it lasts for about 12 hours, whereas SR apparently peters out around 8.
One early assessment claimed he would never learn to speak, and wanted to teach him sign language! He now, at 8, has a better grasp of English grammar and vocabulary than I observe in the average slashdotter. (duck'n'run :^) He was tentatively diagnosed 'severely retarded', Williams Syndrome, and others, but his final diagnosis is officially PDD-NOS. Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified. It basically means he has many characteristics of or similar to Autism, but it isn't classical Autism, or anything else they've bothered to devise a specific name for. His ADHD diagnosis is considered to be subsumed in the PDD-NOS. He is also extremely bright, helped me (really helped) build his computer a year ago, and has installed his own software since he was 6. Investigating strange packets on my firewall last month I found him playing Internet Backgammon, and apparently winning rather often.
That all said, I have a bit to say on the other side of things. I still have daily journals that my second and third grade teachers had to fill out (school decision) and were daily countersigned by my parents and weekly by the school headmaster. I was never diagnosed with anything except being 'gifted'. (IQ tests, for what little I feel they are worth, placed me in the 160's) The journal from 2nd grade has a particularly telling comment that repeats in slight variation - I "had a very good day, only disrupted the class five times"...
I went to a Friend's school (Quaker, south New Jersey, not my family's religion) as a young child in the mid-70s, and whether the staff, the school philosophy, or some other factor was different, they seemed quite willing and able to adapt and deal with me very well.
My son currently attends public school, and they have threatened several times to suspend him for disruption of class, (Special Ed, no less) singing in the cafeteria (!!!) and other similarly ludicrous 'offenses'. If I were financially able to I would pull him out of there in a heartbeat, and either find a suitable environment to foster REAL education, or home school. (home not really an option, as I'm a single father barely eking by right now) Unfortunately I've been unable to leverage payment for this from the school district, and cannot fund it myself.
The upshot is (after all this 'typical' rambling :^) that I see that the Concerta helps him, but I feel that largely it helps him to meet their expectations of him. Yes, he is learning far more effectively now than without the drug, but I strongly believe that the right educational situation could help him far more in the big picture than the drug. Unfortunately the vast majority of educational institutions (and I include universities in this) are not properly oriented nor educated to handle a student who is extremely bright, extremely inquisitive, AND extremely easily bored.
For myself, I was largely a straight-A student until mid-highschool, at which point social/emotional factors caused me to plummet. (I began to realize just how different I was, and was treated) I bear the distinction of being (AFAIK) the only student EVER to fail out of a particular well-respected engineering college TWICE. (no names) Three semesters of college calculus in 5 weeks posed no problem at all. Far simpler coursework, dragged out over 4 months, and I was incapable of staying interested enough to bother.
My personal recommendation, for what it may be worth in your individual situation, is to find a doctor (if yours is not) willing to work with you in assessing non-classroom effects of Ritalin usage in your child. If (as seems frequently the case) it turns out that the drug is counter-productive overall, then try to use the doctor against the school to leverage a better educational environment at their expense, which is often provided for in the special education laws of many states.
I had a school district, whose budget had been voted down for a $52k overage, tell me they were completely terminating my son's special program (at age 5) which suspiciously cost them $49k per year at the time. (one-to-one ABA work 6 hours per day - search for Applied Behavioral Analysis and Ivar Lovaas, or read "Behavioral Intervention for Young Children with Autism" by 'Catherine Maurice') When we arrived at the CST meeting with a lawyer, after demanding that the principal and superintendent attend, we got every single thing we asked for, unquestioned.
I STRONGLY recommend the book "Negotiating the Special Education Maze", which is invaluable for determining what you can potentially achieve when you face/meet/work with a child study team at school. Work together with a professional (doctor and/or teacher) who you trust, and who has the time and interest to really get to know your child, and try to decide what will best serve YOUR child. Then, armed with this plan and some knowledge of the system (IE from the aforementioned book) and possibly a lawyer (I've attended two child study team meetings with a lawyer in tow) set about accomplishing it. Most schools WILL fight you, I suspect because they inherently MUST believe in the system they are a part of, but the system does, more and more of late, have provisions for getting what a 'professional' has deemed the child needs.
Work with someone you trust, decide what your child needs, and never give up fighting for it. Do NOT fight the diagnosis, as that is what gives you leverage with the school, just fight the treatment if you feel it's inappropriate. If your home and financial situations allow, consider the possibility of a well-investigated private school with small classes, or home schooling. My personal feeling is that home schooling, being one-to-one, offers the greatest educational potential, but lacks in developing social skills, and will NOT prepare a student for dealing with the transition to a 'traditional' environment come college.
Above all, make sure that your daughter is always aware of your approval of her as an individual, and of her accomplishments whatever they may be. THAT I honestly feel is the most important factor in raising a child to a well-rounded, intelligent, caring adult.
:^)
j
mod me up, mod me down, I don't care - I am not a number!
And I finally convinced my parents to send me to a school which actually gave me the intellectual stimulation I needed. I liked Ritalin, but it was just a high that helped make an intolerably boring experience (public school) more tolerable.
Obligatory Simpsons quote, to the tune of Popeye the sailor man:
When I can't stop fiddlin
I just takes my Ritalin
I'm poppin' and sailin', man. (toot toot!)
include $sig;
1;
For some reason ADHD is diagnosed in the United States significantly more than any other country in the world.
Note that the United States was settled by a bunch of people who decided that they just couldn't sit still, who were so excited by new opportunity or so fed up with where they were that they made a big leap into the unknown.
It's no shock to me at all that the US has a lot more ADHD; every ADHD person I know loves to travel.
C.H.A.D.D.
ADD.org
Good Luck! --Patrick
We're home-free! Nothing can go wrong now.
"I am able to concentrate, and maintain focus in a way that is totally alien to my normal mindset. Because of that, I only take it when I need it."
"Right now, when I'm on" (it) "I feel like a different human being. At times, that's exactly what I need, but other times, I just want to be myself."
Sounds like my explanation for smoking marijuana. (And NO, this is not a joke) I'm ADD adult, not (other than self) medicated.
I suppose if you have other kids living in the neighborhood it's easy enough, but when I was a little boy no other kids lived near me, so I made almost all of my friends in school.
I'm more thinking about the younger ages, say 6, 7, 8, where kids don't have any problems making friends but they might have a problem finding other kids to be friends with (can't go places alone, etc...).
I'd imagine if there were enough people homeschooling in an area you could form some sort of a unity for social stuff, but that might only work in cities.
I could be abnormal in meeting a lot of childhood friends through school though, no kids living near me, and my parents waited somewhat long to have children so their friend's kids are much older than I am.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I was originally diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger. I had the same basic symptoms you listed.. But as it turnes out I don't have ADHD and never did. My main problems stemmed from a form of chronic deperession (that yinged up and down like an adult who is Bi-Polar), and a severe case of Generalized Anxiety disorder.
;) pill but was on Tofranil for a while. It hellped but not as much as my doctor was expecting... these days Im on an anti-deppresent which seems to really help the anxiety, which in its self helps the depression.. (the less I worry, the better my mood).
I would serriously get her checked again. In my oppinion, alot of ADHD casess can actually be narrowed down to something closer to the actual problem. I never took the 'R'
Sig? What sig?
In particular read and understand the effectiveness and safety studies. However, that said.. it sounds like a miracle drug as far as ADHD goes.
You daughter is smart, very smart. She is also very curious, and desires to learn. I was exactly the same way.
:)
In first grade I fortunately had a rare teacher who knew what I was. I would never do assignments, because I thought they were dumb. I mean, I'm in first grade, I can do 12X12 in my head. I've never memorized multiplication tables, i just do the math in my head - always have.
What your daughter needs is to be challenged, constantly. Never let up for a day. Make her work, make her learn to read big words (phonetically mind you, at least it worked great for me). Make her learn to read difficult stuff, make her do math.
If your daughter is like I was, she doesn't have problems paying attention. She has problems paying attention to things that are instantly understood and grasped, or to her seem obvious. If she doesn't have to think about it, she doesn't care.
She is also probably VERY competitive, right? Make homework assignments a race, make her see how fast she can do it. Reward her for better performances (with accuracy accounted for of course).
Many people think that pushing a kid to fast is going to result in an anti-social child. I don't think this is true. Sure I am not the most social person, I have a few friends is all. All of them are much like myself. Types like us don't like being around the less intilligent. It becomes annoying when all you think about with the person is "and you just now figured that out?"
Anyway, part of my story follows. In first grade my teacher identified me and one other student as having difficulty concentrating on the simple tasks of class. So when we would get assignments, such as math worksheets, she would set us off by ourself with a timer. We had two minutes to do the sheet (With 30 math problems, simple math of course). Whoever got done first, got a reward, and if we didn't get done in two minutes, we got the grade for what we got done. All this time the other students were doing thier work, and were given 10 minutes. This challenge stuck with me for quite a few years, up until part way through my 7th grade year.
Starting 7th grade, i became the victim of severe harrassment, being accused of being homosexual (I was not, and am not.) The main reason was because I didn't socialize much with other students (that getting annoyed at how "dumb" they were). So basically I was made fun of. Yes, being smart gets you made fun of as a kid. (OF course, because you're smarter than them, they are jealous so they have to tear you down. Its thier problem not yours.) Make sure your daughter understands this, that if people make fun of her for being smart, to just ignore it, because they are the ones who have a problem not her.
Anyway, I unfortunately had little guidance through this rough time, and the schools wouldn't help (because the bullies were labeled learning disabled and got protections under law and were basically exempt from being punished) They were disabled, I'd suspect or were maybe like myself but were coping much worse. Though I if they were like myself, they had already been destroyed by the education system.
By the time I reached High School I was still doing quite well, I switched to a private "christian" school. (I did become a Christian because of this, and I am thankful for that.) But the school was too small to offer the kinds of courses I needed. I was already very into computers at the time, and actually Sophomore year ended up being the computer class teachers assistant (well more like the teachers teacher half the time).
But because the school was not capable of offering more and more advanced classes, I eventually fell into boredom, began ignoring assignments etc. I failed both my junior and senior years, and had to take summer school. In fact, senior year I failed summer school. fortunately for me, the teacher knew exactly what I was, and basically forged all my grades so I could graduate. Thanks Miss. B.
I tried going to college, but never made it through the first semester. Despite taking the highest placement courses they would allow me to take for a freshman, and even challenging a number of them (and passing), the boredom was too much. Also the fact the school would not let me add more advanced courses to replace the courses I challenged (too many credits in one semester, against policy.) It just made no sense to me.
The structured public education system is sorely innadequate to deal with students who are intelligent. In fact private schools are as well. Montessouri may seem like a decent option, but often are unprepared for truly advanced students. Such at those who are capable of 5th and 6th grade material by the 2nd or 3rd grades.
I know for me, the best option would have been homeschooling. Homeschooled children typically are the brightest, and also the most polite and well moralled children you will find. If you are religious, homeschooling is almost a must. Public schools want to do nothing more than destroy a child's faith in God (Jesus Christ). Private schools often times are no better in this department, often teachers are not of the same religion even, and most often the school caters to all denominations and viewpoints, which weakens your childs faith. I'm a firm believer that a child who grows up with a strong religious background, particularly Christian (I'm biased to this one, sorry.) stands a much better chance anyway. Religious morals set guidlines for children to follow, and for smart ones, it allows them to avoid having to discover the nastier details of life - because they avoid them. The other advantate of a good religious background for a homeschooler is that church activities provide great socialization, most often with children who are not going to adversely influence your children.
Please do consider homeschooling. Obviously if my religious views are not to your liking, ignore them. But for me, my faith is permanently linked to every aspect of life, so for me everything is filtered through that lens. (Not that it limits me in any way whatsoever.)
Also, your childs morals usually do relate to thier intelligence or at least performance. Kids who misbehave usually don't do well, and just don't succeed in life. I've never known a criminal supergenius outside the movies (beyond hackers, but they themselves aren't murders etc. they usually do it for the challenge, not because they are badly behaved.)
Sorry for rambling, and ignore the religious viewpoints if you don't like them. BUt its how I think, and what I beleive.
The girl in question needs to be challenged to excel at everything she does, she will never be happy with less than what she knows is her best. She also needs some strict moral guidlines, to keep her from getting too curious and slipping into things that will distract her from doing her best (drugs, sex, those sorts of things). If she falls into bad behavior she will quickly rebel against everything, and will slip into depression because she is not challenging herself to do her best, and instead is doing her worst. This is a few years down the road of course.
But, the girl needs attention, and to be challenged, not to the point she can't do it, but just so she can succeed, but not more or less. Right to the limit of her abilities, thats where she is going to be very happy. She isn't going to be the type that is friends with everybody, she's going to pick one or two usually smarter kids that she will be friends with. She needs those FEW friends, only a couple is all she will want - and she will want to do everything with them. Don't push her to make lots of friends, she doesn't want those. Also, her few other friends make good people to compete with. If she has brothers and sisters, homeschooling will make them best friends. Nothing is better than brothers and sisters who are lifelong friends (the way God intended for them to be).
In my opinion ADHD with rare exceptions is synonymous with boredom. I was a geek that dropped out of high school. I earned my MCSE in 6 weeks (MCSE was worth something then) and got a job with a fortune 500 company. I was also accepted to a widely recognized engineering college when I explained my situation to the admissions office and presented my SAT scores. I find college to be a world apart from high school and am finding success in both school and work. Now more than ever companies an colleges are recognizing the problems with the school system. Promote your daughters interests and provide her with sources of independant education. Try talking to the school and see if she could be advanced a grade or two. Perhaps more advanced course work would be more challenging and garner her interest. Although most school officials resent the idea of allowing students to skip parts of their "well designed curriculum".
Sign number #320972 of impending Apocalypse:
* Somebody asks for parenting advice on Slashdot
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I'm surprised that I haven't seen this mentioned before. What about some old fashioned discipline? I found that corporal punishment does wonders at persuading kids to follow directions properly. Sure your kids might not like you when you do it, but they'll thank you later.
... This advice, or any other you get from strangers:
/.
1) Keep her on the meds. As much as you don't want her to be on them, they're obviously helping.
2) This is something she may eventaully grow out of. I know, I know. BS, right? Well, this is a chemical imbalance and she may grow out of it at puberty (at least, thats what I was told by my doctor)
3) Don't let the schools know. Why? Do you want your kid labeled as being "special needs"? I didn't think so. Teach the child that she shouldn't be ashamed of it, but shouldn't openly discuss it for fear of being treated differently.
4) As a norm, kids with ADD/ADHD are typically smarter than those without. Its a blessing and a curse.
5) Check your local area for a support group for parents of ADD/ADHD kids. This is your BEST bet for getting first-hand experience without getting it from the trolls on
Do I have ADD/ADHD? No. My best friend (of nearly 20 years) does, as do several of my wifes family members. I'm lucky enough to be BiPolar.
Not talking peanuts and shock necessarily, but there are a host of pages out there by some very good sources about this topic.
For example, for me most soft cheeses get me all "distant" and everything starts going all "tunnel vision." I can function, but feel like I'm having an out of body experience. For other people, it's nuts, berries, etc. and jitters. Many people point to sugar as a culprit, but that's a bit of a cop-out.
Try "ADHD food allergy" in Google and you might be surprised.
As a former teacher, and a parent, I'd recommend that you locate a good dietician for suggestions. To make a generalization, doctors aren't a good source for this kind of help since they aren't taught nutrition; our family is vegan and the pediatrician asked about my daughter: "where does she get her protein?" A friend is a doctor and it's amazing the number of things he doesn't know about nutrition, like what foods have what vitamins, etc.
Another reason smart kids have "ADHD" is they just get bored easily, too. My IQ's in the range of your daughter's (as are many people who post here) and I'm sure most found the early years of education a long, tedious wait for people to get to the point. As a teacher, I now know that very few schools allow a room of 20-30 kids to each explore their own way of learning things. My parents got called in to a conference once because I "wouldn't stay on task" - apparently, I would go to look up a word in a dictionary, and end up finding another word too, and another, etc. I learned a lot of words, but annoyed the teachers.
Take care and I hope it all works out for you.
-insightkingfillATyahoo.com without the royalty.
Some time ago I have subscribed to Biofeedback-L, my observation are that Neurofeedback is succesful therapy for ADD/ADHD. Stricly speaking, NeuroFeedback (or Biofeedback) are tools for regulation of body functions and this is no-medicatement therapy, but more training-alike. Here are some excerpts from letter of Phil Bate PhD to List: For approximately 85% of diagnosed ADD/ADHD children 60 half-hour sessions are sufficient. (For about 50% success only 40 sessions is sufficient). Each child is individual - some diagnosed as ADD/ADHD may be closer to autism, or have actual brain damage. These need more half hour sessions, up to as many as 200 (according to Dr Von Hilsheimer, who has had more experience in this field than most
Now, why spend $6000? You can lease a complete unit that is really quite simple for $300 a month. You can buy that same unit for $1850. EEG biofeedback simply isn't brain surgery, but it's relatively simple to understand and to train children out of the ADD/ADHD and other symptoms. I've seen many successes and few failures over the past two years I've been leasing such machines. Now, I've just signed up with Play Attention (http://www.playattention.com) , as their exclusive leasing agent. This system is the best I've ever seen. It is structured with lots of video "games" that can be played in sequence to achieve the desired training. These motivate the student to keep playing, a critical part of home training. This program even teaches the parents how to motivate their kids.
Reading about the horse back riding thing leads me to suggest my favorite sport. Climbing occupies your whole brain and your body. It has the same left-to-right-brain-shift effect as drawing, but with endorphins.
I bet your local climbing gym has a kids program.
Adam
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
I was diagnosed with ADD when I was in elementary school and placed on Ritalin. I immediately went from staring at the ceiling tiles to a straight A student, and when I was 10 my IQ was tested at ~150 (on Ritalin)... so, I think I have walked in your daughter's shoes.
I stayed on R for 7 years. My mother took me off of it when I started high school and they started saying it was bad...and to tell the truth, I experienced no "loss of performance" from not being on the drug. I thought then that I was "cured" or normal or something. I now realize that I was wrong.
While I no longer display gross symptoms of ADD, I can tell that I am different somehow. I have friends, other adults who have a similar background, and they experience similar things... its like this: I, and my friends, and your daughter, think MUCH faster than the people around us, faster than our hands can move, faster than our senses can detect the world. We're like 3.06 GHz hyper threading P4 processors in a world of 33MHz 68040's. In untreated ADD, you're looking for something to do with those extra clock cycles. Ritalin helps us focus and apply all of that to the situation at hand. I don't know all the Biology or Chemistry of it; I just know how I work. I can either pay full attention and process 5 things at once, or I can hyper-focus on one thing and knock it out in half the time it would take one of my co-workers. I can remember the strangest most random trivia and recall it instantly. There are plenty of people who can do these things, but people like my ADD friends, your daughter, and myself can do them to an abnormal degree.
The point of all of this is to say that ADD/ADHD is a gift, not a disease. Your role as a parent is to nurture and raise your child, and that includes recognizing who they are and teaching them to embrace that. Emphasize her abilities; teach her to treat them as gifts. Let her KNOW that she is special and that you love her as she is. If you do these things (which honestly boil down to generic parenting, I guess), while keeping her focused, you will have an adult daughter who will surprise your wildest expectations.
Curby
dum spiro, spero
In Soviet Union, Ritalin takes YOU.
Get it?
I tend to get sleepy if I'm just standing there idle listening to somebody talk at me. If I'm actually holding a conversation or doing some other kind of processing (like coding or reading or exercising) I'm fine. However, that doesn't happen if I'm listening to music. Maybe it's because music is more tonally complex than the average person's speaking voice.
If you can get away with it, try playing a small stereo turned down low with some heavy-duty classical music (Bach, Mozart, Paganini, Beethoven). A Discman or MP3 player works well, just turn up the sound so you can hear it a bit without the headphones pressed to your ears. Learn to listen to whoever's talking at you with one ear and complex music with the other; if your brain's processing the patterns in a Mozart sonata you might not get sleepy so quickly.
Either that, or play Nethack on a laptop while listening; unless somebody's looking right over your shoulder it'll probably look like you're tapping out notes.
I have adhd. I will answer any questions. this is not a joke. I was diagnosed in like 2nd grade or 1st grade and i am now in 9th grade.
Your daughter will most likely become frustrated with school when she gets older. She'll find trouble sitting in a classroom and paying attention (teachers call it daydreaming), but will have NO problems taking the tests. If she wants to drop out of high school, I honestly say let her. But keep on her to get her GED and the usual college lectures. She will get her GED easily and maybe a year or so ahead of the students still stuck in that classroom.
I say this because I was diagnosed with ADHD at 15 (!!!) and was given no drugs to deal with it. Normal school environments are quickly boring... you sit there and listen. Remember, your daughter's attention span is about this -> - big, so she's gonna get restless and find something to do... from daydreaming and goofing off, to not going to school at all.
In these cases, punishment won't work. It's nothing she can control, and putting her in her room with no TV or Playstation will put her in the EXACT same place that she was in that classroom... sitting there doing nothing.
We're a crazy bunch, aren't we?
Speaking of the difference between ADHD and bipolar, I totally forgot to mention the underappreciated problem that stimulants can set off bipolar swings big time, and younger than might have otherwise occurred. So not only are the tx for each illness different, they may also be antagonistic. Another reason for care in diagnosis.
/. for advice.
OK, other than typos I think that completes what I meant to say. See, this is why one should go to a medical professional rather than
Oh yeah -- I think your message is loud and clear.
Of course you give no reasoning.
Or any personal expertise.
Or any evidence.
But all-in-all, great advice, idiot.
when I was a child; that is, medication that took nothing away from me, and that put the dampers on some of the emotional and behavioral extremes my brain liked to lurch off into without provocation.
From my own experience, I can say flat out that anybody who attributes 100 percent of every child's emotional and behavioural difficulties to a mismatch between the child's personality and her environment - be it the school or the wider society - are completely ignorant of an important perspective. That perspective is the perspective of the six- or seven- year old child who is smart enough to know the difference between her normal responses to things (which certainly might include getting riled or feeling bored if school was dumb or the teacher went too slow or the other kids were being conformist little shites as usual), and her "off-the-scale" responses. The latter are the ones which which come out of nowhere, take your mind and body over, and leave you scared and out-of-control in the middle of a soup of disordered brain chemistry.
Whether disorders of this kind are best managed through chemical or therapeutic interventions is a question I'll leave to the experts. I think the answer is possibly both: it would be good to help the suffering child develop some personal resources to help her deal with her condition and its consequences. But I would have taken the drugs first, and the counselling second; most of the counselling I got, such as it was, was worse than useless to me at the time (it mostly amounted to "try...er, somehow...not to do that" or, worse, "think about how your behaviour affects other people" - not bad ethical advice, but practically useless if you don't know how to get a grip on the behaviour in the first place).
There is such a thing as being in one's right mind, and such a thing as being out of it, and all the Meyers-Briggs stuff is fine for analysing the relationships and interactions of a group of diverse people who are basically in their right minds but it doesn't address the first-person experience of children who know what normal functioning is for them and at the same time know that the way they function a lot of the time isn't like that.
The other thing I would say is that it can feel for the child as if she will never escape from her condition; and it can be a great comfort to know that for many people the passage into adulthood is a passage into relative stability and calm. That isn't everybody's story, but it is mine: with the exception of the odd - manageable - brain-blitz of manic frustration, I can usually get from one end of a working week to another without being chucked without warning into the aforementioned soup of crazy chemicals. You don't get, and should be helped to learn not to want, perfect control over your moods and emotions, but you don't have to spend your whole life out-of-control. Things get better...
Experience is a hard school, but fools will learn no other.
It's a great way to meet other people, have some social interaction, and maybe build up some interest in paying attention to what is going on.
-- Argel
My little brother is (informally diagnosed) ADD, possibly ADHD, and after reading a couple of chapters of Driven to Distraction I'm convinced that I'm at least borderline ADD.
I've always felt, however, that my distractability was not a negative trait -- in fact, with some effort, I've been able to train myself so I can, for instance, participate in two conversations at once, or some similar multi-input task. In fact, I'm convinced that this is the flip side of what the Jargon File calls hack mode, "a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem" to the exclusion of everything else. This is an ability that I greatly value, even though it's sometimes not fun to finish a project and then suddenly realize that I've forgotten to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom for way too long.
My question, then is: is this a trait (or a mental ability) that is related somehow to the "hacker" mentality? Comments above have indicated that ADD children are often very intelligent and often have logical/mathematical abstract thinking patterns -- both of which are characteristic of hackers. I'd love to see some statistics (if there are any) on the relationship there.
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
Come on, the potential change in the public school's funding shouldn't be part of anyone's decisions on education. If the school works, use it. If it would work better, if it were better funded, then sure, use it. But it's the bad (I would say pathological) design of the system, not the funding, that makes the public school system fail. The current lack of money just makes the failure more extreme.
I can just imagine the affected school board's newsletters to parents -- "We can't do a good job of teaching your children academics, but we do expose them to a herd mentality, inefficient bureacracy and mistrust from the administration, and to brute aggression from the football team, which nurtures blind obedience and avoidance of conflict, necessary skills for surviving in a modern corporation! Also, please don't allow the cute little revenue units[1] to leave, because we need the cash they represent. Think of what the others might miss out on!"
Seriously, do you really believe that an average public school system provides a well rounded education to the typical student? Some people graduate without the ability to read. I was in the gifted-and-talented set, like many others here, and it's a joke. AFAICT, it exists to keep smart people out of the teacher's hair. My experience is with the California and Oregon systems; perhaps others are better. (I was also homeschooled for a few years, and my sisters are homeschooled.) But when you put 30 people in a room and say "You will learn this material, whether you like it or not", you're never going to get good results. Some of them will learn the material, some of them will ignore it completely, and some will just cause problems. Those who learn, would probably learn well under any system, and would probably learn better under a system that encourages them to pursue what interests them, rather than dictating a curriculum. The others aren't being helped at all. At best, they remember what they have to in order to pass the next test, then they forget it. If anything manages to stick, it's only due to massive repetition, not because the student wants to know it. What's the point of making them learn it in the first place? They don't care about it. This is pure speculation, fueled by my biases, but I bet an average high school senior can't even do long division, and a high percentage probably can't tell you who wrote a book that was required reading for them, or what the main theme was. That was certainly true at *my* high school, 7 years ago, and by all accounts it's worse now. Disagree?
I believe that people can end up with good and bad educations from all kinds of systems, and learning is pretty much up to each individual. It works best, I think, when someone can direct his own studies, with guidance, and in the current world, homeschooling can be a good approximation of that. If public schools were better designed, they could be a resource that no homeschool group could possibly match. But unfortunately, the schools are founded on the belief that education is something that must be forced into people. Even if they were fully funded and working right, the poor design would make homeschooling a better option.
Certainly people can sometimes do a poor job of homeschooling. However, there are many other options that are much better designed than the American public schools. I think Montessori schools are an interesting system, but I have no experience with them.
[1] "Revenue unit" was the term used for a full-time student in the 2000 Oregon University System budget. I don't know if any K-12 systems use that term, but I wouldn't be at all surprised.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
we do expose them to a herd mentality, inefficient bureacracy and mistrust from the administration, and to brute aggression from the football team
Which, unfortunately, are things we have to deal with today in modern society. Herd mentality = rush hour, inefficient bureacracy = [insert favorite gov't agency here, I like simply "Congress"], football team = that jerk that just cut me off. Sad, but the truth. And I think it's better to learn to deal with it in school than in the real world, where overreacting doesn't get you a trip to the principal's office but instead a trip to the slammer.
Some people graduate without the ability to read. I was in the gifted-and-talented set, like many others here, and it's a joke. AFAICT, it exists to keep smart people out of the teacher's hair.
Can't say I disagree - until I hit high school (which was particularly good), the only difference I felt was that the classes tried to separate grades somewhat - move the "A's in normal classes" people into another class so that when John and Joe compare grades over lunch, the fact that one is in gifted-and-talented and the other isn't won't stand out too much and interrupt some "social development process" the psych people came up with. Although there are some systems that seem more successful than others - my sister reported more success, going through the same schools five years after I did, after a few hefty changes. (The bad sign: budget cuts and complaints will probably roll those changes back). Colorado school system.
One of the most useful experiences I had was the year I spent in my sophomore year history class. I picked it because it was the only one my schedule could fit where the teacher wasn't brand new. A few years later (kind of the goodbye-to-teachers I'm-off-to-college time), this teacher told me that her class was actually half under the "learning disabled" heading - i.e. half the students qualified for unlimited time on tests, etc. Click - a lot of the things that went on in that class suddenly made a lot more sense to me. My classmates in there generally did fine - yeah, a few failed because they didn't care, but for a normal-level class everybody did fine. Without grade inflation. Honestly, I think people in there learned more than in other normal-level classes. And I sure felt that many of the people in there were "smarter" than some of the people in my "accelerated" classes - they certainly had better study habits. I didn't stay in touch with many of these people - but the experience did change my perspective of the "advanced" classes - what I gained in learning more raw material, I lost in learning about other people.
I even agree with you that today's public schools don't do a great job of teaching math/reading/etc. Yeah, it needs fixing. But I think the benefits of having a "socially normalizing" educational system are too important to ignore.
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
I had a similar experience in elementary school. I also had an exception IQ and having ADD. I took ritalin for most of my childhood and still take it to help me concintrate in my college classes. Some people Are against ritalin, But personally i believe that ritalin helped me concentrace and helped me through school.There were a few side effects, most noticable was reduced appitite, but the benifits easlily outweighed the cons.If your daughter is happier on Ritilin, then by all means keep her on it.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
Perhaps it's a learning disability (LD), not ADHD (which is often over-diagnosed and trated with un-necessary drugs).
My sister has a LD and had quite a lot of trouble with school. She was very smart and still did poorly. Luckly, my mom found out some information about learning disabilities before she bought into the "ADHD craze".
Basically, with a learning disability, there's a sort of short-wiring with the way the brain interprets some hearing, so in effect, it's very difficult to hear things and understand them correctly. Often things need to be repeated two or three times in order to be comprehended or learned.
There are ways that this can be dealt with, suttle little changes that can change her life. For example, the doctor my sister saw suggested tape recording lectures in order to play them later to understand. That worked wonders. There are other things, and symptoms that you should check out, before you decide ADHD is the only possible conclusion:
Hope this helps and that you seek out alternatives before giving into the fad of ADHD and drugs as a treatment.
My wonderfully brilliant little boy was diagnosed with ADD while in his mother's care (I use the term loosely). He was put on conerta in the morning and focalin at night. There was no change in his behavior. She held him back in kindergarten due to his "social" development or lack thereof. In first grade he was seperated from the class on an overwhelming number of occassions.
He has since come to live with myself and is improving dramatically. I tried the concerta and focalin with him the first month he was here and found that there was indeed no change. I immediately stopped the drug "treatment" as I did not want to do that to my child.
I have no doubt that he has some form of attention disorder if it can be called that as he shows the same type of behavior I did as a child. He daydreams and is inattentive at best. His other forms of misbehavior, like calling out in class and being mildly violent have all but disappeared.
The violence has stopped completely although he stills calls out occassionaly. He even took a punch in the eye once and resisted the temptation to beat the other kid senseless which he could easily have done.
My point in this being that most of these disorders stem from a deeper unhappiness. Once my son was able to realize he was safe and loved, all but the most rudimentary problems disappeared. These problems I deal with on a daily basis with love and compassion. I work nightly with him on his homework even though it can be a chore for both of us. I actively communicate with his teacher and school counselor. By showing your child that you understand and sympathize you can alleviate some of these problems. It also helps to have a teacher that cares as well. If the teacher is not right for the child please remember you have the right and responsibility as a parent to try another teacher.